“Yup,” I grin at him. “Amber may be the best horse in the whole entire universe, but even she couldn’t pull those bars out. Harry, Flea and I spent half the day getting that cell ready. We had to brick those bars in, so they’d come out.”
He’s silent for a minute, and I’m not sure how he’s taking it. I hate when he’s quiet because my eyes start to wander over that Aeroguarded body.
“So, you don’t have to worry, you just have to turn up to court or whatever on Tuesday, tell them you were provoked like Tommy said and you’ll be free.”
“You talked to Tommy?” he stares down at me now that we are both standing, his hand twitches to my shoulder but drops before it touches me. I reach out and grab his hand and place it on my shoulder.
“I won’t bite,” I smile. “And yeah, I rang your phone and Tommy answered and told me the whole story. Did you ring from the cop station on Wensdie night?”
He nods still working everything out.
“Sorry for not answering. Seth got Sam to check the number and he said it was the local police number. I didn’t answer because we all thought it was them ringing about me breaking this girls’ nose from ages ago.”
“Seth was with you?”
“Is that all you got out of that whole thing?” I roll my eyes as he growls lowly. “Yes, Seth and I are friends – well, he’s mighty angry at me right now and has vowed that he will never ever talk to me again, so you really don’t have anything to worry about - but mate, you have to realise this. You’re both my friends and I don’t let my friends be bullied or hurt by anyone, so from now on, I’m going to be straight up and say if you just attack him for no reason, you’ll have me to deal with. I may be little, but I have my ways of evening up the playing field.” I give him an evil eye. “He doesn’t even know why the hell you don’t like him, Noah. And before you jump down my throat, I’ll say the same to him. While I’m here, there’ll be no more unprovoked onslaughts, and yes, if either one of you gets smart-arsey than I don’t care, it’s your problem then.”
Noah narrows his eyes at me. I stare back at him. I’m not joking.
“Why did you break me out instead of just walking me out?”
“You’re supposed to agree, not change the subject,” I fold my arms. I’m half like... trying to stall while I get my words together.
“Because...” I start then stop, thinking of my nan. She had pulled out a considerablely sizeable rope from the shed and had proceeded to put it to somehow tie it over the back of one of the pack horses. She let me tag sit behind her on her horse as she rode off. As we rode, she told me her view on caring for someone. Her idea was that when you cared for someone, you didn’t let them just ‘live’ a mundane life. That you should go out of your way to make them smile, go out of your way to give them a memory that will last them through the tough times.
I didn’t understand it then as well as I do now. Now that I’ve lived a life where it’s bloody tough one day and hellish the next. To give someone a break through an action or a smile is pretty much priceless. I can’t help but smile when our journey ended at the big dam, and she climbed up the only tree to make us a rope swing. As much as I miss Nan, as soon as I think of her, my mind is barreled over by how much joy and love she spread. Crazy love is what she branded her love. It’s what I want to call mine too.
“Because why?” his husky voice pulls me from thoughts of Nan.
“Because I wanted to give you a thrill. Because I wanted you to know that I’d have done that even if the cops had said no. I possess explosives experience, you know,” I waggle my eyebrows at him. “I did it because I want you to know that no matter what it is you keep hidden inside you... I don’t care. It doesn’t change anything for me, it won’t either when you finally let it all out. I did it because I sometimes see you go into a cold place and the next time something bad happens when you go there, I want you to remember that someone is willing to start a fire for you, wear a cow bum beard for you, hide a note in a donut for you. I did it because I care for you. I did it because... I love it when you smile.”
God, what the hell is with the just staring at me? My eyes scrabble around for a few seconds why I try to understand why I said all that. I mean, I had all these feelings rush over me when I found out he was arrested but I’m not sure ‘because I love it when you smile’ was one of them.
Suddenly, I’m pulled into his arms, and he claps me close, I raise my arms around him, and we stay like that for ages. Until it’s only the fire that’s giving off light. He whispers something against my hair I don’t catch and I want to know what he said. Noah pulls back and I see something has changed in his face, the hard planes, the tension around his jaw are all softened. He’s bloody gorgeous.
