Page 114 of Ten Years and Then…
Nora, the same time
The band was playing Living on a Prayer, and Nora didn’t even realize she was dancing to it until she looked down and saw her feet moving of their own accord.
She’d danced with Daniel to this song once.
Why couldn’t she get him out of her mind? Nora had been thinking about him more these last two days than she had in months.
Since July, the first time she’d gone to bed with Greg, after making him wait six months, offering up excuses that sounded pathetic to her own ears but which he’d accepted without question.
She hadn’t talked to Greg for three days afterwards; that’s how long it had taken her to convince herself she hadn’t cheated on Daniel, that it was impossible to cheat on someone who you’d been broken up with for eight years. And he hadn’t begrudged her that time, or even asked why she’d needed it.
And now, from the moment she’d woken up yesterday, she’d been comparing him unfavorably to Daniel. Greg wasn’t Daniel. That was true. But he was himself—kind, and patient, and steady—and that should have been enough.
She kept telling herself that, over and over, as her feet tapped along to the music, right up until the moment she saw him.
Daniel.
Not a hundred feet away, across the atrium from her, watching the band just like her.
Same dark hair, same impossibly pretty eyes—clear even from across the room.
She looked down, closed her eyes, looked up—and he was still there.
It couldn’t be him, though. It was just some other random dark-haired man with pretty eyes. Of course that’s all it was.
But she had to be sure. She started walking—jogging, really—around the atrium. She was only a few feet away now, and the pretty-eyed man who wasn’t Daniel wasn’t looking in her direction. He was staring intently at the spot where she’d just been.
And then he turned, and she saw. It was him.
It was impossible. He couldn’t be here, but he was, and he was walking the last few steps towards her, and pulling her into an embrace, and kissing her and she was kissing him back.
It was impossible, and it was wrong and she wouldn’t—couldn’t—let him go.
Daniel, a moment later
What had just happened? How was she here? How was Nora Langley in his arms?
Why was he kissing her when Leanne was one deck downstairs and maybe two hundred feet away?
He didn’t know. All he did know was that he couldn’t let Nora go, couldn’t look away from her, couldn’t take his hands off her.
“Nora … how?”
She didn’t know either. She just smiled—that smile—and kissed him again, and he responded. He was dimly aware that there were dozens of people on this deck, watching the show he and Nora were putting on instead of watching the band down below. He didn’t care.
He knew he should have—but he didn’t.
Nora, a few minutes later
They were sitting in what was generously called the “Library.” It was two half-filled bookshelves and four comfortable chairs.
Thankfully, none of their fellow passengers were in a reading mood, so they had a little privacy.
“What are you doing here?” She shook her head, laughing. “I mean, obviously you decided to go on a cruise. But how did we—what are the odds we’d pick the same cruise?”
It was one thing when they’d run into each other at the conference four years ago. They were both working in the same field; it really wasn’t so bizarre that they’d had that night together. But this? There were dozens of cruise lines, and hundreds of different ships which sailed all year long. How did they end up on the same ship at the same time?
“Either the universe has a sense of humor,” he said, “or it’s trying to tell us something, I guess.” It was so good—so comforting, far more than it should have been, to hear his voice.
