Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You weren’t usually the kind of woman to run away from her problems, but for once, you had an excellent excuse.

“Welcome to the Getaway Hotel,” the check-in girl said cheerfully. “What’s your reservation under?”

You cleared your throat and gave her your last name. She checked it and then handed you a little clipboard with information to sign and then a tiny envelope with two neat, crisp plastic key cards for your hotel room. You signed, but then the cards made you hesitate for a truly awful second. Two key cards. Meant for two people. And you were just one.

Because your scumbag boyfriend had cheated on you.

You coughed and shook yourself, accepting the card and thanking the girl again. She asked you to wait a moment while she finished entering the remaining info and you stood to one side, observing the lobby. Naturally, it was jam-packed with visitors. Made sense. It was the Bahamas, after all. People from all over regularly came here to relax or celebrate. You watched families drift by with laughing kids and old couples holding hands and delirious newlyweds whispering into each other’s ears as they walked towards the elevator. Bitterness spread over your tongue. A small part of you hated them for it. You wished you could siphon off some of that happiness for yourself to replace the vast, empty misery currently flowing through your veins.

You glanced away from the hotel visitors guiltily, and glanced in the direction of the bar.

And that was when you saw him.

A man stood towards the end of the bar closest to you, and you couldn’t do anything but stare at him at first. He was extremely tall, topping 6’3’’ easily if not taller, and had honey-blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and sunglasses. He didn’t have the typical tourist gear of a hideous tropical shirt and shorts; rather, he wore a white V-neck t-shirt and light jeans over sandals. While you couldn’t see his eyes, you somehow knew he was looking at you, and it sent a little shiver down your spine because he was absolutely gorgeous. He had a perfect square chin, broad shoulders, a wide, muscular chest, long, powerful forearms, washboard abs, and legs that stretched forever in that perfect parallel of a well-trained gym body. He had a little bowl of fruit in front of him, and bit into a peach. The juice ran down one side of his lips and he wiped it away with his thumb, sucking it off absently. Your stomach clenched. Wow. You envied whatever woman was lucky enough to be here with him.

The check-in girl chirped that everything was ready, so you nodded to her, picked up your small suitcase, and headed for the elevator. You tried not to sneak another look at the handsome stranger, but your eyes strayed to him one last time, and his head never moved, but you still had just an inkling he was looking at you too. Curious.

You’d splurged on a good room with a view since the whole purpose of this trip had been to forget, and an ocean view was an excellent distraction. The room was decorated in soft browns and light blues. The bed was large and comfortable. The bathroom was spacious and sparkling clean. Little goodies had been laid out for you like chocolates and soaps and body lotion. You even had a voucher for free snorkeling lessons this afternoon.

You dropped the suitcase at the foot of the bed and took a deep breath. You were hundreds of miles away from your life. Maybe, just maybe, you could find a bit of peace.

You snorted. “Fat chance.”

-

It wasn’t hard to distract yourself for most of the day. You weren’t completely into all of it, but you did allow yourself a bit of enjoyment as you went into town, took a tour, shopped at the nearest marketplace, had lunch, and then explored the beachfront that the hotel offered. Throughout the day, you held it together, but by sunset, you were sick of seeing couples holding hands and being disgustingly in love, so you retreated to a small, secluded area high above the beach to watch the sun sink below the horizon. You wrapped your arms around your knees and set your chin on them, trying to let the beauty of the colors clashing consume your thoughts, but all you could think about was how alone you felt right now.

Before you knew it, you were crying into your knees, unleashing the tidal wave of raw emotions that had been building up over the past couple of days. Hiccuping sobs made your shoulders hop and shake irregularly. You felt stupid and small and pathetic. You’d run over the scenario in your mind a thousand times and you still couldn’t come to grips with the man you thought you loved cheating on you.

“What’s his name?” a rumbling baritone voice with a British accent asked from beside you.

You jumped slightly and blinked through tears up to see a man standing there. He had two bottles of locally brewed beer in one large hand. As you wiped your eyes, you realized it was the handsome guy from the lobby.

“W-What?” you asked hoarsely, sniffling.

“What’s his name?” he repeated. “The bastard who made you cry.”

You frowned. “Why do I have to be crying over a guy? Can’t I just be having an existential crisis?”

“You could,” he agreed as he stared out at the sea below. “But the evidence shows otherwise.”

