Ablaze

Chapter 19

The weather forecast is high-tech to sci-fi quality, like everything else in Singapore. But Harris can do as good as the models. It's going to be either hot or a little hotter than hot. Thankfully, Ablaze picked a meticulously climate-controlled Cloud Forest Conservatory for their meeting.

He's looking at its humped glass silhouette while walking from his hotel with longing. It isn't just the heat that makes him hurry. The clouds overhead are growing darker with every passing second. The air thickens. A storm is gunning for Singapore.

Something like a dull needle pierces Harris's heart. Rain won't keep Ablaze away. She'll come, won't she? It's just rain. The needle doesn't dislodge itself. If someone told him a week ago she's going to marry Oliver, he wouldn't have believed it either. Now she is engaged. He's terrible at predicting her.

He enters the glass building built around a hollow mound and glances at the time. Damn. His answers will have to wait.

It's cooler inside, but misty, so he dabs more sweat off his face. Greenery feels the flowerbeds so tight, the glass walls are all but invisible. Maybe a gleam here and there, like in the alcoves for the benches. They're swarmed with the preschoolers in lime-green sun hats.

As pretty as this is, he marches past the flowerbeds, the trees and the preschoolers. Then he marches past the treetops, since Ablaze said she'd wait for him by the cave and the waterfall near the top of the structure.

Apart from the school groups, the tourists flow down the footpaths. They're like him. But also not like him. Despite the magic of the gardens and the biotech-miracle of a 100-feet waterfall, he's here only for the girl. Once she comes. Surely, she'll come.

The waterfall takes up the whole side of the artificial mountain. It fills the building with the stirring noise of rushing water. It's right there! It's everywhere. But to get to its source, the place where Ablaze said she'd be waiting, he has to finish a skywalk loop. Then he has to navigate a fake cavern. His pounding heart isn't a tribute to the designers—he's arrived.

A semicircular walkway high above the ground affords a marvelous view. Gallons and gallons of water run down the shaggy structure into a pool well below. It's a good location, because the noise will cover up their conversation.

All he needs is for her to show up.

Goosebumps rise on his neck, as if someone tickled him with a tuft of grass. He whirls around on a slip-safe walkway. His heart hitches for a split second.

All he needs is her. Ablaze. She came.

She appears out of the mist and tropical foliage. Her dress is simple beige linen, belted at the waist, with two pockets on the full skirt. Her hands are stuffed way deep into those pockets. She should be slouching because of it, but she isn't. There is a cutout pattern around the square collar, with a rough weave. And that's it.

Yet, she must have recognized him with his back to her, because a smile is curving her lips. Not a smile reserved for strangers. No, it's a glad smile. It's for him.

Harris closes the distance between them in two, three flying strides.

She yanks the sunglasses off her nose, to reveal a pair of shining eyes. No red tint in them today, just their natural light-brown. To Harris, it's the prettiest eye color there is. Her hair is knotted loosely, low at the back of her head.

He can't see if it's a messy bun or a ponytail, but he likes how it puffs up behind her ears. He loves everything about how she looks. Everything. He catches the hands she's already extending to him and squeezes them. They are lithe, but real. He didn't dream her up. Wouldn't have been able—for she is too perfect for his imagination to conjure.