The Arrival of You

by Cranford, B.

  “Hey, man, you’re here late.”

  Startling at the voice of my boss, Craig, I turned to face him. “So’re you, mate.” I cracked a smile and held out a hand. Even though we worked together, I rarely saw him—and after I’d returned from my trip to the States, he’d taken his own holiday. “Good to see you back in one piece.”

  “What, did you think I’d get caught with weed in my boogie board bag?” he joked, referring to the famous case of an Australian traveler who’d landed in a Balinese jail for drug smuggling.

  “Think? Nah. It was more like I hoped.” Stepping back to put a bit of space between us, I tried to think of something to say. We were friends, sure, but he was also my boss and most of what was on my mind wasn’t exactly the kind of small talk you made at eight in the evening with the man who paid you. “How was the trip?”

  “Awesome. Lenore and I got engaged.” His smile was wide enough to make his thick-framed hipster glasses tilt. Between the glasses and his bushy beard, he looked more like he should be making foam art in lattes on Brunswick Street than running an osteo clinic, but whatever. I’d worked for him for years and he was a good dude.

  “Fucking hell,” I said before thinking. I tended to swear more when I was happy, horny, or angry, and right at that moment I was pretty happy for him. “Congratulations, man.” I held out my hand to shake his again, this time bringing him in for a quick pat on the back. It wasn’t every day your friend-slash-boss announced he was getting married.

  Before I had the chance to ask questions, Lenore walked into the main reception area, having apparently been in Craig’s office. With the door closed. While I’d been trying to get rid of my client.

  Yeah, I was pretty sure I knew what they’d been doing.

  “Congrats, Lee,” I said, instead of drawing attention to the fact I was convinced they’d been banging on his desk only moments earlier. I didn’t care what they did together in privacy—as long as the next time I had to sit in that room, I could smell disinfectant and nothing else.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at me, then turned to Craig. “Did you tell him that I proposed, or are you still coming to terms with that, big guy?”

  Craig ran a hand down his beard, giving his fiancée a look that spelled trouble—the good kind. “Actually, I didn’t get a chance to mention it.”

  His discomfort was pretty obvious, and it was hard for me to mask my laughter. I couldn’t give a damn if she’d proposed, but the way Craig shifted told me he was a little embarrassed by it. “You should lead with that, mate,” I teased, but if Bianca proposed to me, that was exactly what I’d do.

  I’d shout it from the bloody rooftops, actually.

  Shit, now I was thinking about Bianca, about marriage, about how I was going to be talking to her in less than an hour, and how much I missed her. It was pathetic, but then again, that was me more or less summed up after I’d talked to Rose earlier in the week.

  “I was planning to ask her, but she beat me to it,” Craig said, thankfully giving me a reprieve from my thoughts.

  “Go on then, show us the ring.” Making a show of glancing down at Craig’s big hands, I leaned in, only to be shoved back by six foot of could’ve-been-a-foam-artist.

  “Fuck off. She might’ve proposed, but I still managed to put a ring on it.”

  Lenore interrupted us to hold her hand out in the way women did when showing off rings. A sparkling diamond glinted on her olive-toned finger and the only thing I could think was how a diamond would look against the warm brown tones of Bianca’s skin.

  It was a stupid, wayward thought, and one that shouldn’t even be on my horizon, let alone working itself into my thoughts. Forcing myself back into the conversation, I asked all the appropriate questions—how she asked, what he’d planned, when they were getting married—but didn’t retain any of the information shared.

  Because my mind was squarely on a smooth-skinned, curly-haired goddess who I could imagine looking at me but couldn’t imagine ever asking me to marry her.

  And damn, the hurt that caused in my chest.

  By the time I arrived home, I’d managed to corral my thoughts, reminding myself that we were at the very early stages of a slow-forming relationship—one that was fraught with baggage and subject to long distance. But still, I filed away the way thinking about marrying her felt for a later date, when—if—we’d been together for a lot longer.

