Kick Back

by K J

  “Well, good that she’s okay. I mean, not good for the team and her season.” Cam met Sophia’s eyes. “So, let’s see. Backpack, which I’m carrying so don’t argue, water bottles, snacks, and one buffed athlete who’s terrified of nature.” She grinned. “We’re set to go.” She spun away and marched up the path to the edge of the forest. Sophia broke into a jog to draw level.

  “I am not terrified of nature.”

  Their boots crunched on the gravel, but as the path led through the trees, the sound of their footsteps hushed, soaked up by the carpet of damp leaf litter.

  “It’s okay. All the trees are friendly, but I sent a preemptive memo, just in case.” Cam’s lips were desperately restraining her smile, and her eyes sparkled with wicked humour. Sophia shook her head.

  “You’re a smartarse.”

  “Thank you.”

  Conversation petered out, as Sophia became aware of the forest sounds. The hush-whisper, like tiny waves of air crashing high up in the canopy, was the backing track for the low-high calls of the whip birds, and the startlingly bossy shrieks of the sulphur-crested cockatoos. Sophia was convinced that, if she wanted to, she could hold great clumps of the cool eucalyptus-scented air.

  “This is actually amazing,” she said reverently. Cam turned her body so she could beam at Sophia.

  “It really is,” she said, just as quietly. The path narrowed some more, which meant they were walking in single file, and at a T-junction, Cam led them along a trail that curved deeper into the trees. Sophia glanced at the increase in raised roots across the path.

  “Watch out for the roots.”

  Cam paused, and faced Sophia. Her lips lifted in an easy half-smile.

  “You know, you’re very protective.” She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, and Sophia admired the smooth skin and muscle lines that were slowly being exposed.

  “I am?”

  “Absolutely. The team, especially the young players, the girls at the shelter, the girls who’ve left the shelter, like Magic and Pina, your dad’s friends Morrie and Giancarlo, in fact anyone who lands inside what you seem to regard as your personal circle of responsibility. It’s very much like being a superhero.”

  Sophia barked out a laugh, a foreign sound in their present location, so she looked up at the trees in apology. “I’m hardly a superhero. I’m too flawed for that.” Cam slipped the backpack off, pulled out a water bottle, and offered it to Sophia.

  “All superheroes are flawed. That’s the point.” A quick mouthful of water gave Sophia time to contemplate that idea, then she was lost as her eyes followed the droplet of moisture that ran down Cam’s chin, traversed the skin on her throat, and disappeared into the ‘V’ of her shirt. Oh. She lifted her gaze to find Cam staring at her, bottom lip tucked under her teeth, and eyebrows raised. Sophia’s face warmed.

  “What were we talking about?”

  Cam giggled. “Superheroes. Flawed ones.”

  “Right. One of my Ultimate Frisbee teammates calls me Captain Marvel.” Cam packed away the bottles and slung the bag over her shoulders. She looked Sophia up and down.

  “Okay. Yeah, I can see that.” She squinted. “Do your hands shoot,” she exploded her hands, palms up, “photon-y radiation stuff?”

  Sophia stared seriously at her own palms. “Don’t think so,” she said, then grinned at Cam. “Might make playing footy a bit difficult. They’d need so many balls to replace the ones I’d incinerate.”

  Cam laughed, and pushed her glasses up. “Well,” she tossed over her shoulder, “I’m standing by my flawed superhero theory when it comes to you.” And they continued up the trail, which became more narrow and steep as the next hour wore on. Sophia warily eyed the trunk of the tree they’d stopped at before she leaned her hand against it, an action that made Cam giggle.

  “What were you checking it for?”

  “I don’t know. Things.” Sophia scowled, and Cam handed her a muesli bar, still giggling as she tore open the plastic on hers.

  “Come on. You’re enjoying yourself, admit it.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief, and Sophia met her gaze, as she reached behind her head to tighten the low ponytail in her hair.

  “Yeah, okay. I’m managing to find this tolerable.” She raised an eyebrow, and all the beautiful sounds of the forest quietened, as the eye contact stretched between them like warm toffee. Mm. Little tingles. Cam was the first to blink, casting her gaze to the ground, as if suddenly fascinated by the ideas of leaves and tree roots.

