Too Good Girl

by Eleanor Lloyd-Jones

  He moved his mouth to my ear and began to hum a tune I’d never heard before, and I closed my eyes, losing myself in the deep throaty sound of his voice as he sang a story about a man overboard and in love with a girl he was dancing in the dark with. He sang about flares in the sky and searchlights that would never find him because he was lost and in love. We danced until the light of the sun began to show itself along the horizon, yellows and oranges painting the sky and making the ocean glisten like glass.

  He spun me around, lifting me flush against his body before pressing his forehead to mine. “We should probably get back before we’re seen.”

  I looked up at him again. “Why are we still hiding? I’m not obliged to tell the police anything.”

  He squinted in thought and then pressed his lips to the top of my head, wrapping his arms around my shoulder and pulling me into him. “To protect you from the shit storm that’s right around the corner.”

  “What shit storm?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go.”

  I felt the bubble burst as he dropped his arm and turned back to collect all of our belongings. “What shit storm? Are you not telling me something I should know?”

  He dropped to a crouch, shoving the blankets into the bag, and stacked plates and cups. “The police will want to find you because I smuggled you out when you were vulnerable.”

  “And?” I walked over to him, pulling my clothes on and helping him to pack up. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll tell them—”

  “No.”

  I frowned. “No? Why not?” I watched as his head dipped, a weary expression on his face. “What’s going on?” I dropped to the sand in front of him and placed my palms on his cool cheeks, lifting his head so I could look at him. “Jack?”

  He moved his eyes from one of mine to the other, his jaw ticking in a way that frightened me a little. “God, Syra. You have no idea what kind of man he is—what he’s capable of. If you talk to the police and give even a hint of what happened by accident, they will be on him like a swarm of bees, and I don’t even want to imagine what that would mean for you, for me, for us. I don’t want to put you in a position where you have to lie about what happened, but if the police sniff around Doug, he will do anything and everything to get rid of them, and he won’t care what happens to those he has to trample on in order to do so.”

  “So what do we do? Hide forever?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I’m trying to buy us a bit of time so we can decide what to do.”

  “Well I’ll lie. I’ll tell the police whatever I need to tell them and then we can get on with our lives.”

  Standing, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You shouldn’t have to lie. Those men did unthinkable things to you and they need to be locked up. I need some time to think.”

  “Jack. I’m a big girl. I can deal with this by myself. Let me talk to them. I promise, I can deal with it. I’ve dealt with enough shit in my life; I can deal with a bit more. Tell me about him.”

  He stopped and turned to face me. “It’s best you don’t know. The less you know, the less you can accidentally spill.” He pushed the boat to the water’s edge. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

  I sighed loudly and climbed in, wrapping my arms around myself against the wind that had dropped in temperature over the last hour or so. We rowed mostly in silence, the sun rising higher with each stroke of the oar, and when we finally arrived back at the fort and got ourselves settled back in, I broached the subject again.

  “There’s more to him than The Release and the car business, right?”

  Jack sat in the only armchair, and I curled myself on his lap. “So much more.”

  I frowned at him. There was something troubling him, something more than the night at the club and the worry of the police. “You’re scaring me a bit. Please. Tell—” My words were cut off by the sound of a chugging engine and the clanging of metal on metal.

  He jumped to his feet, nearly knocking me to the floor before pulling my back against him and shoving his hand over my mouth. “Shhh.” His breath in my hair sent shivers down my spine and I had to shoo away the newly awakened feelings he instilled in me in order to focus on the fact that someone was climbing the ladder to the fort.

  Syra

  Don’t Trust The Rain by The Land Below

  THE POLICE HAD been looking for us for days and reports of a small boat heading to the forts at sunrise had been brought to their attention, leading them where they were standing in front of us. They explained that concern for my safety had been raised by the hospital—a concern for my life since Jack had swiped me from under the nurses noses and hidden me away.

