“No, no, everything’s fine. I just planned this trip at the last minute.” A bell tinkled from the other room. “Hey!” Hallbjorn exclaimed. “You’ve still got the wind chimes from that shop on Laugavegur!”
Aria carried the mugs of steaming tea into the family room. Hallbjorn was now stretched out on the couch, his long legs propped up on the ottoman. A tingly rush went through her as she settled next to him on the couch.
“So how’s your family?” Hallbjorn asked.
“A little messed up right now,” Aria admitted. She explained that her parents weren’t together anymore. “My dad and brother are celebrating the Winter Solstice upstate. Remember how we used to do that?”
Hallbjorn’s eyes lit up. “You hugged all those trees in the Hallormsstadarskogur! And you did that naked swim in Mr. Stefansson’s pond!”
Aria groaned—she’d blocked out that unfortunate incident. “Yeah, and my dad didn’t ask Mr. Stefansson beforehand. Thank goodness you showed up and explained everything to him.” Hallbjorn’s family lived only a mile away, and when Mr. Stefansson had appeared with a rifle, threatening to shoot the Montgomerys as they cavorted, Solstice-style, in the pond, Aria had quickly called Hallbjorn for help.
Hallbjorn removed the tea bag from his mug. “Remember how your dad tried to get Mr. Stefansson to participate in the Solstice ritual with him?”
“Oh God, yes.” Aria smacked her forehead. “Mr. Stefansson looked at him like he was crazy. My dad was like, ‘but Mr. Stefansson, you believe in huldufólk! Why can’t you believe in the Solstice, too?’”
“He’s very serious about his huldufólk beliefs,” Hallbjorn said. “Remember that shrine he built to them in the rocks?”
Aria giggled. Mr. Stefansson was convinced Icelandic elves lived at the back of his property. “He used to yell at us if we got too close to it.” She smiled at Hallbjorn.
Their eyes met for a long beat, the steam from their untouched mugs of tea swarming around their faces. Then Aria looked down at her lap. “I cried so hard when you went to Norway.”
“You could have visited me at school.” Hallbjorn touched Aria’s hand.
“I didn’t know if you wanted me to.” In fact, she had visited Norway with Ella a few months after Hallbjorn had left for boarding school, even passing through the little village where the school was. Ella had urged Aria to inquire about Hallbjorn at the school’s front desk, but Aria had been too shy and scared. What if Hallbjorn showed up to meet her with a girlfriend in tow? What if he laughed in her face?
“Of course I would have wanted you to.” Hallbjorn scooted a little closer to her. “I thought about you a lot when I was away.”
When she looked up again, Hallbjorn was staring at her intently. It felt so natural for them to pick up where they’d left off.
Aria smiled to herself. She’d thought what she needed was a quiet break to herself to get over Ezra and all the A drama, but maybe what she really needed was a new romance.
Chapter 5
Sexy Straddle
On Christmas morning, while everyone else was opening presents—or, in Byron, Meredith, and Mike’s case, frolicking with deer—Hallbjorn cooked Aria organic pancakes and tofu sausage for a Christmas breakfast. Then he decorated the cactus in the family room with various red items from the house—a mitten, a plastic spoon, a long ribbon he’d found in a drawer. “How did you know I wanted a Christmas tree?” Aria gasped.
Hallbjorn just grinned. “I just had a hunch.”
After that Aria had texted Merry Christmas to Emily and Spencer—Hanna was Jewish—and she and Hallbjorn made their way to South Street in Philadelphia. Once there, they skirted around giant snowdrifts that were already yellow with dog pee. The air was biting and crisp, and there was hardly anyone out except for a couple of hard-core joggers and a bunch of tourists with expensive cameras around their necks. The only establishments that were open were a few sex shops and a Walgreens pharmacy, which was already advertising 50 percent off Rudolph and Santa decorations.
“Look, this place sells hemp outerwear!” Aria pointed at a shuttered boutique with a giant marijuana leaf decal in the window. “That’s eco, right?”
“As long as it’s not made in a sweatshop.” Hallbjorn twisted his mouth. “You have to be very careful about organic and hemp fabrics.”
Aria nodded sagely, as if she’d known this all along. They’d spent the whole morning playing the green version of “I spy,” pointing out the vegetarian restaurants on South Street, the city’s many recycling bins, and the fact that some of the buses ran on natural gas. Hallbjorn had told her that he’d recently dedicated himself to saving the environment. He looked so sexy and earnest while talking about carbon emissions, and Aria found herself wanting to prove just how green she was, too.
“So what made you become so environmentally conscious, anyway?” Aria asked as they passed a vintage store she loved. “I don’t remember your being so committed when I was in Iceland.”
“I started becoming aware while I was in Norway, but I really got into it when I started university this year,” Hallbjorn admitted. “I joined an activist group that was trying to stop a big corporation from dumping their waste into the river near the school. A girl named Anja ran it. She set up some amazing protests.”
