Riding on Air

by Maggie Gilbert

  William slid in beside me, buckled his seat belt, then turned the key and the old ute rumbled into life. He put the car in gear then glanced at me and frowned. Fear rose like a dark cloud to cloak me in foreboding. He’d changed his mind, remembered somewhere he had to be. Realised who he was wasting his time with. William put the car back in neutral and reached across me with his long arms. I sank in the seat, realising he was doing up my seat belt. For the first time in my entire 16 years I’d completely forgotten to do up my belt.

  William drew the belt across me, his head only inches from mine, eyes intent on sliding the metal buckle into the clip beside my hip. I was hyper-aware of him being so close to me. It was like I could feel his body heat radiating into the gap between us. I wanted so badly to reach out and thread my fingers into the dark hair curling against his neck, but I was too afraid. Kiss me again, William, so I know I wasn’t imagining it.

  The clip slid home with that familiar sharp, clean click but William gave it a tug as if he didn’t trust it. He paused, turning his head, his denim-blue eyes shifting to look calmly into mine. I gazed back at him, heart rate bumping up another 20 beats, wondering if he wanted to kiss me, wondering if he would.

  But he didn’t. Instead of making the most of our faces being a mere kissing distance apart, he gave me a crooked sort of half smile and reached for the gear stick. Then he put on his indicator and checked his mirrors, all very proper, and steered the ute out of the car park. As William pointed the ute towards the centre of town, I sat stiffly beside him and tried not to tie my brain into the same kind of knots as my stomach by worrying if I’d done something wrong, if that was why he hadn’t kissed me again. I hadn’t said much, maybe he thought I wasn’t glad to see him. But surely it was (and had always been) totally obvious how delighted I was just to be near him; I always felt as though I may as well be walking around carrying a billboard with “I love William” spelled out in flashing neon lights.

  I stole a glance at him, taking the opportunity to look my fill while he was focussed on the heavy after-school traffic heading along the highway. I looked at the untidy dark hair curling against the strong tanned column of his neck and realised by the length that he must be overdue for a haircut. I stared as the muscles in his arms swelled and contracted when he turned the steering wheel and had to drop my gaze abruptly when he turned towards me at a T-intersection to look for traffic in both directions. I stared at the faded blue jeans moulded to the curving muscle in his thigh and caught my lip in my teeth as his leg rose and fell when he worked the clutch. Again I almost had to swallow my heart at the surge of longing to touch him that raced through my blood stream. I tucked my hands into my pouch, determined to keep them safe from temptation, safe from getting hurt. If only my heart was so easy to insulate.

  “He seems a bit full of himself,” William said, watching Jinx snort and hump his back as he cantered past in the round yard.

  “Trot, Jinx,” I said firmly and Jinx hesitated, flicking his ear towards me, but then he gave another booming snort and kicked his hind legs in the air before bounding off again in a stiff-legged canter.

  I moved my whip hand across my body, holding it out like a barrier and took a step to the right, cutting Jinx off for his disobedience and turning him around in the opposite direction. He wheeled around and changed gaits down to a trot, but it was a head-high tail-waving trot that wasn’t doing a thing to settle him down or improve him gymnastically.

  I kept my whip low and my body position quiet, turning slowly to watch Jinx go round as I thought about what to do. I could go and get the lunge rope and the chambon so I had more contact and control and give riding him a miss, or I could just let him use up energy for a few more laps and then hop on. One thing I was sure of, I couldn’t do both. My hands hadn’t settled down after camp the way I’d hoped they would and there was no way they’d stand up to too much just yet.

  “He hasn’t had enough work,” I said, excusing Jinx’s behaviour. William, who was leaning on the rails to watch Jinx, lowered his head to look at me instead.

  “Got yourself a boyfriend or something?” he asked.

  I glanced at him, caught by something in his tone. He didn’t sound exactly light and jokey, almost as though he was asking me something.

  “Could be,” I hedged, unsure and floundering.

