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It’s a statement, not a question, but I confirm it anyway. ‘Feels gratuitous. You’re already together at home, I don’t need to see you mounting each other in public too.’
‘I feel there’s a happy medium between public fornication and only going near each other when you’re alone,’ he points out, lightly fanning himself with his leaflet as I lift my ponytail away from my neck and twist it up into a bun.
‘They’re one and the same to me.’
The pair walks past and one of them mutters, ‘I love your heart.’
‘I loveyourheart.’
‘You’re so good to me.’
Finn lets out a quiet snort at my reaction. ‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think anyone’s gonna be saying that to you any time soon. You’re the least amenable person I know.’
‘Are youtryingto turn me on?’ His laugh wraps around me like cool silk. I like how it feels. Jesus, this heat is getting to me. I shake my head to clear the thought away and eye his leaflet. ‘Fan me?’
He turns it onto me and the breeze is sweet against my skin. After a minute or so he frowns and stops fanning, looking at me in confusion as if he’s only just realised what he’s doing. He blinks and fans himself instead, and I mourn the loss of my personal air con.
With no warning, he launches out a non sequitur that throws me completely off balance. ‘Do you believe in love?’
‘Of course.’ His eyes widen like he’s surprised, but the truth is, my parents have been married for decades, and I see Josie and Alina’s quiet, considerate love play out on a regular basis. I clear my throat and add, ‘Just not for me. It’s messy.’
‘And you don’t like anything to upset your equilibrium.’ I shrug and he halts his fanning, eyes fixed on me. My breath stutters at the intensity of his gaze. ‘You’ve never felt that spark with anyone?’
‘Why would I want to?’ I hope he doesn’t notice I’ve answered his question with a question. ‘Sparks grow into flames. And nothing good can come of fire.’
As much as I try to keep my life level and calm, sometimes I’ll laugh too loud or dream too vividly and it feels like I’m flirting with chaos. Like I’m dry brush in the desert just one spark away from an inferno. I don’t want to know what would be left after it’s burnt down to ashes.
Finn nods slowly, leaning one elbow on the back of the bench. ‘I get it. My last relationship started with a spark and ended like a fucking firework. Went out with a bang.’ He clicks his tongue. ‘In more ways than one.’
‘What happened?’ I have a hunch, but I hope I’m wrong.
He rubs his hand along his jaw and my eyes draw to the dark stubble there. Then I feel guilty about looking at his jaw and thinking about what a good one it is, because he’s about to tell me an emotional story and my horny little overheated brain has apparently decided that now is the time to devolve.
After a while he says, ‘Her name was Léa. She’s French but we met in Singapore and were together for a while. When her visa ran out I was adamant we’d be fine; her in Paris, me in Singapore. But she needed me—emotionally, physically, whatever—and I wasn’t there. So I guess,’ his knee starts to bob as his words speed up, ‘she found someone else whocouldbe there for her. By the time I moved to France, the damage had been done.’ His face crumples into a grimace as he adds, ‘Didn’tlovewalking in on them, I’m not gonna lie. Not one of my favourite memories.’
‘She cheated?’ He winces at the word and shakes his head likehe disagrees. The faintest wisp of anger curls up the inside of my chest on his behalf. Does he think he’s to blame for his ex’s actions?
‘It was for the best, in the end. She was amazing, but I was too swept up in her. It wasn’t healthy.’ He looks ahead and squints at nothing in particular, pulling at the hem of his sleeve. ‘Long-distance is rough at the best of times, and I move around too much to put in the effort my partner deserves. It’s not fair on anyone. So, right now, experiencing new places, progressing in my career, those are my goals. Nothing else.’
‘I could never do long-distance either.’ I replay my own words and realise I need to elaborate. ‘Just to be clear, I also couldn’t do short-distance. Any distance, really.’
He laughs to himself and the sound seeps into my skin. And I don’t know if it’s because in this moment I’m so sweaty that I can’t imagine a fire ever being able to do damage here, but the smallest part of me wonders if I should rethink my stance on sparks. Because crackling in the space between us on this bench, something simmers. I just don’t know what.
Or maybe it’s just a hot day, and on days like these I essentially turn into a wild animal on heat and can’t control my thoughts.
So I swallow and say, ‘Here’s to not getting involved with anyone, ever.’
He reaches his hand out so we can shake on it, and I hate that I notice the muscles in his forearm, hate that his grip somehow squeezes my stomach, too.
‘I’m so sorry to interrupt, but could you take a photo of us?’ A woman’s voice cuts through the heavy air and Finn releases my hand immediately. She gestures towards the archway we entered through and Finn leaps to his feet, taking her phone and barking out directions while making sure to get every angle; at one point squatting almost completely to the ground. I don’tnotlook at his asswhen he does this. I am but a hot-blooded woman, after all.
‘Let me know if you want any more,’ he says as he hands the phone back. ‘Sorry, I might’ve gone a bit overboard.’ He looks back at me with a grin, entirely unaware of the strange intensity generated within my brain during the last two minutes.
‘No they’re fab, thank you so much.’ The woman scrolls through the photos, her eyes alight. ‘Do you want pictures too?’
I say ‘no thanks’ at the precise moment Finn’s much louder voice says ‘absolutely’, so I begrudgingly walk over to the arch to stand next to him, as close as I can get without touching.
‘You have petals in your hair, by the way,’ the lady says to Finn as she takes his phone from him.
