Twisted Summer (9 page)

About getting everything you needed from one warm, shining source.

The sky put on a show of feathered clouds that evening and we lingered beneath it, laid out on the blanket and sipping from glasses of pear cider and ice. I felt teeny under the great expanse of blue.

“Don’t you get lonely here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Occasionally, yeah. But I have a lot of friends visiting, especially when it’s hot, and I go to the Mermaid for a few drinks most evenings.”

“So there’s no girlfriend…?”

I watched his face for any flicker of a lie. “No girlfriend, Danni.”

I breathed a sigh of relief I wasn’t entitled to. “A boyfriend?” I teased.

“No, no boyfriend.” He cleared his throat. “I like my own space, as you can probably tell.”

“Didn’t really get that impression on the beach just now.” I rolled over and brushed the hair from his big eyes. “You fuck me like you’re starved, you know.”

“I am starved. Of you.”

“Oh.” The blush seared my cheeks. “I…I don’t want to go home tomorrow.”

“I wish you could stay longer too, baby, but I…it’s probably for the best.” He offered me his arm and I nestled into the crook of it. “It feels safe to play like this here, but it isn’t. Not really.”

“Not safe, or we’re not really playing?”

He sighed. “Both.”

The admission dragged through the air, rushed into my skin. Marched up to my brain and pounded the door in a temper: IDIOTS.

“There’s this song I like,” I said, “by Dexter’s Noose. It’s about how the most beautiful things sometimes only last a day…but they die just as painfully as something with a much longer lifespan.”

“Woah.” He frowned. “That’s pretty deep.”

“Seems fitting.”

“Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. “This is out of our hands. We just—we can’t last longer than a few days.”

“Our little secret, then,” I murmured.

“Can’t be anything else.” He toyed with my ponytail. “I’d love to have you again sometime this summer, though, if you like.”

“Really?”

He bent to kiss me, his tongue cool from the ice of his cider. “Really.”

“I’d like that.” I licked the bruise on his bottom lip. “What am I going to do about Esmé?”

He tipped my chin up and studied my eyes. “Don’t do something stupid on my account, okay? We can’t be together like that.” Another sigh, from somewhere heavy in his chest. “Not even if we want to.”

“The want part, though,” I said forlornly. “That’s the problem.”

“We should set some rules. Make it easy on ourselves.”

“Like what?”

“Well…I’m pretty hard to get a hold of down here, anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t talk unless it’s serious. I’ll give you my number in case you have any more issues with your Mum…you’ll have to promise not to use it otherwise.” He outlined a nipple through my dress. “Does that sound fair?”

“Sucky, but fair.” I wanted to cry, actually, but I couldn’t bear for him to see it. Felt stupid for it, too. “Do you want mine?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” He squeezed me. “Come on. Let’s get in before it goes too chilly. You’re off tomorrow. I want an early night.”

“Oh?” I smiled up at him.

“To bed with you, Miss Warren. I have plans. Intricate, filthy plans involving root vegetables and a cattle prod. Possibly a goat.”

We made love twice before sleep held us rigid against each other, and when the citrus sunrise poured through the curtains, he was already kissing my neck.

Monday mornings were always crap, but this one excelled itself in shittery.

Still sore from Gabe’s midnight…erm…feast, I packed away my clothes and toiletries, my suitcase closing with a squeak of the zip. He’d made pancakes but I was too jittery to stomach them, and I paced about the cabin instead, checking the time on my phone every few minutes.

“Anyone would think you were wishing away our last hour,” he complained.

“
What if she just looks at us, and she
sees
?” I shuddered with panic. “Mums are good at that sort of thing.”

“Danni.” He took me in his arms and pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m like your uncle. She thinks you’re gay. It doesn’t get much safer than that, theoretically speaking. She’s not going to take one look at you and ask you how much cock you’ve had this weekend.”

“Good job too.” I smirked into his kiss. “I guess you really sorted me out, huh?”

“You do seem to have lost the attitude.”

“I hope so.”

“I hope not, and then she’ll send you back for longer.”

“
Thought you—
ahem
—liked your own space?” I asked, playfully.

“You make my space a whole lot prettier.” He nuzzled at me. “And you stop me saying whiny things about the sun.”

We’d agreed to have our last kiss before we left the cabin. We had to wait for Mum at the bottom of the track, and if she arrived when we least expected it…didn’t bear thinking about. So for ten minutes, we laid wrapped up in each other on the sofa, our mouths and hands generous. No sex—God, not that I didn’t want it—but we couldn’t afford to get carried away. It lent our kisses and touches a new sensuality. I wanted to put my memories of him in easy-to-reach boxes: smell—like salt and shower gel. Taste—pancakes and lemon. Sight—muscled and tanned and lovely. Sound—pure verbal filth. And touch…like a roving orgasm beneath my fingers. I didn’t want this to end.

But it was time for the walk down to meet Mum.

The weather had cooled enough for me to slip on a jacket, and the wind tickled my loose hair. We only waited by the road for about five minutes but having to stand away from him, it felt like hours.

“I’ll miss you,” I said softly. I wanted to touch him with words, if nothing else.

“I’ll miss you too, baby. You know that.” He had those wrap-around sunglasses on and I could see my drawn face in them.

“You’ll call Mum to arrange another weekend?”

“Give me a few weeks, and I promise you’ll have your date.” He elbowed me gently. “Tonight’s going to be pretty dull in comparison.”

