Breeze of Life (5 page)

“You look just fine but you didn’t have to do that.”

“I like my hair like this.” He ran his hand over the newly shaved do. “It was getting too close to dreadlocks and I heard a story once about a guy who had an infestation of cockroaches in his dreadies.” He gave me a pointed look. “Cockroaches, Breeze, fucking cockroaches in his hair!” He looked horrified

“I like your hair longer,” I stubbornly argued, trying to suppress the urge to smile at his ridiculous ranting.

“It’ll grow back. We can make it a competition; see whose grows the fastest.” He wiggled his eyebrows and I could no longer contain the laughter. This man really was my happy pill. He should come with a warning, ‘best served in small doses’. To hell with that, I wanted to overdose on his joy and enthusiasm. My nose kicked in at that moment recognizing the delicious scent of bacon and eggs. Following the command of my growling stomach, I headed straight for the kitchen. George was laying cutlery out around the table which was full of plates piled high with bacon, eggs and pancakes. My internal sigh obviously showed on the outside and George greeted me with a big smile and a quick kiss to the forehead.

“Harper said you missed dinner last night so I thought I’d cook up a feast for you.” I sat down and began filling up my plate. “You look good today,” George quietly admitted. I knew he wasn’t talking about my general appearance, but really my mood. I guess I didn’t feel quite so dark and dismal. Perhaps something akin to hope had fluttered deep within my chest.

The meal was consumed in relative silence and once I lifted my head to breathe for a moment, I realized Harper and George were having what I could only assume was a silent argument. Short shakes of the head followed by scowls and the occasional nod. Yep, someone had something planned and I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Placing my knife and fork down quietly, I glared directly at what I knew would be the source of any problems—Harper. Only Harper would get George into this kind of a hissy.

“What’s going on, Harper?” Both he and George stopped the soundless conversation and turned to look at me. George looked worried. Harper on the other hand looked determined. Oh no, this really wasn’t good.

“Go pack a bag,” he demanded, no explanation of why, and definitely no please. He could be such a caveman sometimes. 

“Excuse me?” I looked him straight in the eye and held his unwavering gaze.

“Road trip.” Harper grinned and I rolled my eyes in disbelief.

“Nu-uh. After buying those tickets to Pink yesterday I am officially broke.” I stretched back in my chair, a self-satisfied grin on my face. He couldn’t argue with the fact I was broke, I needed whatever I had left, which was almost nothing, to pay for doctors’ bills. Harper didn’t blink an eye as he regarded me then grinned with smug arrogance.

“Actually, you’re not broke. There’s ten thousand dollars in your account and you’re going to spend every cent thoughtlessly. Clothes, music, new car, hell, give it away if you want but we are leaving as soon as your bag is packed.” The only thing that moved was my jaw, dropping somewhere to the vicinity of my feet. Harper finally pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “Fine, I’ll pack for you.” I glanced to George for help. Harper was already strolling casually down the hallway.

“Sweetheart, don’t fight it. Harper can afford this; I handle his investments, remember? He has plenty of money and you need this. You need the cash, you need the break and you need him. Today you smiled, you actually got out of bed and smiled and you haven’t done that in months. Just go and have fun, Harp will have you back in time for your next appointment.” George stood and just walked away, leaving me sitting alone in confused silence at the kitchen table. Road trip? I had never been on a road trip before, I didn’t even know what one entailed other than a road and, of course, a trip. Where would we go? Did we need to book hotels? I quickly pushed my chair back and raced down the hall to my room. When I arrived in the doorway, I found Harper sorting through the clean pile of clothes George must have dropped off this morning. It should have shamed me that I had my neighbor doing my laundry, but George had started doing it when I was too sick to, and it appeared he hadn’t stopped.

“You’re really going to pack my bag?” I laughed. Harper turned to face me holding up a bra with strategically placed lips decorated over each cup.

”Harper!” I yelled crossing the room and snatching the underwear out of his hands.

“Baby, when the hell did you start wearing this?” His voice was low and husky as he picked up a pair of sheer black knickers with a cute little red bow on the back. I snatched them from him too. “Seriously, Breeze, your underwear is giving me a semi, I can’t believe you let George wash this. In fact, never again, if you need your clothes washed I’ll damn well do it.” He held up another a lacy red G-string and I swear my entire body flushed with the same color.

