Saving from Monkeys (27 page)

"Why not?" He demanded and I heard in those two words some of the anger and loss I'd heard from him earlier in the day when he'd tried to explain his grief to me.

Instantly, I felt one of the little defensive walls I'd put up while Mrs Sinclair had talked, crack and fall.
"Because I don't want to hate you," I burst out.

This seemed to cut at him even deeper and, although his eyes were firmly focused on the road in front of us, I felt a bit like I had when Mrs Sinclair had turned her full attention on me earlier. These Sinclairs could sure pack a punch.

"
Why not
?" He repeated disbelievingly. "Because, I gotta tell you, Rox, now would be the perfect time for it. I went behind your back and did something you've recently made pretty clear is unforgivable to you, so I don't understand what's going on."

OK
, and now neither did I. What was his problem? "Do you
want
me to hate you?" I asked, my voice shrill with confusion.

"No, of course I don't," he smacked the steering wheel again, "but I don't want to be lied to. Why wouldn't you hate me over this?"

"Because I don't think I'd be that good at it anymore," I exploded.

There was a piercing shock of silence and then Elliot swore loudly and swung the car sharply off the highway into the break-down lane.
I'd clutched at my seatbelt as we'd suddenly veered off course, and I found that I needed to keep hold even as we came to a stop. Everything felt so off-kilter that a tight grip on something,
anything
, was reassuring.

We sat there for a few moments, the only sound the soft ticking of the indicator. Finally Elliot took a deep breath and said quietly,
"You're unbelievable."

There was a strange sort of wonder in his voice that I didn't understand, so I thought it was best to point out,
"Actually, someone recently told me I'm awesome."

He let out a strangled sort of laugh. "What kind of idiot would've said that?"

I didn't say anything in response to that, maybe because I had so many ways to describe what kind of an idiot he was I was overwhelmed by the choices.

We spent so much time talking over the top of each
other, it felt weird now we both seemed to be stumped about what to say next. Elliot definitely seemed to be waiting for me to make the next move, a responsibility I wasn't sure I knew what to do with. I'd been the one to say that I didn't want to hate him anymore, after all, surely now it was his turn?

"You're going to have to take the lead on this one, Sinclair," I admitted after we'd sat there watching other cars streaming by for several long seconds.
"Because I have no idea what to say."

He turned to look at me, a shaft of orange light from a street lamp cutting diagonally across his pretty, pretty face.
"Taking the lead I'm good at," he said and his voice was so cocky he could’ve been high school Elliot, but the swagger dropped almost instantly as he added, "knowing what to say, not so much."

"Oh
, well, that's settled then," I said, releasing my grip on the seatbelt as I felt a little of the tension between us start to drain away, "we stay here sitting in silence forever."

"I could think of worse things," he remarked and I couldn't help but concur.

"Like being stuck in a room in a room when Abi and Jonah start pashing on," I suggested.

"Or dealing with the dickheads at Haze," he rejoined.

"Getting a song about Jason's penis stuck in my head."

"Being slingshot."

I scoffed at this last example. "And whose fault was
that
?"

There were another couple of beats of silence and then he said quietly, "Rox?"

"Hmm?"

"I could think of some better things too."

Happy to keep playing the game I agreed heartily, "Like my mum's lasagne."

He
laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"I was thinking more along the lines of..."
He moved forward, brushing his mouth gently against mine.

It was a feather light touch, but it sent an electric charge spreading through my entire body and I ignored the awkward angle of the car seat to lean into him.
The kiss deepened and one of his hands reached up to cup my cheek whilst the other bunched my t-shirt up at the waist, seeking bare skin. My fingers scrabbled against his chest, clinging to him as I felt his palm slide up my back.

It was only when I shifted forward and banged loudly against the gear stick that we broke apart. Elliot reached down to rub my knee where I'd bashed it and we stared at each other in a post-pash daze.

"Yeah, that's good too," I said shakily when I found my voice again, and he did his sexy little laugh again.

"You know something?" He asked then, looking down at where he was massaging my knee. "I don't want that to stop."

"Like you want to go for a world record or something?" I asked breathlessly. "Longest car make out?" I tipped my head forward again to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. Apparently now the floodgates were open I found it hard to keep my lips off him. "If so, we're going to need some practice."

He smiled a smile that I captured with my mouth.
We were nowhere near world record level, however, when he pulled back again.

"Tempting as that sounds,"
he said seriously, "I was thinking more you and me and the not hating each other thing. Long term."

I sat back quickly, this time banging my elbow hard against the dashboard. Barely registering my painfully tingly funny bone, I stared at him.

"My, oh my, Elliot Sinclair," I finally choked out. "Is that your way of asking me to go steady?"

