madge had taught her the basics of knitting years ago, so lydia began casting on, looping the first stitches onto the knitting needle. the woman shook her head, tsking. "waste. of. energy," she said. she looked at jeremy and nodded with approval. "you've been taught properly."

"my grandmother was swedish," he answered, finally composing himself. lydia watched his nimble fingers weave the strand of yarn into a set of perfect loops, faster and more fluid than her own attempt.

"oh." the woman perked up and began speaking in what lydia presumed was swedish. jeremy held one hand up, fumbling to manage the first row of purl stitching that he had started.

"i don't speak swedish."

she frowned. "you americans, with your one language only." she rolled her eyes and then examined lydia's set of stitches. "good. now start with purls."

jeremy leaned back, crossed his legs at the ankles, and continued the rest of his row, his hands efficient and quick, the needles clicking in an almost melodious pattern that lydia admired.

"i may not know many languages, but i do know how to say 'i'm so sorry, i thought you were a woman' in thai."

in spite of herself, lydia began laughing. the woman didn't seem to quite get it. was she really sitting here in a knitting shop in the middle of reykjavik, with jeremy besting her at stitching? playing hooky from the office to boot?

who cared. she was the boss now, right? the sham of it all made her loosen up and laugh.

"mike-uh sorry, matt-er michael bournham..." lydia couldn't bring herself to just refer to him as mike, the casualness of it too much, chipping away at her outrage. "mike" made it seem possible that there was an opportunity with mike that she'd thought had been there with matt, and that was now gone forever, destroyed by the ceo of her company, destroyed by her own unwillingness to listen to him that day he'd come to her. sending an emissary wasn't going to make anything change and so whatever role mike...matt...asshole-whatever you wanted to call him-thought jeremy could serve, it just wasn't going to happen.

the comfort, though, of seeing a friendly face, of having a fingerhold on a part of her life back home, was something that stuck in her throat, a cautious, appreciative feeling that made the foreignness of this monumental change in her life just a little easier to bear. even if it came with some sort of price. what was michael bournham going to try to extract from her now? he'd taken, and given, so much. nothing in her life came without an exchange and so, here came a third party, jeremy, the click clack click of his knitting needles a steady, thrumming sound, like a bizarre heartbeat that lulled her as she made her way through the purl stitches and then switched over for a knit stitch.

the calmness, the peace, of wool on metal, of breaths and of movements, singularly focused on this little piece of fiber being turned into a work of wearable art, whatever it may end up being-a sock, a scarf, a sweater, a blanket. energy and focus poured into these motions that took her out of her panic, took her out of her alienation, took her out of her surprise and indignation and so many negative emotions that had filled her life lately. sitting here with jeremy, with this knitting instructor, surrounded by balls of color, she felt more aware and more at rest than she'd felt in weeks.

"your gauge is off," jeremy announced. she looked up, taken out of her own little world, and turned to find him leaning forward, peering around the arm of the rocking chair she sat in. she held up the four rows she'd managed to knit and asked, "what's gauge?"

the old woman pursed her lips and shook her head.

if you had told him, even a week ago, that he would be sitting in reykjavik, iceland, in a little wooden rocking chair, his knees practically up to his nose, knitting away while some old icelandic woman clucked her tongue and explained the popcorn stitch for the thousandth time while lydia stared at him with a look of incredulity that would make anyone cringe, he wouldn't have believed it.

if, on the other hand, you had told him that right now he'd be sitting on a beach in bali or thailand or vietnam hung over, coming down off some godforsaken local drug that no one had heard of in the united states and that he'd be sticky and covered in goo of undetermined origin on parts of his body best left unmentionable...that?

that he'd believe.

what in the hell had he agreed to when mike had asked him to come here and take care of lydia? the directive had been ambiguous. he knew what mike didn't want: for lydia to get hurt. too late. that ship had sailed long ago, christened by and started up with a viral media blitz that had destroyed lives and careers, mike's most of all.

protecting lydia meant something entirely different, depending on how you chose to interpret it. was he supposed to make sure that no one knew she was the girl from the video? should he monitor her at work to make sure that she was being respected? was his job to follow her everywhere and essentially stalk her to make sure that no other guy got his hands on her? or (and this is the interpretation that he chose, mike be damned) did protecting lydia mean softening the hard shell that she'd slammed around her heart the second the video had gone public? did it mean showing her that she had value? that she was as amazing as some part of her knew she was? could it mean letting her get to know him and seeing if what he thought had a spark of mutuality might be able to grow?

most of all, did protecting lydia mean protecting himself and mike and the power that the potential for something greater than all three of them held?

