Losing Faith (Surfers Way) (14 page)

My heart sinks and air rushes from my lungs. Please don’t say anything, Pete.
Please. Don’t.

“That she fucked my brother and pissed off the next morning?” Pete spits out. “She’s nothing but a slut.”

I gasp as I drag in a lungful of air. I rub at my eyes which are now screwed shut, pushing my fingers deep into the sockets.
I’m having a nightmare. I’m sure of it.

My vision blurs for a few seconds after opening my eyes, and I’m met with two men having a silent standoff with their dominant stance and stonewall faces.

“You need to watch your mouth, Pete,” Quade says, jabbing his index finger into his friend’s shoulder.

“I speak the truth, brother. You need to know it before you stick your dick in this slut,” he says with a chin lift.

Air is sucked from my lungs as fire roars up my chest.
How dare he call me that? That word … that’s not me. Not even close.

Quade pulls back a clenched fist. I wrap my hand around it, which sees him drop his hand to his side. I stand in front of Quade, dividing the two men as I drill Pete with a look as fiery as the pits of hell.

“How dare you come in here and say that?” I push at his chest with both hands. He stands his ground, not budging an inch. “Get the hell out!”

Pete looks to Quade, his eyes wide, challenging.

Quade grabs his elbow, his knuckles turning white with his tight grip. “Leave now, Pete, before I do something we can’t come back from,” Quade warns, his teeth gritted together.

Pete yanks his arm from Quade’s claws, rubbing at his elbow. “Yeah, I’m leaving.”

The door chimes and I let out a loud breath, grateful the arsehole is out of my shop.

“Slow down, son,” Dad’s voice echoes from the doorway. What timing.
Well, at least he wasn’t around to hear his daughter being called a whore
.

“Young Quade, ’ow are you?” Dad says, offering his hand to him. Quade shakes it with gusto as he takes in a deep breath.

“Good to see you again, Mr Marone,” he says, his voice much calmer than it was a moment ago.

“You too, son. Is Peppi looking after you?” Dad enquires.

“Yes, she is. In fact, do you mind if I borrow her for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” he says.

I clear my throat. “There are two orders in the oven, Dad. Should be ready in five,” I choke out, managing to keep my cool.

I go to slip my hand into Quade’s, but pull my arm back. If he rejects my touch after what he just heard, I’ll turn into a blubbering mess.

“Let’s go out back,” I whisper to him, nodding for him to follow me behind the counter.

My feet move faster with each step until I’m out in the back alley besides Dad’s car, pacing up and down the concrete.

“I can’t believe he just did that,” I say to myself. I’m the furthest thing there is from a slut. Well, okay, I’m not a nun, but one night that I don’t remember doesn’t count.

“Lace,” Quade says in a soothing voice, his hands outstretched as he approaches. “What just happened in there?”

Tears brim in my eyes. Pete Fairfield could be the reason this relationship doesn’t get off the ground. Who wants to be with a slut?

I turn my back on him and sit on the curb. I shield the sun from my eyes with the heels of my palms and cry.

A shadow is cast over me as Quade stands in front of me. He sits beside me and wraps his arm around my shoulders.

“Talk, Lace.”

“I’m not a slut,” I whimper.

“I know that. I don’t know what Pete’s fucking problem is.”

Time to be honest. He needs to know the truth—my version, not the version that Pete has concocted.

“Quade, I’ve only had sex once. It was with Jamie, but I don’t remember it.”

His jaw drops. The grip of his fingers curled around my shoulder tightens, drawing me closer to his chest. “What do you mean you don’t remember?”

“It wasn’t meant to happen.”
With him
.
It was meant to be you
.

“Are you telling me he raped you?” he asks, the pull of his brows creating lines across his sweaty forehead.

“No!” I shake my head. Jamie wouldn’t do something like that. I must’ve done or said something to give him the impression it was okay. “It’s my fault. I put myself in that position. You were gone, Faith was gone, and I drank. I drank until I could forget. Forget everything. Instead, I lost something, something I can never get back. Something I was saving for you.”

