Chapter 1: The Market 2
Chapter 2: The Cooking Class 6
Chapter 3: Breakfast in Bed 7
Chapter 4: Birthday Dinner 8
Chapter 1: The Market
He didn't think of himself as a bad cook. He just ... needed some assistance. Food was functional, and on the nights he spent labouring over a new project, or tidying up an old one, having things delivered seemed like a simple enough solution to avoid having to go out and subject himself to the tediousness of grocery shopping, filling his basket with things that would go bad in a week, once he realised that ordering takeaway was easier and was less likely to result in a kitchen fire. And while this lent to some reluctance as he wandered through the open air market, it was the opposite for his companion.
In contrast to him, where he was apathetic she was enthusiastic. Her eager eyes moved over each stall, each glance hungrier than the last. She turned to look at him, the wire basket he held steadily filling with food, and smiled. It was an indulgent moment she allowed herself, a stolen glance at him as he lifted up pieces of produce and inspected them with a vague air of authority.
He recognised only obvious quality issues: completely rotten versus probably okay to eat, and it was one such courgette he popped into his basket alongside an artichoke, a cabbage, some button mushrooms and a handful of carrots, operating under the assumption they would prove to be inspirational in the last minute, like an episode of chopped in which they had to throw together random ingredients and make something great. Or, at the very least, he hoped Elayne would be able to salvage something from his mess, as she seemed able to, having been the one of them primarily responsible for this trip. He had been the one to jump at a last minute getaway, but she had put the idea of spending his birthday together into his head, allowing the seed to grow. She had also been the one to invite him to see her, to pull on the long, invisible string that tied together their hearts and pull him back in. With a grin, he dropped a band of asparagus into her basket, leaning across a pile of produce to reach her with his long arms. "Needs more green," he decided, the smile turning serious, a downturning of the mouth and mock furrow of the brow.
“Oh, does it?” She teased, her voice low and throaty as she leaned close to him in order to peer into the jumble of vegetables they had acquired. Her shoulders fit in his hold as she pushed the basket from between them and settled in against him, her forehead against his chest with no concern for the produce stacked so neatly. This, the ease they had, the contact of their skin, the warmth of his breath on the crown of her head, it all felt right. Elayne wasn’t certain about most things, but she didn’t think it would ever cease to amaze her how right it felt when she was with him. It wasn’t simple in any conventional sense, not with how complex their relationship was, but it was simple in the basest way: this was where she wanted to be.
The entire outing was organised, contrived, designed to take foreigners out of their comfort zone by introducing them to food they would not typically make at home, and it had done that—the pair of them mouthing the words they didn’t know and elongating their pronunciations of the words they did. She turned away from him, confident in what she wanted as she let her hand trail from his and her attention move to the woman she was attempting to purchase guindilla peppers from. In the morning, it wasn’t the food, but the domesticity of it that took Alex from his, shooed away from the merchandise by another vaguely annoyed-looking Spanish woman who admonished him in English for crushing her stuff, forcing him to loop around the table to rejoin his -- whatever he could call her. Not girlfriend, not lover, not fellow cheater, not friend. She was more and less than one individual title could be at the moment and far in the back of his mind, he felt guilty for playing house (or holiday) after being so adamant the day he spent alone. “Put those in your bra. I'm not paying for any of this. It's part of my Brexit deal.”
“Jokes on you, I’m not wearing one,” she responded absently, her focus on counting out the Euros she needed to make her purchase. She wasn’t sure what it was they would make, but a few ideas flashed through her mind, each one more complicated than the last. She looked up, finally, as she made the transaction of coins for peppers and added, “Boris Johnson.” The nod of her head at his messy hair was cheeky, the raise of her eyebrows a softening of the playful banter.
Being here with him, … while it felt right; she couldn’t escape the absurdity of it and the surreal way in which her heart beat. The two mornings previous had been as magical as mundane; equally unbelievable in being real as they were solid in memory. The summer had been spent in secret, the autumn in sacrifice and the winter in silence. She could lean across a row of neatly stacked chorizo and take his hand, open and in public, no shame for being caught. When he suggested Madrid, idly as he did, she hadn’t taken it seriously, just bantered back until it had become real with a frantic packing of items and a panicked series of calls to move her schedule to accommodate. Her desperation to be with him wasn’t forgotten, even if she kept it from him. There were attempts to play it cool, even if the way her gaze changed when falling on him gave away every truth. Elayne was careful now. They had found an equilibrium, one where they could be together, and she didn’t want to upset it. It wasn’t a surrender to his wants, but instead a compromise. She was happy, why did that need to be discussed and dissected? She was happy, why spoil it with conversations neither of them knew where to find the words?
