Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (21 page)

Walking through the airport again felt strange—sort of familiar, and yet totally different this time.
I
was different. For starters, I wasn’t wearing any sleeping garments, but most importantly I wasn’t scared shitless that my life was falling apart and that I was alone.

I had learned that life is a game of improvisation—how you have to adapt to the unforeseen circumstances and roll with the punches. But I also learned that as you go, you learn to defend yourself. Until you get stronger, and faster and better.

I felt better.

I managed to get onto the plane this time without causing delays and incurring the dirty death stares of the other passengers. Bizarrely, I was sitting in almost exactly same place as the last time. As I buckled up, I couldn’t help myself and immediately looked down the aisle in the direction that Damien had been sitting before, on the off (far, far remote off) chance that Fate would have brought him back to me that easily, but she hadn’t.

Everyone around me was settling in nicely now as the plane reached its cruising altitude. Books were opened, iPads were turned on and TV screens fired to life. But as they were watching their movies and reading their novels, I was playing a totally different kind of movie in my head, over and over again.

It went a little something like this.

I arrive at Burning Moon, looking gorgeous, of course, and I immediately go to find Damien, who was no doubt already settled into his favorite moon-watching spot. I walk up to him confidently and call out his name. As he turns, our eyes lock and he smiles at me—that slightly crooked, sexy, sideways, naughty-boy grin that is his trademark.

He was wearing black—faded, torn and slightly creased black. His hair would have grown a bit, and it would be messy. I would smile back at him, and then I would run and jump into his arms. We would hug, and tell each other that we loved each other and that we no longer wanted to be apart. We would kiss and it would be amazing. The moon would slowly start turning red in the distance and we would make love (and not for Jess), and that would be it.

Simple. Damien and I would be together.

End of movie. Roll credits. Applause.

I played this through a few more times in my mind’s eye, each time adding a little something extra here and there as I went. By the third rerun Damien wasn’t wearing a shirt, by the fourth he was completely naked—followed by several other variations of that scenario, which I’m not sure I should share with you. Just use your imagination…it was a very long flight, okay? But somewhere around the sixth rerun I think I managed to fall asleep.

* * *

I woke up with a fright after a series of X-rated dreams about Damien and the feeling that my stomach had just fallen onto the floor and rolled to the other side of the plane. I opened my eyes and looked around, only to see fright and shock plastered across everyone’s faces as they clutched onto each other and looked around wide eyed.

“Please would everyone go back to their seats and buckle their seat belts, we will be experiencing some turbulence as we approach the airport, due to a large storm. There is nothing to worry about, so if everyone could please stay calm.”

Great!

Now this,
right here,
is why I’m not a fan of flying. Sardine can in a storm, that’s what we were. I braced myself for what can only be described as a rollercoaster of hell; we bounced and dropped and shook and shimmied. And then I did it—I started to imagine my untimely death, nose-diving out of the sky, or being hit by a bolt of lightning. If I died today I would only have one regret.

Damien. Or, more specifically, not being with Damien.

I’m not sure what I believe in, but I threw some prayers out into the universe—one to each deity, just in case—and vowed that if I was spared, I would give more to charity, not throw my old clothes out and rather give them to the homeless and, of course, I would find Damien and never let him go again.

We finally landed safely and the whole plane, including myself, clapped enthusiastically. You could feel all the passengers sigh with relief as the mood instantly changed—the realization that you are no longer potentially going to die can do that to a person. I looked out the window.
Holy wow,
they weren’t joking when they said it was storming. The rain was pelting down in thick, heavy sheets and the whole world was wet and glistening. It reminded me of my first night with Damien in the storm. I had thought about that night so many times over the past year. I hadn’t wanted to forget a thing about our time together. I’d often imagined him down to the minutest detail.

The plane came to a stop and I jumped up and grabbed my bags speedily this time, eager to disembark as quickly as humanly possible. My destiny was out there after all, and I needed to go find it and claim it.

