When we’ve both caught our breath, when our hearts have slowed their schizophrenic pace, he pulls out of me and I hop down from the sink, my ass completely numb.
We don’t know what to say to each other. I don’t think we need to say anything. We give each other lazy, knowing smiles. He gets a few pieces of tissue paper and wipes it up the inside of my leg, making sure I’m dry. Then he holds his arm out for me, like a gentleman.
Like a lady, I take it and we make our way out into the rest of the night.
CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR
Kayla
The next few days pass by in some hazy kind of bliss. Ever since I told Lachlan I would stay in Scotland, I’ve just been luxuriating in the idea. And luxuriating for the both of us means a lot of hot, happy sex. We’re reveling in the fact that our relationship has been given an extension, that the finite amount of days we were initially granted have been stretched out into infinity.
What I’m really doing though, is avoiding all the tough decisions. The hard calls. I don’t want to call my mother and tell her I might not come home. I don’t want to email Stephanie and Nicola and tell them that I’m risking it all on Lachlan. I don’t want to contact my work and tell them I’m putting in my zero-week notice – from afar.
Lachlan brings up the fact that I could just go home, sort out my affairs from there and then head back over. But there’s something about that that makes me nervous. I know it’s probably the right thing to do, but I also feel it could make things harder. If I saw my mom again, if she looked more frail than before or sounded so painfully sad, I don’t think I could leave her. And then where would I be? The last thing my mother would ever want from me to is to feel like I resent her and though I never could, I know I’d spend the rest of my life nursing a broken heart and wondering what could have been.
So I eschew being a responsible and reasonable adult. I blame my foggy head on an excess of love and hormones. Just a few more days of putting off the hard part, of having to say goodbye, of having to justify my decision. Lachlan and I plan instead, about my future here, about what it all entails.
I mentioned all the hot fucking sex, didn’t I? Well obviously it will be a lot of that. But with Jessica promising me her help in terms of the article, it means concentrating on building my portfolio. The next day after the gala, even in a slightly hungover state, I did up a few paragraphs in the style of something you’d see in one of the gossip magazines, just a short column piece. I emailed it to Jessica who made a few corrections and said she was passing it on to someone she knows.
I still haven’t heard back but I’m just happy that she wants to help me, that she thinks she can. Lachlan seems to believe it as well, and is adamant that I could work at the organization with Amara.
I want to try and get a job on my own two feet, on my own terms, but I also know that it’s not exactly easy when you’re living in Scotland as a somewhat illegal immigrant. I mean, I’m allowed to be here for a certain amount of time, legally, but I’m never allowed to work without a visa. Lachlan says it would be easy for him to sponsor me and that my only other way is to work under the table with some bar work, but that doesn’t sound so bad at all.
In fact, there’s something romantic about it. If I were back at home, I’d hate the idea of working at a bar. I mean, Nicola works at The Burgundy Lion, but it’s only temporary and she’s got people skills in spades. After all, I hate everyone. The idea of serving them day in and out, and alcohol of all things, does my head in.
But here, in Scotland, I could totally be a barmaid. Here, I can be anyone I want to be. That’s the beauty of travel, of throwing everything you know aside and starting over.