Call On Me

by Angela Verdenius

“What?” Ghost flashed a glance at him.

  “I just agreed.” Raising his hand, Matt took another mouthful of beer. “This tastes a bit grainy.”

  “Really?” Ghost smirked. “I wonder why.”

  “Huh.” Holding the glass up to the light filtering from the veranda, Matt studied the amber depths, but unable to see anything he just shrugged and flopped his hand back over the side of the chair again, glass dangling from his fingertips.

  Abraham eyed it avidly.

  Max watched Abraham avidly.

  Mauve ignored them both, instead nudging Ghost’s hand with her head in a silent demand to resume stroking her. He obliged.

  “So Ali is different to these other women,” Matt said. “And you just know you would never break up with her.”

  “Yep.”

  “So tell me, Ghost, how long do you intend to be with her?”

  “Forever.”

  The word hung out in the air between them, almost tangible, so full of meaning he could have reached out and touched it.

  Dumbfounded, Ghost stared at the sky before tipping his head forward to stare at Matt’s face. The darkness hid his friend’s expression but the silence was telling. Or maybe it was just telling for him because he sure as shit had just shocked himself.

  “I mean…” He floundered.

  “Not forever?” Matt asked quietly.

  “Well, no…yes…” Fumbling for the right reply, Ghost stilled.

  Mauve bumped her head demandingly against his hand once more but when he simply sat in dumbfounded silence she stood up in disgust and hopped off his lap, running lightly across the lawn and up onto the veranda to disappear through the cat flap into the house.

  “So let me get this straight,” Matt said. “You mean to be with Ali forever. Lovers forever. You’re not going to dump her. Did you tell her that, Ghost?’

  “Well, I…I just…”

  “Did you even think about what you just said?”

  “No, I didn’t, but….I…”

  Matt leaned forward. “Ghost, did you even realise then what you mean now?”

  “Kind of?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “I’m not?” When Matt snorted, Ghost shook his head. “I mean, I’m not asking you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes!”

  “So just be sure what this whole thing means to you, because I’m not certain you’ve actually thought it all through.”

  Silence fell between them, the only sounds that of night birds and Max intent on destroying the fern garden. Ghost couldn’t even think to stop him, not when his own thoughts were whirling around inside his head.

  Thoughts that latched on to previous knowledge. Thoughts that seeped through his conscious, seeping through as he analysed what he’d just said. Confessed. As he analysed the meaning behind the words.

  Forever.

  Forever was a long time.

  Being with Ali forever.

  Normally that sentence would have thrown him into a full-on panic but as the meaning grew in startling clarity he didn’t feel that panic, but he was stunned. In fact, he’d never thought of forever in conjunction with any other woman except Ali. And the longer he thought about it, the more natural the sentence seemed. The more right it seemed. The more it was right.

  It hit him with sudden lucidity, the realisation that he wanted to be together with Ali forever. It had always been him and Ali, together, having fun, laughing, sharing their problems. Being there for each other.

  Women had come and gone throughout his adult life but Ali had been his mainstay, never judging, always truthful. Being with Ali was like being at home – warm, comfortable, happy, content. Except that had changed, had become something so much more, expanded slowly but surely over time until it had culminated that night into something hot, sensual, and soul searing.

  It hadn’t been just sex. It had been comfort, wanting her to smile again, assuring her that he was there, but one harmless kiss had led to another, and then the dam that had unknowingly been held back by pure friendship had broken, his emotions flowing free, his pent-up feelings for her exploding forth in a torrent of passion that had joined them in a way so intimate it had literally taken his breath away and sent him soaring on a tide of heat.

  Of love.

  Oh God. Love.

  Stunned, he stared at Matt’s outline. “Oh God, Matt.”

  Matt waited in silence, like he knew what was coming.

  “Oh God,” he repeated. “Matt, I love her. I love Ali Mackay.”

  “And there it is.” Lifting the glass, Matt took the last mouthful, only to cough and choke, reaching into his mouth to pull out several bits of hair. “What the hell? Is this cat fur?”

