by Amity Cross
“I can’t get more out than on that stage. That’s pretty out.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ignoring him, I gazed out into the night. “It’s funny to think…”
“What?”
“Suddenly, people think I’m worth something and want to know me. Before, no one gave a crap. No one wanted to know shit about me. Don’t ever think I’ll fall for a smooth line from a random at a bar.”
“I wanted to know you before,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure you existed.”
I had no idea what he meant. I searched his face for some kind of hint, but he turned away, hiding from me. Hypocrite.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the banister, his head dipping. “Would you believe me if I said I did it because I was jealous?”
I didn’t like where this was going. Edging away, I whispered, “Don’t.”
Will sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose. Abruptly, he straightened up to his full height and ran a hand through his hair, his expression unreadable. For a moment, I thought he was going to pull me into his arms and kiss me, but he turned on his heel and disappeared inside.
Shell-shocked, I sank into a chair, and my head fell into my hands. What the hell was I doing?
I needed to get a grip on reality.
Chapter 11
“Who knew Canberra was this boring?” Dee complained as we dumped our bags into our hotel room.
“It’s our nation’s capital,” I replied. “It’s full of government types and disgruntled locals.”
“Ugh, politics.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“What are we going to do today? No show. No interviews.”
“There are some nice museums?” I offered.
A devilish grin crept onto his face. “Pool party!”
“It’s not spring break, Dee.”
“Don’t be such a downer, Zo Zo. It’s hot out, and there’s an outside pool.”
“I’m not into swimming that much. You go and have fun for me.”
“You don’t have to swim,” he tried to convince me. “You can check out all the hot guys without their shirts on.”
“I don’t like your tone, Dee.” I smirked at him. “Anyway, I don’t have any bathers.”
“So?”
“So I’m not swimming in my underwear.”
“I don’t think anyone will complain.” That earned him a sharp slap on the arm. “Ow! Seriously, go shopping with Simone. We’ll be by the pool.”
When I called Simone, she was all for it. It wasn’t long before I found myself in the car on the way to the closest shopping center. Maybe a lazy day by the pool was just what we needed, especially after last night’s episode at the pub in the middle of nowhere. If anyone had gotten wind of what went down between Will and me, nobody had uttered a word. In fact, on the bus this morning, everything seemed normal.
The lunchtime rush was bearing down on the shopping center when we got there, and we had to circle a few times to find a park.
“I want this to be quick and painless,” I said, much to Simone’s amusement.
“Not much of a shopper?”
“Nope. In and out. That’s how I like it. Snatch and grab.”
Just inside the entrance was a large Target, so I dragged Simone inside and went straight for the bathers. I rifled through the rack and pulled out a black bikini. It was boy shorts and a halter top, so it wasn’t that revealing. My color. My size. Thirty-five bucks.
“I’m done,” I declared.
“Bloody hell, Zoe!” Simone cried. “We’ve been here ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds too long.”
“Give me a minute,” she said and began looking through the leftovers.
She held up a bright blue floral one-piece suit, and I shook my head. She held up a black and white polka dot number, and I nodded. “I think this is it,” she said, and as an afterthought, she came out with, “What happened last night?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing exactly what she was on about.
“You and Will. I saw you arguing.”
I shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
“His intensity level is unnerving. Especially after he’s had a few drinks.”
Simone didn’t take my answer as definitive and continued her round of questioning. “What’s going on? I mean, is he into you?”
I shrugged again. Yeah, he was.
“Do you want to be out of the friend zone?”
“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“It’s been two years, right?”
“More like three,” I said slowly, looking up at her from the rack of bathers.
“Well,” she began uncertainly, “aren’t you horny?” The last word came out as a whisper, and despite my own embarrassment, I laughed and slapped a hand over my mouth.
“Yeah.”
“That’s good, right?”
“No, I don’t think it’s good.”
“Why not?” I gave her a look, and her eyes widened. “Oohhhhh.”
Sometimes, Simone was so innocent it made me laugh.
“Let’s get outta here,” I said. “Maybe we all need some pool therapy.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I love this whole tour thing, but man, the hours are long. I want to soak up some rays and not think about merchandise for a day.”
By the time we got back to the hotel and changed, everyone was at the pool. And when I said everyone, I meant everyone. Dean had been back for a few days now, and he was there with Pete, Louie, and Sticks. Frank, Chris, and Dee were fooling around in the pool. Even Bob, our bus driver, was kicking back in a banana lounge with a beer in his hand. I had to do a double take when I saw Will perched on the edge of the pool, watching the three idiots trying to drown each other.
Right then, I was thankful I had my sunnies on. The fronts were mirrored, which meant no one could see where I was looking, and that was right at a half-naked Will. Now I could see that the tattoo on his chest was of an anatomical heart, but I wasn’t looking at that. I was looking at his muscled chest and the ripple of a six-pack. He didn’t have a full-on bodybuilder rack. He was just nice.
“Zoe?” Simone elbowed me. “You’re drooling.”
