Australian Obsession

by Flora Ferrari

  “How have we never met?” I ask. I didn’t notice her when I first walked in because I always race to my table before anyone else gets it. But the moment she made her presence known, boy did she ever make her presence known.

  “I worked in the kitchen. Eric waited tables. The boss didn’t think I was cut out for customer facing positions.”

  I’m not sure if I want to punch that guy in the face or shake his hand. If he did anything to harm her self-esteem then I’m on the next flight to show him how Aussies stand up for women. If he tucked her away from other men whose prowling eyes could have caught sight of her, then I owe him a debt of gratitude. Unless of course he was hiding her back there for himself.

  “That sounds like a load of rubbish.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “But you’re still working there? I mean you’re here now so you can’t be there now, working there I mean, I mean because you’re here so how could you be working there? Unless you’re on holiday? Work and travel?” I’ve got so many questions and I need to pull myself together. This girl has got me totally losing my marbles right now.

  “I still work there. Yes. I’ve been saving up and wanted to surprise my brother for his birthday by showing up at his place today.”

  “You’re headed to your brother’s place?”

  “Yes, right after. I know he surfs in the morning and, well, you know how airplane food is. I wanted to grab a quick bite and splash some water on my face before I surprised him.”

  “Oh, you’re certainly going to surprise him.” And has she ever surprised me.

  Why hasn’t Eric ever introduced me to his sister? Did he ever even mention her? The cheeky bastard. Is he trying to keep her hidden from me?

  “That’s the plan.”

  I’ve got a plan all right…get to know you a whole lot better. I rack my brain trying to think if he ever mentioned her. Nope. She’s like a blank slate. I know nothing about her, and I need to start figuring out what the hell is going on…fast.

  “How long are you staying?”

  “Just a week. It’s all I could afford.”

  “But Oz is so far away. If you came all this way you should stay longer. Maybe a month? I know there are a lot of foreign girls who come here and get jobs and do the whole work and travel thing.” What am I saying? Don’t let her get away. “Not that you need to travel or anything. Sydney’s got it all. The Opera House. The Harbour Bridge, which you can climb. I mean I’ve never climbed it, but you can. You should. We should all do it. There are a lot of things we can do while you’re here.”

  “That sounds fun. I’d like that,” she says, her head turning to the side as she smiles bashfully.

  Am I still making a fool out of myself right now? This never happens. Usually I’m the one on the other side. Usually women are babbling to me about this and that. Does she even know anything about me?

  “Has your brother mentioned his friends down here?”

  “Yeah, he said he had one good friend. He said it was the guy who came to North Carolina for that surf contest…the one he hung out with a couple years ago and then hung out with again last year when the surf contest was back in town.”

  “That’s me!”

  “I had no idea.”

  “He doesn’t show you pictures or anything?”

  “I know he has Instagram, but I don’t pay any attention to it. He made it a few years ago, but wasn’t posting anything so I quit checking it. I don’t even have the app, can you believe it?”

  She holds up her home screen and all I see besides the standard stock apps that come with the phone are WhatsApp and the Kindle app.

  “You like to read?”

  “Love it. I like just getting lost in my thoughts. People think it’s crazy, but I don’t care.”

  “I know what you mean. I love to read, but most guys my age don’t read.” I pause, not wanting this conversation to lose its flow. “What do you read?”

  “Mostly romance. I mean Nicholas Sparks is fond of setting his books in North Carolina so I’m pretty much a sucker for anything he writes.”

  “Haven’t read him, but The Notebook was a great movie. I know books don’t always translate to movies, and they cut stuff and change things, but still…if the movie is anything like the book the man can write.”

  “You’re not the only one who’d agreed. He’s definitely got a lot of fans and has made a ton of money.”

  I lose my train of thought. How is a girl this beautiful still working in the kitchen of a restaurant? That town is small too, so they can’t be paying her that much, right?

  Something inside me wants to help her out, protect her, do everything for her. Maybe it’s because she’s so small she just looks like she needs a protector.

  Me.

  “Your eggs are getting cold,” she says.

  “My eggs? They’re not even…” I turn and see them sitting on the table in front of me, or they would be in front of me if my entire body wasn’t turned in my seat facing hers. “Oh, right. Thanks.”

  She turns back forward to let me eat in peace, but what I really want is to slide in to her table and eat with her. She’s not done yet, and I want to accompany her.

  There’s a light onshore breeze blowing in through the open windows and I catch a whiff of her perfume, or is that her shampoo? Maybe it’s her natural scent. She hasn’t showered since North Carolina most likely and you can’t carry a big bottle of liquids on a plane, right? If that is her scent then she needs to bottle it up and sell it for top dollar. Chanel number five or whatever it’s called would go bankrupt in a week.