“Why is Seth angry at you?” he tries not to smile.
“I saw that on your lips just then,” I grumble.
“Tell me, it will make me feel better for not thumping him one next time he doesn’t provoke me,” he smiles crookedly again.
“It’s a loooooong story,” I say pulling him down near the fire, happy when his whole side is touching mine.
Hair now, hair now!
don’t dream it’s over!
Avalon
I poke a stick in the fire and watch the little trails of brightness the agitated whirls leave in the dark. I’ve never not liked anyone being mad at me before, well, to this degree. I should know, at home it happens fairly often. They get ropeable for a short time, have a rant and rave that kind of peiters out and then they either chase me, grab me, tickle me to death or throw me in a dam or whatever and I know it’s over. I totally let them catch me, by the way, just to get it over.
Not with Seth though. He’s still madder than a redbelly whose tail has been crushed, and it’s been days and days and daaaaays. Well, it feels that way anyway. It doesn’t help that even when I ‘wear his shoes’ in my mind, I can’t find anything friend crushingly wrong about what I did. ‘Friend crushingly wrong’ to me meaning nothing that... ummm, won’t end up back the same as it started or you’re basiclly dead.
“You’re reliving it without speaking, you know?” Noah nudges me with a chuckle, but when I glance up at him, his eyes are tight. He shrugs, “You’re talking to the world’s foremost expert in that foray.”
“I’m not really,” I grudgingly admit, trying not to stare at his lips that seem to attract cool snaky patterns of firelight. I swear the patterns spelt out KISS ME just then. Am I able to just kiss him now? Does there have to be some talk about ‘stuff’ now? I’m a bit clueless about this bit. “I’m just not used to people being that incredibly angry that they vow never to talk to me again in their whole entire life and into the beyond one as well. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to talk to me? Okay. Apart from Daryl and maybe Jarrod and well anyone else that knows me pretty well.” Noah frowns and I realise that he doesn’t know I kind of played hardball with his best friend. Are they still not friends? That’s no good. “Having people I like angry at me... it makes this weird churning feeling in my stomach when I think about it. I don’t like it.”
Noah says nothing as he narrows his eyes and removes their focus from my face to the fire. His whole body is tense, I can see his fists opening and closing really slowly like he’s trying to gain some control over something.
No wonder I dig animal company. If Frank gets the craps about something - and he does, generally about me not coming out to see him when he thinks I should, which could be like 2am in the morning - he just flat out fixes the problem himself. I admire that about him, it’s like he says to himself, ‘I want to see my BFF, her amazing presence and lullaby-ish reading voice is needed in my life ASAP. I won’t mope and sulk about it like... like a human guy (he probably wouldn’t say human guy per se... but I’m pretending he knows what the boofs are). I will make an effort to go see her... right now. Even if I do take out two of those annoying wire things they put up on the way and move all my girls with me into that area they call the ‘get out of the blo
ody house yard,you beast’. Hey, life’s tough, you don’t have to scream about it, next time leave my potential path choices clear.’
I understand that, well, Seth, can’t ‘fix’ his mad problem straight out, so I went to see him, but he was nowhere to be found which is weird considering I pulled a Frank and rocked up at his joint at 2 am. And I still can’t believe he didn’t ring me back after receiving the ‘care and I’m kind of sorry’ pack I left him. I actually had to go shopping for those things and ask weird questions to get the products I put in that basket! Questions, I didn’t even know how to word. I should be the not happy one.
Guess, I better tell the story, maybe I will come across a point I missed to understand what went wrong. It couldn’t have been that tiny mistake with good intentions that he got so angry over, the one I tried to apologise over. We had such an excellent time pimping the hostel games room the night before its weird that he’s just forgotten that. All that skullduggery from the oldies, the balaclavas… The whole thing turned out AMAZING.
