In the Wind

by Lilliana Anderson

  With a chuckle, he took a hold of my foot and pressed his thumb into my aching arches. I almost moaned from the pleasure and instead just focused on his skilful hands, kneading at my feet.

  “I haven’t seen you at The Palms much this week.”

  Turning away, I watched Sam as he chased a little girl with the shark. “I’ve been tired from the early mornings, I guess. Just been vegging out at home watching movies.”

  “Anything I might like?”

  “Well, I watched Goonies like you suggested.”

  He grinned. “You like it?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t help but smile in return as his grin broadened.

  “See? I pick good movies.”

  “You do.”

  “Favourite part?”

  I thought for a moment. “The bone piano. That was really cool.”

  “I like that part too.” He gestured for me to switch feet, and I closed my eyes as his thumbs pushed away the aching on that side too. Bliss.

  “What about you? Have you watched ‘Night of the Living Dead’?”

  “I have.”

  “And?”

  “It was bloody awesome. I could see where all the current zombie shows and movies got their roots.”

  I grinned. I loved these conversations. “Favourite part?”

  He made a face that told me he had a few. Then he blew out his breath and said, “When Barbra was done in by the horde with her brother in it. The tension was great during that part.”

  “Yes! Or when Ben is trapped outside and has to fight his way back into the house with all the zombies closing in and Mr Cracker won’t let him in.”

  Luke nodded sagely. “I really hated that Cracker guy.”

  I laughed at the fierceness of his comment then turned as Sam ran up to us.

  “Hey dad? Can we get an ice cream?” He stopped short, looking at my foot on his father’s lap. I pulled it away quickly as if we were doing something wrong and slipped my feet back into my shoes.

  Luke looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “You want an ice cream?”

  “Only if I can buy this time.” With a smile, I stood up and Sam slipped his hand into mine, jumping along beside me and talking quickly about how high he could climb on the rope structure. I thought it was sweet and glanced at Luke who had a slightly funny expression on his face. I wondered if maybe I was doing the wrong the thing and waited for a moment until he was walking beside us. “Is this OK?” I asked, gesturing to Sam holding my hand and Luke nodded just as Sam reached out for his hand too then lifted his feet off the ground.

  “Weeeee!” he yelled as he swung between us, acting as though it was the most normal thing to do in the world. I loved every moment of it.

  ***

  “So, what movie should I watch next?” I asked in the train carriage on the way home. The rocking had caused Sam to drift off to sleep, and he was lying with his head resting on his dad’s lap in the seat opposite me.

  Luke had been watching the scenery flick past the window, his eyes vacant as he stroked his son’s blond hair soothingly. He had to blink a couple of times to focus on me, and it caused me to smile, I liked seeing him so relaxed. I liked seeing him with his guard down too. Normally, I saw him at work or in the water surfing. I never saw him completely at ease.

  “Um, well…I guess we could always watch one together? I’ve got Wednesday night off next week, and this little guy goes to bed around eight. You could come around if you like?”

  I tried to fight the smile that was pulling at my lips, I was ridiculously excited at the prospect of spending an evening with Luke. Watching a movie together wasn’t exactly anything monumental, but with my life feeling so out of control with my family and relationships, I was beyond happy that my friendship with Luke was becoming more of a prominent feature in my life. I needed someone like Luke in it. He accepted me exactly as I was, and I was completely comfortable around him. He was kind, understanding, easy to talk to, and easy to laugh with. He was everything a man should be; he was a gentleman.

  I loved how nervous he appeared while he awaited my answer. It was almost as if he worried he was overstepping some sort of invisible line; maybe he was…but it felt right. Spending time with Luke was quickly become my favourite thing in the world. Just being around him made everything that was wrong with my life feel OK.

  I allowed the threatening smile to overtake my lips and tilted my head slightly in question. “You want me to come to your house?”