I blinked hard and shook my head. “Shit. Did anyone notice?”
“No. You’re safe.” She slow whistled and glanced at me. “Who would’ve thought all that was under those T-shirts, huh?”
“Simone,” I hissed.
She laughed at my flustered reaction and led me outside. I wrapped an arm across my bare stomach, suddenly nervous. I knew I would feel too exposed, so on the way out of the shops, I’d picked up a pair of short women’s boardies to put over the bottoms. The moment we walked outside, Dee let out a loud wolf whistle, and everyone looked up to see us approach.
I felt Will’s stormy gray eyes on me instantly, and when I dared to glance his way, his gaze was full of heat. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, and before he realized I was staring back, I turned away. Holy guacamole.
I sat on a free banana lounge next to Simone, and she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “No one saw you drool, but everyone’s seeing Will slobber.”
“Simone,” I groaned. “Stop it.”
She smirked at me as she lay back and positioned herself for maximum sunbathing. Looking over the top of my sunnies, I caught Chris’s eye. He’d been doing some drooling of his own. I gave him a pointed look, and he blushed.
“Nice threads, hot legs,” Dee said, dripping water all over the place. He grabbed a towel and sat on the lounge next to me. “I heard something went down with you last night.”
“What are you on about?” I wondered who had talked, but if Simone had noticed, then Dee definitely would have. He never missed a trick.
“What’s his face is more worked up than usual. And phwoah, did you see his face when you walked out?”
My head sank
to my knees, and I groaned.
“Hey,” he said loudly. “Wanna give me a haircut?”
“What? No. I don’t have any scissors.” Until three years ago, I was employed as a hairdresser. For some reason that was now lost on me, I wanted to cut hair for a living. As a career. I now saw that I was ill-suited for it. The reason being that you had to like people, and after the breakup, people and I didn’t get along. I’d cut ties with almost every aspect of that old life. I’d thrown away my scissors, my equipment, and every other reminder of that time that now seemed fake and empty.
Dee shrugged. “When you threw them out, I bin scabbed ’em when you weren’t looking.”
“You’re so annoying.” I wondered what his game was. He had to have one because this was coming out of nowhere. Besides, he didn’t need a haircut.
“I thought they might come in handy one day.”
“Yeah, when you want a free haircut.”
“Yeah,” he said like I was stupid, which only made me more annoyed, and he knew it.
“I don’t want to go back to that shitty job.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said. “I don’t trust anyone outside of you and that bloke at the barber shop.”
“That bloke has been cutting your hair for three years, and you still don’t know his name?”
“Nope.” He popped the p at the end.
“You two fight like an old married couple,” Louie declared, and I realized everyone had fallen silent and were listening to us. I felt my face redden.
“You’re cute when you blush, Zo,” Frank said loudly, and I almost got up to drown him in the pool, but Dee made a bold statement on my behalf.
“Who needs a haircut? She’s an artist, our Zoe. Slices and dices like Rembrandt.”
“Dee,” I hissed.
“What? Some of us might want to take advantage of your skills.”
So that was how I found myself in the bathroom of my hotel room with Will sitting on a chair in front of me with a fluffy white towel around his shoulders and dripping wet hair. Dee’s game was revealed, and I wanted to give him a black eye.
Brandishing my scissors, I asked, “Ready?”
Will smiled at me in the mirror. “As I’ll ever be.”
It was do or die, so I chose to do.
I tried not to be awkward about it, but I found myself thinking almost instantaneously about how I was touching Will’s hair. Hell, I’d been a hairdresser for five years straight out of school for some unknown reason, and I’d touched plenty of hot guys’ heads. I’d shampooed and conditioned a ton of them—scalp massages and all—and in all that time, I’d never felt so uncomfortably turned on as I did right then.
I pushed his head forward so I could cut in at the nape of his neck, and I was able to study one of his tattoos without him noticing. It was a small hourglass with gray wings. I had something similar and felt myself blush. I was suddenly grateful he couldn’t see me in the mirror. I was red as a beetroot.
“Thanks,” he said as I began to cut. “It was gettin’ a bit outta control.”
“No problem,” I said as evenly as I could. “What’s the use of having a qualified hairdresser around if you can’t take advantage, right?”
“Right.”
I focused on what I was doing. I couldn’t give him a shit haircut, not after Dee had talked me up like I was some kind of Leonardo da Vinci with scissors. It had to be perfect, but I couldn’t quite get past the fact that I was touching him. It took all my strength not to straddle him then and there. The room was small…pushing us together.
When it was time to do the top, I moved around to stand in front of him, pulling the comb through his wet curls, and for the first time, I could see his eyes clearly. I did my best to look away, but he was staring up at me like he’d never seen a girl cut his hair before. I was frozen to the spot, my heart thumping a million miles an hour.
I was in a daze as he reached up, took the comb and scissors from my hands, and set them on the counter. When he stood, the towel dropped to the floor, my gaze following it. Grasping both sides of my face, he pushed me back against the mirror and kissed me.
