by Jo Watson
“But I know it can never happen again. Ever. This is supposed to be your honeymoon, for God’s sake. You’ve just been through hell and I don’t want to hurt you more. So I promise that I will never kiss you again, you have my word. So…”
He stepped forward and extended his hand.
“So…friends?” He looked up and smiled at me innocently. Friend-like.
Hang on a moment. Let’s stop here. What just happened? We’d gone from “I wanted to kiss you, I like kissing you” to “I will never kiss you again, let’s be buddies.”
I sighed internally but extended my hand. “Fine. Friends.” Deep down I knew he was right. Then why did it feel so wrong?
A tuk-tuk drove up the street and Damien waved it down. I wondered what was going to happen now. Would we continue hanging out together? Should I reinvite him on my so-called honeymoon? Offer to put him up for the nights ahead?
“Damien, would you like to come back to the hotel again, as friends? I know you have nowhere to stay still.”
“As much as I’d love to crash your honeymoon, Lilly, I’m going to be leaving Phuket soon.”
“Leaving? When?” I wasn’t sure I liked this news.
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
My heart sank. I looked at my watch, it was already one thirty a.m. How the hell had that happened? “Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“How can you not know where you’re going?”
A mischievous smile lit up his face. “I’m going to this party, they just haven’t sent out the map yet.”
I shook my head at him. The information was not computing.
“Once a year a big party is held, it’s always in Thailand, though. But the precise location is kept a secret until just before the event. Last year it was on top of a mountain—took me two days just to hike there.”
“That sounds terrible,” I said, thinking about all that outdoorsy exertion and the potential close proximity to snakes and spiders.
Damien shook his head. “No it’s pretty amazing, actually. It’s two days of music and partying, and you meet really cool people.”
Oh wait, something about this was starting to sound very familiar. I remembered Stormy-Rain telling me about these amazing parties held in Thailand. She’s always wanted to go. “Oh, like those Black Moon parties,” I offered.
Damien tsked loudly. “Nothing like those Black Moon parties. This is much, much better. They only invite a limited number of people and you have to qualify for an invitation.”
“Oooh,” I said in a mocking tone. “So exclusive and cool, no wonder you’re going.”
And then Damien jumped up excitedly. “Hey. Why don’t you come with me?”
“What?”
“Yes, come with me.” He pointed at my shopping bags. “You’re already packed.”
“Um…” I was thinking fast. There were about a million reasons why I shouldn’t go.
“Um…what about my hotel?”
“It’s not going anywhere. You’ll be back in a few days.”
“But I can’t just go with you!”
“Who says?”
“But I don’t have any sun cream.”
“I’ll buy you some. I have pockets full of money now, remember?” He patted his bulging pocket.
Mmm, how could I forget.
“But, but…” I was searching still. “I don’t have a toothbrush.”
“I’ll buy you one, too.”
I was running out of reasons. “I don’t know, Damien…I just don’t think I can.”
Damien deflated like a balloon. “It’s cool, Lilly. I understand. It’s a pity, though.”
Damien took my bags and started packing them into the tuk-tuk. The action had such an air of finality to it. This was it. He was going away for a few days and by the time he got back, I’d be on my way home to South Africa. I would never see him again.
Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? An inner mantra began. Why not go? What harm could it do?
“Okay fine! Fine!” I quickly pulled my bags out of the taxi and told the driver he could go, before I could I change my mind.
Damien’s face lit up. “Seriously?”
“Why the hell not? Caution to the wind and all that stuff, right?”
“When in Thailand,” he offered and we both smiled.
“But if it’s by invitation only, how will I get in?”
“Don’t worry, I know the guy who runs it.”
“Of course you do.”
Damien turned to me. “You’re going to have the time of your life, Lilly. I promise.”
Mmm, that’s what I was afraid of.
Chapter Thirteen
Damien and I wandered through the still action-packed streets of Patong. This nocturnal town seemed to be in constant motion. The frenzied energy that spilled onto the streets from the clubs and bars was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Everywhere you looked, something was going on.
Damien spun around and faced me. “Do you want to grab a drink somewhere?”
“Drinks?” That sounded so very date-ish. “Sure.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. I can’t wait to show you this place.” With that, Damien picked up pace, weaving skillfully through the crowds and street vendors who seemed to be selling all types of foods on sticks. I followed him down the infamous Bangla Road until we arrived at the bottom of an almost vertical escalator. I hesitated. I disliked heights. Immensely.
“It won’t be that bad. Just hold on to the rails,” Damien said in an encouraging voice.
“Hold on to the rails! Ha! Do you have any idea how germy an escalator is? They’ve done tests on it and they’ve even found—” I stopped midsentence. I was about to tell him that an escalator belt is basically a mobile sperm bank. “I hate heights. Okay? Hate them.”
“Then look at the floor and hold my hands.” Without asking, Damien took me by the hands and led me onto the escalator. I did exactly what he said, not daring to look up for a second.