“Okay. You know how Seth’s maid, Sue, does the Naked Chef show?” Noah nods and copies me by poking a stick in the fire, after a second, he reaches behind me and grabs the Old Western costume shirt, putting it on covering up those dreamy arms. Bloody mozzies. “She had to cook on the beach because of these visitors or whatever, so she said for us to get fresh fish as that would be the best thing to base the segment on. So, my mind put fresh fish, Seth and I, and Sue together in its mental mixing bowl and came up with a mega brilliant show idea. Seth, might I add, was all for it.”
Noah leans back on his elbows and watches me with those eyes that make me wonder if I’ve been injected with a whole swarm of sex octopi, that are all proliferating with every glance at him. I can’t be ovulating that much... I’d be the biggest egg producer in Australia.
“My idea was we should, you know, do a bit of a parody slash promote Australia during the show, spice it up, make it interesting. Not Australia, she’s pretty darn awesome the way she is, but cooking the fish bit. Daryl wraps fish up in foil and just leaves it there so I thought I’m gonna have to have something else to talk about while that happens. Soooo....” I start to laugh because Sue always cracks me up, her costumes just kick butt... and show plenty of it too. “We all dressed up and went over to that island out from the sands hills to film the segment. We were characters from that movie Blue Lagoon. Do you know it? Dell loves it, she always says I remind her of an evil version of the girl in it. She’s somewhat Dell-usional... get it?”
Noah finally lets a small smile grace his gorgeous face. I’ve discovered that since we got here, I have developed a tendency to either stare at his lips, arms, back, eyes or just ramble. It’s disconcerting, and I decide then and there to deny that predisposition from evolving any further because I’m half sure that it is a physical manifestation of having a sex octopus occupying part of my brain, which is no good because that only means it will control my actions soon. It’s growing, I can feel it making sinking its tentacles in my brain with the command to perve at him.
“My costume was easy; I just wore a couple of rags, and a stick in my hair with a shell on it.” Noah groans and flexes his head away for a second, his jaw tight. Okay, whatever. “Sue was one of those native fellas in the movie that comes in at night with the drums.” I crack up big time now, at the image of her in my mind. My side radiates with such pain that it sobers me up pretty damn quick.
I pull out my phone, noticing Nathan has sent me a few text messages - I’ll read them later, he’s probably had some sixth sense I’ve kissed a boy and is going mental right now - and go to flick through the camera roll for some pictures of us. “Here,” I hold out my phone with an image of Sue. Even Noah loses his cool composure. Who in hell could not? Sue had covered herself in, I’m convinced it was black shoe polish. And I mean covered, even her bare bum was black. Seth kept gaping at it as he manoeuvred the boat to the island, it even left a ‘bum’ mark on the seat. Sue reapplied, so all was good though. Sam was slack-jawed through the whole thing. I don’t think he said one word. Well, one intelligible word.
Over the black shoe polish, she had thickly packed, to be truthful I’m not sure what it was, it resembled a mixture of flour, clay and Milo. It was all cracked like a riverbed in the drought. Every time she talked or smiled bits would crack enough to fall off her face, throughout the show, I had to be on alert for pieces about to fall into the food, in case isn’t wasn’t made of edible ingredients. I end up spelling out Sam is a big girl with them. He still didn’t bite though.
“Has she got black texta on her teeth?” Noah asks enlarging the pic with his two fingers. I like it when he’s relaxed, he’s obviously forgotten what had him all agro a minute ago. He’s so like a brumby it’s not funny. One second he forgets himself and enjoys being with me, the next he’s all tense and jumpy.
“She left one white,” I point to the canine on the left. “And yup that’s a bone in her nose. What’s worse than shoving an old bone in your nose is when we got home to Seth’s she showed me the texta she used.”
“Permanent?” Noah grimaced.
“Permanent,” I confirm. “But that’s how you should roll I reckon. Throw everything into it. Go hard or go home. Otherwise, you’ll regret that taking that shortcut to make it authentic. I wish everyone felt that way.” I grump, thinking of Seth again.
