by John, Ashley
He jumped off the bike and faced the field. Nolan was tall, but the sunflowers almost came up to his shoulders. Tearing off his helmet, he ruffled his hair messily. He didn't particularly try to style it, but it looked effortless. From his white shirt pocket, he retrieved his glasses.
“What are we doing here?” Delilah asked, taking off her own helmet.
She yanked the bike's mirror towards her trying to rescue her hair from the effects of the helmet. No matter how much she ruffled it, she couldn't get rid of the flat dent that covered the top part of her head. Her mascara had run from the wind and her skin was flushed and already starting to glisten. The vision of perfection she'd spent so long creating in the hotel was truly gone.
“C'mon,” Nolan turned and clapped his hands together, “get up!”
He walked back over to Delilah and almost yanked her off the bike. She watched as he pulled up the seat to reveal a secret compartment. From within it, he retrieved a small picnic hamper and a blanket.
The more time she spent on the non-date, the more it was starting to feel like a date. If she didn't know better, she would have been sure that Nolan was trying to romance her.
“Is that a picnic?” she asked casually.
“I thought we could do lunch,” he smiled softly at her, “and if you can find me a more beautiful place, I'll give you everything I own.”
She laughed for a moment before flicking her hair casually over her shoulder. They stood, smiling at each other awkwardly on the side of the road, before Nolan started to lead Delilah through the tall flowers.
The flowers were almost as tall as her, and from the moment she stepped into them, they swallowed her up. If it wasn't for Nolan following an invisible path, she was sure she wouldn't have been able to find her way back to the road through the dense stems. They walked for a couple of minutes before Nolan abruptly stopped, causing Delilah to bang into the back of him.
“Here will do,” he announced, dropping the picnic basket on the ground.
There was a tiny clearing, where it looked like someone had chopped down some of the flowers, but it didn't look big enough to fit both of them. She watched as he unfolded the blanket onto the ground and sat cross legged amongst the flowers. He beamed up at her, like an excited child, before patting on the blanket next to him for Delilah to join.
For a moment she wondered what the hell she was doing. If somebody had told her that she was going to have lunch with a journalist in the middle of a sunflower field, she wouldn't have believed it, but as she gazed down at Nolan's smiling face, it seemed more real than anything. She kicked off her gladiator sandals, hitched up her dress and joined Nolan on the red and white blanket. There was so little space, she felt as if she was about to sit on his knee as she slowly lowered herself down next to him.
“Does this get Miss White's approval?” his voice was low and cheeky.
She looked up at the bright yellow flowers as they swayed gently in the breeze. The path they'd walked through had completely disappeared, as if the flowers had swallowed them up for real. It was complete madness. Through the madness and bizarreness of the whole situation, Delilah could feel herself warming more and more to Nolan with every second they spent together. He thought outside of the box, and that intrigued her, more than anything had for a long time.
“This place is something,” she nodded.
“Only the best for a pop star,” he winked.
Hearing him refer to her as a pop star felt strange because since their talk on the balcony, she felt less like the pop star, and more like the teenage girl who left East London to jump on her first plane to LA.
“Is that how you see me?” she asked quietly, “As the 'pop star'?
There was a hint of a smile but he was trying to suppress it. He looked deeply into Delilah's eyes as they sat across from each other, cross legged, with only a picnic basket between them.
“No,” he sounded serious.
“How do you see me?”
“How do you feel?”
Delilah didn't understand.
“Warm?” she fanned the top of her dress.
A quiet and deep laugh escaped Nolan, but he didn't break the eye contact.
“I mean, do you feel like a pop star?”
“I don't know,” she shrugged.
The thought of LA and her team felt like a distant memory all of a sudden and she didn't know why.
“You're much more than that. I can see that,” he smiled at her.
Delilah glanced down to the blanket. If she looked into his eyes any longer, she was sure she was going to start feeling things that she didn't want to. She thought back to how much she didn't like Nolan when they first met, but it only reminded her of the strange attraction she'd felt towards the man who dared to say no to her.
“What do you see?” she fiddled with a fallen leaf, still not looking at him.
“I see a young woman,” he said, “I see someone lost and confused.”
“I'm not lost,” Delilah jumped in.
“There's a sadness in your eyes Delilah, and I know you see it too when you look in the mirror. You can distract yourself with fancy clothes and you can hide behind that huge attitude of yours, but I can see through that.”
Delilah sat in silence for a moment, toying with the leaf until it crumbled under her heavy fingers. She hated how Nolan seemed to know everything about her, without even needing to ask. Nobody had ever been able to see through her so easily.
“How do you do that?” she laughed, “You're so deep.”
“I guess I'm good at reading people,” he shrugged heavily, “and I've seen that sadness before.”
“Where?”
“In myself.”
It suddenly struck Delilah that in all of the conversations they'd had, they'd only talked about her. Nolan had shared very little.
“Why are you sad?”
He laughed softly, and lowered his gaze to the picnic basket. His cheeky eyes suddenly looked dark and glassy.
“Well, I told you about my divorce?”