“Not every day you get to screw on the beach, huh.” I smiled despite myself.

“I’ll have to make do with the pub quiz. It’s not quite as sexy, but our team does get shafted fairly often.”

“Ha bloody ha.”

He shoved hands into his pockets, shook his head. “What are you up to tonight then, eh?”

I sighed. “I’m meant to be going to Esmé’s.” I pulled my dress strap back up; it kept sloping down my shoulder. Even my clothes knew it was ridiculous to not be naked around Gabe. “Her parents are out for the night.”

“Oh. I see.” He paused as a car swerved past. “She’s a very lucky girl.”

Was she…?

“Thank you.”

Mum’s Nissan pulled around the corner and as Gabe waved to her, a huge lump stuck in my throat. I was really leaving, and I wouldn’t even hear from him for weeks. I was going back to Esmé, back to Mum’s house and her stupid boyfriend. Everything in my life now would be second best because I was falli—

Mum swung her legs out of the car and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. She approached slowly, her arms folded against her crochet top.

“So…good weekend, Danielle?”

I nodded. “All right, I suppose.”

“We’ve had a good chat, haven’t we?” said Gabe.

“Yeah.” I ducked before Mum could catch my eye; I knew what Gabe said was logical, but that narrowed gaze of hers permeated in all kinds of creepy ways. “What about you, Mum?”

She seemed taken aback that I’d asked. “Well…yes, actually. Lovely weather.”

She’d been boning Malcolm the Moron. I knew it.

Not that I could talk.

Not that I would
walk
so well, actually, after the previous night.

“Shall we get your suitcase into the car then?” said Gabe.

I watched him haul it into the back; noticed the shoulder blades gliding under his T-shirt and remembered how firm they’d been beneath my palms. I might never get to feel them again.

Oh God.

“Thanks for this, Gabe,” said Mum. “I appreciate it.”

He shook her hand with a flat smile. “No trouble. She’s welcome back any time.”

Mum cocked an eyebrow and the panic flooded in; then Gabe nudged me with skyward eyes and I realized she wasn’t suspicious—she was
jealous
. I’d found the rapport she’d never had with her brother, the one she never expected either of us to build.

“I’ll be seeing you then, Danni,” he said.

“Yeah. Thanks…thanks for having me.”

We didn’t hug. We’d talked about it; just didn’t seem proper in front of Mum. Instead we shook hands in a brief, firm manner as if we’d just hashed out a shady business deal. I guess we kind of had.

As we pulled away in the car, I watched him slump in the mirror. He grew smaller and smaller until we twisted round the corner and were back on the road. I felt like I’d left behind my eyeballs.

“There are snacks in the bag by your feet,” said Mum. “Feel free to put the radio on.”

Really?! Maybe this long weekend apart had been good for both of us. And maybe I could cut her a bit of slack…or at least try.

My appetite was still in Gabe’s bed, but I helped myself to a bottle of water. “Cheers.”

“No problem. Nice to have to you back.”

Well. If she was in a good mood…

“Mum?”

“Yep?”

“Do you remember the name of Gabe’s band?”

She tutted for a second, then snorted with derision. “Heck, Danni. What’s he been telling you?”

“I just want to know what they were called.”

She made a show of calming herself. “Turnip Jesus.”

We laughed together for the first time in months.

I’d been silently mouthing the words to songs on the radio for about an hour when I realized I’d have a phone signal. Three messages from Esmé had accumulated in my inbox: one was from the night before, and said just
love you pixie. Sweet dreams xx
. The others were from this morning, and the water threatened its return in my throat as I read:
so excited about tonight. Got a surprise for you.
And then:
ok, you twisted my arm! It’s lacy. Know you love lace xx

I bashed in the best response I could muster and then stared at Gabe’s number on my phone, as if the digits were some sort of secret code. Had I really spent the past forty-eight hours making love with my not-uncle? The notion already seemed blurred and fuzzy (although that could have been the hangover from the pear cider).

I’d been looking forward to the drive back to Bristol because it signaled a return to cupboards stocked with junk food, the Internet. My own room. Now the whole idea was empty and flat, and the thought of facing Esmé that night made me queasy.

Back at home, I tore open my suitcase to find that Gabe had tucked my uneaten bar of butterscotch chocolate in with my bras and knickers. Couldn’t help smiling. And then in with the shoes was the last bottle of pear cider, with a note scrawled along the bottom of the label in biro ink:
what cider webs we weave xxx

Damn him and his poetic punnisms. Was punnism even a word?

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—throw the bottle away. If I hid it, it might look suspicious (even Mum wouldn’t baulk at me having just one drink in my room); if I left it out then somebody might ask what the hell that pretty little line meant. Drunk spiders?

Yeah, I sucked at lying. Which was rather bad preparation for seeing Esmé.

In the end, I pushed the bottle to the back of the drawer on my bedside dresser. I know it was wrong, but it was kind of cock-shaped. And hey, I couldn’t fuck anything worse than my uncle, huh?

I had a late lunch and took care of my laundry. Then I hopped to the laptop to check my emails.

I had the usual: Viagra spam. Discount vouchers (as if anything was going to make me shop at the Gap). There was a website update for some YouTube stuff I liked about gay werewolves. When I logged into Facebook, Esmé popped up immediately on chat.

Esmé: OMG! They just left. You have to get over here
!!

Me: now? Thought not til seven?

Esmé: They went early! Come on, pixie.
I got your surprise, remember
?