She stares at me. “So soon?”
“I’m not wasting a single second with you, my sparrow,” I tell her, lifting up her hand and kissing her knuckles. “You’re mine until you fly away.”
I know I’m being bold, but I don’t care.
And, thankfully, she doesn’t seem to mind. She just gives me a shy smile, the kind of soft happiness that will leave an imprint in my brain all morning long.
I quickly get ready, her tired eyes watching me from the bed, and then I’m stepping out into the dawn, seeing that smile in my head, rising with the sun.
“Pull over.”
I look over at Shay, frowning. “You going to be sick?”
She gives me a dry look and smacks my arm. “No, though I’m starting to think you were a rally driver in your past life. I want to take a picture.”
“Oh, a picture,” I tell her. “This a new hobby of yours?”
She sticks her tongue out at me as I find the next pullout alongside the fjord, waiting for a car to pass before I head across and put the car into park.
We technically only left Todalen about ten minutes ago and Shay’s managed to take a million photos already. I guess the drive is extremely scenic, with the mountains dropping straight off into the fjord, but I’ve driven it so many times it doesn’t look like anything much to me. She’s good for that, though, among a million other things. Helping me see the things right in front of me.
Shay gets out of the Datsun and brings out the Pentax. We stopped by the corner store, which happened to have a roll of film (something to be said about a town that clings to the past), and she’s been alternating between her phone and the film camera.
I watch her as she takes her photos, the breeze brushing her hair off her shoulders. I feel like pinching myself that I got this lucky, that I have this chance to be with her like this.
It was easier than I thought, too. Per almost looked relieved when I said I’d be going off with Shay for a week. I guess he can get tired of me too sometimes, plus I’m not sure how much of Shay he heard this morning, but it’s got to be awkward to have the two of us in the house. And if it’s not awkward yet, it certainly will be, because I can’t keep my damn hands off this woman.
Anyway, Kolbjorn agreed to it, no problem, and so now I just have to slow down and hold onto every moment I can, like this one.
Finally, Shay turns around, putting her camera down, and smiles at me.
I automatically beam at her right back, feeling so much darkness lift inside me. As long as I don’t think about the future, as long as I only think about the here and now, that darkness can’t touch me. Not like it usually does.
She gets back into the car. “Okay, I promise not to do that again. I know we’re in a rush to catch the ferry.”
“Actually, the ferry leaves quite regularly,” I tell her. “It’s just the faster we go, the faster I get you to the hotel and get to fuck you until you can’t breathe.”
Her eyes go big, her mouth dropping slightly. She smiles, wagging her brows. “Oh. Oh my.”
That’s a look I won’t get tired of.
But while we end up taking the small ferry across the fjord and drive along the snaking road, the Datsun impressing Shay on every corner, I know that we should make a brief stop in Kristiansund before we go to our remote hotel for the night. It’s the last bout of civilization.
“Kristiansund,” Shay says as she reads a sign as we head into the city. It’s actually more of a big town, about twenty-four thousand people spread out along the rocky coast and inlets. “Are we going to see your boat?”
I didn’t even think about that. I’m refusing to think about that part of my life right now. “Actually, I thought we would grab a late lunch somewhere. You must be starving. You used to get so hangry, it was frightening.”
“Still do,” she says. She twists in her seat to look at me. “But I insist you take me to your boat. What’s its name again?”
“Midnight Sun,” I tell her. “It’s just an old fishing vessel, Shay. Nothing to write home about.”
“Maybe to you,” she says, her expression turning grave. “But it belonged to your father and it’s a big part of your life. I want to see it. I want to see that part of you. Your mistress of the sea.”
I let out a caustic snort. “That’s a new one. Fine,” I tell her with a sigh, pulling down the road toward the marina. “But you won’t be impressed.”