Delilah nodded.
“I didn't tell you why we split up.”
“Why?”
She was suddenly itching to know.
“She slept with my brother,” Nolan laughed.
It was a laugh that was trying to disguise sadness.
“Wow,” was all Delilah could say.
“I came home early from work one day to catch Stella and Mikey fucking like teenagers in my bed,” he laughed again, but it was even sadder.
“I'm over her now.”
“You don't sound over her,” Delilah spotted the jealousy in her own voice.
Nolan looked up past his dark brows and smirked at Delilah playfully. It did strange things to her, once again. The tiny hairs on the back of her arm stood to attention.
“Don't worry, I am,” he said quietly, “it's the betrayal I'm not over. I could cope with our marriage ending, but it was the lies and the sneaking around I couldn't handle.”
Delilah's stomach flipped, but it wasn't from the butterflies. A certain French model suddenly wandered into her mind. Was she betraying André by having lunch with another man?
“If there's one thing I hate, its people who cheat,” he said, as if to sink the knife in deeper.
Delilah thought again about André, but it wasn't André who she felt she was betraying, it was Nolan. She tried to smile at him, but her lips quivered. Her mind was racing, filled with confusion. The sunflowers seemed to close in around them, making her feel even more drawn to Nolan.
She wanted to be able to explain what was happening, but it wasn't rational. Things were stirring inside of her that were new and foreign.
Delilah stared deep into Nolan's eyes, to try and understand, but the harder she looked, the more the feeling squirmed inside of her.
“Shall we eat?”
Delilah smiled and nodded, but she couldn't shake André from her mind.
Nolan unpacked the tiny basket and set the food
onto the tiny space between them. He unpeeled the foil wrappers to reveal small bowls, filled with fruit and salad. A fresh block of bread joined them.
“I remembered what you said about being a vegetarian, so I got Carlos in the kitchen to whip us some things up.”
“Thank you,” Delilah muttered.
“I'm sorry for talking about my ex-wife,” Nolan quickly jumped in, “I think I've made the atmosphere a bit weird, haven't I?”
“No!” Delilah protested.
She didn't know how to tell Nolan that it was her own betrayal that was making things awkward between them. They started to eat in silence as the sunflowers swayed around them. It wasn't how Delilah had expected she'd be spending her afternoon.
“I've never been on a date like this before,” Delilah said, after she ate a sun dried tomato.
Nolan's smirk let her know exactly what she'd just said.
“Date?” he arched an eyebrow comically.
“I mean,” she stuttered, “I didn't mean date.”
He chuckled before dipping a chunk of bread into the olive oil. The awkward silence quickly grew between them, causing Delilah to start studying the sunflowers as if they were suddenly talking to her. Out of the corner of her eye, Nolan seemed to be cool and casual, grazing on the food he'd brought. How could she be so stupid to step her foot in things so epically? It wasn't even a date! She knew it wasn't a date. She didn't want it to be a date, but she couldn't hide how much it stung her when Nolan laughed off her suggestion.
“I didn't mean date,” she repeated again.
“Why not?” he smiled at her, his eye crinkling.
In the bright sun light, he looked more rugged than Delilah remembered. She tried to ignore the sudden racing of her heart as she stared at him.
“Slip of the tongue,” she threw a strawberry into her mouth.
“Delilah, I just want you to know that I'm only here for another week. I gather you're staying longer?”
She nodded, but couldn't make the same eye contact he was.
“I told you, it was just a slip of the tongue,” she repeated.
“Is the idea of going on a date with me that repulsive?” he was joking, but his words hurt.
“No,” left her mouth instantly.
“I'm a travel journalist, not a model or a singer. I'm not up to your usual standards,” he winked.
Model?
“I didn't mean it like that!” she snapped.
“Delilah,” he reached out and gently placed his hand on her knee, over the dress, “I'm joking.”
She let his hand sit on her leg for a moment, letting the warmth flood through her from his touch. Their eyes met, and her heart fluttered again as it pounded in her chest. Eyes twitched, she stared into Nolan's dark and mysterious pupils, which twitched in response as he quickly pulled his hand away from her knee. It felt like he'd left it there a little too long, but Delilah didn't mind.
She wanted him to touch her again.
He's just a journalist.
“Should we set off?” Delilah flicked her hair over her shoulder and peered down at the unfinished food.
“Good call. My butt's starting to go numb.”
Nolan sprung up and held his hand out for Delilah. She reluctantly took it and he helped her up. Once again, his touch lingered a little too long, sending a hot shiver up her arm. The more she tried to not look him in the eyes, the more she longed to.
As he marched through the sunflowers towards the road, she sheepishly followed, trying to ignore the burning curiosity that was growing inside of her.
She wondered what his lips tasted like?
Chapter 11
As they traveled back, Delilah didn't need prompting to cling onto Nolan's waist. She did it instinctively and found herself pressing up against his back, inhaling his spicy and manly scent, longing to know what aftershave it was. She tried to tell herself it was the smell of the aftershave that was making her act strange, or perhaps the heat? After all, LA was hot, but it wasn't as hot as Spain.