  I swear I saw him blush before he dropped his eyes for a second. “Yeah – as friends of course.” My smile faltered as he met my eyes. “Or maybe…” he added quickly, before he ran his free hand over his messy brown hair and chuckled at himself. “Jesus, you can tell I don’t invite people around often.”

  “I’d love to come and watch a movie with you, Luke. I’ll even bring popcorn.”

  He released his breath. “Really?”

  I laughed. “Don’t look so shocked.”

  “No. I’m not…I just…” His eyes met mine. “I guess I’m just worried you’ll think I’m some creepy old guy who can’t make friends his own age. Not that I don’t have any friends – I do – I just…”

  My expression grew serious as I saw the concern in his green eyes and etched into his features as he muddled through his words. “I could never think that way about you, Luke. You’re probably my most favourite person in the world.” As a grin spread across his lips, his relief softened his expression. I loved being the reason Luke smiled. “Besides, it’s not like I’m that awesome at making friends within my age group. In case you haven’t heard or noticed, I’m not the most well liked person in Hargrave Cove. There are some pretty nasty rumours out there about me.”

  By the look on his face, I knew that he’d heard them. “People are threatened by things they don’t understand, Dawn. Don’t take it as a reflection on you, take it as a reflection on them.”

  I let out my breath slowly, and blinked quickly as my eyes pricked. I’d always acted as though the things they said didn’t affect me, but talking to Luke about it and having him understand brought out my real feelings over my situation. “It’s hard,” I whispered. “I try to act like it doesn’t bother me. But, I see the way people look at me, and I hear the whispers. It hurts, you know?”

  Reaching out, he took a hold of my hand. His touch was warm and comforting as he ran his thumb softly over the back of my palm. “Do you know why I work at The Palms?”

  I shrugged. “Because you need a job?”

  Pressing his lips together, he chuckled then sat back against his seat, his hand leaving mine as he ran his hand over his hair again. “That, and the fact the locals don’t go there. You might be too young to remember, but when my wife passed away there was some speculation as to whether it was an accident or not. Some people thought perhaps I’d done something to drive her away, or if there was something wrong with her mentally since Sam was still a baby when it happened. It was just a freak accident. I knew that. But the questioning looks and the whispers still pissed me off. These were people who’d known me since I was a kid, people I’d grown up with, people who were supposed to be my friends…” Frowning, he seemed to get lost in his memory for a moment, and I wanted to ask him what happened to her. At the same time, I didn’t want to interrupt him or seem rude or pushy. It was the first time he’d ever broached the subject of his wife with me, and I knew that he just needed me to be quiet, and listen, and wait until he was ready. “I love Hargrave Cove,” he said finally. “I’ve spent almost all my entire life there. But, there are some real judgemental arseholes about, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know,” I whispered, and this time, I reached out and placed my hand on his. He seemed surprised for a moment as he looked at our joined hands. Then he met my eyes, and for whatever reason was behind it, we both laughed. Perhaps it was to release the tension because we’d become so serious, or perhaps it was just a relief to finally address the topics we never spoke about.

&nbs
p; I released his hand and sat back in my seat as we fell quiet. “I like spending time with you, Luke,” I said suddenly, the compliment falling from my lips before I’d had a chance to consider the implications. I simply had a need to let him know.

  In response, he smiled and met my eyes. A tension seemed to fill the air as our gazes locked, and I struggled to look away. It was something I hadn’t felt before, and I wondered if Luke was feeling it too. He didn’t look away either. I felt warm. I felt good. I touched my face as I felt the blush creep over my cheeks.

  “I like spending time with you too, Dawn.”

  I bit my lip to try and stop the resulting grin from taking over. That simple admission meant more than I cared to admit. It set my heart racing, and even though I knew it was probably silly, I began to entertain the thought of Luke and me becoming something more…

  “Is Dawn your girlfriend?” Sam’s sleepy voice cut through the air, asking the hard questions, as children tend to do.