Cooking was where Elayne found answers. It was the way it soothed all the unquiet thoughts and formed them into action. You couldn’t think of everything that could go wrong when you were measuring ingredients out and stirring clockwise six times. You had to do and in doing came resolve.
“Baby,” she started, cozying into him as she placed the peppers carefully into the basket, “you can’t use the Brexit card, anyway. You sound American.” She placed her weight into her toes, rising up to brush a kiss against his nose in a blink and you miss it quick movement.
Baby. Could any other two-syllable word tear him apart so efficiently?
“I can fake it,” he insisted, and he could after a few drinks, the differences in vowel sounds easier when his tongue felt loose and warmth filled his cheeks with something other than disillusionment with the reality of his past. “You all sound like Bert from Mary Poppins, or the Queen.” As she settled back onto flat feet, his head followed hers, mouth chasing another kiss, this one a real one, the basket sliding to the crook of his elbow as his hands lifted to touch her shoulders. They travelled upward along her skin, settling along the curve of her neck, thumbs brushing against the line of her jaw.
She couldn’t respond to him, not with the way her lips were occupied with his. Her tongue slipped her laughter into his mouth, the delight she found in what he said warm as the spring sun climbing in the sky. The kiss didn’t silence her. It brought her stillness. The world continued around them, in all its speed and haste, but in the pressure of where their bodies met, there was only the two of them, infinite in their instant. She didn’t shy away from him, nor demand more from the kiss. It was a kiss, sweet in its intimacy, honest in its promise, truthful in its intent.
He was interrupted by a sigh of sentimental approval, one of the other members of their group, this one at least twice her age if not his own, and the older woman nudged her partner as she gestured towards them, their affection suddenly on display. Their audience of one (and one half, the half not genuinely interested but feeling a bit obligated to look) would soon ask how long they had been together, if his memory serves correctly, just as every other voyeur had inquired in the moments they'd been caught together in Hungary.
He didn't think he could lie. As protection from having to imagine it, he released her from his grasp, the produce once again incredibly fascinating, and reached for the nearest -- whatever it was. Celery. Green beans. There were too many options in a way, just as they had too many choices ahead of them when the time beneath the Spanish sun ended. “What are we making, anyway?” he asked, pulling a stalk of celery from his basket and wiping it on his shirt before popping the end into his mouth. “This looks like it'll be ratatouille.”
He might have pulled away, but her hand still sought his blindly, the interest of other people on them ignored and unseen. Elayne hadn’t noticed the older couple, caught up as she was in him, and she didn’t notice them now as she reached for him, as affectionate as a new lover and as familiar as an old love. “Here, let me see,” she stepped in to him, her free hand reaching into the basket to parse through the produce they had acquired in their amble through the market. She knew what they had bought, this was just a way to bring her close enough to him she could feel his exhaled sigh on her neck and let her thoughts wander to when she’d next experience the soft whisper of his breath against her skin. It wasn’t about sex, though she had to admit it had been particularly incredible since arriving in Madrid; it was about how when he was close to her and their breathing matched it became possible to imagine them in a future state, together. When they fucked, their limbs entangled in a way where it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began, and when he stood there with her, their hands together, she could hear her heartbeat from where it resided inside of him. It was becoming harder to keep the words tied up inside her, split up and hidden across the various secret estuaries in her body. Her heart was where she kept him and each beat of it pumped him in and out, a process of him deep as he was in her bloodstream. Her body sang him.
She wanted to hate it, but she couldn’t.
It was possession and she gave herself willingly.
“Artichoke hearts, roasted,” she mumbled, putting them to one side with the oil and the garlic. To his credit, Alex made a show of nodding, pretending as though this had been the plan all along, the collected ingredients a secret surprise rather than a display of his culinary inadequacy. “And, ah, paella, I think. We just need saffron. Real saffron. Good saffron.” One long finger placed itself on the bow her bottom lip, tapping there as she looked around the stalls. “And prawn. Gambas. You get the prawn, I’ll find the saffron, and the bomba rice, and how have we not got any manchego?” The way she asked the question was horrified, and in another show of acting, he pretended to know what the fuck manchego was. It wasn’t mocking either, it was genuine—who forgets cheese? She squeezed his hand before letting go, her first step carrying her from him before she turned back in a quick pivot. She hesitated, a cute, soft pause, and then she was pressed into him again: this time the kiss delivered from her to him, her lips flush on his and her hands free to pull him into her by the waist of his jeans. “You taste like green.”
