Page 34 of Just Like You
“How did you become so wise?”
“School of life. I never made it to uni. Did a college course in Travel and Tourism and hopped on a plane. Here I am.”
“Here you are.”
We sat in silence for a while, letting the world just exist around us. I’d never realised how good exactly that felt. Where the expectations and pressures that usually held me down were simply drifting somewhere in the background.
Comfortable. It felt good. Like, I was finally able to relax. Also? The wine helped.
“Rice?” he asked, as I shook myself out of the haze I’d entered. The waiter watching me curiously, with a plate in his hand.
“Yeah,” I said, letting my hands scratch my face, as he rattled off something that I failed to take in.
“Allergies?” he said. I stared at him blankly. “Ki, do you have any allergies?”
“Ki?” I grinned.
“Idiot. Arsehole. Wanker. Which one do you prefer?”
“Now you’re being rude.”
“No allergies then. Look at the charred prawns, I’m so hungry I could eat all of those myself.”
“Greedy,” I laughed, then picked one up with my fingers. Zero manners. But I was, comfortable. Relaxed and happy and for once? It felt right. So incredibly right.
We ate, steering the conversation to lighter grounds, laughing about passengers he’d encountered. Celebrities. Lost children. Stories about colleagues who’d got themselves in a pickle.
“This girl met a guy on a night out in Miami.” His mouth was full of food, but he still talked. Cute. Mine. Fuck everything else. “Got a little too drunk, so he took her back to his place. Shenanigans, you know.” He winked. I grinned. “She woke up the next morning, pulled the curtains and all she could see was the sea. She was alone in this staff cabin on board a cruise ship, and they were miles out at sea.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. She had to stay on board until the next stop, obviously missed her flight home and had all her belongings in the crew hotel room. So she found herself in Bermuda, no passport, no ID, nothing but a fancy dress and a pair of heels, and all her belongings were in Miami. She lost her job and was flown home in shame.”
“Poor girl.”
“Yes, but she’s an adult, and she was at work. There was really no excuse.”
“Harsh. But yes. Agreed.”
“I had a steward once who rang me an hour before pickup and told me he was locked in someone’s flat in New York, couldn’t get out and had no idea how to ring the police to get help. It was…absurd.”
“Gosh.”
“I had to break into his hotel room, packed all his clothes and had his uniform ready in a plastic bag as we went to the airport. He turned up at the gate an hour later in a pair of diamanté hotpants.”
“Brilliant.”
“At least he was sober.”
“True.”
“Ki.”
“Julian.”
Smiles. Warmth.
I could feel it. My skin was warm, but my insides were simmering in feelings. How I’d ended up here? Stupidity and guts. Perhaps a tiny bit of luck.
