“Can I help you Luna?” He saunters up to me, his glasses perched perfectly on his nose.
“I don’t know Trent. I have some Lace I want to dye but I don’t know what color” I glance at the friendly middle-aged man who still believes he’s a teenager and smile softly. The excitement in his eyes that I’m actually talking to him almost rips my heart in two. That’s the thing ‘round here. Tourists don’t appreciate the closeness we have, but those of us who live here look out for each other. No one gets left out. It’s the Delia way.
“Did you see the new colors Pop’ got in this week?” he asks, picking up a stunning cobalt blue and pink.
“Oh wow! I didn’t know he’d gotten these! I would have been here earlier otherwise!” I smack his arm playfully making him blush. By the time I’m done I’ve got a pot of each of the new powder colors ready to add to my lace and Reid is leaning against the post out front with a new art pad beneath his arm and a stash of pens in his pocket.
“Hey Luna! Trent see ya good kid?” Mr. Adams pops his head around from the hallway that leads to god knows where.
“Sure did!” I smile, placing the pots of paint on the counter. We chat a little before I say my thanks and goodbyes and go to meet the grunting backpacker I picked up for no reason whatsoever other than it was fucking raining.
“Let’s go” I smile and go back to my Chevy, deciding against the whole conversation thing.
The drive back down to the bay was quiet, aside from the irritating squeak of my wipers it was somehow comfortable. It was a change in the air, it was heavy and thick but not as scratching as it had been. I run through every scenario in my head as to why I stopped the truck and offered him a ride. Was it my conscience or something more? That night at the bar I couldn’t get his green eyes out of my head. The way he’d looked at me left me shaken, vulnerable even, but it left me wanting more. I had to have more.
“How are you liking the cabin?” I attempt as we turn up the small dirt road at the end of the walk.
“It’s great. Someone shoved some food in my fridge too, that was good seen as I don’t know where the hell any supermarkets are around here” he huffs, and I feel the butterflies in my stomach wake up.
“I... I stocked your fridge” I laugh as I come to a stop a few feet from the steps that lead up to his front door.
“It was you?” He cocks his head, forcing me to look into those dangerous eyes of his.
“Yep. Jet asked me to make sure the place was tidy for the new people, so I thought you’d need a few essentials” I shrug my shoulders, wanting so desperately for him to leave already but all the while wanting him to stay. Even with damp clothes he radiates heat like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
“You think beer is essential?” his deep, fire stroked voice licks at my skin and forces my hairs to stand on edge.
“It is” my voice is quiet as I glance down before forcing my eyes back up. I don’t want to push him but this is the most the arrogant, all male, sex on legs, new boy has ever said to me.
“Along with eggs for hangover food” I shrug again and glance out of the windscreen towards the never-ending fields of nothing.
“How did you know it wasn’t Gus that was going to be living here?” his curious voice is louder now, more confident even.
“Word travels fast around here. You’d better get used to that” I laugh but Reid doesn’t reciprocate the gesture. Instead he grabs his things and opens the door, the only thanks I get is a small nod that flicks a lock of his dark hair over his forehead before he slams the door. I jump when the noise hits my ears and I want to climb out and slap him silly for slamming the door on my baby, but I don’t. Instead I put her in gear and drive like a mad woman back to the bay. Back to my flat. Without even a second glance back.
I should have offered to show him around the Bay, to introduce him to his new home, instead I’m left with fewer answers than what I started with and a gnawing need in my belly.
Reid is dangerous. I know that just by looking at him. Something deep inside me knows it isn’t me, he’s not out to cause me any harm. He’s dangerous to himself, and that’s the scariest thing a person can ever be.
Late Nights & Lightning Strikes
I WAS A PUSSY. AN ALL-round pussy for accepting that ride with Luna and for going for a pissin’ hot chocolate with her Mama. What kind of man done that shit? I was all for walking in the rain, for tempting fate and facing my nearing death head on. But where was I? Curled up in the warmth of a stranger’s house drinking Hot C from a mug that seemed all too familiar and licking the remnants of melted marshmallow from the sodding spoon.