“It’s an LA thing,” he explained, smiling against her mouth. “Whatever colour food you eat affects your mood. Red and you’re angry, blue and you’re sad, green and you’re … caring about the earth?” the ruse faltered there, and his lips pursed partially in thought, partially in disappointment. She cocked her head as she listened to him, her attempt at holding back her amusement lost in her grin. “Envious?” he offered, eyes narrowed in thought. “Ambitious? Peaceful? Greedy. That one -- that’s the one I like. This is mine.” He ran his fingers along her arm, down to the tips of her fingers, where the tips of hers danced against hers. If she had wanted to contribute, she didn’t—couldn’t. Her body moved in reaction, anticipating where his hands would move with the pimpling of gooseflesh and a shiver under his fingers. “And this.” He touched her leg, the outside of her thigh, tracing upwards towards her hip.
The woman needled her husband as she put down the tomato she had been examining, her interest once more on Elayne and Alex, and her words overlapping with this as they both spoke:
“I love--”
“They are a beautiful couple, remember when we were that in love?” She hadn’t meant to, but she spoke loud enough for her wistful comment to carry, loud enough for the pair to hear and she realised it with an immediate red tinge to her cheeks.
“Spain,” he finished. He loved Spain. He loved the weather and the sounds and the taste of everything in his mouth. And more things: things he didn’t dare say aloud, swallowed in the laughter at the overheard comment. “This is a good way to end one’s twenties, even if thirty is -- that’s the end, isn’t it? Your youth is over and you’ve got to retire from Instagram in embarrassment.”
There had been no expectation for how he would finish the sentence, just hope, and when the word formed into a proper noun there was no disappointment. She used to think it was frustrating he was the writer and yet she was the one who used words, but then she realised: he was a writer, but he was also a director, and where she saw the world in cinematic moments of great monologues—she was an actress—he saw them in how they were accomplished. Alex said more through what he did. It had taken them ending for her to understand that. If she had known that in Budapest, would they be here now as something more tangible? Would she be hearing the three words she longed to worship from his mouth?
But then, wasn’t this, the curve of his palm over her waist as he pulled her into him, as solid as anything? It was a disservice to happiness she felt in the now to be in it and desperate for more. The woman’s interruption didn’t spoil the intimacy of the moment. Words were unnecessary. She loved him, had loved him, was in love with him, and it didn’t need to be said and repeated until the five consonants and three vowels ground to nothing. It was there, whispered in the longing ghost of fingers on skin, translated in each stolen glance and shouted from the movements of their bodies as they surrendered to the primal need to show each other how they felt. It didn’t need to be labelled and boxed, or declared, to be real.
The back of Elayne’s hand travelled up the arch of his cheekbone and rested there, her knuckle moving against the bone as she developed her touch into a caress. “Yes, I’m sorry. I meant to tell you, I’ve made a plan to take you to the farm after dinner tomorrow. It’s time, out to pasture with you.” Her eyes stayed on him as she teased him, only shifting away to catch the woman at the end: a wink and smile delivered, a dismissal of apology for the embarrassment. “But before you’re glue, prawns. Go.” Her hand fell from him to swat at his hips, shooing him into movement to finish their shopping.
Chapter 2: The Cooking Class
“It’s on fire,” he said, trying to sound level and calm, and landing somewhere closer to surprised and amused. Alex fanned at his small disaster with a tea towel, watching the flames go higher as he backed away slowly, the two tentative steps away from his cook station feeling like a retreat from battle. He tossed the slightly singed towel over his shoulder, looking between the stove and his date, attention bouncing back and forth between the two. “A lid would be hel-- helpful, please? Babe. I’m worried my eyebrows are next and I know that’s sort of in, but I don’t think I can swing it. I have enough forehead already,” he added, gesturing to the referenced body part with one hand as he used the other to lift the hair from his brow and give a better display. “Don’t make this horrifying future the present.”
