Always and Only You

Chapter Forty-Five

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Five years ago

Hey, you …

Hey yourself.

She’s taking a break while the deck crew supervises their current guests using the water ‘toys’ – jet skis, wave runners, and various inflatables, including a giant nine-metre-tall slide that can catapult them into the ocean.

She knows they left their fledgling relationship status loose when she left, but since they discussed the party, they’ve been texting constantly, and she senses it’s deepened again, become something more. She’s almost certain he feels the same way, but she’s also scared that he doesn’t. Since they’ve been an item, he’s definitely blown hot and cold. She sends a second message, biting her lip as she presses send, hoping it’s not too much:

I wish I could come home for Christmas so I could see you.

She isn’t expecting him to answer straight away; it’s only 6 a.m. where he is and Simon is a bit of a night owl, but five minutes later, her phone chimes.

Seeing you again is the thing I want most in the world. It would be the best Christmas present. Such a shame you’ve got to work.

She sighs. This is what she signed up for when she became a yachtie. She’s been doing this for a couple of years now and Christmas is a prime booking for charter yachts in the Caribbean. She’s always been quite philosophical about it, but the idea of not going home this year creates an ache in her chest.

There are two female guests who have been hovering near the top of the slide, saying they want to go down it, but also squealing about how high it is. The rest of their group has been taking turns flying down it and splashing into the clear, warm sea. Finally, one girl gets up the nerve and jumps on.

What are you going to be doing on Christmas Day? Erin types, even though she knows it’s a bad idea.

If he tells her what he’s going to be doing, she’ll just end up fantasizing she’s going to be there along with him, smiling over the candlelight of a big Christmas dinner, laughing as they pull crackers, maybe even kissing under the mistletoe …

He takes a moment to answer, but then the reply comes:

The Mears family are going away for Christmas.

Really? Where?

It’s the parents’ thirtieth anniversary. They’re taking the family away to Lapland.

Wow!

We can still message each other. Every day.

There was that.

Can we do a video call maybe? On Christmas Day or Boxing Day? I’ll see if I can hop ashore and find somewhere with decent Wi-Fi.

The captain has put an embargo on the crew using FaceTime after one of the other stewardesses was having issues with her boyfriend back in Austria and a) wasn’t getting any work done and b) was hogging all the bandwidth that was needed for important stuff.

I have no idea if I’ll have decent Wi-Fi either. Better stick to messages.

Here he is, blowing hot and cold again. Sometimes she really can’t make him out.

E?

She likes how he calls her that. If anyone else did, she’d think it was an awful way to shorten her name but somehow when he does it, it seems wonderfully familiar, as if he knows her, sees her, in a way that others don’t.

Yes? she replies.

I meant what I said. Seeing you, being with you, is all I want.

She smiles sadly. I know. Me too.

They exchange a few more messages before he has to go. When she glances at the slide again, the girl who’s been chickening out finally gathers up the nerve and launches herself down as her friends cheer her on. She screams in exhilaration, but then flies off the end so fast that she becomes airborne for a few sweet seconds before doing a massive belly flop.