Not A Temporary Love | Finley & Harlyn #1

Chapter 1

Finley

"Finley, we're here." Max's voice is somewhere to my left, but it doesn't completely register through my sleep fog. "Finley Bowers, how in the hell are you sleeping through this?" I blink my heavy eyelids open and look across the back seat of the taxi at Max's flabbergasted face. His glasses have slid partly down his slim nose, and his eyes are cut in half by the top of his frames.

"How in the hell are you so awake? You slept less on the plane than I did," I grumble at him, rubbing my eyes.

My mouth has that gross sleep film everywhere, and I'm trying to remember where I stuck my water bottle in the chaos of the airport when Max exclaims, "Finley! We're in England! I don't care how tired you are. You can't miss your first glimpses of Canterbury!"

I sit bolt upright, forcing my brain to process what it sees out my window. "Wait, we're here here?"

There's a chuckle from the front of the cab, and the driver says, "We're here alright."

I wipe fog from the inside of my window and stare at the scenery swishing past. We've been on the left side of the road since Heathrow, but we were mostly on a freeway. It didn't feel as real as being on a four lane road. It already feels so British, and I can't really put my finger on why. There are trees back home. There are grass medians, brown in January just as they are here. Maybe it's the left side of the road thing. Maybe it's all the brick buildings peeking through the greenery.

And then we hit a roundabout, and my whole body feels like we're on a roller coaster when we go around it left instead of right. I almost miss a glimpse of the city center that flashes past on one of the offshoots off the roundabout. My brain is trying to process so much information and visual stimulation that I have to remind myself that I have three months to take all of this in. I don't have to memorize it all right now. I let things wash over me slowly, my eyes drifting to whatever catches them first.

We whiz past an Aldi, and I do a double take. It's so familiar that it doesn't seem to fit. And then we're at another roundabout. My stomach swoops again as we maneuver clockwise.

"How many roundabouts are there in England?" Max grumbles. "We went through, like four on the freeway while you were asleep." He rakes a hand through his straight black hair that's already sticking up at odd angles. Nearly ten hours on a plane and almost an hour in the customs line did not do us any favors. And we haven't exactly had time to check a mirror. I wonder how bad my bedhead is.

"You lads are going to Christ Church, right?" the driver asks, glancing in the rearview mirror. We nod, and he points to a large glass building on the corner. "That's the university library. You'll probably spend a lot of time there."

I crane my neck to look as we swing all the way around another roundabout, but I don't get much more than a glimpse. More beautifully old brick buildings breeze past. Most of them are houses, but we pass a white washed pub kitty corner to an ancient looking church. I catch a street sign on the church wall - Old Dover Road. This is my road. This is where my host home is.

I sit forward to peer out the front window. This is going to be a bit of a trek into town. But the scenery is worth it. We pass another white washed pub, this one stucco, called The Phoenix. And then streets and streets full of brick houses. One row of townhouses - do they call them townhouses here? - start where the sidewalk ends, just three feet from the edge of the road. I try to imagine stepping off the street into my house, but I can't. They're not all like that. Some have actual driveways, with two tiny cars packed into them, set farther back from the road.

It already feels so small here. Compact. Squished. I haven't seen a car bigger than a four door yet, other than our taxi, of course. But even the taxi is somewhere between a minivan and a twelve passenger van. But it only sits six in the back. Is it considered a suburban? An SUV? I don't even know how to ask that. Why am I thinking about weird things like the size of cars?