Sunny thought for a second, then hit the speaker button.
“Okay, there is a guy.” She shovelled another spoonful into Archie’s mouth.
“I knew it! Great. So, are you using condoms?”
“No!”
“You should be. Love can be fleeting, but herpes is forever.”
“Oh God, Annabel, no. It’s not like that.”
“So what’s it like then? You’re not…” small gasp “…saving yourself, are you?” She said it in the same voice that she would use if she were asking someone if they were in a Neo-Nazi movement.
“No, Miss Personal Details, I am not.”
“Good. It’s such a ghastly concept. Another social construct used to keep women in their place, the insinuation that ‘nice’ girls don’t have sexual feelings or experiences. And that the ultimate gift we can give a man is our virginity because it means we’re ‘pure’ and he’s the only man to have gone there. The insinuation being, of course, that every other time after that, we’re soiled and dirty. Puh-leese. Have I talked about masturbation with you yet?”
“Annabel, stop. Please, just stop. I’m on board with your feminist ideologies, I swear.” Sunny was suddenly very tired. “We haven’t gone there, and it’s not going to happen.”
“Unrequited love, hey? Well, he’s a fool.”
“Do you want to hear about it or not?” Sunny put another mouthful of sweet potato into Archie, who immediately blew a raspberry at her, and sprayed the orange mush everywhere. It was exasperating and totally adorable all at the same time.
“Fire away.”
Sunny huffed out a breath and started talking quickly, improvising wildly. “I decided to enter some surf competitions. Beginner stuff, you know? I didn’t want to tell anyone; it sounds a bit wanky, but it’s always something I’ve wanted to do.”
“Gotcha. Yes, it sounds wanky,” Annabel agreed.
“Right. Well, anyway, I decided I could use some coaching, so I found one. A coach, I mean.”
“That sounds wise. You’re pretty good already, but you’re not competition good. Not by a long way.”
“Thanks. Anyway, I found this guy to coach me, he’s … well, he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met before in my life.”
“More gorgeous than Tom Hardy?”
“Much, much more gorgeous. And it’s not just that, he’s macho, but he’s kind too, he’s intelligent and stylish, and gentle…”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“He’s older.”
“How much older?”
“Twenty-three.”
“So you’re the exact same age in maturity levels. So what?”
“Well, like I said, he’s out of my league.”
Annabel snorted. “That’s ridiculous. You’re a perfectly adequate person.”
“Annabel, you’re not getting it. I am far, far out of his league. He’s major league; I’m an amateur. In fact, I don’t play the same sport. He is David Beckham; I am Stephen Hawking.” Even with the sports analogy, she felt that was unfair, so she tried again. “Or, to put it another way, he is Stephen Hawking, I am the root vegetable I’m currently shovelling into Archie’s mouth.”
“Okay, I get it, he’s a dreamboat, you’ve got a bad crush. You’ve only known him for a few days, right? You’ll get used to it. You might even find that he’s got a few bad traits that gross you out. Your dealbreakers. Like, he might clip his toenails in front of you, in the lounge. Or pick his nose and eat it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sunny sighed. “I doubt it though. He seems pretty perfect so far. Although I think he might have a bit of a dark past. But that just makes him a more sensitive and mysterious.”
Annabel gave a bark of laughter. “That’s perfect. A woman with baggage is pitiful and to be scorned. A man with baggage is sensitive and mysterious.”
“Sorry,” Sunny cut her off before she could get into her stride. “But the fact remains that I have to work with him – I mean he has to coach me – and I just have to put up with the fact that I have a raging crush on him and that he’ll never ever feel the same about me. It’s just too… too…”
“Depressing,” Annabel said flatly. “Come on babes, harden up. He’ll get to know you and realize you’re a fox. You’ll get to know him and find out that he idolises his mother and likes to wear her clothes.”
“Hmmm, maybe.”
“Or just get rid of him. Find another coach.”