  They asked if I’d been taken against my will and if I wanted to press charges against him.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I frowned at both the officers and squeezed Jack’s hand discretely as we stood there side by side. “I wasn’t forced to do anything. No. I don’t want to press charges. And I don’t want to be questioned about the incident at The Release either.” I could feel him tense beside me, which in turn caused my shackles and defenses to rise.

  My responses didn’t seem to placate them very much. They were keen to talk to Jack anyway, and the female officer said she wanted to ask me more questions about a separate incident, one I automatically assumed was to do with my mother. We were asked to accompany them voluntarily to the station, and of course to avoid any trouble, we went quietly, leaving all of our hurriedly grabbed belongings in the fort.

  The journey back to shore was much faster than it had been the night before, the police boat slicing through the early morning waves like a knife through butter. Jack and I sat quietly, side by side, still hand in hand, with the wind in our hair and uncertainty crawling up our backs. I didn’t know how to process what was going on. I wasn’t sure if I should be scared, or if this was something that was going to go down as ‘character building’. However, when I looked at him and the way his eyes squinted against the sunlight, his jaw ticking rhythmically, I was convinced it was the former. He was worried, about what I wasn’t sure, but something was nagging at him, keeping him silent, making him squeeze my hand a little tighter each time I looked his way. I wanted to ask him what I needed to be prepared for, but I had a feeling nothing was going to prepare me for it and so I remained silent, breathing in the sea air and hoping to God he would protect me from whatever was going to be thrown our way.

  We arrived at the station after a short journey in a police car and were sent in different directions. Jack kissed me hard on the top of the head and pulled me to his chest with a strong arm before he was led away from me. He whispered ‘I love you’ into my hair and I swallowed down a ball of emotion.

  This was not okay. Something was terribly wrong.

  I was ushered gently into a small interview room by the young female officer. She asked me if I wanted a drink and brought me a glass of water when I requested one. My leg bounced under the table and I bit down on the nail of my thumb, every nerve standing on end in anticipation of what was about to ensue.

  Sitting opposite me, the woman smiled. She had kind eyes and I was momentarily reminded of Christine. I didn’t trust people easily, but I trusted Chris and I had a strange feeling I could trust this cop.

  She folded her hands together on top of the table and smiled. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded nervously, even though I wasn’t okay at all. I wanted Jack. I wanted to go home and I wanted to forget about everything that had happened.

  “You work at The Release, right?”

  Another nod.

  “Can you tell me how you know Doug Patterson, aside from working for him?”

  Jack’s words rang around my head: the less you know about him, the less you can spill accidentally.

  “He… he’s my landlord.”

  She smiled again. “And Jack? Jack Palmer? How do you know him?”

  I looked at my hands in my lap, not sure whether I wanted to answer
the question. My only experience with the police was what I’d seen on TV and in films. Was I allowed to say ‘no comment’? Did I need a lawyer?

  I cleared my throat. “He’s my friend.” My friend. My best friend. My only friend. But was he more than that now? At what point did the definition change?

  “And how long have you known him?”

  “About three years. What’s this about? If it’s about my overdose, then I don’t want to talk about it. It was a moment of weakness and I'd prefer to put the whole thing behind me.”

  “You and Jack live together. Is that right?”

  I blinked. “Did. He moved out.”

  “Okay. Can you tell me why?”

  I shrugged. This was getting personal and I was becoming more and more reluctant to answer her. “We had an argument.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s personal.”

  She smiled again. “And what does Jack do for work?”

  “Ask him.” My response was defensive and I knew it came across that way. I raised my eyes to the ceiling, wishing he was beside me to help me, to make sure I said the right things. “He works for Doug too. In his used car business. Can I go now?”

  “Your dad was Victor Johnson.”