Quade wraps both arms around me, kissing me on top of my head. “That’s not giving consent, Lace. It doesn’t mean it’s okay.” He lets out a heavy breath and rakes his fingers through his chestnut locks. “You should report this. I mean, what if he’s a serial pest and does this kind of thing to girl’s all the time?”

“It was a long time ago, and it’s forgotten. Easy to forget when you don’t remember,” I say with a shrug. “I’ve spent years trying to move on from it; I can’t dredge all that up now.”

He shakes his head. “This is on me. I never should have left town. You would have had me to lean on. You might not have gotten drunk.”

I run my hand over his shoulder. He turns his flushed face towards me, glistening blue eyes meeting mine. He runs his outstretched fingers over his forehead.

“I’m my own responsibility, Quade. Don’t take this on. Like I said, forgotten.”

“It just makes me think, you know. I probably did more harm than good by leaving.”

I press my mouth to his, letting the feeling of his soft lips caressing mine take away the hurt. I still carry the sting in my chest from waking up in that bed, but today I’m letting it go. It feels good to finally talk about it, especially to the one person I feared would punish me the most.

Quade’s shoulders drop as our kiss deepens. I close my eyes, shutting out everything around us except Quade and I.

When I start moaning into his mouth, I know it’s time to stop. Plus, I don’t need Dad walking out here, catching us practically dry-humping in the gutter. I press one last peck against Quade’s mouth and then one on his cheek. Quade smiles and rubs his nose against mine.

“You didn’t mention this morning that you were coming in today,” I say, and breathe in his manly scent.

Quade tucks my hair behind my ear and strokes my cheek with his thumb. “I wanted to surprise you. Chicks supposedly like that. I’m glad I was here though.”

“I could’ve handled him, you know,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“All five foot five of you?” he says through a chuckle as he squeezes one of my biceps. There’s not much resistance from my muscle as I try to flex it.

“Yeah, every inch of me,” I say, standing and dusting off my shorts.

Quade stands and leans against the brick wall which backs onto the courtyard. “Pete’s kinda gone off-tap since he lost all that weight. I haven’t caught up with him since I left, but it seems to me he’s got a big case of small-man syndrome. He got into a fight at the pub after we left the other night over God knows what, and I heard that it’s not the first in so many months.”

“Wow.” Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him like I did. He sounds like the kind of guy who might push a girl back. I just can’t understand how he can be so opposite in personality to his brother. Jamie was sweet, and I definitely saw a softer side to him. Jamie would have never yelled at me like that.

“Anyway, I’m here because I came to set a date for the wooing to commence. I’m tied up with dinner with Mum and Dad tonight but thought I’d see how tomorrow is for you?” He wraps his warm arms around my middle and pulls me against my chest.

“So the stuff we talked about … you’re okay with it? It doesn’t bother you?”

“It bothers me a little that you don’t remember, Lace, but it really fucking bothers me that someone took something away from you. I know you didn’t do it with your whole heart, but I was a fool to think that you wouldn’t move on. That you wouldn’t give yourself to someone else, especially after the way I hurt you, leaving like I did. After I’d been gone a while I starting preparing myself for the fact that when I finally had the guts to come home, I’d find you madly in love with some punk who I’d want to be mates with and beat up at the same time.”

“You thought I could move on that easily?”

He shrugs. “I hated the thought that you might, but three years is a long time. A lot can change. I’m grateful I get a shot with you, Lace. That you’re giving me a chance to make up for lost time.”

“And don’t forget giving you a chance to woo me,” I tease with a shake of my head. “Did you take English Lit or something at uni?”

“Yeeessss,” he whines. “Don’t you know it’s all about the woo?” He presses his hips against mine, no doubt so I can feel the growing bulge in his shorts.

“Ooh,” I coo, sliding my stomach against him.

“Hmm,” Quade hums.

