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.”