I held my breath the entire way up and as soon as we reached the top, I sprinted away and put my back up against the nearest wall. I let out a massive sigh of relief and closed my eyes. But when I opened them again, Damien was staring at me curiously.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re just one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.” His smile broadened until it had taken over all of his features.
“I don’t think anyone has ever called me funny before. Pedantic maybe. A perfectionist. Organized, definitely. Not funny.”
“Well, they don’t know you like I do then.”
“Oh please…You hardly know me.”
“I know all the important stuff. You like baths. Prefer savory foods, your favorite color is cream and—”
Damien proceeded to rattle off the list from earlier with an almost perfect recollection. He really did pay attention to everything I said, or maybe he had one of those savant-style photographic memories?
“Do you remember everything people tell you?” I asked.
“No. Just the interesting ones that I like.”
“I am so not interesting. I assure you.”
He walked over and leaned against the wall next to me.
“If anyone is interesting and confusing, it’s you, Damien Bishop.”
“How am I confusing?” He looked me in the eye and all those strange, fluttery feelings inconveniently returned.
“Well, you come across as this dark, mysterious creature with all your strange faded clothes, terrible shoes, and tattoos. To be honest, when I first saw you, you scared the hell out of me.”
Damien laughed. “So did you.”
“Hey, that’s unfair. There were extenuating circumstances.”
“Fair enough.” He smiled at me gently. “Please, do continue. I’m fascinated.”
“I thought you’d be cold and strange and disturbingly dark—no offense.”
“None taken.�
��
“But now I suspect you’d probably risk your life to save a fluffy kitten from a cliff.”
Damien remained silent for a while before he spoke. “I think when my sister died, I built up these walls around me. Tried to keep certain people away. Besides, I quite like making bad first impressions.”
“Why?” This statement confused me. Why would anyone want to make a bad first impression? It didn’t make sense.
“It keeps people at bay and lets me be selective about who I get to know. I only put energy into people I really like and feel a connection with.”
I nodded. I understood this. My sister Stormy behaved in the exact same manner, keeping certain types of people at bay with her appearance.
“Well, I think you’re depriving a lot of people from getting to know you. I think you’re really…lovely.”
Damien turned and looked at me with something that resembled…what the hell was it…coyness? He looked so shy and cute that I was overcome with a desire to hug him. “Thanks, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.”
Damien slid closer to me until our shoulders were touching and our faces were just inches apart. Our eyes met and it felt like a meteor crashed into my stomach leaving me totally winded.
“So…” Damien suddenly cleared his throat and pushed himself off the wall. “So, shall we not lean against a wall all night then?”
“Sure.” I gave him a faint smile. The moment was over. Damien had deliberately ended it because we were friends.
He held his hand out again for me to take. I was getting so used to holding hands with him, and it was happening with increasing frequency.
Michael and I hadn’t been great hand-holders. In fact, we hadn’t been that affectionate with each other lately at all. It suddenly dawned on me that I’d been more physically affectionate with Damien in the last few days than I had been with Michael in months. It started to make me wonder, wonder if…
I dislodged that thought from my head. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet.
We walked into one of the fanciest bars I’d ever seen, and immediately I knew why Damien loved it here. It was situated on a high rooftop and was entirely open to the night sky above. The view in every direction was spectacular. For a moment I totally forgot where I was. It was hard to imagine a place like this existed above such a busy, bustling road. I looked up, and the night was clear. Stars bright. Moon fat and silver. It looked bigger tonight and seemed to be hanging even lower. I glanced over at Damien—he was looking up with that same boyish expression of awe I’d seen the night before.
“So, do you have any cool moon facts?” I asked, feeling a genuine interest in all things astrological.
“Sure. Did you know that the moon is moving away from the Earth by 3.8 centimeters every year?”
“I do now.”
“And what about this one: Only twelve people have set foot on it. Can you imagine that? We see it every single day and yet it’s so unexplored. Imagine setting foot on a place like that.”
“Is that why you travel? To set foot on the un-set-footed?” I asked.
Damien smiled at my made-up word. Michael would never have appreciated that; in fact, he’d probably have corrected me immediately.
“There’s nothing better than experiencing a place for the first time,” Damien said, looking up at me with a very loaded, meaningful look. Another inappropriate feeling began rising up from my belly.
He turned away, which I was downright grateful for. I doubted I could hide the now-crimson shade of my face—even in the subdued atmospheric lighting.
I eyed Damien as he sauntered through the place. He stopped at the bar and then proceeded to lean against it so nonchalantly you would have thought he owned the bloody place. He seemed to have blasé down to a fine art. Nothing seemed to faze him, whereas everything fazed me.
I’d always wished I could be a cooler and more composed person, but the truth was, on the freak-out scale, I could go from one to “disaster/the world is about to end and we’re all going to die” in a matter of minutes. His devil-may-care disinterestedness gave him such an air of self-confidence. It was both intimidating and undeniably sexy at the same time.
“So what will it be, Lilly?”
“Huh?” It took a moment to realize he was talking to me. “I’m not sure.”