"Steady is not really a word I'd ever attribute to you," he pointedly moved his hand, this time to soothe my throbbing elbow. "But your basic principle is sound."

"'Your basic principle is sound'," I repeated, still teasing him even as my head whirled. "You old romantic, you."

Something in his face softened. "You want romantic?" He tucked some hair behind my ear and, I have to admit, I melted a little bit at this simple contac
t. "You make me feel good, Rox…then usually confused, frustrated or amused, but in the end, we mostly work our way back round to good. And, honestly? That's not really something I thought I'd be able to say this week."

My heart seemed to be trying to escape my body, either by banging its way out of my chest, or by climbing up my throat, but I was relieved to see that Elliot looked like he was having the same problem.
With a great effort, it seemed, he forced himself to finish, "Look, I don't know if this money stuff is something you're ever going to be able to forgive and forget, but...anyway, that's my piece said."

I wanted so much to know what he'd been going to say after the 'but…', still, even without that last bit he'd done what I'd asked him to do at the very start of the trip back. He'd put his cards on the table.
Now it was my turn…

The thing was, just as I hadn't thanked Mrs Sinclair earlier, Elliot hadn't actually apologised to me for the money palaver. In fact, I had a sneaky suspicion that he didn't think he'd done anything wrong, which kind of made the forgiving and forgetting stuff a bit tricky.

But I wanted to get behind the two
f's, I really did, so I said honestly, "I haven't really come up with a plan yet for how to deal with the money situation. For now maybe it's about putting other stuff first?" I'd just been thinking out loud, but that suddenly seemed like the right answer so I added, "And I think I could do that. I think I
want
to do that."

"Put what stuff first?" Elliot asked, watching me carefully.

Right then, and here we go… "Stuff like you making me bounce and the sexy little way you say my name," I said, talking through my blush with an heroic effort. "…and even how you like to fix things. Although, I swear to God, Sinclair," I added fiercely, "you ever try and fix
me
again and I'm taking a pair of scissors to your floppy hair," I flicked the lock in question, finishing, "and you'll be lucky if I just stop there."

He nodded solemnly and then said, with the tiniest quirk of a smile, "Well, that's that then."

"Yeah, I guess so." I think I'd just ended up in a relationship with Smelliot Sinclair. How random was
that
?

"Sooo," I looked down,
then up at him through my eyelashes as I asked coyly, "pash here, or pash back at uni?"

He leant forward and the last thing either of us said for a very long time was, "Both."

----------

As they turned onto the street Rox's building was on, Elliot cut a glance across to where she was curled up on the passenger seat.
Her lips were still red and her hair was mussed from their fairly epic roadside make out session. She looked incredible and somehow, some-crazy-how, she was his.

He had no idea how the day had gone from so shit to so
good, but he knew he was going to work damn hard not to screw it up. And he was going to have to, he acknowledged, because in his gut he knew that one day Rox was going to remember what had really gone down on the night they'd first slept together.

And then there was going to be hell to pay.

Chapter 16 – The Weird and the end of the World

"Oh, hon, there you are. I'm so sorry about Nan. Joe told me the funeral was…is that
pash rash
?"

I'd barely walked through the door on my return from the Sinclair house when Abi had tugged my bag from me and wrapped me in a hug. Just as I'd started to relax into my best friend's embrace, however, she pulled back and grabbed my chin in a vice-like grip, turning my face back and forth to look at my red skin.

"Ow," I complained, batting her hand away. "Knock it off."

"Who the hell were yo
u kissing at the funeral?"Abi demanded, before understanding clearly dawned and she whacked me on the shoulder. "Oh my freaking God!
Elliot
? You were kissing Elliot at the funeral?"

"Again, ow," I rubbed at my shoulder and glared at her balefully. "And, I didn't kiss Elliot at the funeral," I continued primly. "That would have been strange and inappropriate." It immediately occurred to me how much Nan would have enjoyed Elliot and me making out at her funeral even, actually
especially
, if it was strange and inappropriate.

And then…oh dear, there it was; the moment I'd known would come.
Here I was back at uni, here was Abi looking just the same, and there was my bed, the Mona Lisa poster and all my things…but Nan was gone. It was a fresh sting to an already smarting wound and I immediately wondered how Elliot was going back at his place in this new Nan-less world.

"You
OK?" Abi obviously saw my distress and the concern in her tone just about made me dissolve. I'd been so right about how much of a mess I would've been if she'd been there at the ill-fated funeral. Sometimes sympathy was just the worst thing in the world.

"Yep," I said overbrightly, blinking a few times. "Dead people are real downers, hey?"

"Oh, Rox," her face crumpled with compassion, but I held up a hand to stop her.