It took me by surprise, so when I hit the glass, I opened my mouth with a gasp, and he plunged his tongue right in, and I couldn’t stop myself. I kissed him back, my hands raking up his back as I pulled him harder into me. He claimed me with a hunger I didn’t know he possessed, and I wanted him just as much.
Suddenly, I was alive.
His knee pushed in between my legs, and I opened them enough so his thigh could rub against me. Rolling my hips forward, I let out a deep moan into his mouth. He kissed me deeper in response, his tongue clashing with mine. God, it felt so good.
I tore my lips away and let out a whimper as he kissed a trail down to the crook of my neck. His hands fell from my face and brushed across my breasts before coming to rest on my hips.
“I’m not finished,” I said breathlessly as his lips grazed the skin underneath my ear.
“Don’t care,” he mumbled into my hair as his thumbs passed over my tight nipples.
Holy shit.
I was wearing a bikini top with boardies over the bottoms, but I may as well have been in my bra and knickers. There was only a thin piece of material between my skin and his hands, and it seemed like too much distance. As if he’d read my mind, Will’s hand trailed up my back, and he pulled the clasp of my top undone. Tugging at the string securing the halter at the nape of my neck, it fell away, and then the whole thing was gone. Cool air hit my skin, and my nipples tingled.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he murmured, caressing my breasts as his lips found mine again. Grinding into me, I felt just how much he meant it. A hand slid to the small of my back and pulled me harder against the length of his body.
I couldn’t help arching my back, pressing myself into his hands and moaning into his mouth. This was going way too fast, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was beyond stopping myself. Everywhere he touched burned. I was lost.
My hands found the hem of his board shorts of their own accord and slid underneath, eliciting a sharp gasp for their effort. God. After all this time wanting him, I never knew it would feel like this. So utterly uncontrollable.
He buried his face into the crook of my neck and trailed kisses up toward my ear making my whole body tingle, and I wanted him closer. Inside. I would have done anything to lose my body in his—anyway I could get him.
“Zoe, baby…”
My eyes snapped open, and suddenly, I felt like I was back there. That one little word pulled me back into my reality so fast it was like it had given me whiplash. Back into the life where I didn’t trust anyone. Pain from a long time ago shot up my right arm, and I bit down hard on my lip. Automatically, I pushed my palms against Will’s chest, and his hands dropped from me, the phantom pain subsiding.
“Zoe?” Will was looking at me, a frown creasing his forehead.
A bead of water trailed down his cheek from his wet hair, and I stared at that because it was better than looking him in the eye. So close, yet so far.
“Zoe?” he said again, and it was enough to push me into action. He still had me against the mirror, so I wriggled away from him, picking up the top half of my bathers, an arm across my chest.
“I can’t,” I said thinly, not trusting myself to look at him. If I looked at him, he would see.
We were in my hotel room, so I walked out, grabbed a T-shirt, dragged a pair of jeans on, and then tugged my boots onto my feet. Flight mode activated.
“Zoe?” Will had followed me. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry, I…”
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I said, picking up my phone and room key. “It’s not you.” I knew this was probably a stupid thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like a default setting with me. Things would get good, so I would shit all over it with my stupid fear.
“Zoe,” he pleaded with me again. “What just happened?”
I went to walk past
, aiming for the door, but he grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at him. “I know a runner when I see one, Zoe.” He said it like he knew, but I tried to ignore it. I just needed to get away and think about this. Everything about Will Strickland clouded my vision until I couldn’t tell up from down.
I felt tears stinging behind my eyes, threatening to pool, and I tore my arm away. “I can’t.”
He just stared at me with a mixture of hurt and disbelief but didn’t try to stop me again.
It wasn’t until I was out the front of the hotel next to the taxi rank that I realized I had to get as far away as I could. No one else was waiting, so I opened the back passenger door of the first car.
“You free?”
The driver nodded, and I slid inside.
“Where to, love?” he asked, and I faltered.
“Is there a museum near here?” I asked. A museum would be quiet.
“Yeah, there’s an art gallery not too far.”
“Okay,” I said before I lost my nerve, “take me there.”
Chapter 12
Turned out the art gallery I was dropped off at was the National Gallery of Australia.
I wandered through the collections but hardly took in anything. The one saving grace of this place was that it was quiet like I’d hoped it would be. With it being a weekday, not many people were around. I didn’t want to see anyone. Not even a bunch of strangers.
Wandering into the Impressionist gallery, I stopped in front of a Monet painting of a haystack and stared at all the little brushstrokes, picking out the individual colors. I probably stood there looking like a zombie for a full fifteen minutes before I sat on the bench behind me. Luckily, the room was empty.
I gathered it had been about forty-five minutes since I’d fled. What the hell had happened? My past had come crashing down so fast it had almost suffocated me. Things had been so good lately. So good in fact that all that crap had started to become a tiny blip on my radar. Now it was the only thing on it.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I tried to forget the feeling of Will’s hands on me. His lips. His kiss. But I burned with the memory of it. I also burned with another memory.