“I thought you would have seen Naomi in plenty of stuff like this, I’m surprised it has any effect on you at all.” Harper scowled at the mention of Naomi and shook his head. I began shoving clothes into a large backpack.

“This might surprise you, but I was enjoying the thought of you in them.” Harper’s words stopped me in my tracks. 

“Since when?” I asked.

Harper shrugged. “Even the plain ol’ granny panties you wear get me going. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the clothes.”

“I don’t own granny panties!” I argued shoving my ordinary white cotton granny panties under the pile of washing. I was trying very hard to ignore the fact he had suggested he liked me rather than the underwear.

“Yeah you do. It’s your safe underwear, but this,” he held up another bra that matched the red G-string, “this is not safe,” he groaned. I tried to conceal a smile as I wrenched the bra out of his hands and stuffed it in my bag.

“Breeze baby, I think it’s safe to say that although you and I have always been friends first there’s always been something more. What I told you back in March was the God’s honest truth, the way I told you was uncool, but it was still the truth.” Ignorance was bliss, so I continued to ignore Harper’s confessions. It was easier that way. Harper was opening and shutting drawers obviously in search of something.

“You need a hand?” I quipped. Harper continued rifling through my drawers until he came to the one where I kept my swimmers. My rarely used swimmers. The drawer was full of them. Harper was constantly bringing me home bikinis from his sponsor, Ripcurl. I was a terrible swimmer and I had completely irrational fears of the water. But seriously, how many deadly creatures lived under the sea! And how many people drowned each year? And why on Earth would we even consider getting in the water when clearly our legs were created for walking on? It was fair enough to say I rarely wore swimmers. Harper pulled out three bikinis. A black one, a blue one and a tiny little crocheted one that I had absolutely no intention of wearing.

“I won’t need them, I’m not going swimming.” Harper threw them at me as if he hadn’t heard a word I said and I soundlessly stuffed them in the bag knowing if I didn’t he would just stuff them in his own. After packing my toiletries, Harper and I stood and studied the apartment for a moment. He grabbed my guitar and our iPods off the bench and lifted my backpack over his shoulder. With a quiet click of the front door, we had officially packed all we needed and were ready to go. George was waiting at the lift with an impressed grin on his face. I could only assume he didn’t think Harper would get me this far.

“All packed?” he asked. I nodded and he stepped forward and enveloped me in a big hug. “Stop worrying, this will be good for you, you need it.”

“I don’t know if I can last two weeks without your banana pancakes,” I confessed and George chuckled.

“They’ll be here when you get back.” Once inside the lift, Harper dropped my backpack to the floor and took hold of my hand tightly. I glanced at our interlocked fingers.

“In case you try to run.” He grinned.

“Good call,” I murmured.

“We’ll call you from the road, George, let you know where we are, and how Bree’s doing,” Harper called out as the lift doors began to shut.

“Take care of her,” George’s final words were something reminiscent of what a father might say. I smiled at that thought. George really was the best ‘pretend’ dad I could hope for.

Harper brought the Jeep to a stop before driving out into the busy street before us. He plugged in his iPod and selected a playlist. Tom Cochrane’s
Life is a Highway
filled the car and I laughed.

“Did you make a road trip playlist?” I teased. Harper nodded as we finally left the apartment complex.

“I did and it will blow your mind.” After a short silence he added, “So, I have a couple of rules.”

“I thought road trips were all about having no rules.”

“No two road trips are alike, Breeze. Some have rules, some don’t. This one has rules and the first one is no negative thoughts.”

I snorted. “Okay, oh lord, oh mighty one, just like that,” I snapped my fingers, “gone. If it were that easy, Harper, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Well I have a plan to rid all that crap from your mind. Every time you have a negative thought you’re going to say the exact opposite, out loud.” Hell, he’d lost his damn mind! “If you start thinking you’re not pretty, you’re going to say out loud, I am pretty. If you’re feeling down in the dumps, well you’re going to give that attitude the middle finger and scream I feel fucking great. Capiche?” 

