What kind of bookshop has open on a Sunday? This one obviously
She is there on coincidence, browsing for a present
He is there on coincidence too, because, after all these years, he finally can browse without being noticed all too often.
Coincidence. Maybe that it was. Also, we all know that the universe is rarely so lazy.
He has basically retired. From time to time doing a thing here and there. Nothing too big, just something to fill up the need to act and to do something. The acting it's in his blood, in his bones, and knows he will do it till he falls into his grave.
Mostly he enjoys having Grandchildren now. That is his new role, and he found himself enjoying it -- sometimes too much.
She enjoys similar. Not Grandchildren, just children. Time has passed, it was about time probably. Family. That's her main project at the moment, aside many others.
Always restless, always the busy actress nevertheless. She asked him to come, a few years ago, to the big event, but he hadn't been available. He was doing a thing, and instead sent her a lovely little video message, telling her he would have loved to see her in that dress. That he loved her in general.
They both knew why he couldn't be there. And it had been okay.
It's good to see her again, not that they hadn't met a few times over the last five years. They just never had met in private, like this, on coincidence — in a bookshop.
They settle into a corner, each one of them a book in hand, and if it is only to keep their hands busy, and away from each other. The magic is still there, the highly praised chemistry, glowing around them. It never got tired of leaving them.
There is no chit-chat, no awkward talk about film projects. It is only them, being all too familiar with each other. She compliments his shirt, tells him he looks good, very good, for his age. The weather of Spain did an excellent job on him, and he tells her that she is glowing from the inside, more than ever. That he has cried like a kid, seeing her last film, so touched he had been by it.
"What are you reading?" she glances at the book in his hand, and he smirks at it, and then smiles at her — a little sad.
It's a throwback; she will remember, he is sure when he turns the cover showing her "Night Train to Lisbon".
“I haven’t read it for a while,” the tips of his long fingers, on one his golden ring, trail gently over the cover. “It gives me comfort.”
He had sent her a copy a few years ago, plain, without a big fuss. Just an envelope, postmarked in Spain.
On the inside, ‘for Jenna. Peter'.
Nothing more was needed. It had always been like this. They knew, they always had. A sentiment one hadn't to talk about too much. They were British after all. And Scottish.
They still remember as if it had been yesterday. And for some reason in their heads, it only had been yesterday. A memory burned so deep into their beings, that time had lost its meaning.
Her tongue in his mouth, tasting after the orange juice she had before they had gone to bed that evening.
She licks against his upper lip, teasingly, while his arms are around her waist holding her close, not ever wanting her to leave his lap.
Her legs around him, them sitting on the floor, the music still playing in the background. Bowie. Who else. It was always Bowie — with him. Always would be.
Once she had stood in a store, lost, and when she had looked down, there was a record of David Bowie. Not his latest, but the one with ‘Heroes' on it. She never really had been into Bowie, she couldn't say why. It was just not her thing. But the song was, and the record that sat there, probably for ages, waiting for her — in her mind, only for her. So she bought it — not even having a record player at home.
Two weeks later she bought one. After the record had leaned against the glass of the window in her study. Between pictures from filming, some awards, little fan drawings.
Hidden in plain sight.
Bowie. Peter. Heroes. She had heard him play the son