The thought of not seeing Hunter again made her feel depressed. “No, I think I’ll carry on with him. He’s a really, really good surfer. And a good teacher.”
“Well, keep me posted.”
“Annabel? Keep this to yourself. I don’t want anyone knowing about it.”
“Who would I tell? More importantly, who would care? You’ve got a crush on a hot guy who won’t bang you. It’s not exactly a new scenario.”
Slightly more complicated than that, Sunny thought. But Annabel was right. The other details – him being a hot young secret agent with a dark past, her being a supernatural interdimension-hopper – those details didn’t really matter. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am. And if he’s as kind as you say, you might get a pity shag at some point.”
The two girls laughed about that for a while, and Sunny realized she felt better having talked to Annabel. It was nice to talk about Hunter with someone, to share the sad futility of her unrequited crush.
“Alright, I gotta go,” she told Annabel. “Archie’s dinner is starting to dry in his hair; I’ll have to scrub to get it out. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Alright, later. Remember: Masturbation is safe and normal and healthy, it helps relieve tension and provides sexual release. I think it would be very useful to you right now.”
“Okay, thanks. You’ve been very helpful. Bye.”
“Bye!” She hung up.
Sunny took a deep breath and looked at Archie. He was fully occupied, drawing pictures with both hands in the mushed-up food on his high chair tray.
“Come on mate, bath time,” she said, scooping him up.
Later, when Archie was clean and warm and in a fluffy blue onesie and lying on a bunny rug in the lounge, Sunny heated up a bottle of Steph’s breast milk to give to him. She treated the bottle as if it contained a radioactive substance, carefully placing the teat on the bottle and screwing it on tight. She was all for breastfeeding in theory, but she was totally grossed out by the idea of Steph’s bodily fluid touching her. Archie had no such reservations, and when Sunny settled him in her arms, he gulped at the bottle greedily. Feeding Archie was a nice meditation – she had nothing to focus on, and her mind automatically wandered to Hunter.
Annabel was right; she should chill out. As depressing as it was, she had to accept that nothing would ever happen between them.
It was ironic; she had never been very interested in boys before. In Sydney, she had a few close guy friends, and never felt anything more than brotherly love for any of them. And, as Annabel had pointed out, being friends with a guy meant that she got to see the gross side of boyhood a bit more often. She had witnessed early-morning boners in sleepovers; she’d been a victim of her mate’s fart attacks a few times - being held down and farted on - so it made it hard to foster any romantic feelings towards a boy her age. She knew what they were like.
It was also quite handy having small boobs – sixteen-year-old boys were rarely interested in a girl who had a similar figure to them, so it wasn’t very often that she had to rebuff any unwanted advances.
She’d had a few crushes on some older guys, but she’d never really thought of any man in a romantic sense – not seriously, anyway - until Hunter had come along. Trust her to fall for the one perfect guy in the world, rather than someone who she stood a chance with. Even if he was interested, and he was definitely not, he was much too professional to ever reciprocate her feelings. There was sure to be some sort of rule about shagging your agents, she thought morosely.
She sighed. Archie looked up at her and smiled his toothless smile.
“At least I’ve got you,” she whispered, and nuzzled him on the nose.
She hoped that coming to terms with her futile crush and accepting that it was hopeless would make it easier to be around him.
Chapter 15
She was wrong. The next morning, six am sharp, she made her way to Hunter’s apartment. She banged on his front door and her heart contracted when he opened it. He was dressed in track pants and a white singlet, his smooth tan skin emphasising the taunt perfection of his muscles. They were bigger than usual, and he was sweating – he’d obviously been working out.
“I thought normal teenagers were supposed to hate the early morning,” he said teasingly.
“We normally do,” she replied dryly, “what’s your excuse?” She walked past him into the apartment. He followed her and went to the kitchen, where his blender had been set on the counter top.