  I stepped in and turned Jinx back in the original direction, more for something to do than because he really needed to be turned yet. Jinx sat back on his hocks and moved off smartly in a good trot, back swinging, neck starting to lengthen and round down, stretching the ligaments and muscles along the top of his back and neck. His shiny black mane lifted away from the rich brown of his neck, rippling like an inky wave and I watched the black flash of his legs moving in rhythmic pairs. My heart settled and my cranky stomach smoothed out as I watched my horse begin to work properly around the yard. I put him through some quick transitions—walk-trot-canter-walk-trot—and he did it so obediently, so perfectly, that pride made me grin like a fool. I couldn’t believe this beautiful horse was mine. Mine to ride, to compete, to train. Mine to love.

  I remembered William and glanced quickly at him; an embarrassed flare of heat going off in my chest. He’d think me an idiot to be getting so soppy over my horse. William’s dark eyes met my gaze steadily. He looked back at me for a freakishly long beat.

  “I’d give anything for you to look at me like that,” he said. Almost before he’d finished the last word his eyebrows rose as if in surprise and he dropped his gaze and shrugged. He looked uncomfortable all of a sudden, as if his clothes were too tight or his body too big. I know that feeling so well from the inside, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that I recognised it when I saw it.

  “Like what?” I blurted, too astonished to censor my words the way I usually did.

  “Like you loved me more than anything else in the world.”

  William scuffed his boot into the grass beneath the lowest rail. Again, that awkward shrug, shoulders rising unevenly upwards, his hands dangling over the rail, stiffly motionless.

  Wow. Not for the first time, I was left floored by William’s ability to go beyond the usual lame teenage pick-up lines and come out with something so unexpected and honest it just about stole my breath away. Maybe it was because he was that little bit older than the guys I knew from my classes at school or maybe he was just more mature because he’d been working full time on his family’s farm since he left school in Year 10. It didn’t really surprise me that William had proved himself to be attentive, thoughtful and just all-round perfect boyfriend (gulp) material. I mean, I’d been watching him for ages and these were basically the reasons I’d fallen for him in the first place.

  Well, that and those divine blue eyes. And how when he looked at you and smiled it made you feel like the most beautiful girl in the world, even if you were just a tongue-tied 13-year-old, equally self-conscious about disappointingly late-budding boobs and all-too-rapidly swelling joints.

  I let my whip trail towards the ground and Jinx dropped back into walk. But for once I was focused on something other than my horse. It wouldn’t hurt him to walk for a bit. Even as inexperienced in these things as I was, I knew I couldn’t ignore the words William had thrown out there.

  “You must think I’m weird.”

  William laughed, one of those explosive ‘ha’ barks that sounds more like anger than humour. “I have lots of thoughts about you, but that you’re weird is definitely not one of them.”

  It was my turn to shrug and feel uncomfortable, although underneath that was a prickling thrill that tightened the skin on the back of my neck as I wondered just what those thoughts might be. I tried not to show any of this on my face as I pretended to watch Jinx walk around the yard and racked my brain over what to say next. Maybe I could just ask the obvious question.

  “So, er, what do you think of me? When you think of me. Not that I’m assuming you think of me. Or, not a lot at least. I mean, you said you thought of me.”
>
  William tilted his head and that slow grin emerged across his face.

  “You sound about as messed up as I feel.”

  I let out a nervous giggle and Jinx abruptly halted, tilting his head to eyeball me as if asking whether I meant for him to stop.

  “Sorry Jinx,” I muttered and lifted the whip to send him on again. I realised I’d totally lost track of how many times he’d gone around the yard in that direction and hastily stepped in to turn him. He swung around, pivoting on his hindquarters with a snort as though he was offended.

  Not that I really thought he was offended. That would be thinking my horse had a human brain, which was a really quick way to ruin your training. I hadn’t thought of my horse as a person in years, or not in any way related to my training with him. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a very definite personality.