It was like I’d been thrust back ten years. I was at home, with my parents and my Mama was the one at the stove making Hot Chocolate with all the trimmings. Except I wasn’t. I was a gate-crasher, using this sweet girl’s nature for my own advantages. I could have dealt with the wet clothes, but she’d insisted, and I’d agreed. It was never that easy. Aurora and I would argue black and blue and, god how I wish I could change that. Gus and I would argue too, we’d bicker and ignore each other for a few hours but with Luna, I couldn’t do that. I could barely keep the words I so badly wanted to say in my mouth.
By the time she’d dropped me back at the Cabin I had a plan. I had to get myself a mode of transport to avoid any future run in’s like that again. My entire body ached as if it had been on some major workout, but I knew it was her. She’d drained me.
I hated the same tune that stupid, tiny violin seemed to play around me all the damned time. Woe was me and I fucking hated it. I wanted to be alone, far away and moping in my own misery, but life was cruel like that, it wouldn’t let you drown in your own shit. Instead you had to get up and keep going, go through the motions as if you wanted to.
When those baby blues landed on me I felt something. Something I shouldn’t. Something I didn’t deserve, and I had been here for less than a fucking week.
With the screech of her tyre’s down the dirt road I could finally breathe again. The salt air mixed with that of the lake out back and the meadow out front filled my lungs with everything I should ever need to carry on living.
This, this I thought was the reason I had to move to Delia with Gus. I needed a different air to breathe, one that wasn’t tainted by the darkness of my sins, one that could and might actually help me gather the courage I so badly wanted to end my misery. Instead, I’d met the beautiful Luna, the woman who seemed to be gate crashing each and every one of my plans and I don’t think she planned on stopping anytime soon. The sky was a threatening purple-grey and I would bet this cabin on an epic thunderstorm soon. The air was heavy, even as I stepped over the threshold into my living room. I flicked the wall lights on, giving the room a low glow, I wanted to be able to see the flashes of lightening when they finally arrived. I changed into some dryer clothes and grabbed a beer before sitting my ass on a cushion on the floor and pulling out my new pad and pens. The cabin seemed different somehow, not in a bad way, but it felt different just knowing that Luna been in here. Touched things that I’ve touched.
I don’t know what it was about her, she was too bright and pure for someone like me. I didn’t attract those types of women, the broken ones looking for a night they’d never forget or the ones that needed to take their minds off shit for a couple of hours? Sure. No one like Luna. With her blonde hair and pale skin scattered with freckles she reminded of a Dove. My subconscious already knew that because that’s what I started sketching, a beautiful, pure white little dove.
My ass was numb by the time the first rumble of thunder shook through the cabin right to my bones. It excited me, I loved the electricity, the adrenaline and the element of danger that came with a thunderstorm. It made me feel alive. I was closer to the edge than any drink or drug could get me. I shoved the drawing of the little bird to the middle of the table as I got to my feet, I grabbed my jacket from the back of the couch and shoved my boots onto my feet.
The night Aurora left me, the skies
opened as if they never had before. Rain poured down every surface it could land on, thudding against every window pane and reminding me how much fucking pain was in my body. Every drop against the glass felt like a slice into my skin and ever since then the rain made me feel. I had been numb for so long, too long. Even as I marched out into the downpour and the sky lit up with bright lightening I felt alive. Not afraid like some, but as if I could only breathe when thunder struck. The power eliminating the pressure on my shoulders and giving me freedom to breathe on my own. My boots crunched beneath me, the gravel on the dirt road a distant sound against the cracks in the sky. I didn’t need the street lights after all, the lightening was so bright it seemed almost daytime as I stepped onto the boardwalk.
Pulling my old, beat up phone from my pocket I check the time. Just past 2am. That’s a record for me. I was usually still awake and walking the streets of Bancroft at 4am, asleep by six and up and at’em by eight. I didn’t sleep. Not well at least. The boardwalk was empty, aside from a few stragglers still stumbling from bars along the street back to the Bed and Breakfasts.
