“We need to get your head looked at,” I said as we sat at our gate in the airport, both of us quiet, tense and introspective. A lot had happened in the last few hours, in the last few days. Hell, this week had been insane. And now it was over; it was all over. Chase was going to prison for me, the drug dealers would no longer be after me, and Derrick and I were flying back to Lima so that he could catch his flight to Santiago and I could board the plane bound for Vancouver.

“It’s fine,” he said grimly, using a shirt to stop the blood flow. But his face was pale, and there was blood all over his collar. Derrick’s current appearance earned him a fair few puzzled looks and concerned faces from passing passengers. A couple of people even went as so far as to move seats, giving us a wide berth, as if the gash on his head made him suddenly contagious and everyone would catch a head wound.

I was thankful that no airport staff had approached us, and it seemed as though the police outside had been content with taking Chase and didn’t feel the need to come looking for me. But I wasn’t ready to let down my guard. For the moment, I allowed myself to focus on Derrick, instead of constantly checking for an ambush behind me.

Ignoring Derrick’s protests, I brought out my emergency first aid kit and started cleaning him up. The cut was deep, but I wasn’t sure it would require stitches. I cleaned it up as best I could, using the disinfectant wipes I had, and then put a couple of butterfly bandages over it to close up the skin. All the while he barely looked at me, which was a challenge, given I was right in front of him. What was wrong now? What had I done?

I finished with his injuries and then went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Only then did I notice the big bruise on my cheek. How did I get that? Had my head hit something? I whipped out my makeup and touched up my face. It didn’t look great, as I had minimal supplies to work with, but it looked better.

A rush of nostalgia hit me in the chest as I made my way back to sit next to Derrick. This was how we’d started, and this was how we were going to end, sitting in an airport not speaking to one another, but with an abundance of emotions and unspoken feelings passing between us. Only this time, instead of wondering what his touch, his kiss, his body felt like, I knew. And it was all I could do to keep myself from crying at the thought of never getting to feel his lips against mine, his body covering mine ever again. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and stared out the window at the taxiing planes, determined not to let him see me cry.

It wasn’t a long wait; we killed a lot of time driving around Cusco trying to lose our followers, so within the hour we were called to board the plane. Unlike the flight to Cusco, where we’d talked about all the dirty things we wanted to do to one another, and the excitement of Machu Picchu was still before us, now we were heading back to Lima and getting ready to part ways. There was nothing exciting or remotely uplifting about this flight. We were flying back into the mouth of hell, only this time I’d be forced to face any demons I came across alone.

I wanted to talk to him, ached to hold his hand one last time, to rekindle just a glimmer of what we’d shared over the last seven days. Oh, my God, had it really been just seven days? It felt like I’d known him for so much longer. The things we’d shared, what we’d been through — talk about skipping a few steps when it came to dating and getting to know someone.

I tried several times to catch his attention or start a conversation, but every time I opened my mouth or went to reach for him, I stopped myself. He’d closed himself off for a reason; he’d said before he was a private person, so he’d put up these walls on purpose. I didn’t know him well enough, had only known him for a week, so I had no right to make him tear down those walls for me, to tell me what was on his mind, as much as I wanted him to. So we sat there for the entire flight in painful, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking silence.

We unloaded from the plane, but only I had to go and grab my bag to re-check it. He was just being transferred to another jet, one bound for Santiago. While I was bound for home. Boring, unfulfilling, jobless, husbandless home.

I exhaled and looked up at the digital flight board; his plane wasn’t for another six hours, mine wasn’t for another eight. We still had time. Time for what, though? Could we sneak off into a bathroom for another quickie? Grab a hotel room nearby? I wasn’t ready for the sex to end. I wasn’t ready for the dream to end. I wasn’t ready for us to end. But he’d already pulled away; he’d already ended it.

“So…what time is your flight?” He looked down at me, big bags having suddenly appeared under his eyes while his throat bobbed with strain.

I swallowed, my own throat feeling tight. “Um…it’s not until 1:20.”

He nodded. “Mine’s at eleven-thirty.”

