Forever For You 🌷

28th September 2013

Alex drove to the airport as fast as the L.A. traffic would allow him, breaking with annoyance at every red light and cursing himself for not leaving an hour before he had, thought twice about using the car horn but decided firmly against it because he didn't want any aggressive faces staring back at him. He turned the stereo up, the Dylan CD which had been a Christmas present from Izzy and had been in his car since the beginning of the year soothing his nerves slightly. The breeze from the cranked open window was blowing into his face and he pushed his sunglasses further up his nose, lips pursed together in thought as LAX came into view.

His mind wouldn't stop, hadn't stopped since the second he'd woken that day, both high on the anticipation of seeing and wrapping his arms around her again, at having her solely to himself at long last, and terrified of everything that could go wrong, of what he'd say in the silences, if he'd make it through the week without confessing too much. But there was something else too, something deeper, a somewhat subdued hope and he didn't want to get ahead of himself in sketching out the events to come but things were undeniably different between them now, more promising than they'd ever been.

When he finally pulled into an empty space in the parking lot, he was dazed. He ran his hand over his face with a yawn to try and wake himself up, elbow resting on the steering wheel. He was already tired, the reality of tour life catching up to him finally, but he had slept so lightly the night before, had seen every outcome possible of the next few days in his head, had dreamt of her face so intently that he'd felt hungover when he woke the next morning.

He climbed out of and locked the car, took a quick jog up to the front doors through the car park, then sighed with relief as he entered the arrival lounge, seeing that in place of the estimated time of arrival for her flight, the word arrived was flashing on the screen. With an awkward weave in and out of the small crowd, he took a space at the side, wanted to see her as soon as she stepped through the doors but hoped his position was inconspicuous enough to go relatively unnoticed. He blinked from behind his dark glasses each time someone wheeled their suitcase into the room, his palms sweaty with anticipation.

-

The walk from the plane to baggage claim didn't take her long, but it seemed that every other passenger got their luggage before she did. From there, Izzy walked the entire way, avoided the escalators because they only slowed her down and when she eventually saw the doors for the arrival lounge, it suddenly hit her full in the chest that she was about to see Alex.

There was something in the back of her mind which reminded her of the weight of this moment, of the thousand unscripted possibilities that were before them in this week and she knew that as soon as she saw him again, was able to reach out and touch him, as soon as he could reach out and touch her, that she'd inevitably fall deeply under his spell again, that his addictive energy and the ease he brought her would wash over her and leave her unable to resist him like never before.

As she stepped through the sliding doors, tugging her suitcase behind her, she frantically searched for him in the small crowd, tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear nervously, then turned her head to the side sharply when she head her own name in that unmistakable drawl, not quite a shout, but loud enough so that she could hear it.

"Izzeh..." he repeated with a tiny wave, waiting for her eyes to fall to him.

There he was.

The sharpness of his jaw, his defined cheek bones, the curve of his nose, his sheer presence knocked the air from her lungs and he smirked frustratingly as she quickened her pace towards him. He was wearing sunglasses, probably both as a defence so that he wouldn't be seen, and to maintain his effortlessly collected persona, a slightly unbuttoned baby blue shirt with the sleeves rolled high and tight black jeans which clung to his thighs. His hair had been preened and gelled perfectly. In his hands he held a sign scrawled in his handwriting, creased from where it had clearly been folded into his pocket. Isabella Mireia. It helped that she knew it was her name she was looking for and that she'd adjusted to the occasionally illegible scrawl of his writing by now, doubted anyone else in the room would be able to read it.