And, okay, there was another truth, too. “It was also a little sad,” she finally admitted, and gave Blake a shrug as though apologizing for breaking the agreement where they both went their separate ways and neither one cared.
But he had broken it first, by getting on the bus. And then he broke it again, when he gently grazed his lips to her forehead.
“Sad is watching your ride to Argentina pull up.”
“That doesn’t sound bad.”
“And then watching it pull away while you’re still stuck on your ass in the station.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is pathetic,” she joked.
“I went to the roadside market that stretches across the border into Paraguay, a hundred and four degrees on the road in the sun and everyone’s trying to sell you broken radios from 1993 and refrigerator parts and hashish and, I don’t know, probably a child if you wanted. There’s no law enforcement there.”
“Another word: depressing. Aren’t you the writer? I should get you a thesaurus.”
“I thought that I could wander around by myself until I passed out from heat stroke and no one would find me or know who I was.”
“They’d see your passport.”
“I went back to the hostel to leave it in the safe.”
“Then yeah, that’s a lousy way to bite the dust.”
“That’s what I figured. So I came back to the station and cashed in my ticket for the bus coming here.”
“Rio with Julia: Better than Roadside Death.”
“It has a certain ring.”
“Thanks. But you were almost late,” she said. “You’re lucky the bus stopped for you.”
“It was a risk,” he said. “But a good friend once told me that everything’s a chance.”
“Everything?”
“Something like that.”
She thought it over. “I wasn’t planning on coming to the falls in the first place,” she said.
“But you’re glad you did.”
Julia frowned. “How would you know?”
“Your eyes,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I told you they give everything away.”
“What am I thinking now?”
He leaned in close, peering at her in mock concentration. “That you’re so lucky to have crossed paths with this dead sexy Australian guy.”
“Don’t quit your day job,” she snorted in his face. “Your mind reading skills need some work.”
But still, as the ride wore on and the bus lulled them with its steady motion, she found herself resting her head on his shoulder. His hand stroked her hair, a sort of absent-minded reflex. Like he was reassuring himself that she was there leaning against him, her fingers idly tracing the contours of his stomach, trying to remember this is real, this is real with each strike of her heart.
“I thought maybe I wasn’t going to find you,” he whispered in the dark.
“When?”
“When I got on the bus and didn’t see you anywhere. The best views are in the front, through the windshield, but you weren’t there.”
“It’s nighttime,” she said. “I wanted to rest.”
“And here I thought it was because all over the world, the cool kids universally know to sit in the back of the bus. How do they figure that out? Is there some code that’s implanted in everyone’s brain when they turn thirteen?”
Julia didn’t know. She’d never been the cool kid. She and Liz always sat together when they took the bus to school, too engrossed in their own world to care what anyone else was doing.
Until Liz decided she wanted to know the secrets of the boys who clustered in the back of the bus, behind the bleachers, under the stairwell after the tinny echo of the last bell faded through the halls. Julia had hovered on the outskirts of those cliques. “Somewhere in the middle of the bus” was how she would have described herself. Neither cool nor uncool. Neither here nor there. She’d gone to the back because she’d wanted to be alone, and now she was grateful for the cocoon of silence that covered both of them as the night rushed past. Even if she didn’t understand everything that was happening with Blake, she wanted him here, if only for this moment. For the time that she had.
The bus system in Brazil was well established and the ride surprisingly comfortable. It wasn’t crowded for the overnight and the seats were spacious, with plenty of legroom between each row. They reclined far enough that it was possible to get a decent night’s sleep without feeling packed in like a sardine. And the scheduled stops along the way offered the chance to walk around and see the countryside, which kept the bus cleaner, too. Julia thought Greyhound could learn a few tricks.
“Are you comfortable?” Blake asked. Julia nodded against him. The lights were off in the bus and everything was quiet except for the sound of the engine and the subtle snores of the people in the front, already nodding off. He pulled up a blanket to cover them and Julia lay against him, trying to sleep.
But despite the rocking of the bus and the soothing, quiet sounds of nighttime rolling by, it was impossible to doze off. It was too weird, this whole rollercoaster twisting inside her. She had no idea what to expect in Rio or what she and Blake were going to do the whole time. She’d barely been able to think about what she was going to do there on her own, telling herself she’d take it one step at a time. What if, without the rest of the group around them, they didn’t have anything to talk about? What if they got tired of each other after the first day and then she was left alone yet again? What if Blake decided he’d made a mistake in coming with her? What if she was making a mistake in spending any more time with him at all?
He kissed her forehead, as though to quiet her thoughts, and as if on instinct her lips searched his. The first kiss was tentative. Then searching. Then it was too much and Blake groaned.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do this to me,” he whispered, shifting in his seat.
“I didn’t know that I came with a rulebook,” Julia said, and then had to laugh at herself. If anyone followed the rules, it was her.
And she was pretty sure that her rulebook didn’t say “get ditched by your fling and then fall back into his arms on an overnight bus of all places.” The thought made her face burn. What would people say if they knew?
But what people? Who was she living for?
No one else was in her shoes. They weren’t hurtling through the Brazilian countryside at night, feeling the press of a warm body and making absolutely zero plans for what came next. It was scary to think that there weren’t any right answers here.
But that also meant that there weren’t any wrong answers, either.
This wasn’t a classroom. It was her life. There were no rules to follow. Everything was up to her.
It was like Blake had said in the pool. She really could get what she wanted. She just had to know what it was.
For once that part was easy, though. Julia knew there was no option of getting attached, but she was desperate to feel him again. A persistent ache was building between her legs, and knowing that Blake was feeling the same didn’t help. Every time she looked at him, every time his fingers brushed hers, she could feel it soft and wanting, a need that couldn’t be ignored.
They would finally be alone in the city, and she wasn’t sure how much she could hold on and pretend to be in control before she had to give up and throw herself at him completely.
To be in a hotel room, on a bed, no need to be quiet or to worry about being seen… The thrill of being caught had added an urgency to their fucking that reminded her of everything she loved about this trip—the danger and excitement as she tried to be somebody else.
But she couldn’t deny that now that she’d been given this last chance with him, she didn’t want any constraints. No worrying about time or other people or dirt on her hands and knees. She’d never been adventurous like this, had never done anything unconventional. She didn’t have sex standing up, or bent over, or in any way outside of a bed, lying on her back, looking up, wondering what the big deal was. It wasn’t that it had ever been unpleasant. It just hadn’t been anything special.