I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could feel it shake. I hoped he hadn’t noticed how much. I felt his hands tighten on my back, run down my spine to my waist. The blanket had fallen and he pulled it back up over my shoulders, tugged me closer. I felt so warm, so safe, like I could do anything. Say anything. Giddy, drunk, floating. Flying. I closed my eyes, giving into it.

‘We could just get round-the-world tickets. Jump on a plane whenever we feel like it.’

‘I don’t think that’s how round-the-world tickets work, Caitie.’ His voice was low, thick.

I opened my eyes, tried for a laugh. ‘Humour me.’

‘Do you really want to?’

I nodded. ‘If you do.’

He exhaled, pulling me closer. ‘I do.’

Giddy.

Flying.

‘So where should we start?’

‘How about …’ He tipped his head back, thinking. ‘Norway.’

I laughed. ‘Birthplace of both the paperclip and the cheese slicer.’

‘Really?’

‘So the rumours suggest.’

‘Those clever Norwegians,’ he whispered.

I pulled myself up over him. Kissed him gently. His eyes caught mine and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. ‘Where next?’

‘Denmark? It’s almost next door.’

‘Did you know …’ I swallowed. ‘There are more than four hundred islands in Denmark?’

Something flickered across his face, his hands tightening around my waist. ‘I didn’t.’ That same voice, barely there, lighting something inside me.

I kissed him again. I wanted to kiss him forever. Over and over. The kiss deepened, turned into something more, and I lost my breath. When I raised my head, he looked like he had too.

‘Where then?’ I asked. My voice was barely my voice. Cracking.

‘Amsterdam?’

I nodded. ‘Of course.’ I dropped my head again, my mouth an inch from his. ‘We have to see all eight drawbridges.’ He grinned, so wide I felt it all the way through to my bones, and when I kissed him this time I didn’t stop.

19 THURSDAY, JUNE

19

THURSDAY, JUNE

Lina was wearing eggshell, the attendant—Marla, maybe?—told me. I’d mistakenly called it cream and she’d corrected me without taking her eyes off Lina’s chest and the half-a-dozen pins she’d inserted into the bodice.

I didn’t know what I’d expected. Lina had been eyeing off wedding dresses since we were kids but nothing this lacy, this covered in beading, this … much. She looked beautiful in it, even with her hair up in a ponytail and another elastic band on her wrist. It felt like the first time I’d been able to look right at her in years.

‘So,’ she said, when Marla went to get more tape, ‘tell me about this guy.’