PART EIGHTY NINE
*Aston’s POV*
“Please tell me you’ve packed,” Jess said to me, coming in the front door of the house after work. It was the night before we were leaving for Costa Rica and I could already sense just from seeing her face that she was going to be a bit stressed out about the trip.
“Just because you packed a week ago doesn’t mean I had to.”
“AST!” she shouted, “We’re leaving right away in the morning! You’ve got to do it tonight!”
“I will… I will!”
“Go do it now,” she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me towards the stairs.
“Hello to you too. How was work?” I said, grinning over at her.
“GO!”
I smirked one last time and then made my way to the stairs, taking them two at a time as I ran up to our room. Packing for Costa Rica was easy. It was going to be hot and sunny, which meant I just needed a few pairs of swim trunks, some vest tops, and my ray bans.
“Let’s see what you’ve got then,” Jess said, coming into our room to change from her work dress. She wandered over to my bag, ready to inspect it like a mother would a child.
“Worry about your own bag,” I scolded, throwing a hoody on top of my things and zipping it up.
“But…”
“Holidays are meant to be relaxing,” I told her, “Let’s not get stressed out.”
“I can’t help it,” Jess said, “I want it to be perfect.”
“I know you do,” I smiled, giving her a quick kiss, “And it will be.”
We had a quiet early night, making sure we had everything together for our time away. Jess kept fretting about work, sending off random emails on her phone. I was well excited that her phone wasn’t going to work in Costa Rica, and I was planning on making sure her laptop didn’t make it out of the house.
Awake at a reasonable hour the next morning, we made a simple breakfast, Jess going over our travel documents.
“Oh, before I forget,” she said, passing me a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Our itinerary.”
I stared down at the sheet of paper, our holiday planned out minute-by-minute in front of my eyes. It was color-coded and everything.
“What?” Jess asked me, “What’s that face.”
“Well,” I started, “We don’t really need this.”
“But…”
“In fact,” I added, ripping the page right down the middle and letting it fall to the kitchen floor.
“AST!”
“We’re going on holiday! Just play along! Do what you feel like doing in the moment.”
“But, we’ve got tours booked.”
“Fab,” I said, “We’ll figure out if we want to go once we get there.”
“But…”
“You might see this villa and decide you are not going to leave the deck all week because the view is that perfect. Or you could hate it and want to do these tours. Just go with the flow babe.”
“I might have an aneurism if I do that,” Jess muttered.
“Just go with the flow,” I repeated, “Now come on, car should be here soon.”
“Fine,” Jess sighed, throwing her papers into her bag. I was sure she had twelve more copies of her itinerary, and I was determined to rip all of them in half.
As Jess ran around the house making sure she had everything, I snuck over to her carry on bag, checking to see if her work laptop was in there. Sure enough it was, and as discreetly as I could I slipped it out, hiding it in a kitchen cabinet. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice until after we’d left the house and were well on our way to the airport.
“Car’s here!” I shouted through, grabbing Jess’ carry on bag and throwing it over my shoulder so she couldn’t look in it. I threw my backpack on and grabbed my suitcase, waiting by the front door.
“Got everything?” Jess asked, scanning through her purse.
“Yup, including your carry on, let’s go.”
Jess grabbed her suitcase and together we took the lift down the stairs and loaded our things up into the car. In a moment of inspiration I threw Jess’ carry on in the boot so she couldn’t see it.
At the airport we checked in and then headed for security.
“Make sure to take out laptops,” the security guard reminded us.
I grabbed out my MacBook and put it in a bin, cringing as I heard Jess behind me digging through her bag.
“Oh my god. Aston. Oh god.”
“What?” I asked turning to her.
“My work laptop is gone. Someone stole it.”
“I thought I told you not to bring it? This is a holiday. No work.”
“Well I packed it and it’s gone!” she said, clearly having a bit of a freak out.
“Relax,” I told her, throwing my bag on the conveyer belt, “I put it in the cabinet next to the fridge.”