it was a hell of a reach, taking mike's words and pulling them into that dimension. jeremy considered himself up to the challenge. whether he really was or not depended entirely on his own motivations. the more time he spent with lydia the more he understood why his old buddy had finally allowed himself to feel, to fall, to fulfill, and to falter, as he knew mike was likely shocked by the intensity of what real love felt like. a part of jeremy was jealous and wanted to touch that, not just to touch the woman who ignited that within mike, but to touch the essence of what it felt like to be that far gone in something with another person, so big that it enveloped you.

and made you forget the cameras.

jeremy had joked with mike and with himself about the sex tape, how lydia must have been one hell of a ride, to make him forget that he was being taped, that they were being catalogued by a hollywood team of cameras, all recording for a reality tv show that was anything but. the dose of raw emotion, of real sensuality, of two people stripped bare, literally and figuratively, was too much reality for most people. it made shells go up, it made souls crawl behind walls, it forced reckonings that too many people simply couldn't bear. and so, instead of taking it at face value and examining that tape for what it was, the media had to turn it into a joke, a never-ending loop of fucking that made its way around the world. played for titters and gasps and chuckles-and stripped of real meaning.

jeremy hadn't watched that tape over and over and over just to come up with his idea about diane and having her take responsibility for it. he'd watched it, too, with an eye for the authenticity in the way her fingers lingered on mike's skin. how mike's eyes rested on her shoulder just a little longer than you would think you'd need to, how the interplay between the two was like its own language, something he wished he could learn to speak and eventually become fluent in.

so as he sat here, needles clicking, tongues clucking, and lydia staring him down, he knew that just being-his butt resting against a hard wooden chair that could barely contain his long form, his eyes focused on a piece of dyed wool and his breath even and steady as he knitted and purled, and knitted and purled-that this was how he would protect lydia.

just by being here.

thirteen euros, three hours and one ragged scarf later, lydia and jeremy left the knitting shop, her head pounding from caffeine deprivation but her heart warm and calm, filled with wonder and questions at what his presence meant. he certainly hadn't come to iceland to learn how to create a scraggly piece of knitting. she knew michael bournham had sent him, but beyond that she didn't know the significance.

it was time to take the reins here and become the leader. jeremy didn't seem to want that role, forcing lydia to accept it. she didn't really want it either, preferring instead to be led, not so much to be controlled but to be told why. why matt-no, mike-had done this. to be told why she was walking down a stone sidewalk toward her favorite reykjavik cafe. to be told why she'd been skyrocketed up the corporate ladder and at the same time shunted aside.

to be told the truth.

from the look on his face, though, jeremy wasn't going to give her any satisfaction. cagey, like a big yellow lab with a ninja standing behind it, he was one thing on the surface and all stealth underneath. what she needed to understand was what the stealth meant, because decoding jeremy was going to be about as easy as reading a hieroglyph. he seemed to have cultivated this affable, lazy, world traveler image, and the knitting episode raised her hackles. it was a bit too...something. the word escaped her. too cute. too kitschy. too campy to be real.

a tiny sliver of her wished that it were, that he had come to iceland for her and not on mike's behalf. she was starting to think of matt as mike, after hearing jeremy refer to him so many times that way, and it felt wrong. it felt co-opted. he wasn't mike to her. he was matt. and if he wasn't matt-and make no mistake, he wasn't matt-then he was michael bournham. that she had fallen in love with mr. playboy ceo in disguise was enough to make her decide that it was time to be the bitch in charge.

seated across a small table in the sun on that favored rooftop garden, a triple latte in front of her, helping the headache to recede, she let her face go completely slack, leaned over and took both of jeremy's hands in hers, his fingers so long and strong she wanted to close her eyes and just feel them. licking her lips, she held herself at bay. this wasn't about jeremy. this wasn't about the feel of a man for the first time since she'd touched mike. this wasn't about her, even.

this was about finally getting some answers.

jeremy maintained a look of expectation, mild bemusement reflected in those warm eyes. "yes?" he asked, a tiny smile pinching his lips. he looked down at their hands and looked back up at her, wiggling his eyebrows. she squeezed, her fingers closing over his, and as she squeezed harder and harder, his face began to melt from bemusement to abject confusion and then to a mild shock.

her fingernails dug in, not hard, not enough to hurt him, but enough to make a point as she opened her mouth and said, "tell me the truth jeremy, because i am about to let go, and if you haven't started by then, i am standing up and walking out of here." she glanced at her coffee. "and i am completely done with you and michael bournham's world."

oh, fuck, he thought, her hands an amusing pressure against his, squeezing tighter and tighter, but only to transmit some sort of message that her eyes kept hidden. "then why are you sitting here across from me"-he leaned back in the chair and spread his arms out wide-"on this beautiful rooftop in the middle of iceland?"