There was a wistful look on his face. “Was Anja . . . a girlfriend?” Aria asked, trying not to sound jealous or prying.
Hallbjorn stepped around a large blue parking meter that had a plastic Christmas wreath hanging from it. “Yes. But a month ago she joined a Greenpeace boat that attacks whalers off the coast of Japan. I wanted to go too, but she told me she needed to be alone.”
“I’m sorry about Anja,” Aria said as a passing car honked its horn to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” “I recently had my heart broken, too.”
“Really?” Hallbjorn raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
Aria told him some of the details about Ezra, leaving out that he’d been her teacher. “It really hurt when he left. I thought I’d never get over him. But he’s probably with a new girl by now.”
“Yes, that’s how I feel about Anja,” Hallbjorn said miserably. “She changed my life. Pushed me to do things I wouldn’t have dreamed of. And now . . . poof.” He cupped his palm under his chin and blew, miming a dandelion seed scattering in the wind. “Now she’s with a guy who, when not saving whales, chains himself to trees in the rainforest that are about to be bulldozed.”
Aria snickered. “He’s probably not that great. I bet he wets his sleeping bag every night.”
“Or perhaps he secretly eats endangered rainforest monkeys,” Hallbjorn said, playing along.
“Or he doesn’t recycle!”
“What can your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s flaw be?” Hallbjorn tapped his chin. “That she’s actually a man?”
Aria burst out laughing. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to read. Or maybe she’s incredibly hairy, even her butt!”
“Seriously, though,” Hallbjorn said, staring deep into her eyes. “We never had any of those problems. Everything with us was just so . . . easy.”
“I know,” Aria said, suddenly feeling shy. “We were such a good fit.”
Suddenly Hallbjorn froze on the sidewalk. His already pale skin turned even whiter, and he darted around a corner and dove into a small alleyway.
“Hallbjorn?” Aria followed him into the alcove. It smelled like rotting garbage and cigarette butts. A bunch of bicycle tires were propped up against the building. “What’s the matter?”
“Shh.” Hallbjorn pressed a hand over Aria’s mouth. His eyes shifted back and forth from the street corner to the traffic lights. A police car slowly rolled across the intersection. A woman walking a Great Dane passed by on the other side of the street.
Finally, Hallbjorn tiptoed out of the alley and looked around. The color had come back to his face, and he was breathing easier now.
“What was that all about?” Aria asked as she followed him.
“I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Someone . . . Icelandic? Or one of your family members from New York?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Hallbjorn took a few more steps down South Street, but then froze again. Aria gazed around to find what could possibly be spooking him. The two old people out for a stroll? The squirrel lurking by the pathetic little tree at the curb?
He ducked into an open door. Aria followed. It was dark and chilly inside the building, and the scent of essential oils made Aria dizzy. A waterfall burbled, and wind chimes clanged together in the window. DOUBLE MOON YOGA STUDIO, said a sign on the far wall. There were posters of lithe people in various poses all over the walls. Several pairs of shoes rested in square cubbies off to the left, and a few people calmly waited for a class to begin in a large, airy room to the right.
A girl wearing a Santa hat beamed at them from behind the front desk. “Namaste,” she said in a Zen-like voice. “Happy holidays. Are you here for the couples class?”
“Uh, yes,” Hallbjorn said. He glanced at Aria. “Is that okay?”
Aria stared at him crazily. They hadn’t discussed doing yoga. She pivoted and peered out the window again. What did he think he saw outside?
Then she realized Santa Hat had said couples class. Meaning sexy stretching . . . with Hallbjorn. “It’s totally okay,” she answered, plunging her hand into her wallet and plunking twenty dollars on the counter.
After changing into some clean sweats from the studio’s clothes exchange bin, Aria and Hallbjorn emerged from their respective dressing rooms. Hallbjorn looked much calmer, but Aria touched his arm anyway. “Are you okay? You were acting strange back there.”
“I’m fine,” Hallbjorn answered. “I was just a little stressed. Yoga always makes me feel better.”
They grabbed mats and walked into the practice room. The Santa hat–wearing girl who’d manned the front desk stood against the mirror in the front. A tall guy with a Jesus beard, droopy eyes, and wearing spandex leggings without a shirt joined her and turned to face Aria, Hallbjorn, and the two other couples in the room. “I’m glad you could all be with us today. This is a very special couples class, being that it’s on Christmas Day,” he said. “Lie down on the floor. Breathe in and out in the same rhythm. Feel as one.”
Hallbjorn dropped to his mat. Aria lay in corpse pose too, trying to ignore the fact that the mat kind of smelled like feet. She peeked at Hallbjorn next to her. His chest was rising up and down in an even cadence.
“This practice is all about being bound together in acceptance, unity, and love,” Santa Hat explained after they’d breathed for a few more minutes. “It will lead to being more open and productive as a couple. First, we’re going to do something called the double tree.”