“I always loved the mornings,” he confessed. “It’s the best part of the day. I love it when there’s no one around, you’ve got the city to yourself, and the air feels so crisp you could bite it like an apple.”
The unexpected poetry of the statement surprised Sunny. “Me too,” she replied. “The day feels like a newborn baby, with so much potential. And when you do run into someone, you feel like you’re sharing a unique experience, so everyone is so friendly.” She settled herself on a barstool. “Where I live, all the surfers are out in the waves first thing, so we all have that in common. We’re boys and girls, young and old, but we all bond over our love of the cold water in the early morning.”
“You surf?” Hunter asked her, unpeeling two bananas and stuffing them in the blender.
It seemed safe enough to answer truthfully – most of the population of Australia lived near the coastline, so it wouldn’t narrow down anything for him. “Yeah. I’m not very good though. In fact, that’s my new alibi for coming to see you. You’re my surf coach.”
“Ha,” he rolled his eyes, “I’m not very good either. But no one needs to know that.” He took a carton of milk out of the fridge and poured some on top of the bananas. Then he took a jar out of the pantry and spooned a huge dollop of Nuttvia in the blender and hit the start button.
Nuttvia? That did it. She was officially in love with him.
Unaware that his actions had just had an earth-shattering effect, Hunter grinned at her and stopped the blender. He took two tall glasses from the cupboard above the sink behind him, and poured half the smoothie into each glass, then pushed one over to her.
“Cheers,” he said, raising his glass to her. He downed half of it in one gulp.
“So,” she said, in a fake attempt to be cheerful and disguise her feelings. “What’s on for the morning?” She took a delicate sip of her smoothie. It was, as she expected, absolutely delicious.
Hunter walked around the counter and took the barstool next to her. “I thought I better fill you in on what’s been happening in the last twelve hours,” he said, smiling crookedly. “It seems that the conflict in Korea has had some critical developments. An English prisoner of war has suddenly appeared outside a public hospital here in Sydney. He’s alive and recovering quickly from his wounds, but he has no recollection of how he got here from North Korea. The Allied commanders are all terrified what this means.” He smiled at her. “My contact hasn’t yet told me if it was a display of Kim Min-Jun’s powers - that he could smuggle a prisoner here without detection, or if it was a daring escape planned and executed by unknown mercenary soldiers.” He took a deep breath and grew serious. “I think it’s going to be the latter. You know, Mouse, we could turn the fate of the world on what I end up telling my superiors.”
“You don’t have to tell them anything at all,” Sunny said.
“But they’re expecting for me to get something from my contact. I’m getting some extraordinarily accurate information on the Republic Army’s movements, so my contact must know something about a missing prisoner. I think it might be easier if I go with the mercenary soldier story. They’re out there, you know. There were lots of privately-funded secret armies that fought ISIS in Syria not that long ago.” Hunter winked at her. “But none of them managed to break any Allied officers out of death camps and dump them in central Sydney.”
“Well, next time a prisoner manages to escape that hell hole, he’s going to wake up just over the border in South Korea,” Sunny said reasonably.
Hunter leaned forward and tried to catch Sunny’s eye, but she was refusing to meet it. It was a cute little game for a minute, almost flirting, she thought. When he caught it, he said to her meaningfully, “Do you think you can? Do you think you can do it again?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny replied honestly. “I’ve tried to take people before, and it hasn’t worked. I mean, the guy was so near death, and he was hallucinating, he seemed to expect that he could come with me, so he did.”
“Hmmm. Maybe it’s all in the intent. Maybe the person has to be completely open and willing to come with you.”
“I’m pretty sure Angus has no intention of coming with me. That little bastard almost took my arm off.”
“Hey, lay off Angus. He’s very independent.”
“I’ve never met a cat who wasn’t independent. You know what they say, dogs have owners, and cats have people.” Sunny slurped at the bottom of her smoothie.
Hunter leaned forward and took the glass of her and set it on the counter. “So, let’s try,” he said softly, holding out his hand.
