“Is that what you think?” He shook his head at me, swallowing hard. “Quinn,” he said hoarsely. “I watched you. From the moment you walked in that bar, I saw you. Amongst all the shallow and the fake, you looked like spring, and then you got close and I was right because you smelled like jasmine. When you turned around to leave I thought I was wrong because why did someone as sweet as spring think that life wasn’t meant for her? There was no light in your eyes, and somehow, even though I barely knew you, it left an ache in my chest. How could I let you walk away?”
“You heard me say that?”
“That life wasn’t meant for you?”
I nodded and closed my eyes.
He sighed heavily and reaching out, trailed his fingers through the wild curls of my hair. “Life is hard, Quinn, and the hardest part is being yourself in a world of people trying to make you someone you’re not. I saw you standing apart from everything that was the same, and that was beautiful, not sad. When I was holding you and inside of you, I watched your eyes come alive, and f**k spring because you were hotter than summer, and I want to see that again.” His voice was low and as I opened my eyes and met his, he brushed his thumb across my lips. “I want to see you smile, and I want to touch you again and feel you burn brighter than the sun while I’m doing it.”
My heart swelled until I thought it would beat its way out of my chest. I reached up and covered his hand with my own.
“Travis…”
I stood there, maybe breathing—I couldn’t be sure—but wanting to tell him that no one had ever said anything so beautiful to me in all my life. That no one had ever looked at me the way he was doing right now—as though nothing else existed but me.
My lips parted as I tried to find the words, and at the invitation, his mouth slammed down on mine. I moaned at the wild force as he thrust his tongue in my mouth, arms winding tightly around me until I was sure I’d never breathe again and didn’t care to. Travis lifted me and turned, backing towards the couch until he was sitting down, my legs straddling him. He groaned as my tongue rubbed against his, greedily wanting more and fearing it would never be enough. My hands slid up the hard ridges of his chest, reaching his neck and twining through his hair until he broke the kiss, breathing heavy as he shifted his lips to my neck, his tongue licking a path downwards as my body burned.
“Oh God,” I moaned breathlessly, my back arching.
“Want you so much,” he muttered, slipping his hands beneath my tight shirt, frantically pushing my bra out of the way until warm nak*d skin filled his palms.
Someone’s phone rang. We both ignored it. Instead, Travis returned his lips to mine, his h*ps grinding into me along with his tongue.
The phone kept ringing.
“Shit,” he muttered, and it stopped as he pulled away.
It was good that he did because there was no way I could. He could have ripped off my pants and filled me right then and there, and I would have been his. That was not good. Anyone could have walked in. In fact, we were both supposed to be working.
I informed him of that very fact and he chuckled. “Maybe you are, but we have enough security out there that I’m not really needed. I’m just here for you.”
“Me?”
Travis cocked a brow. “You’re a full time security job yourself.”
My mouth fell open. “I am not.”
His eyes dropped to my lips. “Careful doing that. It seems to get you in trouble.”
I scrambled off his lap, brushing at my hair and tugging my bra back into place. Nodding at the table where my iPad and pen sat, I said, “I need to do…some stuff.”
Travis stood and my cheeks heated at the obvious bulge he was adjusting in his pants.
I tried not to look. “Maybe you shouldn’t go out there with uh, that.”
He winked. “That is not gonna go down if I stay in here. I’ll leave you to your stuff, but tomorrow night you’re all mine. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“You mean like a…date?”
Travis gave me a short nod.
I’ve never been on a date before. Even with Ethan, most of our time together had been spent at his house, at the beach, or at school.
His eyes widened and I cringed. “Did I just say that out loud?”
“Uh huh.” He reached the door and opened it, letting the wild beat of music pump through. “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to make it good for you,” he said with a wink and shut the door behind him.
I shivered and practised deep breathing for several moments. Minutes later, the door flew open and Mac strode through. She eyeballed the walls of the dressing room with exaggerated fashion. “If these four walls could talk, I bet they’d have a lot to say, but unfortunately they can’t.” She shook her head in mock sadness before narrowing those knowing eyes on me. “So spill.”
“How do you even know?”
“Because my brother came back all tight lipped, but his eyes were telling me a different story.”
“Oh? What story was that?”
“The same story they told when he was twelve and got the cadet go-kart he’d been hounding our parents about since he was eight.”
I averted my eyes because if she saw all that in his, imagine what she saw in mine?