The airport was exactly as I remembered it, but this time, as I walked past the guards they smiled at me. No one pounced or took my photo or pointed or stared. I went through customs without incident but just as I was about to exit, I heard a familiar voice call my name.

“
Leelee.
” The Thai accent was unmistakable and I knew exactly who it was the second I heard it.

“Hi!” I turned around and came face-to-face with the smiling faces of the two guards from the year before, Ang and Ginjan. It was uncanny how all of this was playing out as if it was an exact repeat of the previous year—except this time I wasn’t being dragged off in handcuffs, looking (and I suspect smelling) like a hobo.

“You come back!” Ginjan said with such enthusiasm that it seemed to be our cue to start hugging each other like long lost friends—which I guess in a way we were.

“I did.” I said, half-squeezed to death in Gin’s surprisingly grip. “You become famous last year after you left airport.”

“Yes, your picture was everywhere, and we all say, ‘we know that girl,’” Ang added.

Yes, the infamous photo had quickly developed a life of it’s bloody own, even after I’d returned to SA, and there was no stopping it, from Patagonia to Papua New Guinea. It was everywhere.

The picture was finally forgotten and my five minutes of infamy were over.

“So you have boyfriend now?” Ang asked me.

I shook my head. “No.”

“So you and that other guy just become friends?”

“Which other guy?”

Ang pointed in the direction of the door. “The one that was just here. The one you with last time. The thin one?”

My heart started racing—could it be true?

“Damien?”

Ginjan nodded. “Yes. One with tattoos and dark eyes.”

My adrenalin spiked and my whole body woke up instantly. “Damien was here?”

I looked in the direction that Ginjan had pointed, but couldn’t see him.

Ang nodded and looked at her watch. “Only five minutes ago. He went through customs and Ginjan and I say to each other, ‘Yes, we know him.’”

“What?” My shriek startled them, and some other tourists who were standing too close, too.

My new set of BFFs looked curiously at me. “This is good or bad thing?”

“It’s good. Very good! I came here looking for him.”

Ang and Ginjan both looked at me with doe eyes and then said a few things to each other in Thai. Before I knew it, they’d grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me across the airport whispering.

“That line take too long. We slip you through back so you can get him. Come, come this way.” It was all very exciting and conspiratorial.

Finally, the two musketeers and I reached our destination, a little door at the end of a passage.

“Okay, this it. Quickly you must go before anyone sees.” We all hugged again, and before I left Gin said something that made me smile then, and still makes me smile to this day.

“When you get that boy, you must feed him. Too thin.”

Ang nodded in agreement and added, “Too thin. Too thin. He need sandwich. Or two.”

If only they knew the punch he packed underneath that shirt.

We all hugged one last time and I bolted straight for the door and for my happy ever after (hopefully). I imagined seeing Damien standing outside the airport in all his black, dark glory, looking as hot and mysterious and deliciously dangerous as I had remembered him every night in my dreams—God, that was a corny thing to admit. But it was true; he was an almost nightly feature in all my dreams.

I ran out of the airport and was hit by that familiar wall of sticky heat and humidity, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I immediately scanned my surroundings: Tuk-Tuks, confused looking tourists pointing at maps and trying to decipher the signs and, of course, a few more of those lovey-dovey honeymooners who didn’t care if they could read the signs.

But then I saw him.

Far, far off in the distance I could see a little black head of hair disappearing into a Tuk-Tuk.

Fuck.

This was it. This was what I had come for.

And so I ran. I ran as if I was the last runner of a relay race, tasked with carrying the baton over the finishing line. I ran, almost tripping over ten people and stumbling over someone’s suitcase as I went. And then I shouted.

Loudly.

“Damien, Damien!” I shrieked like a banshee waving my hands around my head and almost swatting a few people along the way. But it was too late, his Tuk-Tuk pulled off and started making its way out into the congested road.

Now I’m sure you’re all familiar with another popular theme in Hollywood movies, where someone jumps into the back of a taxi, points and shouts, ‘Follow that car!’ And then the driver springs into action and the car goes careering forward. Well, this was not like that.

