Twisted Summer Read online

  “Any time you want to come home, you just call me, text me, anything,” she managed.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “Take care. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.” She smothered my hair with a cool hand.

  I hauled up my big purple suitcase, which stuffed to bulge at the seams (even though I’d left half my clothes behind because they were purchased on sprees with Esmé, and were stitched and soaked in things I wanted to forget). Then I gave her one last squeeze.

  “I’ll let you know when we get there,” I promised.

  “You better.” She stood back, nodded, and watched as I climbed on to the train. When it pulled out of the station, I left a little shred of myself behind and I felt it.

  It took two and a half long, travel-sick hours to reach the station, and since Saturday night had been another sleepless stretch, I could barely keep my eyes open.

  The sight of Gabe in the hotel lobby was like a shot of adrenaline stabbed right in my chest. Amid the buzz and clatter of the clean, modern hotel, he stood like a rock in a blistered rush of river: tall, sturdy, hair tucked behind his ears. His usual surfy T-shirt, this time paired with cargo pants. The ocean-whipped scent of him hit my nostrils before I reached his side.

  “Good trip?” The grin split his face, made the corners of his eyes crinkle. So gorgeous.

  “I’m knackered,” I admitted.

  He brushed the base of my spine just gently as he ushered me into the lift. “Not too knackered, I hope,” he whispered.

  I said nothing, but I blushed hard.

  He’d booked a large hotel room, and the king-size bed clad in white sheets took centre stage. A widescreen TV loomed from one wall, and a desk littered with textbooks and files sat in the corner. His suitcase, spilling with its usual disarray, lay slain beside the sofa. Was there anything lovelier than a room slathered with Gabe?

  “You like?” He came up behind me as I stared out of the window, and wrapped strong arms around my waist.

  “Stunning view of the…tower blocks. And aircraft hangers.”

  “Cheeky mare.” He pulled the hair from my shoulder and dropped his mouth to plant a sucking kiss. “Soon, we’ll be able to look out of our window and see mountains.”

  “In Canada?”

  “Yep.” He slid a hand under my T-shirt and caressed my stomach. Skin on skin…we’d had so little of that. “Just you, me, and the big bad world.”

  “And bears. They have bears there.”

  He laughed. “Not in the cities, baby.”

  “My Mum.” I swallowed. Had to talk about this with someone, and how here I was…with my best friend. “She told me if I stayed, she’d tell me who my dad was. Is.” I frowned. “Was.”

  He glanced down. “Must’ve been tempting.”

  “A little.”

  “But here you are.”

  I nodded. “Here I am. With you, like I want to be. We’re really doing this.”

  “O, brave new world, that has such things in it.” He turned me. Shoved me right up against the wall beside the window, nearly pulling down the curtains in the process. Gabe’s mouth on mine, his tongue curious, his thigh shoved up between my knees…ah, I’d missed this so very badly. He knew everything I needed and then some, but it was the some part that made my nerves go soft at the edges.

  “If you’re going to quote Shakespeare at me,” I mumbled into his warm neck, “I may have to suck you.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Danni. I’m not stopping you.”

  I was totally proud that I’d recognised Shakespeare, but three times as tingly that he wanted me to do this for him. I slid to my knees, ignored the slight gristle of carpet, and tugged down the straining zipper of his fly. If it was up to me, I’d have him right then, but he stepped out of his clothes hurriedly.

  “Better this way.” He panted. “We can take everything off if we want to in here, babe.” And he did want to. So did I. I leaned in to inhale the clean, hot scent of him, and remembered the naïve little things I’d said the first time we had sex; can we take our clothes off here? I plan on it, he’d chuckled.

  Back then—and it seemed so long ago in desire-steeped minutes—I was the student, and he the teacher. I had more confidence now, and it wasn’t the physical kind.

  I love you.

  Gabe scooped my hair up in fistfuls. He knew just the angle to tip my chin to, just the pace to make my mouth open enough to take all of him. I curved my tongue around his head to catch all the sweet spots, and with every thrust in, his curses grew louder.