  I was barely through the front door, my shirt already discarded, when my phone started to ring. I didn’t even need to see the photo of her at the Big Banana that I’d saved as her contact image to know it would be her. I just knew.

  Which, granted, might have had to do with the fact we’d planned to talk already. But it was also because I just always knew when it was her. I hoped it was the same for her, as lame as that might’ve sounded.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” I answered, flopping down onto my couch and settling into talk to her. “What’s life like in—wait, where are you now?”

  “Yulara. Near Uluru.” Her voice sounded tired and I was already prepared for a short talk when she added, “I spent all day walking around, exploring or just sitting in whatever shade I could find, which wasn’t much, and staring through the heat. I’m exhausted. But it was so pretty.”

  “You definitely sound tired.”

  “Yeah, I am. But did I mention it was pretty? Like, I think it’s my favorite place I’ve been to so far. I have a ton of pictures, and I’m going to go back tomorrow morning and see more. It’s cooler in the morning,” she added unnecessarily.

  The exhaustion-laced excitement she was feeling was evident even though she’d called audio-only. “I saw so much and could feel the history there. It was amazing. Seriously. Have you been?”

  “Years ago. In high school.” I conjured up a few rusty memories and tried to think of a good one to share when she spoke.

  “I wish you were here.” It was a quiet confession, but no less affecting for it. “I thought about what it would be like walking around the base of the rock with you or watching the sunset. It was so red.”

  I tried to picture it, the way she’d look standing next to the ancient landscape, the bright colors and the wildlife, but it was nearly impossible. I kept getting caught on just her. I was thinking about one of the most beautiful, rich places not just in my country, but in the world, and all I could think about was her. “Tell me about it,” I prompted her, stretching out on my couch, smiling when she immediately launched into a blow-by-blow recap of her day.

  The longer she talked, the easier it was to tell that she was nearly falling asleep, her voice becoming slow and thicker, even as she tried to remember the name of the plants and the birds she’d seen, or the stories she’d learned. Not wanting to end the call, but knowing I had to, I waited until she paused. “Bianca?”

  She made a small snuffling sound that sounded like I’d disturbed her just as she’d drifted off, which merely reinforced my decision. “I should let you go.”

  “What? No!” She sounded startled. And not only that, she sounded wide awake. “Why?”

  It took me a moment to realize that she’d misconstrued what I was saying, but when I did, it felt like a punch in the gut and maybe a squeeze around my heart. She’d thought I was saying let her go as in break up with her. “Hey, no. That’s not what I meant.”

  Knowing that she’d thought I was ending things, coupled with her reaction, did two things to me—made me smile and made my dick twitch.

  The first made sense, given how into her I was. The second made sense because I was a man who hadn’t seen or touched his girl in weeks, and she was giving me a very real sign that she was as into me as I was her.

  Her sigh was like music to my ears. “Oh. Then what did you mean?”

  “I meant you’d had a long day and it sounded like I should let you get some sleep. Let you go, as in let you get off the phone and into bed.”

  “I’m already in bed,” she replied, a shifting sound confirming that she was, in
fact, under the sheets.

  Shit, the visual it gave me.

  “Right, well, good. That’s good.” I squeezed my eyes shut, tried again to form a proper sentence. “Then you should get some rest so you can go back tomorrow.”

  Silence, then, “I meant it when I said I wish you were here.”

  “Same.”

  “When you said you were letting me go, I got scared,” she confessed. There was a hint of vulnerability in her voice and a heavy air settled around me, my phone, her voice.

  “Yeah? How come?” I needed to know. Actually, I was dying to know.

  “Because I’m not ready for it to be over.”

  14

  Bianca

  I’m not ready for it to be over.

  I was both relieved to admit it and scared about what that said about me. I was on this trip to try and get back to the person I was supposed to be after my marriage and here I was, investing in this man that I still hardly knew.