A lid? A lid she could do, even if it was around barely contained snickers, each of her laughs met with a more dramatic scowl from him as he fanned his hand towards her in anticipation of relief. She’d allowed him to take control of the lesson, her role to chop, to measure, to sneak kisses, but as they began to cook the latter had given way to focus and she found it endearing, how committed he was to making their dish. This was typically her realm, even in the small moments they had together, he had given her the freedom to lead the way in the kitchen, but it felt important to him that he participate fully in this, the one option on his birthday he had specifically chosen for her benefit. His mouth said he would never love her, but other parts of him wanted more. If they could freeze that moment, suspended in time in one perfect evening, flames included.
“Thanks for the observation. I couldn’t tell as I’m method preparing to audition for Helen Keller. I’m blind,” she teased him as she ruffled through the cookware and quickly found the lid, the item offered to him and pulled back the first time he reached for it before surrendering it the second time with an infuriating smirk. “I don’t know, the aesthetic suits you,” she regarded him with a cock of her head, the considering look she gave him exaggerated with a narrowed sweep of her eyes over his face. Fuck, he was perfect. She nearly said it out loud, but she didn’t need to; didn’t need to for the way she stepped closer to him and to the flames, drawn to him like she was magnetised and maybe, she thought, she was as her lips found the corner of his forehead where his hidden brows met skin. “You could pull anything off, baby.”
“You’re full of shit, but I like it,” he announced, lowering his hand to use both to cover the burning pan. A ripple of heat coursed through his fingers, and he pulled them away sharply, shaking them in the air as he wandered towards one of the station sinks and turned on the tap. She leaned over the counter edge as she watched him control the flames. It was oddly sexy; not because he was good at it, otherwise it wouldn’t be on fire, but it was in how he moved purposefully after. He found a solution and that was what was so attractive.
He returned to her (and their mess) with a smile, wiping his hands on his jeans to dry them, momentarily forgetting about the tea towel he had placed over his shoulder. “Here,” she shifted him with the bump of her hips, her hand reaching for his as she pulled it back to the lid and helped him lift it, her hands more graceful in their attempt than his own had been during their closure. From beside him, she shuffled in front of him, her back flush to his chest as she dropped a wooden spoon into the rice and vegetables and stirred slowly and methodically. She didn’t speak as she encouraged him to reach around her and help, his arms immediately obeying the command as they slid beneath her arms and over the stovetop. She passed the spoon to him, resting her hands on top of his as she helped guide him on how to stir. “Very good, Gordon Ramsay.”
“Do I shout as often as he does?” he asked, placing his chin on the top of her head as he peered over her to ensure he did not spill anything and create another mini disaster. The weight of him on her reminded her of the story of Atlas, of how he shouldered the entire world through a trick. It reminded her, too, of how little she used to like being touched, of the space she kept between her and Lukasz. And it reminded her of the parallel story of Atlas and the first dog in space, Laika. Laika was a good dog—a good dog who would have followed her owner anywhere and ended up following him into space. Like Atlas, it was with trickery she was sent somewhere she didn’t understand and forced to suffer for the lives of others. It wasn’t the tragedy she was thinking of as his chin settled on the crown of her head, but of the story she read of Atlas and Laika, where Atlas found the little dog in space and he chose to put the world down in order to carry the dog on his shoulders and how finally he had found a weight worth carrying. She’d found that with him; she wanted his weight on her and his arms around her. “Or more? Don’t answer that,” he warned, sliding his chin off of her hair and hunching his back slightly as he brought his face alongside hers. “I wanna be Julia Child—” She interrupted him with a good-natured “You’ll never be Julia Childs,”—”Where’s the wine?” And there was, in fact, wine -- copious amounts of it on every station, all Riojas, all opened and partially recorked as each pair around them sipped between stirs, during stirs, as they chopped, as they seasoned; comparatively, Alex and Elayne’s bottles were much fuller, down just the half they had split before they begun, too distracted to think about getting intoxicated.
He said things to the contrary, but she was enough.