I shook my head. “You know perfectly well I don’t swear, Harper.” The swearing wasn’t the problem here. The fact Harper assumed defeating my depression could be done so easily was the problem. The only thing that would scatter those dark grey clouds on my shoulders would be to go back eight months and have the doctor tell me I had nothing more than the flu. Then again, if that had happened then there was a good chance Harper wouldn’t be here with me now. I would most likely still be with Danny and he would be cheating on me and I would be completely clueless. Perhaps here was better than where I could be.

Harper grinned. “Bullshit, you dropped the F-bomb the other night without hesitation I know you’ve got it in you.”

“Next rule?” I waved Harper on ignoring his dig at my tantrum.

“Only one more—every day I want you to tell me a story.” I just stared at him and realized I had been doing that a lot since he had got back from Portugal. Harper was full of surprises these days.

“What, like a fairytale?” I asked.

“No idiot, something from your past, a happy memory. I don’t care if it’s one I already know or not, I just want to hear it from your pretty mouth.” Pretty mouth? Without thought my fingers traced the line of my bottom lip. When I caught Harper staring with mesmerized wonder, I abruptly stopped and turned my attention to the quickly passing landscape. “Starting now,” Harper added. A story? A happy memory from my past. Most of my happy memories were with Harper and his cousin Sean, so he was bound to know them, but he had said that he didn’t care if he already knew the story and one particular memory immediately came to mind and I smiled with the recollection.

“New Year’s, I was seventeen, you were twenty-one. You hired a cabin on Stradbroke Island, we took Sean. We got absolutely trashed and when Sean passed out we drew all over his face with black marker then we left his hand in a bucket of warm water to see if he would pee himself.” Harper’s laugh was a sound that caused my entire body to tingle with joy and desire. When he held out his fist to me I tapped it lightly with my own.

“I drew a penis on his forehead and he never realized it. He walked around Straddie all day with that fucker on his head.” I laughed so hard tears found their way out of the corners of my eyes. “Now that wasn’t so bad was it?” Harper whispered. I shook my head. No it wasn’t, in truth it felt wonderful. It had taken my mind off the bad things that clouded my mind and left me feeling lighter and happier. There was no way I was going to tell Mr. Arrogance that his methods might have merit. Not yet anyway. After all, the dark cloud still hovered. I may have found my smile again, but the thoughts, the sadness, they still clung to me.

Chapter 5

Surf Watch

Checking the waves and conditions

The Jeep rolled to a stop under a large paper bark tree and Harper turned off the engine. It was surf check time, the first of many no doubt. We were about thirty minutes south of the Gold Coast and this particular surf spot was obviously off the beaten track. We had navigated a short off-road track down to the beach; there was no one else about—our first stop was secluded and peaceful. I was no surfer, nor did I have much experience with road trips, but my friendship with Harper had taught me a few things. When driving somewhere, anywhere, it was compulsory to check every surf break between point A, being home, and point B, being destination. Boring! My head was already carefully wrapped in a bright yellow scarf and I glanced over my shoulder looking for my hat.

“Here,” said Harper, handing me over his own trucker style cap. I slid it over the wrap, quietly thrilled to be wearing something of Harper’s. Perhaps silly and childish, but I couldn’t help the little voice of proprietary that sung with exhilaration right then. I slid from the front seat of the Jeep and followed Harper down a path that cut through the bush to the beach. The sand was blisteringly hot and I yelped leaping into the shade of a nearby tree.

“You sound like a girl,” teased Harper.

“Funny that,” I said dryly.

“Jump on.” Harper turned to give me his back. With a little jump I climbed up, his arms holding me under my knees. Piggyback rides were not uncommon between us, but for some reason this one felt different. My body wrapped tightly around his felt intimate and my heart pounded with unusual desire. He smelt so good and familiar. I found myself wanting to bury my nose in his neck and breathe him in like I had some weird sniffing fetish. Once at the beach, Harper deposited me on a timber fence so my feet wouldn’t be incinerated on the hot sand. Checking the surf consisted of one thing, watching, lots of watching.  After ten minutes I was bored stiff.