  Except, no. That wasn’t right. I knew Lucas—I knew his job, I knew his family, I knew that he laughed easily and liked to tease. I knew that he had a soft heart and he didn’t really try to hide it. I knew that he missed his biological dad and loved the one who’d raised him, and that when his sister went back to the States to live with her boyfriend, he’d miss her. I knew that he liked TimTams and Vegemite, loved lamingtons and couldn’t stand the sight of pavlova.

  So why was I so nervous about my confession? About the fact that it—along with the fact that I’d wished so hard that he’d been with me at Uluru—was the truest thing I could remember feeling in a long time?

  “Bianca?” His voice was still in my ear, even though he’d said he was going to let me catch some sleep. “You still with me, or did you finally fall asleep?”

  Acknowledging his question with a snuffly laugh, because I really was tired, I said, “I’m still with you,” in a quiet voice.

  “Good. That’s good.” He sounded thoughtful and I got the sense that he was getting ready to tell me something—something important. “I really should go but—”

  He cut himself off, maybe because he wanted me to say “no, don’t go”? Well, I was more than happy to oblige. “Don’t go yet. Please?”

  “I talked to Rose a few days ago. She’s leaving next week.”

  “You told me she was leaving soon.”

  “Yeah. She’s going to be gone another couple of years, at least.” He sighed. “It makes sense for them, but—”

  “You’ll miss her,” I finished for him, having already known that. Hell, I’d only been away from my family for seven weeks and I was experiencing pangs of homesickness and longing. “You can go visit her.”

  “Maybe. Or I can just be grateful I have two more annoying little sister-free years,” he added with a laugh.

  I laughed along with him, then waited when silence descended. Even though he hadn’t said as much I knew that he was leading up to something and I wanted to give him the chance to get there in his own time.

  After a few quiet moments, where I closed my eyes and just appreciated that we didn’t need to talk or be together to be together, he spoke. “She basically told me that though I’d thought I’d wanted love in the past, I hadn’t really been willing to work on it. That I’d expected it to be easy and I gave up too fast.”

  It took me a few seconds to process that, and by the time I was ready to answer, he was talking again. “I thought at first she was wrong, but then it kind of made sense. Especially when she said I was different about you, with you.”

  Breathing out when he said that—I’d caught my breath when he’d said that it’d made sense, when I thought he was saying that maybe he wasn’t looking for anything more with me—I asked, “How? Did she say you were different with me, I mean?”

  “That I’m not in a rush to move on. That I’m not taking you leaving as a sign it can’t possibly work.”

  “You-you’ve done that in the past?” It felt imperative that I knew that.

  He paused, which made me pause. Which made my stupid heart pause.

  Which gave Mason a chance to get back into my head.

  “It doesn’t work anymore. This marriage. Surely you can see that you left me a long time ago?”

  I remembered that conversation well—it was one of the post-separation mediation type meetings we’d had when trying to finalize the divorce. It was another chance for him to say I was to blame. But the parallel, the way Mason said I’d “left” emotionally versus Lucas talking about me leaving physically, it grated on me.

  It worried me.

  “I told you about Erin,” Lucas started, interrupting my reluctant interlude down memory lane. “But I also dated a girl, Emily, a few years ago. Until she moved and seeing her wasn’t going to be as easy or as frequent.”

  “And then you broke up with her?”

  “Yeah. I figured if she was willing to move, then she wasn’t as into me as I’d thought.”

  “How far away did she move?” In my head I was picturing her going to Sydney—a thought that amused me a little, given Lucas’ tendency to joke about its inferiority to Melbourne.

  “To the other side of the city.” The city, I knew, meant Melbourne. It was one of the quirks I’d picked up quickly when I was in Victoria. “About an hour away from my place, if there’s no traffic.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t really know what else to say. “That . . . that wasn’t that far?” Though it came out sounding distinctly like a question, it actually wasn’t. Mason and I, we’d done the long-distance thing for a while and we’d found a way to make it work.