There were so many excuses that she'd rather accept than just accepting that she felt an attraction to the journalist she clung desperately to as they sped along the sunflower field, back towards the cliff-side road.
Just when they were at the foot of the steep hill, the bike slowed down. At first, Delilah thought Nolan was just bracing her for the steep incline, but when the engine coughed and croaked she knew something wasn't right. With a deadly spluttering, the bike ground down to a halt, in a cloud of road dust.
“Please tell me you did that on purpose,” Delilah mumbled into his shirt.
Nolan didn't answer, instead he grunted and screamed as he tried to restart the bike. For a moment, the engine roared back into life and they moved forwards slightly, but it coughed and died.
“Nolan?” the panic was already starting to rise in Delilah's voice, but she was trying to keep calm.
When he didn't say anything and bowed his head, she knew things were serious and the panic levels catapulted.
“Nolan?” she sounded harsher.
“It's fine,” he said, “don't panic.”
Being told not to panic only made her panic even more. Whenever somebody said 'don't panic', it usually means that she should start panicking because something has gone wrong.
“Please tell me it's just the petrol, and you have some spare?”
“It's the petrol, I think,” he jumped off the bike and Delilah followed, “but I don't have any spare.”
“You're joking, right?” she cried, “We're in the middle of nowhere.”
“Delilah, it's fine, just calm down for a second,” he paced around the bike and yanked his helmet off, ruffling his hair back.
He looked calm and collected, but that didn't mean anything to Delilah. She glanced up at the huge steep road in front of her, and she knew that there was nothing in the world that would make her climb it. Checking her cell, she was relieved to see that the battery was full, but the signal was completely dead.
“Nolan, what are we going to do?”
“I'm thinking,” he rose a finger to Delilah, as if to silence her, which she didn't take very kindly to.
People around Delilah usually knew not to shush her. The star said what they wanted, when they wanted.
“We're not stranded in the middle of nowhere with a dead bike!” she ranted, “We can't be.”
Spinning around on the spot, sunflower fields surrounded them on either side. Any romance vanished, and instead, it looked like a yellow prison. As she stood, thinking of a hundred situations which all ended in her death, she could feel her head starting to boil under the tiny pink helmet. Gasping for air, she tried to pull it off, but the strap was still fastened tightly around her head.
The more she pulled at it, the more worked up she could feel herself getting.
“Delilah, what are you doing?” Nolan was right in front of her.
His thick and strong hands grabbed hers and pulled them down to her side. She peered through the tufts of hair that were crammed in between her head and the helmet. As she panted for air, her face burned scarlet. She was in such a panic about the situation, it took her a second to notice that Nolan was clutching her hands and caressing them with his fingers.
“It's okay,” his voice was soft, “just take a deep breath.”
She tried, but her airways felt compressed. Nolan dropped one of her hands, and with his free hand he unclasped the strap and gently pulled it off her head with ease. Delilah should have felt embarrassed about her display, but the way Nolan's thumb kept stroking the back of her hand made her feel at ease and peaceful. She let the feeling wash over her, and with her helmet gone, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.
He tossed the helmet onto the dusty road with a thud and raised his hand to her face. Gently, he brushed the stray blonde hairs that were covering her eyes, and tucked them behind her ear. He did it again, and he seemed to make sure that the tips of his fingers were brushing her soft ski
n as he did. She closed her eyes momentarily and let the feeling ignite her. Any feelings of panic or stress had disappeared.
Silencing the voice in the back of her head that was telling her to pull away and put an end to it, she leaned into his hand as he repeated the motion again, brushing the final loose strands away. She was almost sad that there was no more hair for him to brush away, but as if sensing her sadness, he didn't drop his hand. Instead, he pushed it through her thick hair, and cupped the top of her neck, repeating the same caressing motion that he was doing on her hand.
She blinked her thick lashes and glanced up into his eyes. They reflected her look of confusion and nervousness, and from the shakiness of his irregular breaths, it was obvious that Nolan was just as confused as she was. As she fought with the voice in her head that was telling her to pull away, she was also fighting with the urge to lean in and kiss him. Their faces were only inches apart, so it would only take the smallest amount of effort to close the gap and connect their lips.
“Are you a robot?” Nolan whispered gently.
Delilah stared into his eyes, as if in a daze, before furrowing her brow and pulling her head back slightly at the question.
“What?” she whispered back.
“Are you a robot?” he repeated, “I hate to alarm you, but you have metal things attached to your skull.”
His fingers touched the metal clips of her hair extensions, which suddenly started to itch and tug at her scalp as she thought about them.
With her free hand, she instinctively placed it against where the clips where, and through her hair, on top of where Nolan's fingers were gently stroking her still.
“It's my extensions.”
She slid her hand from his, down the side of her neck before dropping it to her side.
“Why do you need fake hair?”
“The label -”
“You don't need it,” he jumped in, “you're gorgeous the way you are.”
She smiled and playfully bit her lip.
“You think I'm gorgeous?” some of her East London twang suddenly pushed through.