  The distinctive clack of the round yard gate closing made me start and Jinx lifted his head, slowing down and trying to peer behind him. I quickly brought my attention back to him, stepping forward with my whip raised to send him confidently forward again.

  I heard the faint scrunch of boots in the loose sand of the round yard and turned my head to see William coming across the yard. While I’d been distracted by my boyfriend, my horse had gotten confused and now while I’d been distracted by my horse, my boyfriend had snuck up on me.

  Instantly sweat broke out on my neck as my temperature shot up a number of degrees. The whip handle rolled greasily in my swollen fingers. I instinctively tightened my grip then, with a bitten-off cry of pain, corrected myself so the whip dropped to the sand.

  “Shit,” I hissed in mingled annoyance, nervousness and pain.

  William bent to retrieve the whip and just as Jinx was slowing down again, his head swinging uncertainly, William stepped smartly up to my shoulder and raised the whip with purpose.

  “Trot on,” he said, voice low and firm. Jinx responded swiftly, surging forward into a lovely ground-covering trot. He stretched his neck down and snorted, not in an I’m-feeling-fresh way, just in that good, deep nostril-clearing way horses did when they were relaxing into their work.

  “Sorry,” William said. “I shouldn’t have come in and distracted him.”

  “You distracted me,” I said, putting my hand out for the whip.

  William flicked it idly at Jinx to keep him going then looked at me. As his dark blue eyes met mine I forgot to turn automatically with Jinx as he circled the yard and almost plaited my feet together. William’s free hand moved out to grip my arm and I righted myself, dizziness spinning my vision.

  “How do you do that?” I asked him

  “Do what?”

  “How do you know to grab my arms but never my hands? How do you know it’s safe to touch my elbows or my knees, yet be so careful with my shoulders? And you never, ever forget and grab my hands.”

  “I dunno,” he said, looking surprised.

  “You don’t even realise you’re doing it, do you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I flicked a glance at Jinx, still circling the yard obediently, although the ear he had cocked towards us proved he was still watching us. Then I looked back up at William.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I care about you. Of course I’m going to try not to hurt you.”

  My skin tingled.

  “Yes, but how do you know where I hurt and where I don’t? Even my best friends sometimes forget.”

  “I doubt they’ve been watching you like I have.”

  Watching me. Oh. My skin actually crawled, tightening up over my upper arms and along the back of my neck, my hair rising stiffly. He’d been watching me?

  “No way,” I said rapidly. “If you’d been watching me I’d know about it.”

  “Way. I’ve been watching you for ages.”

  “Don’t mess me around, Will,” I stammered, turning and taking a few steps away from him. “Whoa,” I said abruptly to Jinx, but he flicked his ear and scooted off as if I’d told him to go. I looked back over my shoulder and saw that William had trailed after me and Jinx had taken the whip he carried as a sign to move his butt.

  “Whip, please,” I said, then blushed horribly when I realised what I’d said. William raised his eyebrows suggestively and seemed about to say something, something cheeky no doubt, but then he looked closely at me and his face changed. He held the whip out, still staring at me when I took it and turned back to re-establish proper communications with my horse.

  “Why do you have such a hard time believing it?”

  My back resolutely to William, I shrugged. “Because it isn’t true,” I said, pleased that my voice sounded reasonably calm even though my throat had practically choked on disappointment and confusion. One minute he seemed so genuine, the next he was trying to bullshit me with a line. This was not what I’d expected of William. Not after the way he’d been treating me this past week.

  A week. Had it really been only a week? It seemed like so much longer.

  “And walk,” I said to Jinx, my body angled passively away, the whip held low. Jinx decided to believe me this time and slowed down obediently to walk. I gave a gentle swirl of the whip to make sure he was walking with energy, then I asked him to whoa again. Jinx stopped, stepping energetically right into his halt to finish with his hocks well under him and all four feet marking the corners of a square. Perfect.