"No niceness," I told her firmly. "I'm getting dehydrated from all the waterworks. You need to pretend like you're some cold hearted witch who just wants me to get over it already or I'll crisp up like an old leaf."

For a moment she continued to look at me sadly, but then she rearranged her features so she was looking slightly bored and I gave her another fierce hug for understanding.

"So, you and Elliot K-I-S-S-I-N-G," she sang as I headed over to my chest of drawers to start unpacking, "what's that all about?" She paused and then added, "It
was
Elliot, right?"

"As the only other guy I've been in contact with recently is Jonah," I pointed out, chucking my sponge bag in the vague direction of our bathroom, "I think we can safely say, yes, it was Elliot."

"Jonah's a good kisser," she said defensively, throwing herself down on her bed in a jangle of bracelets.

I smiled slightly. "Maybe so, but I'm perfectly happy taking your word for it."
I shoved my last pair of undies back into the dresser and turned to see that Abi was staring at me, eyebrows raised.

"Argh,
OK!" I plopped down onto my bed too and felt a strange little smirk pull at my lips. "Brace yourself for this. Elliot and I are, um, planning to pash on a regular basis."

Despite seeming to have been pushing for this result for weeks, Abi's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" She asked slowly when she seemed to have recovered slightly from the shock. "Because this plot has clearly advanced a little since last time I checked in."

Poor Abi. From her perspective I'd gone off with Elliot to collapse into the deepest depths of grief…only to return all canoodle-y. I could see why she'd be confused. So I went through it, from the almost silent car ride at the beginning of the trip, to the one punctuated with hot kisses on the way back.

It was kind of therapeutic actually, laying it all out so that Abi and I could both pick it over. I refused to let us dwell on the Nan stuff, and, in that way, I was able to really see what had been going down with Elliot and me.
It was actually quite something.

"So…" Abi said a good two hours or so later. "Elliot's not really forgiven for the whole money thing, you both know that, but you're together anyway?"

I was lying on my back by this stage, tossing a little foam stress ball we'd got free at the start of exams last year back and forth. I grimaced at the ceiling as she cut right to the heart of it; she was way too good at that. "That's pretty much the long and short of it," I had to agree.

I wasn't looking at her, but I could hear Abi's hesitation as she added, "Not traditionally the best basis for a healthy relationship."

I shrugged uncomfortably, a difficult manoeuvre as I was lying down. "It's as far as we've got."

There was a long period of silence and then I heard Abi's jewellery clanging again as she sat up, and I rolled my head round to look at her.

"Traditional or not, I think this is a good thing," she said decisively. "I like bouncy Rox and I never had a problem with Elliot even when he was your public enemy number 1."

"Traitor," I muttered.

"And, Rox?" There was a perceptible shift in Abi's tone and I braced myself. "I know you don't want to talk about Nan now, but if you ever do…"

"I know," I said, thankful that Abi would understand the combination of appreciation and frustration in my tone. "Thanks."

She was clearly going to add something else, but as she opened her mouth it got overtaken by a massive yawn and I suddenly realised how late it was. It had been an insanely full on day, but I didn't feel tired. I felt…itchy. Unsettled.

Still, I took pity on my clearly knackered best friend and we started getting ready for bed.
An hour later, teeth brushed and pyjama clad, I lay in the dark, my eyes wide open and my head whirring.

The last time I'd lain awake in this same bed I'd just kissed Elliot for the first time and was trying to get my head round all the awesome and not-so-awesome elements of it. Nan had been alive, Mrs Sinclair had been a cardboard-cut-out of evil and I'd been on the fence re good-guy-Elliot versus annoying-pain in the arse-Elliot.
Contrast it to only a week later and… It was weird.

My phone gave a little buzz on my bedside table and lit the room up in a pale blue. I grabbed it up before the light woke Abi and felt my stomach give a swoop as I saw the message from Elliot:
This is weird.

I smiled and, despite everything, it was one of those irrepressible smiles; the kind that make your cheeks start to hurt and won't go down no matter how much you try to smooth your face out. Next thing I knew I had slipped out of bed and grabbed a jacket out of my wardrobe.

Cutting a furtive look across at a motionless Abi, I ripped a page from a nearby exercise book and scribbled a quick note which I left on my pillow. Then I slipped into some shoes, gingerly picked up my keys and let myself out of the room.

The night air was crisp as I set off and it felt good slapping against my cheeks. My inane grin popped up at random intervals as I marched along, so I at least fit in with the jovial groups of drunken uni students I passed on the pavement.

Arriving outside Elliot's flat I was amused to find myself springing about on my toes a little bit as I stopped to knock on the door; there was the bounce. I heard soft footsteps approaching from inside, then the door opened and there he was. My beau. Ha!

