the fire between us

chapter 3

 "who am I sitting next to?" I ask, "we don't have assigned seats this time" "alright" you look for you seat and you find it, and you get comfy, "hey" I look up to see martinus, "hey" "this is my seat" he remove my bag from his seat, "how is that even possible" "someone asked me to switch" "right" "just because we had a moment I still don't like you" I blinked in surprise at Martinus's words, feeling the familiar sting of his cold demeanor.

 Any warmth I thought I'd seen in him during the elevator incident seemed to vanish as quickly as it had appeared. "Well," I replied, trying to keep my tone light despite the tension simmering beneath, "just because you don't like me doesn't mean you get to sit here and ruin my flight." Martinus smirked, settling into the seat next to me with that infuriatingly confident look on his face. "Relax," he said, buckling his seatbelt. "I'm not here to ruin your flight. Just enjoying the coincidence of sitting next to my favorite person." I rolled my eyes, exasperated but not surprised. "Right. Because sitting next to you is exactly how I wanted to spend the next few hours." "Hey, it's not like I planned this," he replied, leaning back casually. "But you know what they say—fate works in mysterious ways." "More like misfortune," I muttered under my breath, crossing my arms as the plane began to taxi. 

Typical Martinus—always ready with a snarky comment, always making everything into a joke. Despite the chaos of the last day, he still found a way to get under my skin. It was almost impressive, in a twisted kind of way. As the plane lifted off, I turned to look out the window, hoping to lose myself in the view and ignore the fact that Martinus was sitting way too close for my liking. But of course, he wouldn't let me off that easy. 

"You really freaked out in that elevator, huh?" he said, his voice low but laced with just enough mockery to rile me up. I snapped my head back to face him. "And you were just the picture of calm?" I shot back, narrowing my eyes. "Give me a break."

 He shrugged, unbothered by my irritation. "Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. But at least I wasn't the one practically hyperventilating." "Unbelievable," I muttered, turning back to the window.

 "You really are insufferable, you know that?" He didn't respond immediately, and for a moment, I thought he might actually let the conversation die. But then I heard him chuckle, low and almost amused. "You say that like it's a bad thing." I ignored him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reply. 

The rest of the flight passed in relative silence, though I could feel his presence beside me like a constant, irritating itch. Every now and then, I'd catch him glancing at me out of the corner of my eye, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it. When we finally landed and began to disembark, I couldn't get off the plane fast enough.

 As I grabbed my bag and started down the aisle, I felt Martinus close behind me, his footsteps annoyingly in sync with mine.

 "You know," he said casually as we stepped into the terminal, "for someone who doesn't like me, you sure do pay a lot of attention to what I do." I stopped in my tracks, spinning around to face him. "Maybe that's because you make it impossible to ignore you," I shot back, my patience finally wearing thin. "And trust me, if I could, I would." He smirked, clearly enjoying my frustration.

 "Well, it's good to know I'm making an impact."Before I could respond, Marcus and Nora appeared, their arrival cutting through the tension like a knife. "Hey, you two," Marcus said, oblivious to the brewing storm between us. "Ready to grab our bags?" "Absolutely," I said quickly, grateful for the distraction.

 I turned on my heel and marched ahead, determined to put as much distance between myself and Martinus as possible. As we made our way through the airport, I couldn't shake the irritation bubbling inside me. Martinus had a way of getting under my skin like no one else could, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to avoid it. But one thing was for sure—whatever fleeting moment of truce we might have had in that elevator was long gone. And I intended to keep it that way.