  “Good boy,” I said, dropping the whip and going in to give him a pat. I turned him back into the centre of the round yard so he knew the session was done. It was a good way to end the workout and he definitely seemed calm enough to give me a good ride, now.

  “It is true, Melissa.”

  “Actually I know it isn’t.”

  “Yeah, how’s that?”

  “Because if it was true I’d know. I’d have caught you looking and I never have, not any of the times I—” I shut my mouth in a hurry, alarmed at how close I’d come to giving myself away. I reached for the reins looped around Jinx’s neck, but two big hands closed around my arms, stopping me in my tracks. Will turned me to face him.

  “Say it,” William urged, but I shook my head. I looked down, too afraid to meet his piercing gaze.

  “You mean, you would have seen me because you were watching me?”

  I drew a breath to lie, then couldn’t use it to form the words. William might be telling me bullshit, but I discovered there was no way I could do the same. And wasn’t there a part of me that was wishing, that had fingers and toes crossed, hoping that maybe he wasn’t full of it? Hoping he wasn’t throwing out a line and fishing for something flattering from me, but speaking a truth he’d been holding in his heart, just like I had.

  “Were you really? Because I know for a fact that I’ve been snatching looks at you as often as I could without your stepbrothers catching me at it. I knew they’d kick my butt if they caught me perving on you before you were sixteen.”

  I gazed fiercely up at him.

  “Don’t say something like that if you don’t mean it. You’ve got no idea how much I want to hear it.”

  Light suddenly blazed in his eyes before, just as quickly, they darkened.

  “I hope you really mean that,” he said. I became conscious that he’d taken his hands off my arms and slid them across to my shoulder blades. I could feel his palms there like two hot plates resting either side of my spine. Ridiculously, it made me shiver, as though I’d been doused in cold water.

  “I do,” I said and wondered whether his mouth ever went ahead without his brain’s permission, like mine had just done. Maybe that was exactly what had happened to him a moment ago. It would explain a lot.

  “Me too,” he said. I looked up into his beautiful face, at the deep blue eyes gazing down at me. I reached up and touched my fingers carefully to the delicious curve of his lips. They moved softly under my fingers, pressing a kiss to them as light as the fleeting steps of a butterfly. The strength ran out of my body like water from a bath. I couldn’t believe that I had let my ugl
y fingers anywhere near his gorgeous face, but that he could press his lips to them in a kiss was utterly amazing.

  William drew me closer and leaned down to follow up that butterfly kiss with his mouth on mine in a way that almost 100 per cent convinced me he meant every word he had said. I knew then that I was his, absolutely, forever.

  As his mouth moved on mine and the heat of his hands travelled towards my waist, I thought hazily that it just depended now on whether he was truly mine. But then that thought drifted away and all that mattered was William and me, here, in this moment. At least for now.

  Chapter 11

  “That’s very good, Eleni, you have been practicing.”

  I glanced across to the end of the arena, where Eleni was actually glowing for once under the praise of the instructor as she rode a very nice shoulder-in on her horse. Actually, Eleni might have been mostly shiny with sweat—it was pretty hot—but she definitely looked pleased with herself. And why not, she worked hard enough.

  Eleni was one of the few going well today; our first pony club rally since camp. In the morning’s session even the horses and riders that usually went around like high-precision machines had been struggling. It didn’t help that it was hot and muggy, clouds gathering low over the escarpment. There were storms predicted for later in the afternoon and everyone was edgy. The instructors were distracted, keeping an eye on the weather, all the riders seemed to have back-to-school blues and the horses were tail-swishing, fidgety, unexploded bombs. Horses that were usually hot were boiling over. Horses that were usually a bit reluctant were jacking right up and putting in the odd buck. Even the ‘bombproof’ kids’ ponies seemed to have bugs up their butts; I’d seen Carly Morris’s pony go cantering past earlier—shaggy Shetland mane and tail swishing, empty stirrups bouncing—as she headed back to the yards after dumping Carly.