Page 30 of Love Is A Draw
The burner roared, louder now, feeding the monstrous expanse above them. Gail’s lungs tightened as the earth beneath them stretched away, her heart lurching as queasiness mingled with an undeniable sense of exhilaration.
The air in the center of the balloon gave off waves of heat—or was that her face burning under Victor’s gentle grip? As she caught the faint, clean scent of soap and leather lingering on him, mixed with the earthiness of the damp garden, she wondered fleetingly whether she had been wise to climb into the balloon at all—or whether, perhaps, trusting Victor in this way was the kind of gamble worth making.
She ran her fingers over the edge of the wicker basket. The balloon swayed faintly, and her stomach followed as if testing her resolve. Victor held her hand, his grip strong—but not entirely calm. No, the lines of his shoulders drawn tight beneath his coat gave him away.
“What about the wind now?” Victor asked the pilot.
“The current will lift us higher.” The pilot coughed loudly, breaking the moment. “A few pointers for you two,” he said, clipped and animated in a Hackney accent. “No leanin’ out o’ the basket, not unless you fancy fallin’ straight out.” He gestured toward the sandbags, his free hand scratching at his bristly chin. “And keep your hands off them unless I say otherwise. Clear?”
Victor gave a single nod, and Gail followed suit, gripping the rim of the basket.
She leaned in close to Victor, dropped her words to a whisper and switched to Russian. “Where did you—where did you findthe pilot?” Mischief sparkled in her eyes, even as curiosity lingered at the question.
Victor leaned closer as well, the sound of her words in their shared language tugging at some invisible string wrapped between them. A grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “He was the only one reckless enough to promise he’d wait until we landed to take payment.”
Her breath hitched, and for a moment she forgot entirely about the rocking basket, the smell of coal, even the distant canopy of pastel sky above them. She lost herself in this shared moment, connected to Victor by something as intangible and delicate as scent or memory. The flight was even more intoxicating than she had expected, and she wasn’t sure whether she was ready for the intensity. Then again, she hadn’t been ready for this adventure at all.
The pilot pulled a lever, and the roar of flame cut through the quiet. Heat billowed upward, filling the orange envelope with life as the basket creaked faintly and swayed. The ropes strained against the ground anchors. Gail’s ribs clenched, but not from fear—not entirely—from something closer to anticipation, the kind that danced on the edge of exhilaration. She felt on the cusp of something dangerous and wild, but thrillingly so. Victor’s steady presence beside her kept her grounded, even as the world below seemed to prepare to slip away.
The balloon swayed as it began to lift, a slow, deliberate pull that made Gail’s stomach lurch. She clutched the edge of the basket tighter with one hand, the other still in Victor’s grasp. The wicker creaked faintly beneath her feet, and she couldn’t tell if the unsteadiness came from the balloon or from her trembling legs. The upward motion wasn’t harsh, but insistent, as though invisible hands were guiding them to the heavens.
Wind blew her hair, and she could tell her pins were coming undone.
She tried to focus on the rules of physics she had learned long ago. The heat from the burner expanded the air inside the balloon, making it lighter than the cooler air outside. Simple, measurable science. And yet, it didn’t feel simple at all. Her pulse raced as they ascended, her breaths coming faster, shallow even. Each second pulled them further from the earth, an inexorable rise that defied the safety and steadiness she preferred. The world tipped slightly as the basket swayed, and she took a half-step closer to Victor.
The gardens below began to shrink. The once sprawling paths lined with elegant trees and well-kept hedges diminished into a patchwork of curling green shapes seemingly no larger than saucers. The magnificent, stately trees of Vauxhall, their leaves creating whole stretches of shade in the daylight, now appeared like tiny dark coins scattered across the pale ground. Gail blinked to orient herself, but the basket shifted with her movement, lurching slightly. Before she could steady herself, Victor’s hands rested on her shoulders, pulling her gently yet firmly toward him.