He kissed her temple with the side of his mouth, his attempt to pull his arms from her playfully foiled by how she held onto him, her body pitching forward and her hands curling over his forearms to stop him from moving. It elicited a giggle, her eyes twinkling as she finally let him go, encouraged as it was by the tickle of his fingers along her skin. He knew her like a cartographer. What part of her hadn’t been mapped by him? The rueful look she gave him as he stepped away was comical in its exaggeration, as was the huff from him as he turned the sink back on to rise out the empty glasses they had set beside it. He filled one, swirling the water around a bit before emptying it, then repeated the step with the second, finally remembering he had something to dry with already attached to his person after a minute’s search of the area. He paused with the towel in hand, considering the likelihood that stray fibres would be stuck floating in the glass and ultimately deciding to good upside-down shake would sufficient, both glasses upended and air dried as best as the method would manage. “Are you drinking more?” he asked, though he had begun to pour liquid into one, hesitating as he finished before pouring a second.
“Yeah,” she paused, “sure,” she added at seeing him pouring the second and then, “thank you; no, gracias.” She affected a Spanish accent against the words, matched to the flourish of her arms into what she thought was a salsa pose. (It was not. It was something she’d seen on Strictly Come Dancing, but she wasn’t predisposed to tell him that).
Elayne had never understood the phrase ‘the unbearable lightness of being’, not when she read the book, nor the one the title of the other was borrowed from (Tolstoy’s War and Peace, read in anticipation of an audition—an audition she bombed). She had heard it said, bemoaned and celebrated, a whisper around sweet moments and a shout during arguments. No one seemed to agree on what the lightness was, nor what made it unbearable. In university, she’d read the book in her comparative literature class and what she had found was an understanding and sympathy with Sabina, the character the quote was about—’She had left a man because she felt like leaving him.’—and that the absence of weight didn’t mean you were without burden. Einmal ist keinmal: all or nothing.
She was beginning to understand the phrase now; how in the light moment between them and all its sweetness it hurt as much as the heaviness she’d experienced from their separation. To know this would end didn’t ruin the easiness of their time, nor did it tug on her heart and demand to load the afternoon with weight. She felt the soar of her emotions and her feelings with them: all or nothing. She wanted all of him, but she’d take nothing if he couldn’t give her that. Their now was light, but their future was unknown and that made it all unbearable.
She smiled at him encouragingly, reaching for the glass as he finished pouring it. Whatever sweetness developing suspended as she stepped away from the pan and lifted her drink toward it, the wine nodding against the rim from her indication it was his to take control. “Are you having fun?” She asked him as she leaned back against the hard line of the counter, her legs lengthening as she stretched out to watch him stir with loose attention. She was finding it hard to care about the texture of the bomba rice when he was standing there. It was obvious, how her eyes kept returning to him over the lip of her glass and through the refraction of light through it. “I am,” she was sincere, her hip moving to one side to connect with his in a light bump. “I am now, and did earlier, and have been since we got here. Thanks for being fun.” She started to move toward him and then seemed uncertain, a sudden, fleeting look of doubt clouding her features, but it disappeared quickly, folded into a radiant grin tilted up to him. It looked as if her mouth would move to say something, but whatever it was was lost as she instead found his lips. She stepped between him and the counter, her arms snaking up to his neck and tangling there, wrist over wrist and kiss pressed into kiss. “Sorry,” she murmured, aware a few eyes had turned to them with envy, disdain and fondness. “You just looked very sexy, baby.”
Chapter 3: Breakfast in Bed
To say she was sleepy was an understatement. She didn’t want to be awake. They had spent the night before out until the darkness dwindled into light, neither one of them wanting to end what had felt like a perfect day even as the clock ticked over to midnight and tomorrow became today. Her shoulders pressed down into the mattress as she struggled against the morning light pouring through the window, the pair of them forgetting in their haste to find the bed last night to draw the curtains and close the blinds. Elayne had come to Madrid with no preconceptions about what would happen, but she found herself full of hope as she stretched against the bed and pushed herself into a seated position. He was still asleep beside her, his arms moving as she wiggled in his hold—and that was new, the pair of them waking up still tangled together, unwilling, unable to be separated.
Her dark hair fell in a mass of waves around her face, the bulk of strands finding no trouble escaping the haphazard bun she’d pulled them into before falling into sleep with him. She didn’t remember coming back to the hotel after the film and the dancing, and the drinking, and the kissing. She did remember what happened when they got back though, the way they had laughed when he was too drunk to get hard and how they’d fallen asleep telling jokes about it and each other, each one drowsier than the last. Two fingers found a lock of his hair, her thumb sliding up to trap it as she stroked his head, her yawn large but silent. “Happy birthday, baby,” she murmured to him, her palm sliding along his forehead to rest there before she smoothed his hair back.