I jumped into the nearest Tuk-Tuk and pointed. “Follow that car.”

But the driver turned around and looked at me with a decidedly confused kind of a thing happening on his face.

“Not understand.”

“Follow. Go after. Chase.” I could see my words were still not getting through.

Google translator, Google translator!

I typed in the word as fast as I could, every second counted after all. Bingo!

“Pt?ib?ti t?m.” I said, hoping my pronunciation wasn’t too terrible, but he seemed to understand, judging by the profuse nodding and pointing that followed.

“Yes, yes,” I screeched again. “Follow!”

Naively I was still expecting a speedy pull off. But no! The Tuk-Tuk chugged to life and spluttered and shuddered it’s way into the road —and straight into bumper-to-bumper traffic. So I threw the driver some money and jumped out, heaving my heavy bags with me.

I ran from Tuk-Tuk to Tuk-Tuk, sticking my head into every opening and peering inside—and causing a lot of fright as I went. But no Damien.

And just as I’d given up, standing there, sweat dripping from my head, heavy bags in hand, I caught a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye, driving in the opposite direction. But it was no use. He was too far away and by the time I’d climbed into the next Tuk-Tuk, he was totally out of sight.

The only thing I could think of now was to systematically go to all the backpackers’ lodges and ask for him—and so began my long, tedious and ultimately unsuccessful hunt for Damien through the backpacking underworld of Thailand.

When I had eventually exhausted all the available backpackers resources, I walked out to see the sun starting to set over Phuket. Nighttime in Thailand—when all the creatures of the night, partygoers and thrill seekers come out to play. But I still had no idea where to find Damien and the map for the party still had not been sent out. I wandered the market aimlessly for a while, looking at all the pretty, shiny things, but resisting the temptation to purchase them…Well, except maybe just that one handbag and an adorable little necklace that would look great with a pair of earrings I owned. I walked further and further into the night and wondered whether I should try and find that strip club, on the off chance that I would find a half-naked, gyrating Damien.

The thought made me stop dead in my tracks and I momentarily indulged it—the tight abs, the lines, and the sexy, naughty-boy grin. Suddenly finding that strip club seemed like a bloody excellent idea. But in the red light district, everything looks the same. It’s red and luminescent and the streets are lined with lady boys in short skirts.

I eventually found it and stood outside for a few minutes, too nervous to go inside—this time because I was nervous about seeing Damien. I finally braced myself, with my suitcase still dragging behind me and by this stage my arm felt like it was going to snap off and fall into a puddle of water on the pavement.

When I was ready, I dragged myself and my suitcase inside, but Damien wasn’t there. Instead some blonde beefcake was thrusting his G-string bum into air and slapping it with his hand—a sight that I wish I’d never seen. This guy was so muscular that he had nothing even vaguely resembling a neck, his head just kind of attached straight onto his shoulders. I watched on as he bumped and grinded a bit more, with the same kind of horrifying fascination you get when you drive past a car accident—until the song was over and the houselights came on.

Mmm. Not my type. That’s for sure. But the crowd didn’t seem to share my opinion, as wads of coins and cash suddenly began flying through the air.

“Oh my Bajeezes, well if it’s not Miss Infamy herself.” I looked up and saw my two old strip club buddies, Red and the man I called “The Jaw.” Red jumped up out of his seat and ran toward me with open arms, one of which was holding a flute of champagne that was sloshing onto the floor as he minced.

“Babes, babes, babes. You look Beulah, that Harriet of yours! Come, come you must have a Dora with us. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

Now, I’ve spent enough time with gay men to understand the meaning of “Gayle,” the language spoken by cool, stylish gay guys. For example, Red had just said, “Babes, babes, babes. You look beautiful, that hair of yours! Come, come, you must have a drink with us. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

To which I replied, “My, you are a bit of a Betty Bangles tonight!” Which meant, you are a bit of a policeman tonight! But I was
so
glad to see the lads, two familiar faces, and more importantly, two people I knew were also going to Burning Moon.