“You what?!” she asked, just as I was beckoned to pass through the security line.
She followed after me with a massive scowl on her face. “What did you do?”
“I said I put your laptop in the cabinet by the fridge.”
“But…”
“You aren’t allowed to bring any work!” I told her, “And you totally tried to!”
“I can not believe you!!” she said shocked. She punched my arm, but I hardly felt it.
“Believe it baby,” I laughed, “Now relax, Jeremy has got things under control.”
We wandered up to the executive lounge to wait for our flight, Jess still in a strop about her laptop.
“I think I’m going to have to come up with a punishment for you, every time you mention work.”
“I won’t,” Jess said.
“Well maybe, just to be sure…”
“Whatever you’re thinking of a punishment I’m not doing it,” Jess said.
“You never make things easy,” I laughed.
We sat in the lounge for a good hour before our gate was called. We were flying first to Miami and then connecting down to Costa Rica, so with our long travel day in mind we opted to book more comfortable seats in business class.
Since we were flying against the time change it was hard for either of us to sleep on the way over the Atlantic. I put on my movie player, trying to get into a film as Jess read through a guidebook.
“Why are you obsessed with planning this trip?” I asked her.
“Just want to do everything, get the most of it.”
“Ok,” I sighed, flicking my TV screen off. “Hit me with it. What all do you want to do?”
“You could have read the itinerary,” Jess scolded.
“Whatever, tell me.”
“Well, I want to go to these waterfalls that are near the villa we are staying in. You can swim in them and jump off them.”
“Sounds cool,” I said.
“And I booked for us to go zip-lining in the rainforest already. I don’t care what you say, I’m doing that. You can sit in the car,” she smirked.
“That doesn’t seem like something you’d like,” I said. I didn’t think she’d be into adventure sports.
“It’s once in a lifetime.”
“I suppose.”
“And obviously I want to go to the beach,” she stated, “That’s a given.”
“Obviously,” I grinned.
“What do you want to do?”
“Whatever makes you happy,” I smiled, “And before you say it, I’m still not following your itinerary. Even if that’s what makes you happy. It’s the one thing I won’t do.”
“You do my head in,” Jess muttered, going back to her book.
I couldn’t help but grin at her, leaning over to put a kiss on her cheek and thinking that this might be the best trip ever.
PART NINETY
*Jess’ POV*
Costa Rica was lush.
It was hot and sunny and full of all sorts of gorgeous tropical plants. Just being there I felt my body instantly relaxing. There was nothing stressful about the place because the lifestyle was just so slow and relaxed. And it was too hot to be stressed.
After we landed, Aston and I collected our bags and then passed through customs and out to the car rental area.
“You sure you can drive this?” I muttered, eyeing up our car.
“Sure. What’s wrong with it?” Aston asked.
“It’s the other side of the road.”
“Babe I drive in LA every time I’m out there. I think I can handle this.”
“Are you sure?” I worried.
“I promise I got this,” Aston said, “Plus, it’s designed to get beat up.”
“Ok,” I sighed, climbing into the passenger seat. He’d gotten a jeep just to be careful, which was probably a good thing since I’d read lots of the roads in Costa Rica were gravel or dirt.
The first few miles were stressful. I wasn’t used to be in the passenger seat on the other side and I kept thinking we were going to hit something. Eventually I just had to close my eyes and take some deep breaths. Putting my faith in Aston.
We had to drive maybe two hours or so west to the beach, finally coming to a sleepy little village on the Pacific. It was full of mostly vacation villas, restaurants, a few clubs, and some other random stores. The village itself consisted of one giant square, and that was about it.
“Where do we go?” Aston asked.
“I’ve got an address for the rental office,” I said, “We go there and get our keys.”
“Brilliant,” Aston replied, taking my directions.
We received our keys and then jumped back in the car, heading to our villa. We’d opted for something small and simple, mostly because we agreed that we just didn’t need extra space. It was hard to find something that worked, but eventually we found a one bedroom on the water with a giant deck out back.
