by Sienna Blake
My fingers brushed against his as he helped me onto the back of his motorcycle, the engine rumbling beneath me. He got on. I wrapped my arms tentatively around his waist, unsure of myself, unsure of how close I could get before I’d gone too far.
Darren twisted his head around so I could hear him. “Tighter.”
I adjusted myself on the seat and snuggled in closer, squeezing my arms more firmly around him. My chest pressed against his back and my heart skipped. His leather jacket smelled faintly of oil and pine as I rested my head against it.
“We have to lean as one,” he shouted back at me as he turned on the headlight. “It might feel like you’re falling when I take a tight curve and your body might want to fight against it. But don’t fight it.” His eyes again met mine, a strike of lightning, here then gone.
“Don’t fight it.”
I managed only a nod and we were off.
The glare of city lights soon turned into the twinkle of stars, the shimmer of moonlight off a stream, and the magical illumination of fresh snow atop firs as we followed the signs for the Dublin Mountains. The wind whipped cruelly at my cheeks just like Darren promised it would. My fingers were frozen just like he said they would be. And I was quite certain that my coat was splattered with mud kicked up by the back tyre just like he warned it might.
But I never wanted it to end.
The asphalt was like an icy black river that disappeared beneath us as Darren revved the engine and we flew faster and faster into the night. With my arms around him and the motorcycle rumbling beneath me and my breath hot against Darren’s leather jacket, I felt powerful and wild and free.
When Darren finally pulled off to an overlook of Dublin, my heart was racing and my eyes were wide and clear. Darren killed the engine and climbed off the bike before reaching out a hand to help me.
My legs were shaky and I stumbled into his arms.
“Woah, woah,” Darren cooed, tugging off his helmet so he could see me better. “You alright?”
“Yes,” I answered immediately, holding onto his strong biceps to steady myself as I grinned. “Yes, I’m fantastic. I’m incredible. I’m—I’m—”
I leaned my head back suddenly and shouted over the city in the distance, “I’m alive!”
Darren laughed and the sound was glorious.
My mother would have scolded me for making such an unnecessary ruckus. “You’ll disturb your father,” she would have chastised in a low hiss with her thin, bony finger wagging at me. “You must keep quiet, Kayleigh. You must always keep quiet no matter what.”
“I’m alive and loud!” I shouted again, grinning from ear to ear.
Darren surprised me by also leaning back his head and shouting, “And very dirty!”
I chuckled as I swatted playfully at Darren’s chest. “Hey!”
Darren’s only response was to removed my helmet and gently wipe his glove over my cheek and show me the smear of mud as evidence. I looked down at my clothes and chuckled when I realised I was filthy.
Shouting as loud as I could to the sea of stars up above me, I added with joy in my thundering heart, “I am alive and loud and very dirty!”
Darren craned his neck and shouted at the top of his lungs, “And very, very beautiful!”
Darren waited with his eyes facing the stars till the echo of his dangerous, dangerous words faded over the rolling hills illuminated in the moonlight. Then he slowly turned to look at me, his blue-grey eyes the colour of icicles under a full moon. There was dirt on his own cheeks that matched mine. I swallowed heavily, the silence between us filled with only the sound of the wind through the trees, and then tugged my mittens off one by one, dropping each to the cold earth beneath my boots.
The icy night nipped at my fingertips, but I didn’t care as I stretched my hand up to wipe a thumb across the mud splattering the skin beneath Darren’s eyes. “You have a bit of dirt right here.”
Despite the bone-chilling cold, his skin felt warm beneath my touch as I continued to trace the sharp line of his cheekbone. Those stormy eyes stayed on mine. I ran my fingers across the mud on his cheek. “And here.” The stubble of his dark beard pricked my fingertips as I moved them along his strong jaw. “And…” My breath came in stuttering gasps as my fingers found their way to Darren’s lips.