  “Um…” She looked up. “Should we chat about the story today or leave it alone for the moment?” The question was clearly a deflection. Huh. Okay.

  “I told you about Dominic and Leigh yesterday, but I don’t know if you can use that, because I don’t know anything, and I’m probably being paranoid.”

  “You’re probably not, you know. It’s that superhero sixth sense thing.”

  Sophia huffed a quick laugh. “I’m getting a bit anxious about the article, though.”

  “Why?”

  She fiddled with the plastic wrapper. “I…I’m worried that…okay, hear me out. So, you write the article and it’s published somewhere. Then there’s unexpected interest in what’s been going on, real or surmised, and they shut down the league.” Cam screwed up her face in puzzlement, causing Sophia to toss her hands. “Some of these girls, Cam. This is the only thing they’ve got that’s amazing in their life. Look at Naomi. She’s a kid who slipped through the cracks of society.” Sophia breathed deeply, and stared at the tree trunk behind Cam’s head. “She got picked up by the shelter, and I mentored her with the sports program, then she turned out to be a gifted athlete who just wants to play footy.” She slid her gaze to Cam’s face. “I can’t let anyone take that away from them. Even you.”

  Cam folded her arms and sighed. “I get it. I really do.” She bobbed her head her head, the curls on the side brushing her cheek. “Let’s just keep working away at it. Maybe we can…I don’t know, wait until the end of the season.” She pulled her arms apart, and slid her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Although that seems a bit pointless. Nothing will get changed if there’s not football being played.” She scuffed at the dead leaves on the ground. “You know that this story could be my big chance as well, don’t you?” Sophia nodded slowly. “We’ll sort it out, okay?” Cam tipped her chin towards the leaf-littered track. “Come on. Up there is the spot where we leave the trail.”

  “What?”

  Chapter Ten

  Sophia’s brain was having stern words with her feet. The trail they’d been using for the last hour or so now looked like a super-highway compared to the non-existent path to her left, which was an awful lot of nothing much except green. Sure, a few trees, and some tall ferns, but essentially green, and more green. Yet obviously Cam recognised some sort of identifying signage suggesting that leaping into all that green right at that location was perfectly fine. She stared at Cam in confusion.

  “So, here’s where we leave the path.” Cam’s eyes sparkled.

  “Why?” asked Sophia in dismay, wrinkling her forehead. “Even Dorothy was told not to leave the path.”

  Cam giggled. “That was a road.” She bent down to adjust her shoelaces.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Sophia waved her hand about. “That’s…we’re clearly leaving a perfectly acceptable path for no good reason.” Cam straightened, flicked her head to shift some curls, then grinning at Sophia’s alarmed expression, grabbed her hand.

  “You know,” she said, as she pulled Sophia through the first stand of trees, “for a professional athlete, you’re a big baby.” Sophia growled.

  Cam let go of her hand after another few steps, which was disappointing, as it had been rather lovely curling her fingers around the outside edge of Cam’s palm. She could hear her brain chatting away. Do you like her or not? Make up your mind. You’re being ridiculous. When her brain finally flounced off in a huff, Sophia became aware of the sounds, or lack of, around them. The low-level ferns slap
ped wetly against their pants, and even that noise was muted by the heavy moss and dense foliage. It was like a recording studio with the most expensive soundproofing imaginable. The incredible gumtrees, bark hanging in great strips off the trunks and branches, spaced themselves out like poles on a ski run, as the ferns and rotting logs, smoothed over time, filled the area between.

  “Stop,” whispered Sophia, and Cam turned in alarm.

  “What?”

  “Listen.” She felt the smile widen on her lips. “There’s no sound.” A corresponding smile bloomed on Cam’s face. She took a step forward.