  My heart stopped at the sound of his name coming from this stranger’s mouth and I kicked my head up. “Sorry?” What the hell did she know about my dad? Why was his name being brought up now? My lip trembled uncontrollably as I was forced to think about him, remember him—remember he was gone and that I’d been too late to do anything about it. “W-what’s my dad got to do with anything? Why am I even here? Where’s Jack?” I didn’t trust her anymore. She wasn’t trying to be kind at all, merely trying to glean information using whatever methods she deemed necessary.

  Pulling reams of notes from a manilla folder, she began shuffling through them, looking for specific details so it seemed. “Your father worked for Doug Patterson, too. Do you—”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  No I didn’t fucking know that. My expression must have given her the answer she needed because she didn’t wait for my reply. She continued to drag my heart from my chest with her relentless questions, ripping me apart all over again, forcing me to relive every second. “I’m guessing then that you didn’t know that your father also worked with a Mr Russel Palmer.”

  My eyes narrowed with confusion, a web of secrets weaving themselves around my muddled mind as I tried to fathom what it was she was trying to tell me, find out from me. Russell Palmer. Jack’s dad…

  “I’d like to go home.” My throat ached with unshed emotion, and I squeezed my hands into fists between my thighs as I eye-balled her, waiting for her to look at me.

  “I’d like to ask you one more question, if that’s okay?”

  “No. I want to go home. I don’t want to listen to anything else you have to say.”

  ***

  Leaning against the wall of the building opposite, I watched Jack push his way angrily out of the police station, jogging down the steps. He looked up and saw me and the second our eyes met, I ran. I ran towards him, flinging myself at him, and burying my head in the crook of his shoulder. His arms instinctively snaked around my waist, hauling me against him and lifting me off my feet, as I inhaled all of him into my lungs: his smell, his heat, his love. We were brand new, but the way we fit, the way we attracted one another and knew how to ‘be’ seemed as old as Earth itself, like we’d been loving each other since the beginning of time. He knew me. He knew all of me, and I knew him, even though there was a lifetime of discovery yet to be had.

  “Are you okay?” His words were gravelly in my ear and the sound of his voice ran like electric currents through my body. How was it I had missed him so much in such a short space of time when I’d spent the past three years trying to push him away.

  “Can we go home?”

  He lowered me to the floor his head bowed so his lips were hovering near my face. I wanted to taste them, to capture them and lose myself in the way they felt against mine. He moved slowly, his hands cupping my head, his thumbs smoothing across my cheeks as he swallowed me whole with that look in his eyes that I’d tried to ignore for so long.

  God he was powerful and enigmatic. He was a gift to discover and I couldn’t believe I’d locked him out of my head and my heart for so long. I closed my eyes as he pressed his lips to mine in a gentle but protective kiss—a kiss that said he loved me, a kiss that said he’d missed me, but above all, a kiss that told me he would never ever let anything happen to me.

  We walked silently towards the coast road and down to the beach where we made our way home along the sand, the waves crashing to the right of us, the sea air whipping around us and the screeching of hungry, swooping gulls the soundtrack to the turmoil in my head. Jack held tightly to my hand as we made our way back to the house we shared, the house I wanted him back in.

  Everything had changed, was still changing, and I felt my world tilting, wobbling. I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go. He and I were tipping it one way towards what I was sure would be a journey of discovery and healing for me. However, this new information I’d been given was antagonistic, rolling the globe the other way and I had a feeling it had the power to completely knock me off, leaving me flailing and careening and worse off than I’d ever been.

  I wondered then if Jack would have the strength to save me one final time.

  We arrived back at the house and I clung to his arm as he unlocked the door. I was cold and tired, my body still not as strong as it had once been. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to lie in my bed with him wrapped around me and shut out the world and all its goddamned secrets.