He shifted closer when I smeared my thumb over them then felt them supple and soft beneath my quivering fingers. I wanted to write my name in the mud. I wanted to see my name on Darren, all over Darren. I wanted to unzip his dirtied leather jacket and write my name along his chest. I wanted to strip him naked right there on that mountain and write my name with mud over and over again on his thighs, his chest, the soles of each of his feet.
Darren’s hands ghosted along the sleeves of my coat so softly I wasn’t sure at first whether it was him or a swirling gust of wind. He moved his hand slowly to my cheek and I shivered.
“And you have a little bit of dirt right here,” he said.
My eyes fluttered closed and goose bumps travelled down my spine as Darren’s thumb ran along my cheekbone, as gently as if he was using a feather. I feared that all of this was just some fantastical dream. But I opened my lids and the trees were there and the lights of Dublin were there and Darren, complicated, sensitive, intriguing Darren was there.
“And?” I whispered.
Darren swallowed hard. “You have some on the tip of your nose.”
He traced his fingers along my face to my nose. “Got it,” Darren said, eyes finding mine.
“And?” I asked, doing everything in my power to keep my voice from shaking.
There in the cold our hearts each beat erratically, but together they created a rhythm that pounded faster and faster and faster.
Darren hesitated. “And…you might have a little near your mouth.”
I stepped a little closer to Darren, my knees feeling like they were going to buckle right there beneath me.
“Um, do you want to maybe get it for me?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the wind.
He lifted his hand and pressed his thumb to the corner of my lips. Slowly, ever so slowly, he dragged it across my bottom lip. I heard his sharp intake of breath over the thundering of my heart.
Then he was lowering his head closer and closer to mine. My eyes fluttered closed as I laid a hand against the beating of his heart, wanting this more than anything I’d ever wanted before in life.
But at the first taste of mud on his lips, I recoiled back. What was I doing?
Horror immediately painted Darren’s face. “Kayleigh, I’m—”
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s fine.”
My cheeks immediately flared red as I stepped away and dragged a hand through my hair with a shaky exhale. I pointed toward Dublin in the distance as I tried to catch my breath. “Um, the view, the view here is—it’s, um, amazing, isn’t it?” I stammered.
Behind me Darren’s voice was husky and thick. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should get you back?”
I nodded and avoided eye contact as Darren helped me back into my helmet.
I had the rest of the ride home to convince myself that I had done the right thing, that kissing Darren would have been a mistake, that cutting things off before they went too far was the only thing to do, the only way.
But by the time Darren turned onto my street, all I wanted was to go back to that moment atop the Dublin Mountains.
All I wanted was to taste the mud on his lips.
All I wanted to do was get dirty.
Darren
Christmas shoppers hurried this way and that around us in the busy Blanchardstown shopping centre. I stood silently next to Kayleigh with my hands stuffed in my pockets as she held up one pair of socks, frowned, and then held up the other. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” played forlornly over the store’s speakers. She then gave a curt nod, her white beanie slipping farther toward her eyes, and moved to put the first pair of socks back on the shelf only to hesitate, hold them back up, and then let h
er head flop back as she moaned in frustration.
“I can’t get Eoin socks for Christmas,” she grumbled irritably before shoving both pairs back into the messy pile.
Like a pack of vultures, five or six shoppers swooped into the sock section when Kayleigh marched off. I followed her out of the store and almost ran straight into her when she whirled around and threw her mittened hands up into the air.
“Why is this so difficult?” she asked in exasperation.
My continued silence as I stared down at her wide, searching eyes only made her more frustrated. Her hands balled into fists and she spun on her heel, stomping through the crowd laden with winter coats and red and green shopping bags. I easily kept up with the white fluffy ball bobbing atop Kayleigh’s head as I weaved in and out of the plastic trees sprayed with fake snow.
Kayleigh stopped at a kiosk of gift cards for everything from music and restaurants to shoe stores and sporting events.
“You’re the one who asked to come along,” she grumbled when she sensed me again beside her, still silent, my hands still stuffed into my pockets. “The least you could do is help.”
