Under Control.

chapter sixty nine.

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Almost as if she's got something to prove — to herself, to Julian, to anyone who was peering in at them from outside the bubble that was their life — Nora wrangles her flight to Miami to coincide perfectly with the band's, who are on their way back to Britain. (Again.)

They spend the morning-of their leaving pottering around the apartment slowly, almost reverently, weighed down by the air of things they can't think of how best to say and the impending separation that is bearing down, too.

After they wake, slowly and with a hint of the bittersweet, they shower quickly together — for the last time in what will probably be a long time — and then while Nora is drying her hair and scouring her closet for something that'll take her from plane cabin to meeting room without thinking, Julian makes coffee, and tries not to spiral while she's out of his sight. He's pre-gaming going away by being calm while he still can manage it — while she's still just there, nearby, but not quite. But once she appears again — all fresh-faced and blazer-ed-up — he tugs her against him where he stands in their kitchen, her socked feet nudging into his on the chilly hardwood, her lips lazy and slow against his own, and he forces himself to forget and remember, both at once.

They'd packed their bags to go last night and it had been a very adult scene, altogether. They had laid their bags on the bed and twirled in awkward circles around each other in the bedroom, folding and tucking away and rolling and double-checking. And then, when they'd finished, they had set their luggage together to wait by the door, and ignored the sight of it for the rest of the night.

They'd cooked together, then sat and ate dinner in amiable silence before falling satiated and blurry onto the sofa. And it was there — under the flickering glow of the screen playing a movie that they both knew full well was never going to get watched — that they had feasted on each other and their tangled bodies, instead.

They took each other apart and put it all back together again, memorising the how of it — the sights and sounds and the feel of it, too. They revelled in the slow-burning inferno that was the weight of another cradled between arms and legs, and when they finished, they curled up together in their gradually disappearing peace. For the whole night until they couldn't chase away the tide of sleep any more, they had filled the apartment with panting breath, gasps and moans, and with the occasional laughter that came from the absurdity of it all — of sticky bodies and delirium, of missed kisses and stumbling, jelly-like legs.

Being together like they were had made it easier to forget that by tomorrow night (tonight), there'd be an ocean stretching between them once more. But there was no blurring the edges of it now, this morning, because as soon as their mugs were empty, they needed to go (and go, and go further).

'At least you've got a cell phone, this time,' Julian says, just before they make it to the door. He's looking at Nora with a shadow of a smile on his face, but his eyes are heavy, and not just in the way they always are.

'Yeah,' Nora nods and smiles back, daring to pinch tenderly at the side of his face where his dimple pokes out when he means the grin he's trying on. 'We can't both be luddites.'

She's teasing, but really, she doesn't mind that's he's so hesitant about making himself reachable. Because she gets it now, and in a way she didn't before.

Oddly, out of the two of them, Julian is better at small talk and especially with cab drivers. And so their ride to the airport is laden with sleepy chatter floating between the front seat and the back, and for that, Nora is glad. Because Julian being distracted gives her some time to indulge in the sound of him, all buttery tones and nervous giggles, and to look at him, too. So she watches and she listens, and she tries to set her mind at ease. And even though she mostly fails, by the time they reach the drop-off, Nora has at least figured out how to seem okay, even if she's not.

Once they're inside, she traces the constellations of his errant freckles while they wait and all the while, Julian talks. He's rambling on and on, just killing the silence so that nothing out of their control can creep in, and Nora doesn't mind. She lets him go, smiles and nods, and studies the messy waves in his fluffy hair — hair that she'd washed last night and so was floaty now, which she knows he hates.

Before they run out of time with it being just them, Nora finally talks back. She chatters for a while and talks about work, mostly just so that Julian has the chance to catch his breath, and all the while, he stares at her bitten-on lips.

She tells him about what she's doing once she lands, and while she does, he tucks a strand of her still-damp hair behind her ear and kisses her on the cheek. He likes the sound of her like this — ambling, on and on — and so even though he wants to kiss her more, because he always wants to kiss her, he lets her mouth ramble and settles for stealing his lips across her temple instead, the corner of her moving lips, the tip of her nose, the juncture of her jaw, and the line of her neck.

Julian has his face nestled in Nora's nape when Fab arrives. He's right there, his lips pressed against the steady thrum of her pulse while he revels in the feel of her — of her hands in his flyaway hair, her warm nose pressed against his chilly ear. And so neither of them see the drummer, not until he sits quietly beside them, leaving them to it until they're ready to emerge into the countdown that was waiting for them once they opened their eyes to the real world, again.

There's barely a beat between their silent goodbye and the nondescript chit-chat that blooms once they're back in it, with Fab. They just hold hands and talk, remember how to breathe, and then they wait — for everyone to arrive, and for Julian's flight to be called, before it's Nora's turn.

There's a flurry of hugs, hello and goodbye, as more and more bodies arrive. And then, while the clock keeps ticking down, all that's left just before they're forced apart again is another desperate clutch, a watery smile, and a see-you-soon kiss.

Nora watches Julian meander away, his shoulders slumped and his head turned down. And she doesn't expect him to turn around, because he never does — he's bad at looking backwards. But then, Nora is not his past. She just is. And so when he does glance back at her just before he disappears, Nora startles, then smiles, and catches herself off-guard with just how much she means it.

And Julian smiles back at her, his heart shining through his weary face, and then, before either of them can grasp onto what the unspoken thing is that's just slipped between them, Julian is gone.

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On the first night, they're both too tired to do anything much more than doze next to off-the-hook receivers, and mumble lovingly across oceans.

Julian calls first, while Nora is in the shower, and then he laughs later when she tells him that he was very nearly responsible for her untimely, slippery demise. But she calls him back just as soon as she's found her feet again, towel-clad and breathless, and sprawled across the bed.

She's staying with her boss while she's in Miami, even though technically neither her boss nor her boss's husband are home. It's just her, alone in a house that feels like a masochist put it together — all sharp edges and glass with too many polished things — with nothing but her thoughts about missing him to keep her warm at night.

Julian is in a room of his own, too. And when he tells her so, at first, Nora worries. Because Julian is strange when is comes to lonesomeness. He is a person who simultaneously loves being left to his own devices, but who is also, ultimately, terrible at it.

'It'll make more sense later,' he says, to soothe her worries, almost hinting at something more serious until he goes on. 'It'll make phone sex less awkward, anyway.'

Nora laughs at that, a rush of giggles blooming past her lips like sunshine, and the sound of having achieved such a feat and from so far away leaves Julian grinning dumbly down the phone.

'When has an audience ever stopped you?' 

Nora pokes back and earns a chuckle of her own from him with it. But beyond all of the easy warmth and sexy promises that sound sleepy for now, they both know that what they're doing is testing it all and each other, just to make sure that they still remember how to do this — how to be good, and loving — from so far away.

And they do.

For now, tonight, they do.

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Four.

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