  Scratch that.

  I don’t want anyone else knowing her scent but me.

  This possessiveness I’m feeling towards her has totally got me off balance. I have no clue what the hell is going on right now.

  I try and dismiss it as just looking out for a buddy’s sister, but when she reaches for the saltshaker on her table there’s no denying the attraction.

  Her arm on the far side of her body extends and her body twists slightly. She’s got on a loose fitting white Henley top that’s unbuttoned a button or two more than it should be. In my opinion it should be buttoned to the top every time she leaves the house, not that I’d ever let this beautiful creature do such a thing unless I was by her side.

  The salt is just a bit too far out of reach to comfortably reach, but not so far that she has to stand, so she leans.

  Oh. My. God.

  Her far breast lays right there on the table and I’m ready to send back these stupid eggs and take her chest into my mouth right now.

  Does she even have a bra on?

  My eyes dart to her near breast. Her nipple is diamond tip hard, but I can see it is poking through a form-fitting bra. It must be white to match her top.

  My eyes focus back on her far breast, taking in all that skin that I can see and I lean forward over my plate, but I keep my eyes on her body, hoping to see her areola.

  What is wrong with me? I’m like a little boy trying to get his first boob sighting or something. Clearly the only boob here is me.

  “Here ya go,” she says, passing me the salt.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking it and then looking at my table and back at hers. “Oh yeah, my table doesn’t have any.”

  “Actually my table didn’t have any. I stole it from yours.”

  “This is so weird,” I say as I shake my head and squeeze my eyes briefly. Isn’t that something women say? Isn’t that how they explain strange meetings and things like that?

  I wouldn’t know, actually. I spend too much time focused on guy stuff to bother. But she’s very quickly reminded me that a big part of being a guy is having the right woman, and damn if the top of my dick, which has just found the underside of the table, isn’t reminding me of that.

  So much for scooting in next to her.

  “This is pretty weird. Of all the strange coincidences,” she says, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes too. It’s not exactl
y what I did, but it’s close. Is she mirroring me, or is it the other way around?

  I did come in here after her and ordered what she ordered.

  “The thing that blows my mind the most is that you ordered the same thing I ordered.”

  “Oh, you’re gonna claim that as your order, huh?”

  “I’ve been eating that for years. Come on, I live by the ocean.”

  “But oysters and eggs? Nobody that I know does that.”

  “Nobody except me…and I guess you,” she says.

  “I guess so.”

  The waitress comes and brings the oysters. I watch as she looks over at Eric’s sister and gives her a dirty look. I want to tell her to leave her the fuck alone before I give her a dirty look and tell her manager. That’s not my style though, not at all. I’m not about complaining and I certainly don’t start things with women. It’s just that I don’t like the way she looked at her and I want to stick up for her, even though she didn’t see it.

  What I really need to do is calm down before I make a fool out of myself, or a bigger fool than I already am.

  “We should call your brother and play a prank on him.” I bring a big forkful of eggs up to my mouth before I realize that I’m not eating alone this morning. I put them back down on the plate and cut the portion in half. I need to watch my manners right about now, even though everything inside me’s got me feeling like a feral beast.

  “No! We can’t call him because I need to surprise him at his house.”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry, I forgot,” I say with a cheekful of eggs. “Sorry.” I point to my cheek, or am I apologizing for forgetting what she told me just a few seconds ago, or has it been a few minutes now? Man! I can’t even keep track of time right now.

  I really need to take a time out, but I don’t want this to end.

  Not now. Not ever.

  That can’t be right. Everything ends at some point, right? But why is it that I have this feeling in my stomach that she’s the only one on this earth that this doesn’t apply to?

  Why do I feel like she’s the one for me, and this could work forever?

  And why are these thoughts even going through my head? And how in the hell can I get out of here with this raging erection?

  “Maybe I can go with you? We can somehow play a prank on him.”

  “That sounds fun. Any suggestions?”

  “Let me get these oysters down and get my brain synapses snappin’.”

  She laughs at my childish language. We Aussies have a lot of slang terms, but that’s not exactly one of them, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll say anything right now to make her smile again. Damn she’s beautiful when she smiles. I’d choose staring at her smile over the sunset in Bali any day. And Bali’s got some world famous postcard-worthy sunsets without a doubt. Maybe the best.

  “Well, he’s not going to be expecting me so pretty much anything we do will work.”