  Funny then, that we were living together when it all fell apart.

  “No. Not that far at all,” Lucas acknowledged. “But I guess it was far enough for me to know that she wasn’t, you know, ‘the one.’ Am I making any sense right now?”

  I took a minute to process everything. “Yes. Yes, I think so.” Wanting to make sure, or maybe wanting him to know I understood him, I clarified, “You felt that initial thing with her”—I pictured the zing that I’d felt so clearly and so often with Lucas, right from the moment we met, and suddenly was awash in jealousy that maybe he’d felt it with this Emily too. “You liked her right away and wanted to see her all the time, then . . . then she moved. And you realized you only wanted to see her if it wasn’t an inconvenience?”

  “Makes me sound like a dickhead, eh?” A self-depreciating laugh echoed in my ear. “Especially when I confess Rose and I unearthed some other less-than-flattering examples of me doing the same. Or similar, at least.”

  I gave in to the urge to reassure him. “No, no. I think it’s okay to realize something like that. It really is a sign that it’s not right if you don’t want to bother with distance. Even if it’s not that far.” I placed a deliberate emphasis on “that” because even though I understood him, didn’t mean I didn’t want to tease him, mess with him a little. “So, what’s different now?”

  What’s different with me?

  “I didn’t want you to leave. I think I might have maybe, possibly, potentially mentioned that?”

  I made a humming noise of feigned thinking. “Maybe? I seem to remember a little something about you wanting me to stay.”

  His laugh, my teasing, it broke through the increasing seriousness of our conversation, and I couldn’t rein in my smile. I was disappointed in that moment that I hadn’t called with video, so I could see him when we were talking like this.

  “You’re right. It was just a small idea I had. I definitely didn’t get pushy about it. Because I would never.”

  “Never,” I echoed.

  “But after I got over the fact you weren’t staying, that feeling I had, it didn’t go away. I still feel it whenever we talk, or you send me a message, or I think about you. And I do, think about you. A lot.”

  In my chest, my heart flip-flopped about.

  In my head, my brain decided that moment was the right moment for a reminder that we hadn’t known each other for long.


  And in my stomach, a wave of butterflies made me feel both hopeful . . . and a little seasick.

  “I think about you a lot too,” I confessed, my heart beating my brain to the punch when it came to acknowledging what Lucas was saying.

  “When I realized that Emily was moving, or Erin wasn’t exactly the best travel companion, I never felt like, if I stuck with them, it would work. But I feel like that with you.”

  He paused, breathing in deep, and I knew that he was doubling down on some things he’d already told me, because he wanted me to know that they were true. “If we work at it, if we stick with it,” he reiterated, “it’ll work. I know it will, pretty girl.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, I wished that I’d called him using video. Because I really wanted him to see how his words were hitting me.

  I really wanted him to see my smile.

  And the way I nodded in agreement.

  Because I felt like that with him too.

  * * *

  I fell asleep within minutes of saying goodbye to Lucas. Waking early, I reached for my phone out of habit, and blinked in shocked surprise at what I was seeing. I must’ve stared at the email alert on my screen for at least five minutes before I shut the app and threw my phone down beside me on the bed. Sadly, despite throwing harder than was necessary, not even that removed the sender’s name from my mind’s eye. I swear, it was like it was burned on my retinas.

  From: Mason Taylor (m.taylor@at-mail.com)

  Seriously? The subject line was a generic “Pls. read,” which I hated because it gave me no clue what he was contacting me about. There was no reason for him to be reaching out, out of the blue, which is why I was determined to ignore it.

  Even if I couldn’t bring myself to delete it.

  Don’t ask me why—I couldn’t honestly tell you. Something about it niggled at me, which made me all the more desperate to pretend it wasn’t still on my phone, waiting for me. So, again, why didn’t I delete it?