KIWI
act one, chapter five.

SOMEHOW OUR PLAN WORKS. We spend another night together which somehow is even more mind blowing than the first.

when we wake up it's less hectic as we both know that this will end at two this afternoon when I leave this hotel and this place that holds all our secrets now.

We spend the first hours awake with our bodies entwined with the sheets of the bed. We kiss, shower and do stuff that you wouldn't expect a twenty four hour hook up to do.

We order breakfast and sit in the hotel bathrobes watching some reruns of American sit-coms that we watch out of context. Like this is normal, a routine for us.

Then Paul somehow convinces me to go out — extend our temporary relationship beyond the borders of this hotel room. He appears in the doorway of my room changed in clothes that I can't help but feel fluttery at. Although this man could wear a potato sake and I'm convinced I'd still feel weak in the knees.

And like all of our fellow celebrities, we both hide all our distinctive features with glasses and hats. Sitting in some cafe in Brooklyn drinking coffee and munching on an overpriced pastry.

Laughing like we're just normal people, he'd grab my hand and lift it up to his lips, and I smile because I like this. I like being a date for the morning. He has his camera on him, taking photos of anything and everything.

We walk through Central Park, and after about five minutes it's turned from walking side to side like people normally to my body to being slung under Paul's arm and he's pressing kisses to my bare cheek and side of my head. It feels oddly coupley and I'm oddly not repulsed by it...the opposite even.

He holds my hand, his thumb rubbing the skin of the back of my palm. We talk like we haven't known each other forty eight hours. Like we've been together for a while. 

We find a billboard of me for some campaign I did months ago and he insists on taking a photo of me under it — I give in after a few times of trying to move on from it and being pulled back by him.

People look at us oddly on why exactly we find it so amusing, but I don't really care what other people think.

And then we go back to the hotel, lying to mutual friends when they ask if we went out together. Both lying that we're in our hotel rooms and the people they saw were in fact our doppelgängers.

He walks me back to the hotel room and then that's that ( although now I'm not entirely sure I want it to be) .

" nice weekend." he says and I nod, as I lie against my door. Hoping he'll make an excuse to come back inside — plead on his knees in this hallway that he has to see me again. But he doesn't, he stands there with that smile, thinking with the same optimism that neither of us will verbalise.

" if you're ever in London.." I trail off and he smiles before scooping my cheek in his hand,

A wicked smile curves on the corners of his lips "oh yeah, you'll definitely be getting a visit from me."

I exhale " my possible one great love." I joke as he gently laughs " I'll tell the future man I'm in a loveless marriage with about you."

We don't exchange numbers, but he tells me that he can't promise he won't ask Florence for it when he lands back in Ireland.

I laugh and then he leans in. This kiss is softer than the other and so clear it's meant to act like a goodbye, my arms wrapped around him. And I eventually decide I have to let him go, but his kiss isn't a goodbye- not really.

because when he leaves I decide I want another one. And another, and another. Even catching him at the elevator doors, as he hums " this isn't part of your plan,"

And I hum " fuck my plan." Against his lips.

But soon he's gone. And the little New York love affair slips away as I trudge back to my room. Opening the door and the only reminder of our relationship is the dirty plates that sit on the room service trolley that are yet to be taken away.

ELLIE SPEAKS🪄
a shorter chapter to wrap up the New York aspect of this book!!! but either way I love them !!!