  “Sounds good. You don’t happen to have a car do you?”

  “No, I just took that airport link. What a tourist trap that is.” And how I’d like to trap her in my bedroom right about now.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, just the way they have it set up. You have to pay the full price from the airport to the city even if you’re only going to one stop.”

  “We do make a lot of money on tourism.”

  “Yeah, I was reading it’s the highest per capita spend per tourist, for any destination in the world.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “It does.”

  But what doesn’t make sense is this reaction I’m having to her. This is just too…perfect. She’s even wearing my favorite color on women. White.

  I want to ask her how old she is, but that’s not very polite. Then again polite thoughts aren’t exactly what’s going through my mind right about now.

  I wonder if she’s wearing white for a reason. She’s not very old. That’s for sure.

  If Eric was protecting her from me, then is he protecting her from all guys? Is he even protecting her from me, or did I somehow miss her? How could I have missed her?

  “Are you in a rush to get back to North Carolina for second semester?” Wow, that was subtle.

  “You mean second semester of college?”

  “Yeah,” I say, leaving it at that. Holy shit, is she a minor? I feel like a total creep right now. My face turns red and that’s saying something. If you’ve ever taken a surf trip to Bali with a bunch of guys cooped up on a boat for a couple weeks at a time you hear some of the raunchiest stuff in your life. Not raunchy in a sexual way necessarily, and certainly nothing about minors…no way, but still raunchy. And that stuff has never embarrassed me like right now.

  “No, I’m not in college.”

  I swallow so hard I practically choke on a piece of bacon.

  “I didn’t enroll.”

  “Oh,” I say completely relieved, before I quickly compose myself. “But you are…college age?”

  Her brows narrow and she smirks. “Yes, I’m legal. And I’m Elena, by the way.”

  “Lachlan,” I say.

  “Nice to meet you Lachlan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Elena.”

  “I look forward to hearing all about you. I’m sure my brother will fill me in.”

  “I’m sure we will.”

  I swear a moment passes between us and I realize what I said earlier. I basically told her she’s included in everything this week. That makes sense though, right? But maybe Eric wants to just chill out with his sister this week and he’ll keep her hidden from me. He’ll fill her in about me, but I’m going to fill her in too, because I’m going to make sure I get more time with her, hence the use of the word we.

  If she’s legal then that means she’s eighteen at least, maybe more. But if she’s only eighteen then she was underage those two times I was in North Carolina, than I’m glad I wasn't introduced to her.

  I wouldn’t have done anything, that’s for sure, but still. If she looked as developed then as she does now my eyes might have caught a time or two on her, and her brother would have noticed right away.

  I need to stop thinking about this and finish my food. And come up with a way to surprise Eric.

  But it’s not quite that simple. I need to surprise him in a way that keeps the momentum, keeps us doing something. I can’t let him block me out. I can’t let her get away.

  As a matter of fact I need to get ahead of this right now.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I say. “We can go to your brother’s house and you can call me. He’ll hear your voice through the line and wonder what in the heck is going on. Then you can walk around the corner…right before he tries to punch me.”

  “I love it.”

  “Perfect. So, I’ll need your number then.” Jackpot. “Actually, wait. It will be much cheaper if you call me from an Aussie number. We’ll get you one after we finish breakfast.” Even better, she’ll have two numbers and I’ll be the only one with the local number and all the calls will be incoming so they won’t cost her a thing.

  And her brother won’t have a clue, which gives me time.

  I’ve got a week…to make her mine.

  CHAPTER 3

  Elena

  I feel his hand on the small of my back as he guides me into my brother’s apartment building.

  His hand fits perfectly there, like it belongs there, even though he’s got millions of dollars in clothing sponsorships and I’m wearing a thrift shop dress.

  The step at the restaurant to “meet” him couldn’t have gone any better. Everything went as planned and he did exactly what I expected, as he should. I rehearsed it in my mind hundreds of times. I had a mental flow chart of steps to take depending on what he said, if things went awry, or any host of other surprises arose.

  Now I’m on my own. Now I have to make this work.

  “He lives here?”

  “We live here,” Lachlan says.

  “We?” My stomach does a summersault.


  “Not together, but in the same building.” I breathe out through my nose, trying not to show my relief. This is still going to be tough…tougher than I thought. This is definitely an added complication.

  Lachlan points to a door in the hallway, turns and inserts his key into a door across the hall. Oh my god, they literally live across the hall from each other.

  He motions for me to call him and I do. I call him from the Aussie number we got hooked up and he lets it ring a few times really loud before taking the call and speaking even louder.