“This is it,” I told Aston as we pulled up to a short dirt drive.
“A bit remote.”
“It’s perfect,” I breathed out. We were maybe a mile out of town, and the paved road had quickly turned to gravel and then dirt.
Aston turned down the drive, parking the car outside the small cottage.
We left our bags in the car, going up to the front door and pushing the key in.
“Oh wow,” I breathed out, smiling at what I saw as the door swung open.
There was basically no point to the place having a front door. As we pushed the front door open all we saw was the bright blue of the ocean, a manicured lawn with palm trees and a hammock leading down to the water. The lower level had a kitchen to one side of the main hall entryway and a lounge that also had a dinning table to the other. The rest of it was a covered terrace area with comfortable looking chairs and a barbecue. I climbed up the stairs on the outside of the house, a huge open deck with sun loungers meeting my eyes. Off the deck was a door that led to a small entryway, a large airy bedroom to one side and a bathroom to the other.
“This is perfect,” Aston said, having a look in the bedroom. “I like how it looks right out at the water.”
“Me too,” I said, “This place is way better than the pictures.”
“Now how are you feeling about your silly itinerary?” Aston laughed.
“Shut up and get the bags,” I replied with an eye roll.
We ran down the stairs and out to the car to grab our bags, and then climbed in the car and headed back to town to buy some food at the store. With our own kitchen there was no reason to eat out every meal, so we made sure to stock up on all sorts of snacks and drinks, as well as things we could have for our meals.
“We’ve got that barbecue,” I reminded Aston as we looked at different meats.
“Oh good call,” he grinned, throwing in a few things to put on the grill.
Back at the villa we opted to test the barbecue out, making some rum punch and getting to work cooking. I put Aston on grill duty as I made a salad and got the rest of the meal together.
We ate out on the lower level terrace, the sun setting over the ocean as we did. I wandered around as it got darker, looking for some sort of light to switch on.
“There’s fairy lights hanging over the awning,” Aston said.
“Oh yeah,” I replied, finding the plug and sticking it in. Immediately the deck was set alight with little gold lights. “I actually love this,” I sighed, sitting back down.
Aston brought out his laptop, putting his iTunes on to something quiet and soothing and together we sat on the deck and sipped our rum drinks. It was maybe the most perfect night ever.
Feeling the jet lag we went to bed earlier than we usually would, taking turns in the cute little bathroom to get ready.
The bedroom itself was simple. A big queen-sized bed sat in the middle of the room and there was a small bureau and wardrobe. The best bit, though, were the big windows facing the ocean. While Aston was in the bathroom I pushed them all open, allowing the fresh breeze to blow into the room.
“I actually can’t think of anything more perfect,” Aston said, collapsing on to the bed.
“We need to stop using that word, perfect.”
“Its so hard though!” he laughed, “I mean I knew things about Costa Rica, but I guess I didn’t know how gorgeous it was actually going to be.”
“Well you should have done your research mister,” I replied, flicking the overhead light out and climbing in the bed beside him. A soft glow came into the room, the moonlight on the water. It was idyllic.
“Thanks for the Valentine’s gift,” Aston said, his hand finding my waist under the thin sheet we slept with.
“Thanks for being so understanding,” I replied. “You know I booked this because I felt bad I canceled on you all the time for work.”
“Yeah,” he replied, “I don’t really mind that though.”
“I know, but I do.”
“Well you’ve made a good effort recently,” Aston said, pulling me even closer to him. “That’s all I can really ask for.”
“Well I promise I’ll always try,” I said, yawning slightly.
“Just go to sleep babe, don’t worry about it,” Aston said, stroking my hair gently.
This action had me ridiculously relaxed, and before I could say another word I’d fallen into a deep sleep, Aston’s arms wrapped around me tight as the exotic breeze of Costa Rica blowing on us lightly.