  “Yes, there is.” She closed her eyes, and Sophia let her gaze wander over Cam’s strong jawline as she tipped her head up slightly. “Can you hear the leaves? Listen for each one.” Sophia stilled her body, trying to catch the sound of leaves. You leaves aren’t being overly talkative, actually. “You’re not listening, Soph.” A yummy swoop, low in her belly, registered in response to the way Cam said her name. She shook her head. Focus. We’re leaf-listening. The next minute was spent listening to Cam’s breathing. Of course.

  “We should probably keep going.” Cam opened her eyes, and regarded Sophia for a long moment.

  “Okay.”

  After another fifteen minutes of trekking through temperate rainforest, as Sophia was reliably informed, Cam stopped them at an enormous gumtree, its trunk smooth, and bark scattered about the base like a skirt around its ankles. Sophia dropped her head back to see the top of it, and was overcome with a wave of dizziness, like reverse vertigo.

  “Woah. That’s a weird sensation.” She focused on Cam, who’d plonked the backpack on the ground, and had made her way over the bark, leaf litter, and ferns to spread her arms sideways across the tree trunk. She was clearly embracing the tree, but to encircle the diameter would have been impossible as the trunk was the width of a steroid-guzzling SUV, the kind that constantly threatened to use Flo as a speed bump. “What are you doing?”

  Cam twisted her head, so her cheek was pressed against the wood. “I’m thanking it.”

  Sophia hummed, and rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

  “Come here.” Cam lifted a hand off the tree, flipped it to emphasise her command, and after a moment of hesitation, Sophia stepped over more nature to join her. Cam pulled away and beamed, and Sophia couldn’t help her own smile forming in response. “Put your hands here.” Cam reached for Sophia’s hands, and pressed them into the tree. “I’m not going to make you hug it, because you and nature clearly have some commitment issues.” She laughed at Sophia’s side-eye, then stepped away, and tipped her head at the tree. “Go on.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what it was that she was supposed to do, so she pushed the heels of her hands into the trunk, and rested her fingertips lightly on the surface. She stared at the marks in the wood, which were extremely detailed at such close range, then looked over her shoulder at Cam who’d moved away a little.

  “Now close your eyes.”

  Sophia sighed. “Cam…”

  “Sophia…” Cam’s voice left little room for argument, so she turned to further contemplate the marks in the wood. “Close your eyes, Soph.”

  As she knew it would, shutting out the visuals of the forest heightened her other senses. She skated her fingertips across the wood, and realised it wasn’t as smooth as she’d thought. The bird sounds increased, like whole flocks had descended onto the trees around her. The aroma of damp earth and the outdoors filled her nostrils.

  “When I come here, I always thank the tree.” Cam’s easy-listening-radio voice filled the space. “I come here when I have no more room in my head.” Sophia slowed her breathing, as Cam’s commentary smoothed edges in her brain. “I come here when I need to remember that I’m part of something. This place makes me feel calm. It makes me feel balanced. If I have anxieties, I can let them go.”

  Sophia shuffled her fingers on the trunk, staring at the darkness on the inside of her eyelids. There was silence, and she realised she wasn’t ready for this moment to end.

  “I have anxiety.” The words fell out of Sophia’s mouth, and burrowed into the skin of the tree. She was entirely glad that her eyes were already closed, because they certainly would have been after that statement. Why was that necessary to share?

  “Okay.” Cam’s voice was non-committal. There was another moment of silence, and Sophia marvelled at how strong her need was to confide in the tree. Sure. The tree.

  “I don’t like to take risks.” She tightened her grip on the trunk. “Something bad always happens so I don’t.”

  “Does it?”

  “Does what?” Sophia leaned her forehead against her new companion.

  “Does something bad always happen?”

  “Um, no. But I make sure it doesn’t by not taking the risk.” This was mumbled into the wood, so she assumed Cam hadn’t heard a word of it.

  “This hike was a risk, wasn’t it?” Yep, she’d heard.

  “Yes,” she breathed, as if telling the tree a secret, and suddenly, everything felt incredibly intimate. Would it be weird if I lifted my chin and my lips caressed—

  “Do you take risks for other people?” Do I really want to kiss…?

  “I guess so. I’d do anything for Ben, Lin, the girls at the shelter, my team.”

