Nicola Marsh - Valentine's Day

‘This isn’t a documentary,’ she reminded him, her breath coming faster with the dancing. ‘It’s a stupid commercial promotion.’

Stupid. Nice.

But he was too distracted remembering the last time she’d been this breathless to argue.

He yanked her towards him as the funky music crescendoed. As usual the whole room was slightly out of synch so what was supposed to be a passionate crash of body against body always looked like a vaguely geriatric Mexican wave.

She pressed against his chest, staring up at him, angry colour staining her cheeks. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘About what?’

‘My reluctance to have a stranger come along with me. You can go back to your paperwork and give me the work-experience kid as far as I’m concerned.’

‘You think our schedules are that elastic? That I can just make a change like that with no warning? Disrupt everyone’s plans every time you change your mind?’

‘It’s called dynamism, Zander,’ she gritted. ‘Maybe your station could use some.’

OK, now she was just picking a fight.

He stopped when he should have twirled her into open position. She stumbled at his misstep. Then he curled his hand around hers and hauled her back towards the door. A few eyes followed them, including the speculative ones of the instructor.

‘Next week!’ he shouted at their backs. ‘Magic!’

She shook free as soon as they hit the cool June air. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What’s going on, Georgia?’

‘Nothing’s going on. I just realised that I needed to be true to myself or this whole thing is a crock.’

‘Which part is being true to yourself? The part where you start switching all our plans around or the part where you’ll do just about anything not to get too close to me.’

‘Aberration,’ she parroted back to him. ‘That was your word, Zander. You wanted things back on a professional footing.’

‘Not at the expense of any civility at all between us.’

Her breath hissed out of her. ‘The changes I’m making are trying to keep things civil. So they don’t end up like this every night.’

Boundaries. She was stacking them up and he kept knocking them down. Why? He should be thanking her. He took two deep, long breaths. ‘We just kissed, Georgia. Heat of the moment, influence of the sunset, romance of the wall. Whatever you want to call it.’

He had to call it something, otherwise he was just a jerk for hitting on her while she was still vulnerable from her breakup with Bradford.

‘Who are you trying to convince, Zander? Me or yourself?’

That was a damned fine question. ‘It doesn’t have to change anything. We just agree to let it go.’

‘Just like that?’

Sure. He was a master at denial. ‘I have a job to do and you have money to spend. Let’s just focus on that.’

‘You don’t object to any of the changes?’

‘I don’t care what you do with the money, I just want you to be—’ he caught himself a half-breath before saying happy ‘—comfortable with it.’

‘I’m hoping I’ll be more comfortable this way. Forcing myself to do things way outside of my usual interests was probably a mistake. I was trying to be someone I’m not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I thought it was what was expected. What your listeners would expect. What you wanted.’

Her eyes flicked away and he struggled with the deep satisfaction that she’d done any of it for him. ‘Listeners are the first to spot falsity on air. If it’s not of interest to you it’s going to show in the segments.’

She nodded. ‘Well, hopefully we’ve taken care of that now.’

We. He liked her accidental use of the collective. For the same reason he liked coming along to these crazy classes even though he had much more efficient things to be doing with that time. It legitimised his being with Georgia. He could play at relationships without actually being in one. Enjoy her company without the commitment. She was generous with her wonder and excitement doing new things and he could live off that for a whole week back in the soul-destroying environment of the station.

If he spaced it out right.

Kisses... Those he could live off for a year.

She chewed her lip. ‘Should we go back in?’

Her reasons for changing classes were valid. The more he had to put his hands on her, the harder it was going to be taking them off. ‘No. Let’s just call it a night.’

‘Sure.’

Courteous but cool. It bothered him enough to glance down the street for the nearest coffee shop. He saw the blinking LED sign a few blocks down. So much safer than having her in his house. So much safer than a bar with a few drinks under his belt. So much safer than the back of a black taxi, pressed together for twenty minutes.

‘Let’s grab a coffee,’ he said and turned her west.

Georgia did her best not to flinch at the feel of Zander’s hand at her lower back. It was just a courteous gesture. Unconscious. It didn’t mean a thing. Even if it did feel more intimate and personal than the salsa clinch they’d been in just moments before. Something about the way it failed to entirely disengage even once she was fully moving...

It took a few silent minutes to get to the Tudor-style coffee shop. Then a few more to get seated and settled and their drinks ordered.

She struggled to not be distracted by his long fingers tapping on the tabletop—fingers that had traced her skin so beautifully just nights ago and curled so strongly in her hair. But if she looked at his face she’d either drown in his eyes or start obsessing about his lips.

All of which were entirely off limits to her now. Despite the torment of the taste-test after the marathon.

So she fluctuated between looking at the place where a lock of his hair fell across his forehead, a spot of fluff on his collar and glancing around the room at the other patrons.

‘Tell me about Ankara.’

That managed to bring her eyes back to his. ‘Now?’

‘I know nothing about it and I’m going to be going with you. Why is it so special?’

‘Cappadocia.’ Amongst other wonders.

He shrugged. ‘Old cities and ballooning. That’s it?’

She pressed forwards against the table. ‘Seriously? You can’t understand why someone would want to float high above a city where houses and chapels are carved into the rockfaces? Where entire communities used to live underground to hide from invaders two thousand years ago? Cities that were founded twenty centuries before Jesus?’

He just stared. ‘You’re serious?’

Excited warmth warmed her cheeks. ‘Where else could you do it? It’s so intriguing...’

‘It’s not to put me off?’

‘It’s not about you at all.’ Lies! ‘It’s something I’d like to do. I saw it in a documentary years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.’ And if Zander came along, bonus. Good things happened to them when they got out of London. Things just tended to go south when they were back in it.

His eyes burned into hers. Deciding. He slid his recorder up onto the table. ‘OK. Tell me more.’

She did. For the next hour and a half. All about Göreme, where she wanted to stay, all about Cappadocia’s extraordinary ancient lunar-scapes and traditional villages and the amazing peoples that had lived there for forty centuries. All about how it had wheedled its way under her skin all those years ago.

‘And you can stay in these underground buildings?’

‘They carve them out of the side of enormous rock faces. And they’ve been modernised. Electricity, water. They even have Wi-Fi. So you won’t be slumming it.’

He’d been smiling for the last five or six minutes straight, though she knew she wasn’t saying anything funny. His eyes practically glittered looking at her.