Free One Day (A Valentine Short Story) by Samantha Young

shower. I can’t turn up all sweaty and icky. Ahh!” I rushed by her, thundering upstairs.
    “You’ll make it!” she cried up after me. “You have to bloody make it! I’m invested in this now! If you don’t make it, I’ll kick your arse!”
    Since she was a black belt in Taekwondo, I had no doubt Shona could do just that.
    I’d never showered faster in my life.
    ***
    The whole way up to Fort William I had to coach myself to stop speeding. Every now and then my foot would take on a life of its own and I’d check the speedometer on Shona’s Golf and see I was ten miles above the limit.
    My brain was whirring the entire time.
    I kept lecturing myself about how mad this all was, and then my heart would tell my head to fuck off as it remembered the way Liam had made me feel. One day. Just one day. But he had made me feel more interesting, more at peace, and more safe than anyone I’d ever met.
    And the sex.
    “Oh the sex,” I moaned, just remembering.
    I had gotten through many a vibrator-induced orgasm remembering the details of that night over the past few months.
    And his letter!
    My God, how romantic was that?
    But Lola… I had a mind to kill Lola! I could understand my editor refusing to pass on a message to me because he was crusty old git who was extremely pissed off at me for leaving the magazine. But Lola! She could have just sent me Liam’s letter rather than waiting until publication day. The day I was supposed to bloody well meet him! For all she knew we met in a pub in Istan-fucking-bul!
    “Advice columnists,” I huffed. “All about the drama.”
    Gravel kicked up under the wheels of Shona’s car as I whizzed into the car park at the pub at five minutes to three. Not wanting to look like I’d dashed up to Fort William like a maniac, I got out of the car with a casualness I did not feel. In fact I very much felt like a little girl at Disney World. Like one who had spotted her favorite Disney Princess but whose mother wouldn’t let go of her hand, so rather than running and throwing herself at the princess, she had to walk at the agonizingly sedate pace her mother had set.
    My legs felt a little wobbly as I walked in my low-heeled boots across the car park and into the cozy pub. I gave the bartender a tremulous smile as I walked into the barroom, and then swept the space for Liam.
    He wasn’t there.
    My heart fell.
    What the…?
    Glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner it read ten minutes to three.
    Okay.
    Shona’s car clock was fast. I was early.
    “Can I get you anything?” the bartender called to me.
    “Soda water and lime, please,” I said, needing to be completely sober for this moment.
    “Grab a seat, I’ll bring it over.”
    I nodded my thanks and took my shaking legs over to a table by a window that faced the car park. I wanted to be able to see Liam arriving so I could ready myself.
    That thought made me snort to myself.
    How could I possibly prepare myself?
    I smiled my thanks at the bartender as he put my drink on the table and left.
    Not only was I excited at the prospect of seeing Liam again I was also terrified. What if that one day we’d spent together had become so mythical that it didn’t live up to the actual reality of being with him?
    And if we did decide to be together, how were we going to work it all out? He lived outside Aberdeen. I lived in Glasgow.
    You could live anywhere.
    I tried to ignore that insistent thought. It would be insane to move to Aberdeenshire to be with a man I’d known a day.
    But you want to.
    I did.
    Oh hell, I was so screwed.
    “I hoped you’d come.”
    I froze, every little hair on my arm rising at the sound of his voice behind me. Turning to look, I stared up at Liam Brody as he walked around the table and took the seat opposite me. Those gorgeous green eyes of his never left my face as he did.
    My God, he was even more handsome than I remembered.
    “Christ, you’re beautiful,” he said softly. “I forgot just how