18.
Lex
The journey so far had been uneventful. That was probably good, but it had left him feeling a little bored. The excitement for what lay at the end of his journey hadn’t ebbed one bit. If anything it had grown, fueled by the nervous anticipation of her reaction.
In his mind, Lex had played out scene after scene, trying to figure out where to find her, what he should say when he first saw her, and most importantly, what Petal’s reaction might be. There were so many ways it could all play out, that they had long ago started to blur together in his head, preventing him from choosing any one option. The message was clear: he was going to have to play it by ear and adapt on the fly, because nobody could predict how something like this was going to happen. Fate would take its course, and he would simply have to work with the flow, not against it.
But considering he still had another four hours of travel time ahead of him, Lex knew he would have plenty of time to involuntarily think of more scenarios.
A long-distance relationship with her would suck. Weekend visits are not feasible.
Surrey was small. Really small. Perhaps twenty-five hundred people at best, but probably closer to the two-thousand mark. That meant the nearest airfield was over forty-five minutes away. Then from there, he had to take a connecting flight southwest to Petal’s hometown. An hour and a half, plus four hours for the second flight, add in nearly an hour of driving first, plus layover, and then finding his way around in the city. It was going to take him nearly half a day to get there.
Weekends are definitely out. Christmas and one holiday a year it is. Unless she wants to move to Surrey.
He smiled to himself at that thought. Petal, living in Surrey. He wasn’t sure she could stomach the country like that. It was all fun for her, a trip to the middle of nowhere for a bit. But to actually move there? No, he had a feeling they were going to be doing long-distance. He frowned, wondering just how he would tell her that he couldn’t leave Surrey.
You’re going to have to tell her the truth sometime. Preferably before too much time passes. You can’t hide yourself from your mate. You know that much.
It was true. At some point, he was going to have to reveal to her what he was, and why he couldn’t leave the valley behind permanently. But, perhaps not before he’d had some more time to warm her up to the idea that his world existed.
He paused at a kiosk to grab a sandwich and a bottle of water. His next flight wasn’t for an hour, so he had time to kill. An empty table nearby called to him and he sat, munching down on the turkey and ham sandwich. It was on rye bred, and tasted fresh. His mood immediately perked up, though he decided they could have gone a little heavier with the mayo. Penny-pinchers. I would have paid an extra twenty-five cents for that!
The original plan had been to sit and enjoy the meal, taking up some of the time before he had to report to the gate. But it was much better than anticipated, and it disappeared within five minutes, leaving Lex with little more to do than sit back and daydream. Oddly enough, those dreams consisted of Petal. He was seeing her everywhere. Any moment now he’d open his eyes, and he’d hallucinate that she was there. Or worse, picture someone else was her, and run up to her to give her a hug.
He opened his eyes then, completely unsurprised to see that the woman standing in the middle of the walkway staring at him looked exactly like her. Damn, can I read my own mind, or can I read my own mind? Stop it, brain. I’m not going to go over there and talk to her, just to be embarrassed, or worse, have security called on me.
The woman continued to stare, her mouth open wide, bright blue eyes sparkling with a layer of wetness. The likeness to the real thing was incredible. Right down to the suit, cut in a masculine manner, but yet still definitely feminine at the same time. This one was black with a purple buttoned shirt, looking crisply ironed and fresh from the drycleaner.
He smiled at whoever she really was and turned around, wanting to get rid of the image in his mind. The real Petal would be waiting for him at the end of his journey. Not here at some random airport.
“Lex?”
Hairs rose on his neck. His spine straightened and froze in place. Okay, that was unusual. Never before had his brain been able to mock someone’s voice to him. With a predatory slowness that he knew would be visible to anyone watching as unnerving and possibly unnatural, he turned in his seat.
“Who are you?” he asked to the person that looked like Petal. “Are you real?”
The gorgeous face clouded over with confusion. “Are you reading my mind?”
“I don’t think so. Unless you’re a figment of my mind. In that case, I guess I kind of am, yes?” He looked around. “Am I dreaming?”
The Petal-wannabe leaned over and pinched his skin.
“Ow!” he said, rubbing it. She hadn’t held back.
