Ishould’ve thought this one through a little better.As Serenity walked out of the change rooms at the hot springs in a modest yet still unbelievably sexy bikini, I leaned back in the spring and tried to distract myself with the amazing views of the mountain in front of me.
So far, Iceland was not disappointing on being one of the most picturesque, naturally stunning places I’d ever seen, but Serenity in a bikini was still hard to look away from. Steam rose up around me, making her seem like a mythical creature emerging from the smoke as she approached me.
For a moment, I couldn’t keep my fucking eyes off her, that fiery hair thrown into a bun on top of her head and her blue eyes so incredibly fucking bright as they caught mine. I watched as her lips parted when her gaze dropped down to my chest. Her cheeks flushed again. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to keep from making a move on her—until she suddenly grinned and dropped in beside me with a huge splash.
I laughed, grateful that she’d broken the electrical charge in the air between us with the silly antic. I wiped the hot water off my face. When she surfaced, I reached out with my free hand and playfully pretended like I was about to dunk her.
“What goes around, comes around,” I joked. “This means war.”
Laughter shrieked out of her as she jumped back, wiping away the water droplets around her eyes as she waggled her brows at me. “You’ll have to catch me first.”
Smirking as I moved forward slowly, I held my hands up in surrender, but as soon as she stopped moving back, I lunged for her. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
She laughed again but didn’t fight when I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her into me, careful not to hold her too close. “That’s one each, I think.”
It felt so good to have her in my arms that I didn’t let go immediately, but when she turned to look at me with an arched eyebrow and we found our faces only inches apart, we both moved back at the same time. Serenity shrugged and moved to the spot where I’d been sitting before. “We should probably stop messing around. We’re getting some pretty dirty looks from the poor people just trying to absorb the view in peace.”
Remembering for the first time since she’d come out of the change rooms that we weren’t alone, I nodded and moved in to sit beside her. “Shit. The steam makes it way too easy to forget there are other people around.”
She chuckled. “There seems to be something about this entire country that makes that easy to forget. This water is great, though.”
“Yeah, it really is.” I groaned as I sank down deeper, only just keeping my mouth above the surface as I leaned my head back against the edge. A comfortable silence fell between us then. Figuring that she was also just trying to enjoy the water and the views, I let it go on for a long time before I realized that it was unusual for her to be quiet for quite so long.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, turning my head to glance at her and seeing a deep frown on her face as she stared out at the mountainous, snowy landscape. “Cat got your tongue?”
“No.” She let out a deep breath and she spoke without looking at me. “I was just thinking about how much I’ve missed out on, being so career focused.”
“We’ve been in a phase of our lives where we’ve all missed out because of that,” I said slowly, considering my own experience of the last few years. “It’s not exactly easy to find a balance between work and life when you’re still trying to make a name for yourself.”
“That’s true, but I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for me to get a boring but well-paying job. If I do that now, I could use my time off to enjoy more experiences like this one. I could stop struggling to make ends meet and focus my energy on living my best life while I still can, you know?”
My heart stuttered. I’d known where her head was at since that night at the party, but I hadn’t realized she was so serious about it that she’d be considering it even in a place as idyllic as this.
On the other hand, I supposed if there was anywhere one would wonder about the decisions you’d made, it would be in a place like this. Once the travel bug bit, it had the tendency to bite hard.
Knowing that she wouldn’t have been able to afford to come to a place like this on her own regardless of how hard she’d worked for the last few years must’ve inspired her to wonder if it was worth it at all to keep chasing her dreams when they might never pay as well as she could’ve been earning in a different career by now.
It was a sticky topic, but if I didn’t encourage her, there was every chance she would quit when she was closer than she’d ever been to getting her big break. Putting my hand on her arm, I gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re a great singer and a wonderful songwriter. It would’ve been a waste not to explore that passion and skill. If you hadn’t chosen the path you did, you always would’ve wondered what might’ve happened if you had. People always say you regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.”
“Having experiences like this is what gives songwriters new inspiration, though. What if I’ve been stifling my creativity by refusing to branch out and do anything but focus on a career that’s barely working out for me anyway? I’ve already felt more inspired today than I have for months.”
“That might be so, but if you got a job and you only had time to write at night or over weekends, I don’t think you’d be very happy. Eventually, you’d probably find that you didn’t have time to write at all. You might write one or two songs a month and that’s only if the inspiration struck you at a time when you weren’t busy with something for work.”
“Yeah, but at least I’d be able to afford doing something other than work.” She sighed. “What’s the point of working so hard when it only means that I might break even at the end of every month? I feel like I’m in survival mode. I’ve stopped living just so I’m able to keep my head above water. If doing what I love means just surviving and a full-time job would allow me to do some living, isn’t that the smarter thing to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Maybe this trip will give you some time to figure things out, though. If you’re so inspired, we’re here now. I won’t be offended if you want to do some work. In fact, I’d like it if you did. It’d make me feel like I was helping you with the songs that might make it onto your first album, which is something I’ve just added to my bucket list, so now you’ve got to do some work.”
She laughed softly, but it wasn’t a particularly happy sound. “Believe it or not, quite a lot of songs that might make it onto my first album have been inspired by experiences I had with you. Although that should also give you an idea of how little living I’ve done in the last six years, if I’m still being inspired by stuff that happened so long ago.”
“A lot of who we are was formed in those years we spent together. I’m not surprised you’re still inspired by that time of our lives. I don’t think it means you haven’t done much living since, but again, we’re here now and you’re inspired by being here.”
“I am.”
“Did you bring your guitar?” I didn’t remember seeing one in the luggage, but I knew they made small, travel guitars. “I really don’t mind if you want to write and practice while we’re here.”
“I didn’t bring one,” she said with more than a hint of regret in her voice. “I didn’t want to have to check too many things. If I’d known we were flying in a private jet, I might’ve reconsidered, but I didn’t think for so much as a second that we would be. It’s a private fucking jet. I’m definitely not used to thinking about something like that.”
“Neither am I,” I admitted. “To be honest, it was one of my first times on one, too. I just thought that if I was going to do the whole bucket-list thing, I was going to do it right.”