I watched her fingers skim over a row of brightly coloured pieces of plastic before plucking one up seemingly at random. She disappeared around the corner of the kiosk and I followed her to the register.
“Is this a good gift for a…?” she started to ask the woman before pausing. Kayleigh checked my distance from her and lowered her voice as she continued, “Is this a good gift for someone that you’re casually dating who is not your boyfriend, but who definitely thinks it’s more?”
I couldn’t help but grin at the fact that Kayleigh specified quite clearly that Eoin was not her boyfriend. Not even close.
The bored woman at the register glanced up momentarily from her cell phone to see the gift card. “He likes the opera?”
Kayleigh frowned. “Huh?”
The woman nodded toward the gift card in Kayleigh’s hand. “That’s for The Gaiety Theatre, hon.”
Kayleigh shouldered past me on her way to return the gift card to its place. We continued down through the mall, me following a pace or two behind and Kayleigh hurrying along as her head swivelled from side to side, searching store after store window.
She stopped next to a silver and gold tinsel-covered Christmas tree whose massive gold star stretched toward a glass-domed ceiling three stories up. Her wind-chapped cheeks speckled with freckles were as red as her vibrant braids when she turned around and crossed her still empty arms over her chest. “I’m supposed to be dating your brother, you know that, right?”
People mumbled irritably as they were forced to step around us smack dab in the middle of the flow of traffic, but neither of us seemed to care. I kept my face passive and undisturbed as Kayleigh glared up at me.
“Are you going to say anything, Darren?” she pressed, moving one step closer before realising this only brought her closer to me and instead taking two considerably larger steps backward. Her green eyes flashed with anger, yes. But with something more. And it was that something more that I wanted to see more of.
“Hello? Earth to Darren.”
Kayleigh seemed ready to burst. I not only didn’t say a word, but grinned just the teeniest, tiniest bit. She glanced to either side of her, and when she noticed the curious stares over steaming cups of hot cocoa and hushed whispers behind bags overflowing with tissue paper, she forced her voice to a harsh whisper as she leaned in toward me.
“Darren, what happened,” she stopped and then corrected herself, “almost happened, the other night on the mountain…that, that can’t hap—”
“Let’s go ice skating.”
My words caught her with her mouth open, eyes wide. She stammered for a moment and then shook her head. “What?”
“Ice skating,” I said with a smile while pointing to a sign with an arrow for a rink next to me. “Let’s go ice skating.”
Before Kayleigh had time to respond, I grabbed her mittened hand and pulled her along beside me through the crowd.
“Darren,” she hissed as I guided her to the small ticket counter outside the rink. “Darren, we really need to talk about—”
“Two for ice skating, please,” I said to a teenager with a black hoodie pulled over his head.
I fished my wallet out of my back pocket and handed my card over.
“Shoe sizes?” the kid asked as he ran my card.
“Kayleigh?” I glanced down at her to ask.
Kayleigh tried to tug me away from the counter, but I was as immovable as one of those firs in the Dublin Mountains. I turned my attention back to the teenager behind the counter. “We’ll need a size twelve and a size six, pl—”
“Five.”
I looked back down at Kayleigh. “What’s that?”
She ducked her eyes and kicked one toe of her boot against the other. “I’m a size five,” she mumbled into her scarf.
I bit back a grin. I took our skates and led Kayleigh into the rink with a hand at the small of her back. Inside, a peaked white roof sparkled with hundreds of strings of lights hung from wooden rafters. Lush green wreaths dotted with cranberries and pine cones and weaved with silver beads lined the walls. And in the centre of the rink, a grand tree stood, its trunk circled by a burgundy velvet couch.
I happened to catch the look of awe in Kayleigh’s sparkling eyes just before she noticed me watching and reaffixed a scowl to her soft pink lips. “Darren, we have to put a stop to all of th—”
“Sit.”