“No, I think you’re awake.” She frowned. “Am I dreaming?”
He reached forward but she slapped his hand away before he could return the favor. “Nice try.”
“So if I’m not dreaming. And you’re not dreaming. Then are we both really here?”
He rose from his seat, still trying to come to terms with what he was seeing in front of him.
“I know I am,” she said. “But you? You’re really here? What are you doing here?”
This was it. The critical moment where he was to tell her everything. To confess his feelings for her, and to find out if she felt the same. Anxiety swelled his throat shut. All Lex could do was stare, dumbfounded. This was not how he’d planned out anything in his head! All of his scenarios had involved him finding her at her office, or at home. He was woefully unprepared for this.
“Lex?”
“I was coming to find you.” The words weren’t ones he’d rehearsed. They just tumbled out of his mouth without prompting, the first things that had come into his head. They were also the pure, unaltered truth, with a minimum of exaggeration to them.
“To find me?”
He nodded. “What are you doing here?”
The answer he figured was likely heading back to Surrey now that she had recovered from her ordeal, to ensure that everything was on track. There were rumors that the company had big plans to start building in some backup trunk-lines from the dam to Everett and then to Surrey and vice versa, so that an outage like this could be prevented in the future. Lex wasn’t sure it made monetary sense, but that’s why he was just a line worker, not a suit-wearer.
“I was coming back to see you.”
“Fuck off.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“Umm, I meant that like, holy shit. Like, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He smiled awkwardly, afraid that he’d just ruined the whole thing by shooting his mouth off.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I have to admit, this isn’t how I saw this whole thing going down in my head.”
“That makes two of us,” she agreed with a laugh. “But I guess you could say that everything about us hasn’t exactly gone to plan.”
“Right. Still...” he looked around. “Okay, move back twenty feet.”
“Pardon?”
“Just do it.” He waved his hands at her.
Disbelief written all over her face, Petal walked back roughly twenty feet.
“Okay, now I’m going to sit down and turn around. Then say my name again.”
“Are you kidding me? This is real life, Lex. Not a movie. We can’t just pause and rewind.”
“Just do it,” he said, turning around.
“I really hope you have something good that you want to do here, Lex,” she said, calling out his name even louder.
He turned and rose all at once from the chair.
“You know what,” he said, walking across to her, dropping the handle to his carry-on and sliding his backpack off as he went. “I do.”
Petal yelped as he swept her off the ground, holding her tight to his body while he kissed her, covering her lips completely, uncaring of who might see him.
“That was so cheesy,” she said softly after returning the kiss for several seconds.
“But you loved it.”
“I really did. Did you seriously just drop your backpack in the middle of the airport while walking to kiss me?”
“Mm-hmm,” he said while kissing her some more. They were beginning to draw a crowd. He still didn’t care. If anything, he kissed her harder.
Whispers from nearby reached his ears. “Did they just get engaged?” “I think he just proposed?” “I don’t know, but isn’t it sweet. I want to be swept off my feet like that.”
He grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“Absolutely nothing.” He covered her protests with more kisses, until she finally pushed him away with a smile, slipping through his arms until she was back on the ground.
“This is fate,” he said. “You realize that, right? We both came looking for each other, and happened to cross paths at the airport?”
“It really does feel like it, doesn’t it?” She came up next to him, her hand sliding into his, holding it tight.
“It does. It also feels really, really good.” He held up her hand and kissed the back of it gently.
“Okay there, Mr. Suave. Let’s get your luggage and go sit down somewhere.”
“Whatever you say. Are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
They agreed to go get her food—he was a shifter, he could always eat more—and then figure out which direction they were going to continue their travels. Lex didn’t care; he just wanted to make Petal as happy as he was to have found her coming to see him. His entire world had been rocked by that revelation. Never had he considered that her time with him might change her and affect her as much as it had him.
But before they could do all that, his cell phone started to go off like crazy, with text after text notification. He pulled it out and started reading the messages, his stomach sinking like a stone the more he read.
“What’s wrong, Lex? What is it?”
He looked up. “Fate.”
Surrey had been hit by another storm. This one was even worse.