He was wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms, but nothing else and looked dishevelled. Instinct told me he'd been suffering the same 'it's all too odd, can't sleep' issue as me
, though. His lips curved in a slow smile as he saw me and I'm pretty sure that several of my organs melted just a little bit.

Before I totally slipped down into a puddle at his feet, I lifted my chin and said what I'd gone over to say.
"Yes."

Elliot quirked an eyebrow.
"Yes?"

"Yes, this
is
weird," I explained.

His smile widened. "You know how your phone works, right? He asked. "If you want to reply to a text all you have to do is press those little buttons."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said tartly. "Did you want me to go do that then?"

He'd reached for me even before I'd finished speaking, wrapping his arms around me and walking us both backwards into his flat.

"No," he murmured into my hair, "this is just fine."

Which is how things got less weird and more just awesome.

~*~

"Out of interest, what happens if
it doesn't work out tonight?"

It was two weeks later and, after exactly 14 days of indulging in purely 'new couple' activities, Elliot and I were venturing out into the world. Unfortunately for me
, tonight 'the world' consisted of a get together with Elliot's friends. I was nervous as all hell.

As just the two of us, Elliot and I were working out fine. We argued constantly because we were both good at it and it was fun, and then we'd have sex…because we were both good at it and it was fun. I didn't know if that equation was going to work so well when others were thrown into the mix, however. Arguments and sex both got a little awkward when performed in a public place.

Elliot had assured me about a hundred times that his mates now were nothing like Henderson and the like that he used to muck about with, but I still found myself chewing at my lip as we walked towards his friend Scott's house.

Well, really, how could I
not
be freaked out? I was used to hanging out with the scholarship kids and the ones selling everything up to, and including, their souls to attend our incredibly expensive university. Elliot's friends, however, were the sort who thought nothing of merrily trotting off on annual international trips and whose families were able to pay tuition outright.

Oh, monkeys,
money
.

My mind shied away from this topic like a startled horse. This was the third thing that had made the two weeks with Elliot so good; arguments, sex, and absolutely no mention of my conversation with his mum.
It was a constant niggle, like a toddler tugging at my hand for attention, but I did my absolute best to ignore it.

"What if they hate me and I hate them?" I pressed, stamping down on my money thoughts with great force of will and returning to the issue at hand.

Elliot looked across at me, then slung an arm across my shoulders and pulled me in tight against him, although his words weren't as reassuring as his actions. "Well, you know the saying." I looked at him blankly and he smirked. "Bros before hos."

"Bros before,
what
exactly?" I choked, glaring at my obnoxious boyfriend. "Oh, we will be discussing
that
word choice later," I promised him. "At length."

He grinned and then leant forward to kiss me on the temple. "See, the thing with you is that there's always something to look forward to."

Then, presumably seeing that I wasn't feeling particularly reassured, he gave me a squeeze. "Don't worry, I asked them to put the tar and feathers away, just for tonight."

I elbowed him in the stomach, but tucked in against him, I felt a bit better. Jonah and Abi would be there too, and, in my heart of hearts, I knew Elliot wouldn't throw me to the wolves. He'd just about bitten Henderson's head off at Haze when he'd brought up my past employment and it wasn't as if we'd been doing anything half as fun then as we were now.

Entering Scott's house it was immediately obvious that it was a typical student rental, which made me feel even more reassured. No fancy toilet seat that automatically lifted for you here, it looked more like the sort of place where the toilet seat had been ripped off so someone could wear it as a hat.

15 or so people were situated around the open plan lounge room/dining room/kitchen, most of whom I recognised from the day Elliot and Jonah had returned from Papua New Guinea. The TV was showing a rugby game and this seemed to have garnered the attention of most of the guys, whilst the majority of the girls were sitting at the dining table chatting. No gender stereotypes here then.

I'd only taken in this first, brief, impression when I realised that the girl bucking the trend and sitting with the boys was the same girl who had kissed Elliot in front of me that time. The incredibly good looking one who wore side-boob revealing tops. What was her name again…? Samantha!

"Look," I hissed, dragging Elliot back as he went to walk forward, "it's the girl who thinks I'm your chambermaid."

"Only because you told her you are," he pointed out reasonably and, if I hadn't been keeping an eye on the seriously pretty girl on the couch, I would've glared at him.

Samantha tossed her thick hair over her shoulder, and then turned her head; perhaps realising someone else had entered the house.
Feeling a sudden and overwhelmingly primitive desire to stake my claim on her ex-bedfellow, I squeaked and swung round to face Elliot.

"She's looking! Quick! Kiss me!"

"Always happy to oblige." He bent his head down to mine and I curled my hand around his collar to pull him close.