  He headed straight for the kitchen, filled the kettle and made us hot drinks and sandwiches. He grabbed blankets from upstairs and we sat wrapped in them and each other, cradling hot mugs of tea, falling into each other’s kisses, grazing each other’s skin with wet lips and teeth, with fingertips and breathy moans, speaking without words. For two hours we made love with open eyes and open hearts. Jack made me his own on our tatty sofa in our rented house with an unknown future laid haphazardly before us. He promised to love me forever with every thrust of his hips and every stroke of his tongue, and I cried his name with my voice and my tears, reciprocating every touch and every promise ten fold.

  Why had I waited so long?

  As the sun began to fall in the sky, with blankets draped over our legs and our bodies tangled together, I looked up into his ocean eyes and tried to read his troubled mind. I didn’t want to break the spell we’d cast, but we needed to talk. I needed to talk. I needed to ask him about the things I’d learned, and I needed him to tell me what the police had questioned him about.

  I lay my cheek on his chest, tracing invisible patterns along the muscles of his stomach, and I spoke.

  “What did they ask you?”

  Jack

  It’s About Time by Aleksander Denstad With

  I SHIFTED ONTO my back, staring at the ceiling like it would reveal the answers to the universe and tell me how to protect my girl. The hour I’d spent opposite the obnoxious copper had caused me to become defensive and argumentative, and I was lucky he’d let me go for the time being.

  They’d questioned me about my involvement with Doug, how I knew Syra and what my dad had to do with everything.

  They were sniffing.

  Something about the night at The Release had clearly sparked someone’s interest and they’d gone digging around in old files and now we were in the spotlight—exactly where I didn’t want us to be and exactly why I’d tried to hide us.

  What Syra didn’t know was that I knew the reasons why.

  I pulled her closer to me, her sexy little body naked against my skin, right where it was meant to be, right where I’d longed for it to be for months on end. She was finally by my side, making me feel good, taking what she needed from me and trusting me. Finally, s
he was trusting me with her heart and her head. I was yet to delve deep inside of her mind, but merely knowing she was willing to share all of herself with me caused me to breathe easy.

  That was until the police had shown up.

  It hadn’t surprised me of course. I knew they’d come eventually, but I hadn’t expected this. I’d kept Syra away from them to protect her from Doug. She could have let slip a barrage of secrets that would have had him at our door with threats and promises I wouldn’t have been able to protect her from.

  But now there was this, and it was just as bad. They’d got wind of something and the result would be the same, likely worse.

  I now needed to decide if she should find out from me, or if I should let her discover the truths about the past as the story unfolded. There was a slight possibility that the police wouldn’t uncover anything of any worth, but if they did, and I hadn’t told her, I feared that would be her undoing.

  “Jack?”

  I manoeuvred her body until she was lying flat along the length of mine—so I could look into her eyes as I spoke. She was so goddamn beautiful, and that sparkle in her eyes that flickered with fight and stubborn independence had my stomach flipping. I smoothed my hands down her cheeks and took her mouth with mine. She was soft and sweet, and I could have drowned in her a thousand times. She responded to me immediately, as if when connected like this, everything else fell away and didn’t matter. Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps we were meant to hide away from the world, locked together with love and lust and ignore the problems that whirled around our heads like vultures.

  Her breasts pressed against my chest, and I hardened against her stomach, my distraction tactics working like magic. I ran my fingertips down her back and grabbed the soft flesh of her perfect arse, pulling her further up so her hips were flush with mine. She was warm and already wet, and it was my undoing. I wanted to spend my whole life devouring her, learning her every curve and dimple, her every freckle and blemish. I flipped her over in one swift movement so I was smothering her with my body, encasing her, and slid inside her for the fourth time that day. I moved with urgent strokes, never once breaking eye contact with her. I whispered against her mouth that I would love her until my love ran dry and that I would never let her walk alone. I kissed her eyelids and the corner of her mouth. I swirled my tongue around her rose-coloured nipples, nipping and teasing them to the sound of her breathy moans and cries, sounds that I would spend every day for the rest of my life trying to envoke—sounds that were a symphony, an orchestra of violins to my ears.