“Who didn’t feel that way?” Noah asks his fingernail finding the seam of my jeans. After a minute he leaves that and finds my hand wrapping it in his big one to hold it in his lap. I get distracted by the patterns his thumb is tracing on my wrist. There’s no wondering anymore why Amber and Frank like me playing with their hair. I’m in heaven.
“I like scratches on my arm,” I melt, testing the waters of what’s going on here. Of what I can ask of him. “Real soft ones with your fingertips.”
His hand stiffens around mine. I ignore it and the sensation of shifting sand under my feet, remembering it’s just a horse game, ask a little and wait, let them get the answer without too much pressure.
“Well, I have to admit Seth was all okay with getting into character at the start,” I think about his playfulness well into the show taping as well. His eagerness to do certain scenes. I vetoed the whole make the baby and skinny-dipping scenes and cracked open the coconut Sue needed on his head. Well, I cracked it first and drained the milk and then threw it at him. I explained to him it’s what happened in the movie. He wasn’t too amused, and then we got rough. It was like playing with around with Jordan. “But I err, guess he wasn’t too excited to be that character permanently.”
Noah’s finger trailing up my arm causes me to practically keel over with pleasure. I stretch out beside him, my smile bigger than the Cheshire cat’s as I flop my appendage onto his chest. He smiles. “What do you mean permanently? Personally, I’m hoping that means you left him on the island?”
I raise an eyebrow at his sudden perkiness. He laughs and tickles me, his lips find my neck and I bite my own lip as my hands tangle in his hair.
“I think I like this,” he murmurs before literally flinching and stiffening like a voice has spoken in his ear. “But I want to hear the rest of the story sooooo...” he pulls back his eyes a vivid green and he’s breathing hard and it’s clear he’ struggling with me nearness and not telling the truth. “I’m still hoping you left him there.”
“No, he wasn’t the one left there and I’m pretty sure he would have chosen that over... his umm, transformation if he had a choice.” I grimace at the memory. “As I said, I wanted it to be authentic, and I must admit it was not really any worries for me achieving that look but Seth... well the guy in the movie has curly hair, umm real curly. So, the other day I went to the chemist and asked the girl in there for advice. I did my best. It was an accident for crying out loud. I’ve only basically ever done hairstyles on sheep.”
I roll over and plop my other arm on his chest, almost sighing when he immediately starts that soft tickling scratch t
hat feels like heaven. I can feel his pulse underneath hammering.
He of little words just continues to scratch, causing whirls of wonder to vibrate through my frame. If this is a relationship, I’m in. Is it though? The only relationship information download for me is Angus and Dell. It seemed they kissed and that was it, she was willing to move. But Dell had no life where she was. Noah does. I’m leaving... to a place where water is scarce, there are no waves unless it’s a flash flood. I think about the relationships I’ve seen at school. Fooling around doesn’t equal a relationship to those kids. And he’s city, just like them. I don’t like the whole fooling around without it meaning something. I wonder if he’d come back with me?
I can hear Nan shouting, “Hold your crazy horses, Avalon.” True Nan, true. He hasn’t met Nathan yet. Or Dad. Bloody hell, Nathan would be the physical nightmare for him while Dad would be the psychological one.
Jordan would love him though. Someone that could help him but not talk.
“And?”
“Oh, yeah,” I shake my head free of thoughts of home, my heart hurting now as much as my side. “So, I got this hair stuff out I bought from the girl, who, belatedly, I found out Seth had a fling with, so as I told him technically it’s his fault what happened. He, of course, couldn’t see that though. Anyway, I followed the instructions pretty much to the letter, except maybe for the timing because we started to watch YouTube prank videos and I may have kind of lost track of time... it was only an hour over or whatever.” I shrug. Noah glances down, his mouth pursed, but I could feel the vibrations of laughter coursing through his body.
“So, it looked really good, perfect actually. He was so the spitting image of the guy on Blue Lagoon it wasn’t funny. We’d have won any character dress up comp in the world, believe me.” I go through my phone again and find one of Seth and I... before he exploded.
Avalon Expandable Heart: The Wild Heart Series Page 9