Her eyes lingered on him as she watched him sleep, the half-smile on her face deep and genuine. How had she ever thought there could be anyone else? The series of mistakes which brought them here replayed in her mind, as instantaneous as the knock on the door. The question she needed to answer, the one about when was forgotten as she stepped out of the bed with a furrowed brow. The do not disturb sign hadn’t been moved, not since they arrived and he’d placed it there with his predatory smile she was powerless to. The hotel room was already full of ghosts, the memories hauntings that’d stay inside her when this was over and reality took them away from one another. They might both be single, but there were still invisible strings holding them back from another. She was tied to him and yet, as she moved closer to him, the tension drew and the cord pulling them to one another went taut and they were snapped away from one another.
“Hola?” She asked it softly as she opened the door a crack, one emerald eye looking out through the slim space. It was a member of the hotel team, equally nervous as congenial, and with them a tray of food.
“Ah, sorry to disturb,” he began, smiling at her over the mountain of snacks, “but it is Senor Stanhope’s birthday and we wanted to, ah, surprise you.”
If he noticed what she was wearing, or the lack thereof, as the door opened, he didn’t mention it. Elayne had never been embarrassed by her body and with this, where she wasn’t nude, but just in smalls, it didn’t bother her. She wasn’t a bonafide movie star. Most people didn’t recognise her. To the people who saw them, they just appeared to be any other rich couple, neither of them famous by appearance. She was almost certain she had heard someone at the hotel call them “influencers” and it still stung, the taste of sangria not enough to take away the bitter taste in her mouth. “It is,” she agreed, amiably, guiding the man into the suite and indicating the table with a trigger of her pointer finger. “Gracias.” She added, a beat after, her smile genuine and warm across her pillow-creased face. “Ah, un minuto por favor,” she held up her hand as he set the table—two mimosas (the battle of champagne left in a bucket beside), a pile of fresh fruits, a stack of chorizo, heaps of tortilla, sizzling eggs, a plethora of pastries—and instead moved to grab her purse, ruffling through it to find a euro note.
“No, no,” he protested before taking it with a grin at the way she brought one slim finger to her lips to shush him. He nodded his head at her in gratitude before slipping back to the door and through it, no further conversation required.
Elayne didn’t watch him leave as she crossed the suite back to their shared bed.—Their shared bed!—”Baby,” she whispered, this time louder, her palm finding his cheek as she moved across him in bed to straddle his sleeping hips. “Time to wake up and celebrate the end of your youth.” Her lips moved against his ear and then down across his cheek until they found the corner of his mouth, her words punctuated with a series of kisses designed to draw him into wakefulness. “Happy birthday,” she repeated, this time to him as he blinked up at her, awake. This time, not as a secret, but as a greeting.
Before her face, there was nothing -- a dream he couldn’t remember as his eyes opened and his face came into focus. “Hey --” he breathed, a sleepy smile working its way across his face, even as it was interrupted by the light touch of her lips against it. Her kiss skated over the curve of his mouth, pulling back to allow Alex to rub at his eyes, blinking again and again, then stretch his arms above his head in a yawn he hoped would shake the tiredness from his brain. As they lowered, he placed them on the small of her back, sliding them upwards and pulling in, drawing her closer in an embrace as he forced her to bend in half to accommodate, which she did fluidly, her chest content to be held flush with his. Several thoughts popped out of his mouth in rapid succession: “It’s bright. What time is it? I need to brush my teeth. Don’t kiss me.” He turned his head away from her, nose twitching at the smell of food, which prompted him to sit up, disrupting their cuddling position in favour of hunger. His stomach growled instantly, and he glanced wildly around the suite for the source of the scent.
Across the room, on the table, there sat their breakfast, spread across the surface, and his brow knitted in confusion. It seemed unlikely that she had been awake so much longer than he had, regardless how much more than her he thought he had to drink the previous night. “Did you order breakfast?” he asked, shifting across the bed to its edge. He swung his legs over the edge, planting them on the floor with another yawn. Alex stood, scratching at his bare stomach with one hand as the other hung loosely by his side. Crossing the room to the table, he picked a piece of fruit from the pile, popping it into his mouth greedily. “You didn't have to do this.”