  I saw conflicting emotions in Luke’s eyes as he quickly looked away from me as if we’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “No. I’m not,” I answered, feeling odd as everything I’d thought I was feeling soured at Luke’s reaction. It was so stupid of me to think he could possibly like me in that way. He was almost twice my age, and was simply being nice to me because he understood what it was like to have rumours make you feel like an outsider.

  Sam stretched his arms up and twisted so he was looking into his dad’s face. “You should ask her out, dad. She’s real good fun.”

  My heart leapt into my throat and I held my breath as I kept my eyes focused outside the window.

  “We’re just friends, mate. Dawn and me, we’re just friends.”

  Releasing my breath slowly, I ignored the plummeting feeling in my stomach and forced myself to glance at Luke and smile as he looked at me apologetically. Sam shrugged as if it made no difference to him then sat up and crossed his legs, holding his hand out to his dad. “Can I play your phone?”

  Seeming flustered, Luke handed over his iPhone. “Sorry about that,” he mouthed, his expression as uncomfortable as I was feeling in that moment.

  Holding up my hand, I waved the awkwardness away and shrugged my shoulders. “It’s fine.”

  We fell quiet, sitting there as if we had nothing to say to each other, which was so unusual for us. We stayed that way until the train pulled in to Hargrave Station. “Need a ride home?” Luke asked as we stepped out of the carriage.

  I shook my head. “I think I’d like to walk,” I said, even though my feet were still killing me.

  He looked at me strangely for a moment, and I smiled to hide my discomfort, looking away then down to Sam when he started swinging off his dad’s arm, bored.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along today, Sam. I had fun,” I told him.

  He rubbed his fingers under his nose as he squinted up at me. “Do you want my shark as a souvenir?” He held the plastic toy out to me. Moved, I shook my head.

  “It’s all yours, buddy.” Touching him lightly on the head, I lifted my gaze to Luke. “I guess, I’ll see you on the water. Thanks for today.” I turned to walk away but Luke caught me by the arm.

  He released me as soon as I faced him and shifted slightly on his feet as if he was warring with what he wanted to say. Running his hand over his stubbled chin, he took a breath to speak. “About that movie…”

  “It’s fine. Some other time perhaps?” I said with my voice as light as I could make it to hide my growing disappointment.

  “No. I still want to. Next week is good. I just…I was thinking.”

  “Yes?” I stepping closer.

  “How about you pick a movie, and I pick a movie? We can watch both.”

  With that simple suggestion, I felt about a hundred times lighter and my smile became genuine as I looked into his eyes. They were still troubled, but there was something else in there too, something that told me he was worried he’d upset me, something the told me he cared.

  “Sounds perfect,” I said softly. Then I kissed him on his cheek and left, smiling almost the whole walk home, even though my feet were aching like crazy.

  Luke was beautiful. Luke was kind. Luke made me smile.

  Luke was my friend.

  And really, with everything going on in both of our lives, that was exactly what we needed to be, because just being around him made me happy, and I had a feeling being around me made him happy too.

  15

  “Are you hiding from me?” Shea was sitting at the kitchen table when I came downstairs from my morning shower. Thankfully, I was dressed this time. I didn’t need a repeat of the whole robe incident from the week before. Frowning, I looked around and wondered how she got in. “Your mother. She was on her way out.”

  I paused, my brow knitting tighter. “Did she say where she was going?”

  Shea stood with a sigh and ran her fingertips along the table top as she moved toward me. “No. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Noa headed out around the same time.”

  “Do you think they’re together?”

  She shrugged and lifted her hand to take hold of a section of my hair before she lightly ran her fingers down it. “Makes sense, don’t you think?” Then without warning, she leaned in and kissed me. Quickly. Softly. It was more of a suck of my bottom lip than anything.

  Flinching, I frowned. “Don’t do that.” I didn’t need her messing with my head again. I didn’t want her filling my mind with her beliefs when I was trying so hard to keep a hold on mine.

  “I’ve missed you,” she countered, her hand moving up the skin of my arm as she moved to kiss me again.