  Undoubtedly, but Ghost was still too stunned to appreciate the moment. Instead of laughing his arse off, he just continued to sit there in stunned silence.

  He loved Ali Mackay.

  ~*~

  Gaze levelled on her sister, Lori sat in silence. Not one emotion showed on her face, not one little speck of shock or even surprise.

  Sitting across from her, Ali fidgeted in the chair, shifting, uncurling one leg to curl the other up beneath her, only to straighten them both out when she couldn’t get comfortable.

  “Well?” she finally demanded.

  “Well,” Lori repeated quietly.

  “Well, say something. Aren’t you shocked or whatever?”

  “Not really.”

  Ali gaped at her in disbelief.

  “Come on,” Lori said. “It’s not that hard to put two and two together.”

  “What two and two? It’s not like Ghost and I haven’t argued before and not spoken to each other for a while.” Well, when they were kids, but still…

  “True.” Lori nodded. “But this has been a little different.”

  “How so?” How on earth had Ali given anything away? A sudden suspicion hitting her, she narrowed her eyes. “Has he spoken to you? Cripes, did he tell you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then how could you have possibly guessed?”

  “It doesn’t take a genius.” Idly, Lori tapped her fingers on the table. “You were upset, Ghost went out to get you and everything went weird between you two from then. The sudden urge to go to the city? Doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that you were avoiding him, especially when you almost did a one eighty out of our driveway to avoid him.”

  “So? How does that get from an argument to…?” Flushing, Ali couldn’t bring herself to say it, not in front of her sister.

  “Sex?’ Lori said dryly, apparently not fazed in the least. “You can say it, you know. I’m a big girl now and even though I might never have had intimacy with a man, I know what it is.” She added with a smirk, “And how it’s done.”

  Oh sweet baby Jesus, had Ail left a tell-tale dent in the bonnet?

  “One of the biggest indications was this.” Fishing in the pocket of her pants, Lori withdrew a small, crumpled packet and dropped it onto the table.

  Ali stared at it.

  “The morning after pill,” Lori stated. “I found it in the kitchen bin, or to be more precise, the bin bag broke when I took it out to the big bin. It wasn’t hard to add two and two together and come up with four. I suspected straight away that you and Ghost had gone further than friendship.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t me and Chris?” Ali asked, feeling both foolish and annoyed. Mostly at herself.

  “Really?” Lori rolled her eyes. “How stupid do you think I am? You wouldn’t let that man touch you with a ten foot pole after that night. Please.”

  “Fine.” Grabbing the packet, Ali balled it in her fist. “Your powers of deduction are amazing.”

  “Hey, don’t get snippy with me, sis. This is your problem, not mine. I’m just here to listen and be your shoulder if you need it.”

  Shame swept through Ali. Reaching across the table, she laid her hand on Lori’s. “I’m sorry. I am being a bitch and none
of this is your fault.”

  “Glad we got that sorted.” Lori smiled faintly.

  Flopping back in the chair, Ali threw the offending packet on the table and eyed it unhappily. “So where the hell does that leave us now?”

  “You and me, or you and Ghost?”

  “Me and Ghost.”

  “Where do you want it to leave you?”

  Ali said sadly, “I want things to be as they were.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  Talk about stating the obvious.

  Propping one elbow on the table, Ali leaned her chin on her palm and sighed.

  Silence fell in the kitchen for several minutes before Lori nudged Ali’s foot under the table. “You have to face things.”

  “I am facing things.” Ali glanced up at her. “It happened. End of story.”

  “Not the end, though, is it?”

  “It should be.”

  “Ali.” Lori’s face and voice held a touch of impatience. “It happened, and now you have to deal with it.”

  “I did.” Ali prodded the empty packet with one finger. “See? I was responsible.”

  “Not that, you nong.”

  “Look, I don’t want things to change-”

  “You’re like a broken record, you know that? Things have changed. Now you have to deal with that.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Ali demanded, frustrated.