I woke the next morning to shouts from downstairs and dogs barking in the yard, telling me the duplex was already heaving with activity. This wasn’t unusual—what was unusual was that I still couldn’t get used to it. Living here was loud and noisy, and if you wanted to be heard, you had to throw yourself into the fray and start yelling. I wasn’t quite at the yelling stage yet, but I was getting there, particularly when I found my favourite, freshly washed, pink lace pillow covers gracing Henry’s bed. He’d simply shrugged at me and said he didn’t care if they were pink; they smelled nice. Frog was always hogging the couch and the remote, making me miss my reality television shows. The season finale of The Voice was on just the other night, and I had no idea who won. Cooking dinner was something I’d found myself doing more often than not and cooking, for sometimes up to six or more people at a time, involved planning. One night I gave up and just cooked poached eggs on toast which didn’t appear to bother anyone.
Slipping on a pair of sweatpants and a plain fitted tank top, I scraped my hair into a ponytail as I jogged down the stairs. Mac and Henry were on the couch along with Evie, all eating identical bowls of Coco Pops and watching music videos.
“‘Bout time you woke up, you lazy asshead,” Mac mumbled around a crunchy mouthful.
I rubbed at my eyes. “What’s the time?”
“Early,” Henry growled. “Thanks to Evie.” He elbowed her in the arm and a trickle of milk sloshed over the rim of her bowl and into her lap.
Evie narrowed her eyes. “If you elbow me one more time, you’re going to be wearing my breakfast on your face.”
Henry made an “oooh I’m scared” face while she brushed the milk droplets from her jeans. I curled up in the armchair, and Rufus let out a whine from the back door. Peter was standing in front of him scratching at the glass as though zombies were on the attack and they needed inside to live.
“I should feed Rufus.”
“Done,” Mac announced.
“Oh.” I smiled at her. “Thanks, Mac.”
“Yeah, well. I can be nice.”
Evie let out a shout of laughter, and Mac narrowed her eyes. “I’m letting you stay here, aren’t I?” she said to Evie.
“Stay?” I echoed.
“Rats,” Evie supplied with a shudder.
“Rats?”
Evie nodded. “There’s a rat family living in our house at Bondi. They have a camp at ground zero. I saw it when Jared ripped up the floorboards. It’s not pretty. They have tents and sleeping bags and some sort of hi-tech equipment that tells them when we’re in bed trying to sleep because they start scurrying from base camp into the ceiling as though it’s the holy grail of all places to have fun. I’ve tried to tell Jared that the whole house needs a wrecking ball, not a renovation, but he just looks at me like I’m the idiot.”
“You are an idiot,” Mac retorted. She clanked her spoon into her now empty bowl and stood up.
“Anyway…” Evie ignored Mac “… Jared and I are here for a couple of days while the place is being fumigated for every pest that ever lived.”
“You’re the biggest pest that ever lived,” Mac shouted from the kitchen as she rinsed her bowl and set it on the sink. “Why aren’t they fumigating you?”
Evie twisted in her seat and glared at Mac. “What the fuck, Mac? Someone steal your favourite shoes?”
Mac grinned and tossed the tea towel she’d been drying her hands with on the bench. “My shiny red slingbacks are just fine, thank you very much. I’m just in a good mood about Melbourne.”
After informing Mac in the dressing room about the festival booking, she’d still managed to wrangle the date details out of me as though I’d already been plied with her malevolent mojitos.
The date.
My God.
Had I actually agreed to it? I shook my head. No. He’d told me we were going on a date, not asked me. There was no opportunity to say no. Would I have been able to say no anyway? I shook my head again. When Travis was in my space, all sense went flying out the window. Mac had been excited, even after telling me we’d gone about it all ass backwards—sleeping with each other and then going on a date weeks later but I could sleep at night knowing she approved of my ‘ballsy tactics.’
Finished with my internal conversation, I pushed out of the chair and stood up, stifling a yawn. “I need to get started on organising the Melbourne trip.”
Mac returned to the living room and flopped onto the couch. “Rubbish. It’s your day off. I’ll do it.”
“But I don’t have anything else going on,” I said over my shoulder while wandering into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and examined the barren, sad looking shelves. “Maybe I could do a food shop then?”
“Sandwich and Henry are doing the shop today,” she announced loudly because Henry was holding down the volume button on the remote until the sound breached decibel regulations.
“So what am I supposed to…” My voice trailed off as an almighty knock thundered at the door, and it swung open before anyone could move to answer it. A petite, dark-haired guy no taller than I was came barging in.
Mac smirked at me over her shoulder. “You’re going shopping.”
“What?”
“You’re going shopping,” she yelled.
“Just come on in, Tim,” Evie said to the little guy with obvious sarcasm.
He huffed and flung himself in the armchair I’d just vacated. “Lord knows I’d be f**king grey with one foot in the grave before you got off your fat backside to answer it. No point in wasting the day.”
“This is Tim, Quinn,” Evie called out. “He works reception for Jamieson and Valentine Consulting. Oh, and he talks more crap than a politician, so don’t believe a word he says.”