“So Thursday it is, then,” I say leaning up on tippy-toes and puckering my lips. Surely Dad will let me have the night off. I’ll beg Aunt Cat to take my shift.
When I tell her I have my first date in years, surely she’ll do it for me?
I’ll come in early and prep until I can prep no more. That’ll have to get me off the hook.
“Until tomorrow.”

He smacks a loud kiss to my mouth. “I’ll pick you up at sex … shit. I mean six,” he says, a blush of colour prickling at his cheeks.

“Can hardly wait.”

“Best is yet to come, babe.”

The pink rosebud corsage on my wrist steals my attention yet again. I can’t believe he bought one. I think it’s finally time to let the old one go.

“How’s your fish?” Quade asks.

“Pretty good, actually. They really are the best fish and chips in Runaway,” I tell Quade, after consuming another mouthful of the soft grilled snapper. He nods, chewing a mouthful of food.

I take another chip from my plate, dipping it into the aioli before letting the salty taste roll around my tastebuds.

“You got that right. Ah, I almost forgot.” Quade signals to the waitress in the far corner, who picks up something white and makes her way over to us. “You in that dress had my mind going blank.”

The two painful hours of shopping with Mum in Newcastle this morning was totally worth it. A pale yellow, tight-at-the-waist, flaring-out-to-above-the-knee dress that is much more Hollywood than Runaway Beach would have cost me a hundred and fifty dollars, but Mum insisted on paying. I swear she would’ve had a heart attack in the store if I’d kept on arguing with her over it.

“That was what I was hoping for.”

“Mission accomplished,” he says with a wink. I’d spent a stupid amount on a new bra-and-undie set too, but I’d done that while Mum had been preoccupied getting a few groceries. I’d like to see how that affects him later on. “You look beautiful. You always have. You always do.”

“Thank you. I can say the same about you, handsome. I feel overdressed though,” I admit. Quade looks positively hot in a white short-sleeved linen shirt, open enough to tease me with the tanned skin hiding underneath, and a pair of mustard shorts and skater shoes that reward me with more ogling of his delicious calf muscles.

“You look beautiful. If you’re hung up on it though, I’ll happily rid you of the dress later if you’d feel more comfortable,” he teases, and then pops a cherry tomato in his mouth.

I open my mouth to speak, flustered by what to say next but when the waitress places a candle in the middle of the small square table, I take a deep breath in and out instead. The brunette lights it with a match, creating a warm romantic glow between Quade and me.

“Bam. Candlelit dinner,” he says, his smile as proud as I’ve ever seen.

“Beautiful,” I whisper. It really is the perfect date. I’d feel out of place in a flashy restaurant. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, as long as I have this man sitting opposite me, or beside me, or underneath me perhaps ...

“So I thought I’d let you choose what comes next. Movies or stargazing?”

The date just gets better.
“I can watch a movie anytime. It’s a clear night, so I think the stars are a winner.”

“Even if that movie is
Ten Things I Hate About You
?” Of course he’d remember my favourite movie. Faith and I were thirteen when Heath Ledger died, and that was when we’d discovered this movie. We watched it over and over a million times at the Kelly house.

The draw of that movie definitely had something to do with the fact that Quade had longer hair back then, and he had a thing about teasing me. “Why did you always pick on me?”

“You know why,” he says with a smug look on his face.

“The braces? The gangly legs? The inability to speak around you? What was it in particular?”

“It was because you bit, Lace. You bit like no one else.” He shakes his head and softly chuckles. “Your bite improved after your braces came off, let me tell you.”

“Yeah, well you became more annoying.”
You got hotter.

“That was my aim. When you were coined the Pepperoni Princess, I had to up my game.”

“Is that so, huh?” I question with a smirk.

“That just made the package complete. The scent of cured meat on a woman does wicked things to me.”

I stick two fingers in my water glass and flick drops at him. “Shut up.”