Sunny looked at it like it was going to slap her. “Try what?”
“Take me with you,” Hunter said simply.
He sat there with his arm outstretched, waiting for her to take his hand. Sunny gulped and tried to focus. She concentrated, hard, and reached out her hand to take his.
Electricity shot through her like a bolt of lightning. She was almost gasping; it was so intense. She was suddenly breathless and shaking like a leaf.
But nothing was happening. Hunter stayed where he was, in the real world, looking at her with his clear dark brown eyes, staying as still as possible. She realized all the emotion she was feeling was simply from holding hands with Hunter.
Get it together, she begged herself, and withdrew her hand reluctantly.
She pulled the vibrations over herself and went into the Alternate and disappeared. Hunter still sat there opposite her, blazing golden and glorious, not seeing her but with his hand outstretched, waiting. She reached over and tried to take his hand again, and he gave a start when he felt her fingers on his. Concentrating with all her might, she tried to take him with her into the Alternate.
Again, nothing happened.
She knew it wasn’t going to work.
But she was childish enough to just keep holding hands with him, just for another minute. She huffed out her breath and came back to reality.
“Sorry,” she shrugged, “I just don’t think it’s going to work”.
“That’s ok. I didn’t think it was going to either. I think you’re right; it’s about the intent, and the willingness to let go of this plane of existence.” He looked disappointed for a moment. “We’ll think of something.”
“Maybe I could beat you half to death with this blender, and then we could have another go,” Sunny replied cheerfully.
“I’ve got a better idea. Can you come back after school? I want to try something.”
“Uh, yeah, I think so.” She couldn’t stop blushing, just a tiny bit. “What do you want to try?”
Hunter leaned back on the counter and propped up his head in his hand. It made his bicep pop out. She had to concentrate to keep from staring at it and focus on what he was saying. “I’ve been reading a bit on the concept of parallel planes of existence. You know, to try to get some theories on how you are doing what you’re doing, anything that might explain it and help develop your gift. I have a bit of a theory on what is happening when you go into your ‘Alternate.'”
“Yeah?” Sunny was intrigued. “Go on.”
“You know how cats can see things that we can’t? Or you’ll hear creepy stories about little kids seeing spirits of dead people and acting like it’s completely normal? It happens all the time. And these stories get verified all the time too. Kids reciting details about dead relatives that they couldn’t possibly know, describing houses that they’ve never been in, that kind of thing. Literally, some things exist on a different plane that makes them invisible to us, but for some reason, some people can see them in this plane of existence.”
“And cats,” Sunny interrupted. “I reckon it’s why Angus is a bit batshit crazy.”
“Leave Angus out of this,” Hunter slapped her on the hand with a teaspoon. “Anyway, I think you’re demonstrating the theory that there are infinite layers of planes of existence. In our reality, everything vibrates at a similar level, so we can see everything. In another plane of existence, the vibrations are different. Which is why you can see auras when you’re in your Alternate, and sense the deeper vibrations of living objects. And that’s why the Allied officer could see you when he was dying. His vibrations were changing, and it made it easier for you to pull him into a slightly different plane.”
“Whoa. That’s full-on. I’ve never really thought about it like that; it was just something that started happening. But that theory kinda makes sense to me, too,” Sunny conceded.
“Well, it’s one theory. I’m still looking into it, but I have to be discrete. I don’t want to be answering any questions on my research subject matter.”
Sunny went quiet for a second.
“Hunter…”
“Yeah?”
“Should I have come to you? Have I put myself in danger, just exposing myself to one person? Have I put you in danger?” She was suddenly a little frightened.
“Hey. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. But if you ever, ever see a hint of trouble, you just head into your Alternate and stay there. You’ll be fine. And don’t tell anyone else about what you can do, not your family, not your girlfriends, not your boyfriend, no one.”
The Mouse Page 10