  “Talk to him might be a start.”

  Guiltily, Ali dropped her gaze, but there was no hiding it from her sister, who snorted. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Are you avoiding the talk?” When Ali didn’t answer, she picked up the empty packet and threw it at her, where it bounced off Ali’s shoulder. “You dumb sheila. Ghost tried to talk to you and you freaked out, didn’t you?”

  “Where’s the support?”

  “I’m your sister, not your therapist! I tell you how it is, not make you come up with the answer yourself.” Exasperated, Lori grabbed the can of Diet Coke.

  “Don’t you throw that at me,” Ali said, half-jokingly.

  “Wouldn’t waste it like that.” Lori took a deep swallow of Diet Coke before placing the now empty can on the table. Leaning both elbows on the table, she clasped her hands and looked across them at Ali. “You need to figure out where you want to go from here.”

  “I don’t want to talk about things.”

  “You’d have to one of the first women in history who doesn’t. It’s usually the men who avoid ‘the talk’, isn’t it?” She actually made air quotes.

  “Apparently not.” Ali flicked the empty packet with her finger.

  “So what’s going to happen now?” Lori demanded. “You’re going to avoid Ghost for the rest of your life? Isn’t going to happen, I’m telling you that now. When that man decides to do something, nothing will sway him. Ali, he isn’t going to let this go, you know that.”

  “He’s so damned stubborn,” Ali muttered.

  Lori studied her curiously for several minutes before asking abruptly, “So what does he want?”

  Toying with the empty packet, Ali didn’t answer. She knew exactly what he wanted, but…

  “Ali.”

  “Fine.” Ali lifted her gaze to her sister’s. “He wants us to be…”

  When she didn’t say anything further, Lori raised both brows inquiringly.

  “He wants us to be…He wants…” There was no way she could stop the blush from seeping into her cheeks. Nor the warmth that surged suddenly, unexpectedly, and very unwelcomingly through her nether regions. “He wants us to continue.”

  Lori looked blank. “Continue what? Fighting?”

  “No. He wants us to continue being…” Sweet baby Jesus, this was so hard to say. There was only one thing for it. “Lovers,” she finished in a rush.

  Lori’s eyes widened a little, but then she got a strange expression on her face followed by a slight smile.

  “You think it’s funny?” Ali was taken aback.

  “Of course not. But Ali, is it really a huge surprise?”

  Ali looked blankly at her.

  “You’ve been friends for years. You’ve always had each other’s backs.”

  “So? Adam didn’t marry his friend Keith and they’ve been friends since they were in nappies. In fact, Keith married Jenny.”

  “Dunce.” Lori shook her head, the small smile still hovering around her mouth. “This is different.”

  “Because Adam and Keith didn’t have sex over the bonnet of Keith’s car?”

  Lori’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “What?” Realising what she’d said, Ali, flustered and mortified, tried to backtrack. “Just that Keith and Adam didn’t-”

  “You and Ghost had sex on the bonnet of your car?”

  “No…well…maybe…I don’t…this is nothing to do with it!” Leaping up, Ali hurried over to the sink to wash out her mug. “The thing is we’re friends and becoming lovers changes everything.”

  “Wait on one minute.” Eyes closing, Lori put a hand to her head. “I just need to re-centre myself.”

  Ali glared at her.

  Lori cracked open one eye. “Don’t even think of leaving this kitchen right now, because I swear I will chase you around the house until we hash this out.”

  “Hash what out?”

  “Stop playing the avoidance game.”

  “I’m not.” Sulking just a little, Ali crossed her arms and leaned back against the sink. “See, this is what happens. Everyone goes weird.”

  Lori sighed. “You had sex with your best friend. He wants to take it further and you don’t. Why not?”

  “It changes things. Haven’t you been listening?”

  “That’s all I ever hear. I want to know what you intend to change and how.”

  “I’m not changing anything.”

  “Everyone has to change something sometime. Now you have to decide what you’re going to change about this situation with Ghost.”