  I hadn’t known how he would taste, but it was vague; like a glass of water left to warm on the window ledge. Soon, I’d remind him how I tasted. I’d lie back and spread myself, let him get a good look at exactly what he was throwing on a plane as his.

  “Danni…” He caught my chin to still me, the breath spewing from behind his teeth. “God knows, I want to come like this…but I want you to be first.”

  I teased him with my tongue. “I don’t mind.”

  “I do.” He pulled me up by the shoulders for a slow kiss. “Let’s get you out of those clothes.”

  At those words, every muscle in my pelvis lurched inward. I giggled like a drunk as I yanked my skirt down and then fell on the bed as I kicked off my shoes. Gabe appeared behind me, smoothing his big hands across my buttocks.

  “Give peas a chance,” he read, laughing.

  I wiggled my hips at him. “You like? I picked them just for you.”

  “I do.” He peeled the gusset away from my flesh and patted me there. I yelped.

  “Nobody gets ready for me like this,” he murmured. “Nobody but you.” Then he helped me out of the knickers and tossed me on to my back. I landed on cool sheets with an empty thud of tired mattress.

  Gabe came over me, naked, balanced on his hands and knees. I nudged through his cascade of dark blond hair to find the mouth so adept at kisses. I didn’t know what I needed more; to be made his, or just held until my ribcage caved and there was nothing but a bloody heap of me. I’d been reduced to similar, denied this for so long, and all my pieces needed gluing back together.

  “The way you came on me the other night,” he whispered. “It was beautiful. We should’ve found a way to do this sooner.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Not now, no.” He took his teeth to my nipples, grazing the tiny, stiff peaks. “We’ve been lucky.”

  I grinned down at him. “I’m feeling pretty lucky right now.”

  “Mmm.” He worked down to the spread of my thighs, where I lay wet and open for him. Prepared for his want. I felt sticky in the cool air, but the heat of his tongue soothed that, ushered a new ache.

  Before, he encouraged me to just use him, get myself off. This time, his fingers stayed away from the depths of me; he just toyed with the lips. Pinched. Pulled. Stroked around the edges. I wet him anyway, and when his fingers grew damp enough, they finally touched me inside.

  “Gabe—”

  “Shh. Let me touch you here. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

  “O-okay.” My thighs trembled as he kept up the pressure on my clit, and the rest of my body began to shake as he eased a finger in. The finger flexed inside me, searching for the right spot. Another hip wriggle helped him to find it. Then he circled the soft pillow of flesh there, pressing in, rolling over. I didn’t recognise my own voice when it made those feral sounds.

  After a moment or so, he returned to my clit where his free hand peeled my flesh back so he could eat the bud whole. If we’d been out in the woods then, I’d have scared the animals—I just got so loud. He felt good—so good that I begged him to fuck me—but it was more than that. Months of deprivation, desperation. Now he finally had me, and this tease…so cruel.

  When the begging got too much for him, he kissed his way up my belly, laid a sucking bite on each breast, and lifted my thighs with the sweep of an arm. I teared up. What the hell was wrong with me? Just the relief of the manoeuvre, the knowledge he’d be in me soon—

/>   Oh. Ohohoh. Maybe it was the way he held my legs right back, the careful in-and-out roll of his hips, the euphoric give inside me with every new thrust, but just ohohoh. Like that. Faster. Pleaseplease. Right there, please there…

  We grew sweaty together. Burned calories and bad memories. I’d never felt so wet in my life; between my thighs, the beads that dripped down my breasts, the sheen of damp on my belly. Even beneath his tan, his cheeks flushed with the effort to please me, and pleasure was a paradox of an orange, wrung in greater quantities the longer we twisted and juiced. After a while, those strong fingers of his crept back to tap my clit soundly, and the burst of my orgasm sent my bunching fists for the sheets.

  Though I couldn’t see it, I knew he bit right down on his lip while he came. This, this, this. We’d waited two months. Finally: dark, dark, nothing and everything and him.

