Page 29 of Ignited in Iceland
It was too tempting an idea to pass up. Iris knew it was going to further blur the lines of friendship between her and Siggi, but when he was sitting there next to her, his blue eyes glistening, creased in the corners because he was smiling at her, it was hard to listen to the logic that she was trying to remind herself of.
‘I’d love to come, thanks.’ She finished the last of her beer and put her coat on. It felt good to be doing something on the spur of the moment. And it felt great to be with Siggi again.
As they began walking down the road, towards the Harpa, Iris wished they hadn’t had that conversation at the volcano, because right now, she’d love to be holding his hand. More than anything, she wished she had waited to see what Siggi was going to say instead of assuming the worst. Why did she think so little of herself that she would let herself believe he had already regretted the hand-holding at that point?
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sorry. Just lost in thought for a second.’
‘So what have you been doing since I saw you?’
‘I went to Hraunvik today with Bjarkey, from the IMO. We visited my seismometer and did a brief survey to establish whether there has been any significant movement.’
‘And?’ Having family in Hraunvik gave him a vested interest.
Iris made a mental note to temper the information she shared with him with that in mind. It was important not to be alarmist. ‘There is nothing at the moment, but the activity is becoming more regular. I’m going to the IMO tomorrow to look at the data with them.’
He nodded. ‘So, I am wondering where we will go on our next excursion.’
Iris frowned in confusion. ‘Our next excursion? I didn’t realise it was a regular thing.’
‘Of course. But this is what we will do now that we are friends. Do you have time this week, or maybe Saturday again?’
‘So we’re friends who do stuff like that together? Coupley stuff.’
‘I do not know what makes it… coupley. Don’t friends do things like this? It is no different to you going to the beach with your friend in Hawaii.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s the same.’ But it wasn’t the same. She hadn’t looked forward to seeing Dylan in the same way that she was already looking forward to what she and Siggi were going to do next, even though she didn’t know what it was yet. And her heart hadn’t leapt at the sight of Dylan like it had when she’d seen Siggi tonight, and not just because he made her jump. No one had made her feel like that for a long time.
They crossed the road and headed past the Harpa towards an unassuming single-storey building that backed onto the water.
Inside, the bar was busy and cosy, with low-lighting. The bar itself stretched along one wall, stopping short of reaching the far wall to allow space for a stage area in the corner where a woman was singing. There were a few large tables at the back of the room and smaller ones nearer the front.
Siggi waved at his friends who were sitting at a table near the back of the room, and then asked Iris what she’d like to drink, and ordered the same thing for himself.
‘This place is really cool,’ she said. It was the kind of place you’d hope to stumble across on your travels, but in reality, unless you were a local, it was unlikely.
‘Yes, it is,’ Siggi said, grinning at her. ‘Shall we go and join them?’
Iris nodded and led the way to the table where Gudrun, Rachel, Brun, Jonas, and Olafur were waiting. Rachel and Gudrun greeted her as if she were an old friend, and she remembered what Siggi had said; that just a night out with them would make you want to stay in Iceland. After one night out already, Iris could totally understand that. She wanted to be friends with these people, and not just for a couple of weeks. She was almost as excited to see them as she had been to see Siggi tonight. This wasn’t what happened if you spent a couple of weeks somewhere. You didn’t come away with lifelong friends. You didn’t think you might be falling in love with a man who you’d spent only a few hours with. Was Siggi right? There was some kind of strange Icelandic magic going on, or did this kind of thing happen to people all the time? Iris had spent so long concentrating on work, perhaps she’d closed herself off from more than falling in love with someone. And perhaps now was the perfect chance to make up for lost time.
10
BUMPING INTO IRIS on Tuesday night had been a stroke of luck. He’d been in turmoil, wondering whether to contact her, and what to say if he did. The open mic night was perfect because it was casual and he already knew she got on with his friends. There was no pressure, they’d just had a lovely night hanging out with everyone.
His friends were reading more into it. He didn’t blame them for assuming that things were getting serious between him and Iris, despite his protestations. He’d never taken a woman to the open mic night before. In fact, he’d never taken a woman to anything he did with his friends. Realising that scared him a bit, because it reinforced what he already knew; that Iris was special.
He was on his way to collect her from the hotel. He had an amazing day planned for them. They would need to make a quick stop on the way, but he’d factored that into his timings. Since it was Thursday, and he was back on the tour rota with Iceland Adventures, he had swapped days off with Olafur. Any of them would have swapped with him. They were so thrilled that he was taking Iris out on a date, as they thought of it.
Siggi had been busy telling himself that it was not a date. It was two friends going on an outing. It was the only way to keep himself in check, to stop his emotions from running away and beginning to hope. While he wanted to respect that she didn’t want to start anything with him, on some level, he knew he was trying to change her mind. And if taking her on an excursion thatwould blow her mind might help his cause, that was what he’d do.
He pulled up outside the hotel, the engine running because the road wasn’t wide enough to park there and go inside to fetch her, but he knew Iris well enough now that he’d bet on her being on time. He was right. Less than a minute later, she walked out of the hotel, opened the back door of the jeep to throw her stuff on the back seat and climbed in the front next to him. Siggi watched her do all of this as if it were something she did every day and took it as a good sign that she felt comfortable to make herself at home with him.
‘Góður morgunn!’
‘Morning!’ She put her seatbelt on, and then gave him a bright smile that lit her face up.
‘Coffee?’ He handed her a thermal mug from the cup-holder in between them.