  Cam hummed, and the orientation of her voice changed. “But you don’t take risks for yourself. Why did you agree to go on this hike, Soph?”

  Sophia rolled her forehead on the tree, letting it cradle her face. “I…I don’t know.” Silence reigned for a moment, and she followed the strange little sparkles that dotted the black behind her closed lids.

  “That frustrates you, doesn’t it? When you don’t know why?” God, she’s lovely to listen to. She felt tingles of arousal.

  Sophia slid her hands further along the trunk, relaxing her palms, as her body tensed. “A bit.”

  There was another beat of silence, then suddenly Cam’s breath tickled her ear. “That’s because you like control,” she whispered.

  Sophia gripped the tree as her skin shivered, literally from the soles of her feet all the way up to her scalp. Jesus. Christ. The tension snap arrived so quickly that it was breathtaking, and she found herself exhaling clumps of air, as the shiver rolled on, like thunder through her body.

  It was a very long moment before she could open her eyes, release her hands, and turn around, to find Cam, backpack slung over her shoulders, casually adjusting her glasses. Cam studied Sophia, her lips curved at the edges. “You okay?” Sophia blinked, unable to answer, and walked unsteadily over the piles of leaves and ferns. Cam smiled brightly, and brushed some curls away. “We’ve only got a bit to go, but you’ll need to follow my steps.” Then she turned, striding confidently through the underbrush, with a thoroughly bamboozled Sophia trailing behind. What the hell?

  Cam was true to her word. The ‘bit to go’ only seemed about another fifteen minutes through thick, more overgrown forest, when they suddenly popped out onto the flat surface of an enormous rocky outcrop. The valley disappeared into a blue-green eucalyptus haze below and in the distance the skyscrapers of Melbourne, like Lego creations, faded to a monochromatic grey. Sophia gasped.

  “This is incredible.”

  Cam grinned. “It really is.” She waved her hands back and forth at the sides of her head. “When stuff in here gets messy, I come up to this spot and suddenly it’s not messy anymore.” Sophia nodded, mouth turned down in thought, then pulled her phone from her pocket and pivoted slowly as the panoramic function of her camera did its job. She cast a quick glance at Cam, who was staring at the view, and snapped a photo of her, catching the moment when her lip was tugged gently under her teeth. So pretty…A little bit scary, but so pretty. A minute passed before Cam spoke. “We can sit for a while, if you like.”

  More snacks appeared from the backpack, and Sophia munched contentedly, her legs stretched out on the warm surface of the rock.

  “Am I allowed to ask what happened to your mum?
” Cam’s voice was small. “I just figured something happened because it seems like she’s not in your life.” She pursed her lips and glanced at Sophia.

  “Yeah, it’s okay to ask. She died in a car accident when I was fourteen.”

  “Oh, hon,” Cam whispered, and swept up Sophia’s hand, holding it between both of her own.

  “According to the results of the investigation, the truck driver had been using amphetamines, and couldn’t gauge his speed and braking distance, and he crashed straight into Mum’s car door. She died instantly.” Sophia stared at the city in the distance under its cloud of haze, and furiously blinked away tears. “Fucking drugs. It still hurts.” She sighed. “People always leave.” She was reluctant to drop her head to look Cam in the eye in case she made a comment regarding that last statement, so they sat for a moment holding hands, which felt incredibly lovely, and Sophia wanted to stay like this for a while. Then she did look at Cam. She wanted to look at this woman who was steadily creeping under her skin. She found eyes full of sympathy.

  “I’m sorry that she died. And then your dad as well. It…it just sucks.”

  Sophia dropped her head to stare at the blue-grey of the rock. “Yeah, it does.” With a gentle tug, she pulled her hand away and slipped both hands behind her head to take out the ponytail, smooth her hair, then create a more tightly bound version. “You’re ridiculously easy to talk to.” Cam’s chuckle filled their little space, and Sophia decided that she liked Cam’s laugh, even the small ones that only reached the air near her mouth. “What’s Cam short for?” She looked sideways, and Cam’s head rolled from side to side.