  Then came the sweetest part of all: lying in his arms, our skin stuck together by sweat and sex, his breath pouring down to make my nipples peak. When you’re just desperate to have that person inside you, you forget this bit. And then it happens and it’s the best. Thing. Ever.

  “Do you think this is enough?” I whispered.

  “Hmm?”

  I rolled over to stroke the hair from his eyes, his pupils still black and swollen. “All this. For Canada, living together, everything.”

  “What else is it you think that we need?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Time, I guess.”

  “To know each other.” He kissed my upper lip. “I know you. I spent hours on the phone exploring you, even if we didn’t get that much time in the flesh. And God knows, what with our situation…do you think I’d take such a risk for anything less?”

  “I’m not getting cold feet. It’s not that. I just don’t want to let you down.”

  “Baby. Let me tell you.” He wound his arms about me tighter, gave me a squeeze. “We’re going to go over there, and we’ll just be two people in love. We’ll make new friends, and have our own place with our own things…”

  “And eat road kill moose while we listen to Celine Dion.” I giggled.

  “Sounds pretty damn perfect to me.”

  “Can we barbecue the moose?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Can we barbecue Celine Dion?”

  “As a matter of public service.” He slowed for a real kiss, a hungry one. “You give me somewhere to belong, do you know that?”

  I nodded. In the family he resented, he’d found something deeper. We weren’t just lovers anymore; we’d fused to become a time, a place.

  “We’ll have to tell Mum one day,” I said quietly.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And from Canada…it’s a long fucking bridge.”

  ***

  The airport thrummed with a hundred different accents, a dozen languages, a pantheon of muted skin. Flight 742 left for Canada in eighty-two minutes, said the loudspeaker, and the staff at the luggage check-in mucked up and called me Mrs Warren twice.

  I blushed with heat and panic, but Gabe squeezed my hand and just gave them a nod.

  Before I switched my phone off, it buzzed with a text.

  Take care of each other. & send me a postcard or something. Tay x

  I bashed in a quick thank you, gave Gabe my hand luggage, and we walked on into the duty free. After I’d assaulted the pick’n’mix stand, we stood against the lounge windows and watched planes launch into foamy clouds. I thought about how Gabe screwed everything up for himself (and my Mum, apparently) on Earth Day, how he’d been performing a kind of life conservation ever since. And I thought about how if my dad had stuck around, my life would’ve been different. I wouldn’t have been standing here with my not-uncle at an airport, about to board a flight to a life with new skin.

  “Come here.” Gabe pulled me into his arms. I was hesitant for a moment, but then I realised: we could do this here. Anything we liked. Nobody knew. And my grin was as wide as his.

  Gabe kissed me, his hands in my hair and his teeth at my lips. Teeth belonged in our kisses, reminded us of the edge we teetered on so long until we found the courage to run and soar. As we drew back, the notes of a familiar tune spilled from the radio speakers: my favourite band, my favourite song.

  I won’t end, I won’t break, I won’t fall.

  Another plane took off and the air roared through its engines. It spewed white lines in the sky, and with Gabe’s cheek on mine, we traced them along the glass.

  No butterflies screamed.

  We’d survived, grown wings, and were about to truly fly.

  EPILOGUE

  July 2nd 2013

  Alberta is a lot sunnier than I’d expected. Even in the winter, the sun slops down like syrup to coat the tops of the mountains and bounce off the glassy surface of the snow. Don’t get me wrong—it gets frickin’ cold here—but for me and Gabe, we’ve gone from a twisted summer to an eternal summer. I like that irony. It’s a sentiment made for a song.

  We still don’t have a song. Couples are meant to have those, aren’t they? But then we’re not your average couple. What we do have is a brand-spanking-new apartment, though, and right now I can’t walk fast enough to get home to it.

