Page 116 of How Good It Was (Excess All Areas 3)

It didn’t have good square footage, and the light was grim everywhere except the living room. Yet, she was happier within its four walls than she had ever felt.

Is Captain Luke in the air?

Chaya’s message made her smile. Not yet. Classroom first, then air.

Did he freak out?

Not how I expected, but yes.

Okay. Expand. And quick. Because I’m on break. Go!

He was more taken with how I thought of him and surprised him with something he wanted.

Urgh. You two are couple goals. Gotta go. Have fun.

We are. Miss your face!

Willow opened her laptop and read the comments to her posts celebrating Luke’s album release. Thousands of likes. Hundreds of comments. People were genuinely excited for the two of them, promising to stream the album and attend the concerts. Two people asked if she could hook them up with Alex, and she could only imagine what would happen if she said yes.

She opened her laptop. One of the books she’d read had suggested a visualisation exercise. The point was to see yourself in the future. Fully bring it to life like a movie in your head. What would you be doing? Where would you be? What would you be passionate about?

And when she’d tried it, she’d seen herself still making content, but it having more substance with a full lifestyle brand to back it up with revenue.

So she’d read about women who’d started their own companies, like an actress who’d started a skin care range based on organic and environmentally friendly products.

She wanted that. And following a method she’d found in another of her books, she started to flush out a business plan that made her both giddy with excitement and slightly terrified.

Two hours later, Luke walked into the café. She saw him before he found her. God, he looked good in his jeans. But his smile when he saw her was perhaps the hottest part of him. When it included his dimples, she was done.

“That”—he punctuated the sentence with a kiss—“was amazing.”

“You enjoyed it?”

Luke pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “It’s so freeing, being up there. It’s ... you look out of the window, and everything seems so small. And it’s different to flying when you are going on holiday because that plane is so big and solid. Somehow, in a smaller plane, you feel closer to it. Like you’re part of it all, you know?”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I did. And while I was up there, I kept thinking about landing again, and knowing you were here, waiting for me. I’m starting to think I had everything wrong. I’m a pretty fortunate fella, all things considered.”

“And I think I’m a pretty fortunate girl.”

Luke looked down at his watch. “It’s twelve thirty. I need to leave the hotel at two thirty. Want to head back, have lunch, and let me show you how grateful I am?”

Willow closed her laptop. “I’d love that.”

As Luke led them back to the hotel room, he revelled in the moment he was airborne all over again. That feeling of weightlessness as the aircraft bounced over turbulence, as the engines reverberated through the small plane.

He’d felt like a tiny speck in the vastness of the universe, and one overriding message had popped in his brain. Sometimes what you need is the exact opposite of what you want.

He hadn’t wanted a relationship, but he needed Willow. It was a dichotomy. But it made perfect sense.

Or maybe he hadn’t wanted anyone except Willow.

He didn’t know.

But she cared for him, and he found that having someone care wasn’t suffocating like he thought it would be. It was liberating. And the walls around his heart that were already cracked at the foundation fell down.

Once inside the room, he halted Willow, pushed her back to the hotel room door and kissed her, tugging her coat and her bag off her shoulders as he devoured her.

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