“I, uh…I see that.”

“So, home, eh?”

Oh, my God, what the hell was going on? It was if we’d just met and hadn’t spent the last week running from bad guys and fucking one another senseless. I went to open my mouth and ask him why we weren’t off making out in some random corner, but I stopped myself and let out an exhausted sigh. “Yeah…home. I need to decompress.”

He nodded but averted his eyes. “Yeah, me too. That’s what Easter Island is for. You can’t get any farther away from your problems and the hustle and bustle of life than the most isolated island in the world.”

My chest quivered, and tears stung behind my eyes. Was this how we were going to leave it? “No…I suppose you can’t.”

He looked back up at the schedule board for a moment and then down at me. “Come with me.”

A quick gasp had me coughing for air. When I finally didn’t feel like I was going to choke on anything, I looked back up into his eyes, stormy and gray and chock-full of conviction, full of promise and need. “What?” I shook my head, hoping that I’d heard him correctly, but not wanting to count my chickens.

He nodded again. “Come with me.”

I shook my head. “No... I… I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“B-because… this is…” But I didn’t have a good answer; I had no answer.

“Piper.” His tone held so much authority my head snapped up to look at him before I knew what was happening. His face was so focused, so resolute. But when he saw my wariness, they softened just a touch and he gently cupped my cheek.

Despite the craziness of the airport around us, I saw only Derrick, heard only Derrick.

“I don’t know what’s going on with us,” he said, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “But it’s more than a fling. It’s more than two people making one another forget their troubles and just feel good. You know it, too. You feel it, too. I see it in your eyes.” His lips trembled, but he pressed on. “I want you, Piper. Every minute of every day, I want you. Fuck, I’m pretty sure I need you. You make me feel more alive, more… in love with the possibility of happiness, of second chances than I’ve ever felt before.

“It’s only been a week, but… if this is what falling in love feels like, if I’m supposed to feel a tightening in my chest and have a brain of mush whenever you’re around, then… I don’t want this feeling to end. Come with me. Let’s figure out what is going on with us. Let’s explore the possibility of the impossible. Take a chance on a second chance.”

My mouth hung open, he took it as an invitation and leaned in for a kiss. His tongue swept inside, tasting me, pleading with me. This time he was the one doing the begging. I felt it with every brush of his lips, every lave of his tongue, and the way he tugged me closer, unwilling to let me go.

Reluctantly he finally pulled away, bending his knees so that we were eye-to-eye, a wicked gleam in the swirling thundercloud gray of his irises. I’d never noticed it before, but there were hints of gold in the gray. How unusual and beautiful.

“We can travel the world if we want to. See any country we choose. Teach abroad. You said you’re done with law, and your husband thought you should be a teacher. You’re educated enough to teach; so am I. We could walk into an ESL school in Santiago tomorrow and have jobs by the end of the month when we get back from Easter Island.”

“But…my apartment.” I was grasping at straws now, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.

He shook his head. “Call a friend to lease it for you, or give it up and have a moving crew put everything in storage.” The man had an answer for everything. Had this been why he’d been so quiet? Was he trying to figure out a way for the adventure to never end? His hands were now cupping my cheeks. “I can see it in your eyes, Piper; you want this too. You want to travel and have more adventures. You want to throw caution to the wind and see what tomorrow brings without having planned the whole thing out the day before. I can see you want this… you want us.”

There was that word again, us. He wanted us.

“Take a chance on me, Piper. Take a chance on love… take a chance on us.” There was that word again — us.

My heart pounded like a drum in my chest and my entire body was on fire. I could feel a flush of heat spreading up from my neck to my cheeks and into my hairline and a buzzing sound filled my ears. Was I having a stroke? Or was this just what it felt like to take a leap of faith into the unknown? Gently and sweetly, I pulled his hands from my face. His eyes went wide with panic, and he started to shake his head to get me to stay. But I didn’t say anything. I just took his hand and pulled him forward and up to the LATAM Airlines desk.

I fished my passport and my last remaining credit card out of my purse and plunked them on the counter. “One ticket to Santiago, please.”