“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Izzy says through her tears. “Because I fell in love with you anyway. Even though I tried so hard not to.”
Someone clears their throat behind us, and we pull apart, turning to look.
“You want that exchanged?” Lydia says, pointing to the ticket I’m still clutching in my right hand. “Because a . . .” She consults the note in her hand. “A Mr. Townsend just rang and said if you don’t take this flight, he’ll be one good deed down, so he’d like us to exchange it for an extra ticket for your February trip instead. Made no sense to me, but we’ll do it if you want it.”
“An extra ticket for . . .”
I glance down at Izzy. She wipes her cheeks with hands that are red with cold.
“Would you like to come to Niterói in February?” I ask her, ducking so my nose brushes hers, my arms still looped around her.
“You want to take me home to meet your family?” Her hands tighten around my waist.
“Izzy—of course I do.” I swallow, fighting the urge to shut my emotions down. “I want you to be part of my family.”
Her face breaks into a wide smile—a genuine one, a smile that makes her eyes bright.
“Oh my God. I’d love to come.”
I kiss her again. My heart is pounding. For a moment it feels too frightening to say the words I want to say out loud. But then I open my eyes and look at Izzy, tear-stained and windswept, her face upturned to mine. After weeks of holding herself back, she’s all here. I want to be the same.
“I love you, Izzy Jenkins.”
“Even my tacky pink trainers?” Izzy asks through a tearful laugh. She clutches my arms.
“I love your pink trainers.”
“Even my messy little car?”
“I love Smartie. She’s yours.”
“Even my handwriting?”
I start laughing, pulling her into my chest again. “Hmm,” I say, kissing her forehead, her hair, every part of her I can reach. “Maybe give me a day or two on that one.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
We can’t stop touching each other. Izzy suggests car sex again, and tries to argue that there’d be a “symmetry” to this. We bicker about whether this is or is not romantic from the airport to the edge of the forest, and I love it. In one dizzy rush—like that moment in Shannon’s flat—I realise I want to squabble with Izzy for the rest of my life. Except this time, when that emotion hits me, there’s nothing ruining it. She doesn’t hate me. She doesn’t want Louis. She wants me.
“Wait,” I say, and she brakes slightly. “No, I mean . . . On the phone. You said Louis is still a contender. Still in the game.”
“Well, he is, I think,” Izzy says, then she pulls a face. “If I haven’t put him off.” She turns to me in the silence that follows this. “What? Why are you giving me your arch-nemesis face?”
“I thought . . . me and you . . . Are you my girlfriend?” I blurt. My heart is pounding again, those old feelings never far away.
“Yes! Aren’t I? After the unbelievably romantic airport I-love-you thing?” She looks panicked. “Have I misunderstood?”
“Have I?”
“Hang on,” Izzy says. “This is always where we go off the rails. Tell me what you think is going on. I’ll tell you what I think is going on. We will continue to talk about it until we are both on the same page and everything is sorted out. This is how we do things now, OK?”
“OK,” I say, loosening my clenched fists and taking a breath. “What did you mean when you said Louis is still a contender?”
“I meant he’s still thinking of investing in the hotel. Grigg and Sameera had asked for an update on the job, so . . .”
Oh.
Understanding dawns on Izzy’s face.
“No, you didn’t! Lucas! This is why you shouldn’t listen in on phone conversations. God!”
“Noted,” I say, clinging to the door handle as Izzy pulls in for a car coming the other way.
She’s not an unsafe driver, but she does go very, very fast. Her phone buzzes, screen lighting up.
“Would you mind checking that for me?” she says, nodding to her phone. “It might be Jem. She’ll be wanting her happy-ending update.”
I can’t help a smile at the gesture of trust—yesterday, Izzy would never have let me look at her phone. I take it from the cup holder between us. There’s one message, from Louis.