Before she could answer, he was standing and moving, his attention not on her, but instead on the food. “I didn’t do this, the hotel did. I told them it was your birthday and, well….” The trail of the syllable followed the gesture of her arm at where he stood, the breakfast indicated with the flourish of her hand. She watched him for a moment before standing up and crossing the room not to the table, where he stood with his hungry eyes and greedy hands, but instead to her suitcase. “Birthday boy, do you want a coffee or a mimosa, or something else entirely?” The question was asked carelessly, but her tone was distracted. Dropping to her knees she pawed through the strewn about clothes, including the dress she’d dumped on top of it last night so haphazardly, his hands the best assistant in removal. It made her smile to see it there, a reminder of how easy things had become between them here in Spain. “Or,” she trilled the word as she stood, two garish bags shouting happy birthday in bright colours held in either hand, “do you want your presents?”
Chapter 4: Birthday Dinner
The streets of Madrid on a Saturday night were nothing short of magic. If ever she had believed in something otherworldly it was here in this infinite now, his hand warm in her’s, the rush of life around them a cacophony of colour blurring against their joyous bubble. She had managed to hold back the words she wanted to say to him, even as they lingered heavy and present on her tongue. She found herself forming the consonants as she watched him drink his coffee and pay a bill. In all the little moments, she found a million reasons to say I love you, but she couldn’t find the force in her to override the silence he requested. She didn’t need to say it. He knew and that was enough.
Her hand pulled from his as they reached the front of the casino, and for once he didn't immediately reach to reconnect, the opulent doors in front of them as breathtaking as they were imposing, and for all of the lovely things he had seen in life, he was still impressed. Behind them were immediate secrets, the result of frantic phone calls, the quick exchange of credit cards and the thousands of miles for flights from as far as Los Angeles and as near as London. How she managed it she didn’t know, but she had, clandestinely and carefully, as a friend and not as anything more. If anyone had been surprised by her phone call and plan, no one had said anything. They only said yes. When they walked in she didn’t want his friends and family to see them together and assume what they were; an embarrassment to him she didn’t want to be the cause of, even if her hand felt foreign away from his embrace. The last few days had all been so easy, would it change when he saw who was waiting for him? Would he be mad? Had she overstepped the boundary of their friendship? The knot in her stomach grew against the twist of her fingers together, her smile flickering slightly with her mouthed thank you as he got the door.
“Don’t be…” She leaned in to him as they were guided through the gilded halls, her hands still unavailable to him even though they yearned. “Happy Birthday, Alex, I thought you might want to celebrate with the people you love, and the ones who love you.” The dimple in her cheek rarely came out, a signifier of her real grin; the smile she couldn’t control. It was there as she looked at him, one hand gesturing for him to move forward and the other reaching for the door to the back room. As it opened so did a horn go off, a chorus of noise greeting him with 50 different wishes of Happy Birthday, all in different accents, some in different languages. Will Poulter lifted his hand to salute him, the two fingers moving away from the corner of his forehead. Alex Wolff looked exhausted, his flight a red eye (and an excuse to get drunk and away from filming for a few days). His mother was at the front of the group, already crossed through the artistic friends from Los Angeles, the AFI friends from New York, ready to greet him.
He spared the first hug for his mother, tall and blonde and beautiful, the group parting to allow them this moment. Anne kissed his cheeks, hands on either side of his face, punctuating each with another Happy Birthday.
Elayne moved away swiftly, almost as if she hadn’t been there at all. This was his moment and she didn’t want to be included in it as anything other than a friend. Her palm tugged on William’s elbow as she joined him and Will, the three of them huddling up. “Hey guys,” she said, leaning forward to greet them both with kisses to their cheeks. “Thanks for coming so short notice. You know what our director is like, he isn’t one to celebrate himself,” she grinned at it, the joke at the expense of Alex’s ego eliciting guffaws from the two men who worked with her on Midsommar.
“You two finally together?” Will asked it first, his trademark eyebrows rising as he looked between her and Alex, overwhelmed as he was by people coming to say hello. They seemed to him in unending succession, a new face instantly replacing the one that had left. It was not, however, lost on him that the man he had once considered his best friend was absent, the relationship torn apart by his decision to take something to which he had no right. He was therefore fortunate not to have to field any questions about Elayne for the time being. And for her part, she had been expecting the question, it wasn’t like they had been discreet toward the end, and it wasn’t like it’d been kept secret after the wrap party.