“Evidence?”

He propped his sunglasses on the top of his hair and glanced down at you with cornflower blue eyes. “You have bags under your eyes, which means you haven’t slept well. Your posture is awful. You twitch at every sound, as if expecting to see something else that will harm you. You make very little eye contact, which means you’re afraid that someone will look for too long and realize how miserable you are. You are dressed too conservatively to be someone who came here to get a tan and enjoy the beach.”

He paused. “And you are crying as if you have nothing left to live for. These are not the signs of one grieving for herself, but because a man has done something to her that she did not deserve.”

He then offered you one of the bottles. You stared at him. He stared at you.

Slowly, you reached up and accepted the bottle. “Why do you care?”

The man shrugged. “Shame to see a pretty girl crying alone on a beach. And you’re also dangling off a cliff. I’d hate to see you jump.”

You snorted as you popped the cap off. “I’m not gonna jump. He’s not worth it.”

“No,” the man said with a small smile. “He’s not. May I?”

He gestured beside you. You shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then sat. “So what did he do?”

“Cheated on me the day before our six month anniversary,” you muttered darkly. “Bastard.”

“Six months?” he repeated. “Bloody hell.”

“Yeah,” you said bitterly. “All that time, wasted. Just gone. Like it was nothing to him.”

“Did you catch him cheating?”

Your stomach knotted up. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t confront him.”

You glanced at him in shock. “How’d you know?”

“Women cry in different ways,” he said. “Yours are tears of frustration, not release, which means you saw but you have not done anything about it yet. You haven’t even broken up with him, have you?”

You chewed your lip, worried and scared that he could read you so well. “N-Not yet. I just…I wanted some time to think it through and not act irrationally.”

“What’s wrong with being irrational?”

“You can screw up your life if you do that.”

He studied you. “A man violated your trust, and you are concerned about being rational?”

Well. When he put it that way, it sounded rather silly. “It was six months.”

“Six months is not an eternity,” he said before taking a swig. “You can unlearn to love someone, you know.”

You winced. “I’m not sure I can.”

“Then what? You will crawl back to him? Spend the rest of your days wondering if he will do it again?”

You let out a frustrated noise. “I never said I would go back to him. I just wasn’t sure how to handle this.”

“You had enough clarity to leave the toxic environment that you were in. What is stopping you from texting the bastard right now and telling him to fuck off?”

You squeezed your knees. “I don’t like…confrontation. And what if he has a rebuttal? What if he somehow talks me into staying? Or what if he goes berserk or something? I just wanted time to think about how to handle it.”

“So you escaped,” he said, finishing his bottle. “Flew hundreds of miles away just to be free of him and to make a strategy.”

“Look, what are you getting at?” you demanded.

“I am simply trying to get you to realize that you have already made a decision.”

You eyed him. “What decision?”

He smiled, and the golden light from the sun illuminated it. You tried not to trace the lines of his cheekbones as he spoke. “Well, it’s no fun if I just tell you. You need to figure it out for yourself.”

You scowled. “How is any of this your problem?”

His eyes twinkled then. “It isn’t.”

You snorted and drained the bottle as well. “Uh-huh. You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

“I do.”

You shook your head. He was definitely full of himself. “What do you want?”

“What anyone in the Bahamas wants,” he said as he pushed to his feet. “A good time. The question is if that is what you want as well.”

“And you know all about that, don’t you?”

He grinned. “Aye.”

He held his hand out to you. You stared at him, listening to the waves crashing below, watching the last bits of sunlight drip down his tanned skin. You battled internally. On the one hand, the man was a total stranger. He could be a honey trap. Lure unsuspecting women somewhere and then do whatever to them. And yet…your gut said otherwise. Something about the curve of his smile and the sincerity in his voice. Something about his confidence and his sympathetic indignation at your situation. Something about those blue eyes.

“What’s your name?” you asked quietly.

“Thor,” he replied.

You arched an eyebrow. “Like the Norse god?”

“Aye, the very same.”

You took his hand and let him pull you to your feet. “Of course you are. Know where I can get a drink, son of Odin?”

He inclined his head towards the path leading back to civilization. “This way to a good time, my lady.”

Thor extended his elbow. You tried to stop a smile, but it was too late. His was infectious. You looped your hand through and settled it on his bicep, your voice a little timid, a little eager. “Lead the way.”