Not caring about the ice cold of the concrete around the rink, I knelt and patted my palm on the metal seat of a folding chair. Kayleigh remained unmoving as she looked down at me hesitantly.
“Sit, sit,” I insisted.
Kayleigh eyed me before lowering herself to the very edge of the seat with stiff shoulders and a tense back. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” started to play, mixing with the soundtrack of laughing children and skates scuffing on the ice. I unlaced Kayleigh’s petite white skates and then gently slipped off her boots. Her gaze on me softened just slightly as I tenderly held her ankle to guide her foot into the skate.
I felt her eyes on me as I tied the laces and then moved to put on my own skates. Wobbling slightly, I stood and held out a hand for Kayleigh.
“Ready?” I asked.
Kayleigh shook her head and answered, “No.”
And yet she laid her mittened hand in mine, squeezed her thumb around my palm, and followed me when I led. I opened the gate to the rink for her. Kayleigh pushed off on the ice and glided under the twinkling lights as effortlessly as if she were flying. It took her a moment or two to realise that I hadn’t managed to leave the safety of the railing. Kayleigh’s eyebrows disappeared into her red bangs when she finally saw my shaking knees, slipping skates, and white-knuckle grip as I struggled not to fall. Her skates scraped against the ice as she hurried back to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why aren’t you coming?”
I leaned more heavily against the railing as my skates wobbled. “I, er, don’t know how to skate.”
Kayleigh’s mouth dropped. “You don’t know how to skate?” she asked incredulously. “Are you serious?”
I nodded, trying to find my balance as I watched children surely no older than five twirling and racing around the tree in the centre of the rink.
“You really don’t know how to skate?” Kayleigh’s eyes looked quizzically over my trembling body as if trying to find the punchline to my lame joke.
“I really don’t know how,” I insisted. “I don’t think I’m very good at it.”
Kayleigh struggled to hold back laughter as she stared at me. “Darren, why in the world would you want to go ice skating if you don’t know how to skate?”
I managed something sort of resembling a shrug while my skates persisted in slipping and sliding outside my control. “Because I’m happy,” I said.
My answer clearly wasn’t what Kayleigh had been expecting, because
for a long time she couldn’t find a reply. Lovers skated hand in hand past us as Bing sang the final chorus of “White Christmas”.
In the weighty silence before the next song, Kayleigh reached out her hand to me. “Come on,” she said softly. “I’ll help you.”
It was my turn to lay my hand in hers, squeeze my thumb tightly around her palm, and follow, stumbling and cursing silently as she led. Just that simple touch of hers consumed me so wholly that I couldn’t recall the next song no matter how hard I tried. The only sound in my entire world was her gently spoken instructions as we made our way slowly around the rink.
“Am I leaning too heavily on you?” I asked as we started our second turn round the circle.
Kayleigh’s eyes found mine. “No,” she said. “I think I can handle it if you lean on me.”
She was clearly trying to communicate more, to say more. But in that instant, with my focus not fixed on my feet, my skates bumped into one another and I slipped backwards, dragging Kayleigh down with me. I landed on the ice. She landed on my chest. I blinked up at the strings of colourful lights as my head throbbed and the cold of the ice seeped through my coat and jeans.
“Are you alright?” Kayleigh asked, hands holding each side of my face in concern.
Grinning from ear to ear, I laid my hands over hers. “What are you going to get me for Christmas?” I asked.
Kayleigh laughed, and I realised I was never happier than when I was making her laugh.
“I think you hit your head pretty hard,” she said, eyes searching mine, probably for signs of a concussion.
“Do you know?”
Kayleigh smiled down at me and did not move her hands away from my face. “Know what?” she asked.
“Know what you’re getting me as a gift for Christmas?” I repeated with a grin.
Her eyes flashed mischievously. “No idea,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow, ass frozen, head aching. “No?”
Kayleigh tried to hold back her grin. “Nope.”
“Not even the faintest idea?” I prodded as I started to run my fingers softly over hers, still warm against my cheeks.