“Nah, we’re just friends,” she shook her head, the white flower in her hair slipping from the vehement action.
“Sure, sure,” William agreed, nodding his head and grinning between their little trio and the man of the night. “Makes sense. Notice Lukasz isn’t here. Did he decline?”
“Just friends, eh? Mean you’re single, Elayne?” Even as William was speaking another friend had slid up, interrupting so the two sentences fell one over the other, both adding to the ambiance of the room. She made a face at Paul. He had known both Alex and Lukasz since school, and the three of them had made for an interesting trip, but Paul was always never quite in the middle of their social circle, weaving in and out as their patience with him waxed and waned.
“Maybe I am, or maybe there is someone none of you know.”
“Ah, yes, you are the height of discretion,” Will’s remark came with a dainty sip of the drink his hand, the smirk of it causing the other three to snicker, even Elayne, even as her hand swatted him along the shoulder.
“Don’t be an absolute dick.”
“You are here in Madrid with him and you did organise his birthday, it certainly looks a way, doesn’t it?”
“It’s friendly, we’re friends. You can’t let someone fuck you in a foreign country and not plan them a birthday party, it’s a rule.”
“Oh, that’s not one I know of?”
“Yeah, well, when was the last time you fucked anyone, Poulter?”
“Touche.” He held his glass out to her, a congratulations on their verbal tennis match. “I’m going to go say hello. Coming William?” Elayne nodded them off, turning to the crowd and disappearing into it. She might not be beside Alex, but her attention was on him, her eyes not moving from him as she reached for the glass of cava neatly lined on the table in front of her.
He caught her eyes once, flashing a smile before being pulled into another conversation congratulating him on making it to thirty, as though it had genuinely required much effort. Elayne seemed busy with drunk selection, yet to have fallen into another conversational group. People she had known through her previous relationship were there, true, but the rest of them were friends of his alone, people with whom he had shared parts of his life and the weight of what she had pulled off was not lost on him. Organising that many flights was a feat, let alone getting them all in on time to celebrate with him. It’d mostly been done in the back of her cab to Heathrow, a series of emails and calls, the only one left for arrival in Madrid, his mother and stepfather. She’d accomplished the invite on an email and a request to call; a request met with a ‘we’ll talk in Spain’. He mouthed a thank you to her from his spot across the room, absently pretending to listen to whatever was being said as he raised his hand to his lips and blew a kiss. She pretended to catch it, her arm reaching up to snatch it out of the space above her, as if his aim had been off. Unsure if anyone was watching, she patted her cheek twice, placing his kiss in a safe spot, but not where she wanted it.
He wondered, in that moment, if she felt alone, hovering outside the group now that she remained somewhat in limbo with both him and the friends he shared with his dp. Whether he owed it to her to depart the current chat to go over to her was taken from his hands as his mother approached and he felt his heart sink. He loved his mother as sons often did, but she was unforgiving; she made decisions instantly and knew immediately whether or not she liked someone. In was in and out was out: no going back.
Though shorter than him, she still towered over most, particularly in heels, and especially Elayne, who was tiny in comparison to the last girl he spent time with. Unlike his own, Anne’s original accent could mostly be heard, warped a bit by her stay in New York depending on the words, but still strong. “You did this? For him?” she asked, gesturing vaguely towards Alex as she stared down at her. “He was meant to come home, you know. You absconded with my little boy.”
If she was startled by Alex’s mother coming alongside her, she didn’t show it. Her reaction was to smile and offer her a top up on the glass of cava everyone had been given to toast his arrival. She nodded as Anne questioned her. She did. She had. But her answer wasn’t that. Instead she leaned in and shook her head, “No. See if Alex had come home you’d have had to plan something and I thought why put that burden on you when you could be celebrating his birthday instead? This way you get to spend it with him and I will make sure the drinks stay full and no condiment runs out.” Elayne’s way of speaking was mischievous, like everything she was saying to Anne was a secret between them. The twinkle in her eyes lit up her entire face, matched by the radiant, inviting smile she gave the older woman. She was earnest, her sincerity found in her guileless face. “I did. I did this, for him, and with him,” she added, now soft. “And I’m glad you were able to be here.” She held her glass up to Anne, the amber liquid in the flute catching the light above her, “Thank you for letting me escape with him and thank you for joining us.”