“This then—” He pointed to a colorful drink with an unreadable Thai name. “I have no idea what’s in it. But when in Thailand, right?”
Exotic-looking drinks in hand, we made our way to the comfortable red chairs by the window.
“So what’s the plan? For the party?” I asked, feeling somewhat lubricated from the strong, unusual-tasting drink.
“We should be sent a map soon and then it’s up to us to make our way there.” Damien whipped out his phone and scanned it. “No map yet but”—a smile played at the corners of his mouth—“one Lilly Swanson seems to have accepted my friend request on Facebook.”
Damien fiddled on his phone for a while, mm-hmming and nodding and then eventually grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey! What’re you doing?” I jumped up and looked down at his phone. One of my old, less-than-flattering photos stared back at me.
“It was for a dress-up party. Okay!” I jumped to my own defense. “I don’t usually wear blue eye shadow and…that!” Damien turned and smiled at me with another roguish grin that screamed naughtiness.
“I bet you’ve already looked at all my photos.”
“What? That’s such crap. Why would I look at your photos? Please. That’s ridiculous.” And that was way too much protesting! But I suddenly realized that this might be my one legitimate opportunity to ask about hipster chicks casually without coming across as a psycho stalker.
“Well…okay, maybe just one or two.” I took a sip of my drink, hoping for a tiny drop of Dutch courage. “But since you bring up the topic, now that we’re on the subject of photos…” I stopped myself again. What the hell was I doing asking about his possible girlfriend? Girlfriends? I’m not sure I wanted to know. I downed the last bit of my drink and almost choked on the fruity thing at the bottom.
Damien continued to fiddle on his phone and then stopped. He looked at it curiously for a moment or two. “Is this Michael?”
He turned the screen to me, and my stomach tightened.
“Yes.” I nodded. “It’s him.”
“You look…you look…” Damien paused and pulled the screen closer to him. “You don’t look like yourself.”
I was momentarily stunned. This was the last thing I’d expected him to say.
“What do you mean?”
“Your hair is so perfect…and straight?”
“Michael liked it that way.” My hands instinctively went up to touch it. It was wavy from the sea air and I’d scraped it back into a loose, messy bun. I usually wouldn’t be seen dead like this.
“And that necklace, Lilly?”
“Oh. That. It’s a family heirloom from Michael’s side.” Truthfully, I’d hated the thing. It was a big, Baroque pearly affair that I’d always felt obliged to wear on special occasions and family functions.
“Stormy-Rain is always threatening to pull it apart and turn it into a wind chime.”
Damien let out a small chuckle. “I think I’m going to like her.”
He put his phone back into his pocket and leaned all the way across the table. “This looks like you.”
“A much messier version,” I added quickly, tucking a lose tendril of hair behind my ear.
“Mess suits you.” He gave me a playful smile and I started melting. I couldn’t afford to melt right now, so I sat up straight and crossed my legs.
“So now what? Are we just going to sit here all night waiting for the map to arrive?”
“No, I was hoping to get a bit of sleep at some stage.”
“Where?”
Damien smiled. “I’ll show you.”
* * *
“Where the hell are we?” My e
yes widened in shock as I surveyed my new surroundings.
“Backpackers lodge.” Damien sounded cheerful.
“We do have a perfectly good hotel, you know.”
“But where’s the fun in that, Lilly?”
“Fun?” I snorted. This place looked more like a postapocalyptic nightclub than somewhere one might actually sleep. A few people were dancing, some lazed on the bright DayGlo beanbags that were scattered across the floor, and others were playing loud drinking games while girls in bikinis cheered them on. Glass sliding doors opened onto a pool area that was filled to capacity with laughing, splashing, jumping people and, look, there went a naked man. Delightful.
I stepped over someone on the floor who was clearly on the wrong side of consciousness, and I tried not to trip on the beer can by my foot. Classy! I’d never been to a place like this before. Nor did I want to. I didn’t care how much “fun” everyone looked like they were having. I could never have fun in a place like this.
And that was only further confirmed when I saw the “rooms.” A large gray dormitory reminiscent of a prison cell, packed floor to ceiling with wire-framed bunk beds stretched out before me.
Some of the beds were inhabited; a few girls looked up from their magazines and smiled at us (or maybe they were smiling at Damien). A shirtless man nodded in our direction, a dreadlocked fellow rolling “something” between his fingers gave us a “Yo man” greeting, and the body that dangled from one of the top bunks gave a loud grunt.
I felt dirty just looking at it all. Coed communal living wasn’t exactly my thing. What was next…eating dried rations and sharing a solitary bar of recycled soap?
But before I could open my mouth to protest, Damien said, “Come on, where’s your sense of fun, Lill?”
“Fun? Here? I don’t think so.”
Little did I know how wrong I was.
Chapter Fourteen
What’s going on?
My head was pounding and I was vaguely aware of a persistent dripping sound near my ear. I tried to roll over. Owww…my stomach hurt as if someone had kicked me in it.