He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “Above everything, it was because I liked you,” he says, lacing his fingers between mine. “More than I should my sister’s best friend.”

“Aw,” I say, and sigh as my heart flutters madly.

“So what’s it gonna be after dinner? You should know that there might be a little moonlit massage in with the stargazing.”

I place my cutlery on my almost finished plate and dab my mouth with a napkin, trying not to be too obvious about my excitement.

“Let’s go gawk at stars,” I say casually. I lean across the table, puckering my lips.

Quade leans in and our lips press against each other in a soft kiss. A tiny moan rumbles up my throat as he deepens the kiss. Then, it’s as if we’re not in the busy café by the beach but alone, except with no interruptions this time.

An irritating smell drags me from his lips. The flame is brighter than before.

“Lace, your hair,” Quade says.

Huh? My hair?

He flaps at my long strands, which are alight.

Before I can summon a scream, Quade has a dampened napkin on my hair and the fire is out.

“Oh my God,” I mutter, checking out the damage to my shrivelled ends. Gratefully, I think I’ve only lost an inch.
Phew
.

“Oh well,” I say with a shrug. “Guess I was due for a trim.”

“Who does that? Catch on fire at dinner?” Quade says with a shake of his head.

“Apparently I do. Yup. Expect the unexpected with me.” I wink at him. He winks back. I let out a long breath and focus on his rugged, handsome face as I drag the sea air deep into my lungs.
Swoon
.

A seagull swoops over Quade’s head and lands on our table, diving for one of the last few chips on my plate. I throw myself back and my chair onto two legs, and then grip the edge of the table before I collapse to the ground. Quade shoos the bird and then chuckles.

“Shit,” I mutter, holding my hand over my pounding heart.

Quade’s still laughing.

“Not funny,” I grumble, but then I can’t help but laugh with him.

“Let’s get the hell out of here before you get seriously hurt,” he says, standing beside me and offering his hand.

---

“I’m just gonna freshen up, if that’s okay,” I say as we walk into Quade’s place. I need to check out this hair situation. I dread to think what I look like.

“No worries. Gimme five minutes and then come out back.” He gives me a dreamy look as he picks up a large beach bag and carries it out the back door.

When I look in the mirror I’m surprised at what I see, and it’s not the hair that’s got my attention. It’s the smile on my lips, the flush in my cheeks, and the hope in my dark chocolate brown eyes. Anticipation courses through my veins, tickling around the corners of my heart. Quade is changing me. After the longest time, I’m finally letting someone in.

If only I had my girls to talk to. I wish I could tell them that I’m finally taking a chance. I always thought when I got serious with a guy, that I’d have Mack and Faith by my side.
But I don’t
. I place my hand on my chest, where for years I wore my Best Bitches charm. In spirit, I’m still wearing it.

Love you, bitches.

I make my way through the screen door and clutch at my chest when I step down onto the grass. I’m stepping into a daydream, an alternate universe, where the air is filled with the promise of romance … and love.

Quade is bare-chested and barefoot, lying on his side on a large patch of miss-matched beach towels which he’s laid in the shape of a giant heart, with a few big blue pillows positioned at the top of each hump.

Four tall bamboo sticks, each one positioned within a metre of the corners of the towels, are alight, the distinct smell of pungent citronella floating in the air. Fronds of palm trees cascade around the edges of the garden, creating mysterious shadows on the neatly cut grass.
I bet he was half-naked when he mowed this …

“I’ll be sure to keep a safe distance from the bamboo,” I joke as I kick my sandals to the side.

A sexy chuckle rumbles up his throat. “That’d be ideal.” Quade presses a button on his Bluetooth speaker. The soothing tones of Jack Johnson float in the air, completing the picture of the perfect date. Quade pats the fabric beside him and wiggles his eyebrows up and down. I’m there at his side before I take my next breath.

I snuggle into his side, his warmth settling against my skin as we stare up at the night sky.

“You like?” he says.