  I make this walk through the city a couple of times a week, right along the North Saskatchewan River. There are quicker routes from work but this one is just so gorgeous—trees with greener leaves than I thought possible, thick and lush in their wide shadows. The water looks cerulean in the sun and the air smells like timber and mud. As soon as we arrived, I knew Gabe hadn’t chosen Canada to run away. The place was just too beautiful.

  I’m still Gabe’s assistant, though it takes up little of my time. Once my work visa (finally) came through and I was established at the museum, I wrote to a bunch of architecture companies and begged them to let me do work experience. One office with a penchant for English accents gave me an admin job. It’s all going rather well.

  Our new apartment is in a little complex not far from the river and the national park. We only moved from our last place—which was tiny—over the weekend, and Gabe’s been using holiday time to decorate. When I get in, he’s balancing a paintbrush in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.

  “Nice paint job.” I grin, gesturing to his emulsion-strewn overalls. “Not exactly a wet suit, is it?”

  “I was tempted. It’s been a while since I had an excuse to wear it, eh?” He sets down the mug and the brush. “Where’s my honey-I’m-home kiss?”

  “Where’s my dinner? I thought you were playing house husband this week.” I drape my coat over a chair and wander into our new wide, open space. The roof is high, the windows tall, and a gleaming white kitchen sits pristine in the corner. “Is that a pizza box? You cheat!”

  “That was my lunch.” He unzips the overalls and wriggles out of them, revealing his trademark T-shirt and board shorts. “Thought dinner could be a floor picnic.”

  I kick off my heels—yep, I now wear heels—and pad over to him, wrapping my arms around his narrow waist. “Thank you for painting. And for trying to get out of cooking in a sweet but lazy fashion.”

  He nips my bottom lip, his tongue tracing the edge of it. “You talk to your boss about uni?”

  “There may be visa issues. But otherwise…yeah. Good to go.”

  His smile warms his whole face. “Have I told you how very proud I am?”

  “Yeah. But tell me again.”

  My boss says that if I stay for another year, they’ll send me to university here. I can still train to be an architect…but Gabe and I aren’t going anywhere.

  We’re home.

  “I am so very proud,” he murmurs, “that you’re clever enough to earn that.”

  “And other things.”

  “And other things.” He pauses, toys with the buttons on my neat shirt. “That you were brave enough to be with me. That we came here, that we’re still here, despite what everyone would have said if they knew the truth.”

  We don�
��t talk much about this anymore; our friends here don’t know Gabe is my step-uncle, and though it’s not nearly as taboo as if he were my real uncle, people still judge. They don’t understand. We do, and there’s rarely a need to vocalise it.

  “But this thing we have here,” he says, “you don’t have to earn that. You never did. You walked up to me on that dirt track a year ago and it was just there.”

  I squeeze him, stroke my palms along his spine and down to the backs of his thighs. “I’m glad.”

  “Me too, Danni.”

  We took such a big risk when we moved away together. We’d barely known each other for two months. But it hurt so much every time it ended—every time it was threatened—and just like the song said, I knew it was right when was so painful so young.

  I stand on my tiptoes to give Gabe his requested kiss. One turns into another, and we linger together in the space we’ve made our own.

  “How long until you finish painting everything?” I say.

  He glances around, his head cocked and his fringe obscuring silver eyes. “A couple of days, maybe?”

  “So it will be all done when Mum gets here?”

  “Absolutely. She won’t be able to whinge about a thing.”

  “Even the guest room?”

  “Even the guest room.”

  I plant a little kiss on his chin. “Thank you for inviting her.”

  “It’s about time.”

  “Huh.” I spot the pizza menu beside his paint pot on the floor, and reach to fill my eyes with cheesy goodness. “I’m totally ordering more, you know.”

  He winces. “I’m not sure I can face more pizza. Is that even normal for a bloke, do you think?”

  “Probably not. But you get all guilty if we can’t fit the boxes in with the recycling and that’s not especially masculine, either.” I wave the menu around before brushing my lips to his collarbone. “I need to stockpile calories. I’ll be a nervous wreck when Mum arrives.”