  “Shea. Stop. I don’t want that.”

  She paused with her hand on my shoulder but didn’t move away. “Why? Because I’m a girl?”

  I glanced up at her clear blue eyes. “Yes. No. You…you confuse me.”

  “How?”

  “Because I’m not…I’m not…”

  “A lesbian?”

  I released my breath. “Yes. I like boys – men.”

  “You like Zeke?”

  Frowning, I nodded, at war with my feelings that seemed to be stretching in so many different directions. “I do like, Zeke. I look at him and…well, you know how I feel about him, and even other men, I see them and…”

  “And they interest you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it confuses you that I interest you too?”

  I nodded. She always seemed to know exactly what was going on inside my head. It was disconcerting. “Yes.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being interested or even experimenting with someone of the same sex. Do you remember the first day I met you, and we were talking about that philosopher Nietzsche?”

  “You said he wrote about people being capable of all kinds of love. And that sexuality was fluid.”

  She smiled and ran her fingers through my hair again. “That’s because it is. You don’t need to be defined by a label. You can have a preference, and for you, it’s obviously men. But every so often, you may find yourself attracted to a woman. It’s why monogamy doesn’t work. You never know what’s around the corner waiting for you.”

  Shea seemed so sure of everything she was telling me. And knowing that she had far more experience with sex and relationships than I ever did made it so much harder to argue with her. She spoke with a logic that was difficult to deny. It went against everything I believed in, everything I’d ever dreamed of, but still, it made sense because I was experiencing everything she kept talking about. I was finding myself attracted to more than one person at a time – Zeke, Shea and Luke… I didn’t understand it, and I certainly didn’t want to admit any of it out loud. For so long, my focus had been on winning Zeke’s heart. Then Shea came to town and filled my heart and mind with questions and confusion. I didn’t know which way I was supposed to be pointed anymore. I was like a compass without a magnetic pole to point at.

  She moved to kiss
me again. And again I pulled back. “I feel guilty,” I blurted.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m supposed to want Zeke. It’s what I’ve wanted all my life.”

  She nodded, her expression understanding, and her voice a whisper when she spoke. “You can have us both.”

  I didn’t want that.

  I didn’t know what I wanted…

  “He…he wouldn’t want to do that.”

  She grinned and brought her mouth to mine, whispering against my lips. “If Zeke could have us both, he wouldn’t even flinch. Like all men, he’d simply say yes.” Then she kissed me. In my mind, I wanted to object to her words and her actions. I wanted to tell her that Zeke wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t be OK with her kissing me. He wouldn’t want us both.

  But deep down, I knew she was right, and deep down, I was happy she was kissing me, because deep down, I was enjoying it. I liked it.

  “Shea!”

  The spell was broken and I pulled away quickly, guiltily. Her name was being called from outside by Zeke.

  “It’s time to go up to the lookout for the hang gliding course. Will you meet us up there when were done? We can have a picnic or something, all three of us.” She touched my face lovingly, and I almost cried when I realised that I wished she was still kissing me.

  Pressing my lips together, I nodded and watched her leave, my head still feeling a little dizzy from the rush of her kiss. It was strange. I’d always thought kissing a girl would feel completely different to kissing a boy, but really it felt pretty much the same – lips and tongue. Not that I had that many boys I’d kissed to compare it to. It had only been with one of the Wannabes back in the days when I was trying to fit in. We were fifteen and he tried to grab my boob. So really, kissing Shea was better than that. But it wasn’t overly different.

  That part surprised me. Everything about my reaction to Shea surprised me.

  ***

  “Do you think we could talk?” Zeke looked uncomfortable when I’d arrived up at the lookout with our usual staples – fish and chips and a bottle of Jack.

  “Sure.” I glanced at Shea who smiled and took the canvas bag and picnic rug from me. Then I followed Zeke over to a large eucalypt that was bent awkwardly from growing for years against the sea winds.