“Most romantic thing ever,” I tell him, turning my body to press my hand to the curve of his bare pec, appreciating the sensation of his heated skin beneath my fingertips. “And this song …” I wipe a stray tear from my eye. “Better Together
.
”
I’d cried relentlessly over every word of this song after he left. It was supposed to be our song.

“I know, Lace. This song means more now I’m back. Jack is just the sound of home, you know?”

“I do love Jack,” I mutter, turning to him. As my heart grows heavy in my chest with fading memories, I can’t help but get a little choked up. I try and hide it by forcing a smile.

“My Lacey is in there somewhere,” Quade says, running his finger down my cheek and gripping my chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“
Your
Lacey?” I prompt.

“Yes,
my
Lacey. The girl that didn’t carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, the one who had a fire in her eyes and a kick-arse sting in her bite.”

“The fire’s still there,” I say to reassure him, but I know he’s right. I know I’ve taken on more responsibility for my friend’s death. More guilt than I’ll admit to anyone.

“I see glimmers of her, that fiery personality I’ve always adored.”

“I’ll never be that same girl,” I whisper and turn my head to the stars, blinking to ward off tears.

We stare up at the brilliant display above us and talk. Mainly about old times—the funny moments shared between us. The times I’d wanted to strangle him. We reminisce about the times I treasured most with both him and Faith, rare as they were, when the three of us would all laugh and eat ourselves stupid with popcorn, watching 80s movies and laughing at how ridiculous the hair and outfits were.

“Is the old cubby house still at your parents’ place?” I ask.
Will I ever get to sit inside it again?

“Yeah, they haven’t budged it. Just like anything else in Faith’s room. It’s exactly as she left it.”

Exactly? Like unmade-bed kind of thing?

“That’s kind of creepy.” Although if it was my child that had been killed, who knows what I’d do. “I’d love to see the cubby again. Just sit there and remember. I just wish I felt welcome at your parents’ house. I don’t think I could even approach your mum about it.”

“I’m sure it can be arranged. If you feel weird being around my parents, we can always go one day when they’re at work. I need to pick up some boxes of my stuff anyhow. Mum’s planning on doing something with my old room.”

“If you think it’d be okay with them, then I’d like that. Have you told them about me?”
Is that too presumptuous, considering we’re on our first date?

“Not yet, but only because they’ve been travelling a bit. Nothing’s changed there. Don’t worry. My parents will get used to you being around again. You’re a part of my life. They’ll come around. I thought Mum would be dealing better with everything, but she tends to focus on other things that have nothing to do with her.”

I melt into Quade’s side. My vision begins to blur as tears build up. “I miss Faith,” I whisper.

“Me too.”

“You wonder if she’s looking down on us?” I ask, focusing on the Southern Cross and the surrounding stars. I turn my head to Quade but he’s looking at me, not the multitude of constellations arched above us.

The light from the bamboo torches illuminates the lust dancing in his eyes. “Well if she is, she’s gonna have to turn away in a second because I’m about to kiss the eff out of you.”

I pull my lower lip between my teeth and sigh. “What if I’m about to kiss the ever-loving eff out of you?”

Quade shifts me underneath him. My dress rides up my legs as I spread my knees apart. His warm hand grazes the bare skin of my upper thigh sending tingles all over me.
Yes
. He settles his hips between my legs and moves his mouth close to mine, his breath warming my lips. I squirm beneath him, which brings his growing hard-on right against the dampness of my underwear.
Ai ya ya. Orgasm imminent.

Quade rolls his hips then presses his forehead against mine. “How’s the wooing going so far?” he says, his voice deep and filled with lust.

“Shut up and kiss me,” I taunt.

Lips meet lips. Our bodies meld together as every touch, every taste has sensations spilling throughout me, taking me on a journey which I know will lead to me calling out his name.

After a few minutes of heavy kissing, Quade pulls his lips from mine. “Did you hear that?” he whispers.

“Hear what?” A mosquito buzzes at my ear, and I wave it away.