His arms enveloped her, secure and sure, and she found herself leaning into him, his steadiness welcome. She exhaled shakily, feeling the warmth of his touch even through the layers of their clothing. She had been so focused on the view below that she hadn’t realized how unsteady her footing had become. Now, with his arm around her, she felt tethered—not to the earth, which had all but disappeared beneath them, but to him.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His hand slid around her waist, drawing her gently against him, as if her presence steadied him as much as the basket beneath their feet. Gail’s breath caught. Her cheek brushed his collar, and she closed her eyes for the space of one heartbeat—two—trying to remember how to breathe.
The world fell quiet. Only the slow hiss of the burner remained, like a whisper meant for someone else. Her fingers curled against his coat, not for balance now, but because she couldn’t bear to let go.
“We are flying,” she whispered, not knowing if the words came out in English or Russian. It didn’t matter because she could be herself with him.
Victor’s breath stirred her hair as he leaned closer. “Then let it be this moment that untethers me,” he murmured. “Because with you, I would never ask to land.”
Gail dared a glance downward, her heart pounding harder as she tilted her head over the basket’s edge. Her breath caught. The garden seemed to be sliding away like a tablecloth swept too quickly from a table, unraveling into the larger city beyond. But not only the cloth disappeared; all London stretched into view. Roofs of townhouses appeared, a disorderly row of gray and brown squares reaching toward the horizon. Chimneys speckled the scene like markings of a checkerboard, each varying in size and leaning slightly, some puffing faint gray smoke into the distance.
Higher still they climbed, until the colors beneath her faded, muted by the heavy morning mist. The streets she had walked endlessly now curved and twisted like ribbons. She could no longer make out the hurried figures she saw from her window or the clopping horses drawing carriages through cobbled lanes. All of it seemed impossibly small now, like a part of another world they had somehow, impossibly, risen above. Her body stiffened again, and she tightened her grip on Victor’s coat sleeve.
He turned her gently to face him. “What do you see?”
“Life with you… you change my perspective.” Gail said.
The sway of the basket became constant, a rhythm she couldn’t predict, but even as her body screamed at her to retreat, she held her position. To her surprise, holding to Victor wasn’tjust steadying, it was electric. Propriety demanded she step back the moment she found firm footing, but they’d left propriety on the ground far below them, joined by logic and reason. Her heart dictated her movements now.
She clung to Victor more tightly than was proper or logical. Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his coat like a desperate pawn grabbing a knight’s reins, a move she wouldn’t retreat from. Something within her had shifted too, breaking free of the rigid structure she usually imposed on herself. She didn’t understand the developing attraction blooming for Victor, but she knew, for once, it didn’t need to be calculated. Only felt.
He paused, his breath brushing her ear, then his lips descended to hers—soft, deliberate, and full of all the unsaid things between them. The world tilted, the flame hissed, and the balloon rose—so did Gail’s heart.
Victor tightened his stance,and his boots braced against the shifting floor of the basket as it swayed with each restless movement of the balloon above. Gail’s weight pressed lightly into him, the warmth of her shoulder brushing his arm. The world had dissolved into muted grays and silvers, the gardens and rooftops swallowed by a thick, damp veil of clouds like a shroud of whispered secrets. The pilot’s call of “Clouds ahead” rang faintly in his mind, distant now, secondary to the swirl of sensations consuming him.
This balloon ride had been a reckless choice, one of the more absurd decisions he’d made—daring, impractical, and entirely unlike him. And yet, it had worked. Gail deserved something otherworldly and this was as close he could offer her. Plus his heart.
Victor’s chest swelled with something unfamiliar, something entirely unquantifiable, as he realized how glad he was that she had come, that she had trusted him with this. He wondered whether she trusted him with more. Would she? Could she?
The damp air clung to his clothes, the chilled mist settled over them, folding them into a world made only of their shared breaths and the subtle creak of the shifting basket. He reached instinctively for stability, his hands flexing against the ropes as he steadied them both. She said nothing, yet her presence and warmth cut through the damp cold.