  Ali threw her hands up in the air. “Sweet baby Jesus, Lori! What do you want me to do? Became lovers with Ghost?”

  Lori shrugged. “Is it such a stretch for you two?”

  Ali gaped at her. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure.” Lori shrugged again. “You always hung out together, did things together. What’s so different about being lovers?”

  “I’m starting to wonder if you had the same sex talk from Mum that I did.”

  Lori blushed just a little. “Okay, the lovers’ thing is new. Different-”

  “There! See? Different.”

  “There’s nothing wrong in doing something different. Really, Ali, you’re not making sense.” Just as exasperated as her sister, Lori threw her hands up in the air. “So you hang out together, you have fun, you have sex. Isn’t that an automatic step in a relationship that goes further than plain friendship?”

  “But things change.”

  “Of course they do! You don’t still run around the neighbourhood pretending you’re Wonder Woman, do you? Which, by the way, wasn’t a good look. That muffin top you sported in the WW costume was just wrong.”

  Ali glared at her. “Says Supergirl with her thighs bulging out of her stockings.”

  “No need to get nasty.”

  Ali closed her eyes. “I cannot believe we’re doing this right now.”

  “Hey, it’s a sister thing.” Relaxing, Lori grinned.

  Opening one eye, Al scrutinized her. “Are you finished?”

  “Dragging up the WW thing with the muffin top? Sure.”

  Ali rolled her eyes, but she had to admit that moment of sisterly arguing and fun-poking had eased some of her tension.

  Shame it came ricocheting back as soon as Lori opened her mouth. “So, what are you afraid of?”

  “Who said I’m afraid of anything?”

  “Ali!”

  “This is the problem with sisters,” Ali informed Minx, who appeared around the corner of the kitchen bench. “Think they know you so well.”

  “Because
I do,” Lori said. “Stop farting around and tell me what the huge problem is.”

  Closing her eyes, Ali drew in a deep breath, fighting for control, fighting to find the words, fighting her own uncertainties. Mind practically buzzing, she couldn’t concentrate properly because Ghost’s face pinged right onto her inner radar at that precise second and all she could see were his hot eyes, that familiar smile, but those eyes, so hot, so passion-filled, so not the way he used to look at her.

  He’d never made her insides feel like they were writhing, he’d never made heat pool in her loins, and he’d certainly never had her pulses pounding just at the memory of him inside her. Deep inside her.

  But now he did, he did all that and so much more. And that was good. Bad. Good. Ah crap, bad. It confused her, stirred up her emotions, made her brains feel like scrambled eggs. And her womanhood ache.

  “Crap on a stick!” Opening her eyes, she thrust one hand through her hair, dislodging the bun so that her hair spilled over her shoulders. “Crap crap crap!”

  “Okay,” Lori drawled, “Maybe we’re getting somewhere now.”

  “You don’t understand!” Frustrated, Ali whirled around to glare at her sister.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t. So make me understand.”

  “If we become lovers, things change. Then he breaks up with me and things are broken. Now do you see?”

  Scratching her jawline, Lori studied her for a whole minute before replying, “So you’re afraid.”

  “I kid you not. I am afraid.” Ali slumped back against the bench.

  “So you’re telling me it’s only fear that holds you back from exploring this further with Ghost?’

  “Only fear?” Ali sighed. “Only fear?”

  “You know, Ali, I love you. You’re my only sister. But some days you can be so dense and tunnel visioned.”

  “Huh?”

  “For goodness sake, have you thought about this?” Lori waved one hand in the direction of Ghost’s house. “Things can’t be the same between you now anyway. That encounter changed it, so you have to suck it up and move forward.”

  That was the problem, Ali didn’t want to move forward. She wanted things to go back to the way they were, but that wasn’t going to happen, damn it.

  It was so obvious and she knew it, so she simply glared at her sister.

  Unfazed, Lori continued, “The thing you have to decide is whether you’re going to move forward with or without Ghost.”