Crossing the road, I avoided them, needing to be alone and feel the electricity from mother nature herself. If I was lucky maybe she’d strike me down finally. I hated, No. I loathed how people died on this earth every damned day. I hated those innocent people, children who got taken from loving parents every day and yet here I was.
Miserable. Done. Over it.
Did I have the courage to take a knife to my wrist? A noose to my neck? Yes. Did I succeed? Obviously Not. I was a fucking coward who couldn’t even kill himself.
There was nothing here for me, not anymore. I was a lost soul with no one, and nowhere to go. I went where life took me, but why? I couldn’t fucking tell you.
My feet carried me towards the middle of the boardwalk where opposite the beach the walk split off into small side streets. Similar to the one where Luna had interrupted me the other day. I figured she must have worked at the shop I seen her going into and that’s how she caught me busking. I’d hated myself when my eyes had followed after her, my lungs screaming at me to call her back but my mouth refusing to move. Hopefully if go back to that spot, the perfect spot she might not be working, and I won’t have to see her. The tightening in my stomach calls me a liar but my heart wins out.
I keep moving, my heavy footsteps silent as the storm continues above me. Turning my head towards the sea, the salt attacks my hair and the skin on my face at the same time a fork of lightning strikes a few miles out on the water. I narrow my eyes at the dark figure that lit up for a second, the reasonable side to me telling me it was a boat but something in my gut tells me otherwise.
The walk may have a few punters dotted here and there but the sand is empty. Resting my arms against the railing I wait for the next flash of lightening to brighten up the pitch-black waters. The crash of the waves on the shore line against the continuous rumbles of thunder above made a symphony so beautiful only Mother Nature could ever play it. Distant sounds of shouts and hollers from party-goes quickly disappeared as the night drew to a close, the quickening silence deafening in my ears. The water rose a few inches up onto the sand and twinkled under the beams of fairy lights that were strung from the buildings behind me.
It seemed like an eternity before the next fork of lightning struck, the threads of light spider-webbing across the entire horizon in gold’s and blue’s. The loud crack of thunder sounding terrifyingly closer than it actually was. I didn’t move, not even a flinch. My palms gripped at the railing at the same time a too-big wave came rolling over the water. The swell dark and threatening, but the silhouette riding the wave had all of my attention. What kind of thick fucker would be out there on a night like tonight? The next flash of light bounces off a white board, the specks reflecting off the blonde hair and throwing it back into darkness. A gust of wind flicks my hair in every direction forcing my hand to brush it out of my eyes and that’s when my blood stops pumping through my veins.
The smell. The salty, floral, innocent scent of Luna consumes my being and the entire fucking boardwalk as I watch the little dare devil surf in total blackness. It’s almost as if the air around me grows thicker, the weight of the danger now weighing heavily on my shoulders. I can’t stand here and watch her attempt to fucking kill herself. Before I know what I’m doing my feet are sinking into sand, my boots are too heavy for the tiny specs of crushed glass and I start to sink further. The now distant lightning flashes too far away to give me a clear view of the blonde nutcase.
When I’m close enough and the swell of the wave has brought her close enough to shore I step into the water, small trickles of the saltiness oozing into my boots and soaking my socks.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I yell over the thunder, my eyes trained on her as she paddles with her arms, pulling herself closer to me before jumping to her feet. I thank my lucky stars she has a wetsuit on, hiding most of her gorgeous curves from me otherwise I don’t know what I’d be doing.
“Hey Reid!” she smiles as she walks closer to me, pulling her knees up to wade through the water.
“Do you have a death wish?” I grit.
“What? No. But it looks like you felt it too” she flicks her wet hair over one shoulder, her spare arm wrapping around her board. The manners my Ma’ drilled into me has me reaching out and taking it from her.
“Get out of the water” I turn back towards the beach, hearing the water move behind me as she follows.
“You know it’s pretty darn safe” she chuckles, the faint sound of a zipper rings around me as if I was in a secluded box room and not on the fucking beach.
“Whatever. That was stupid, and you know it” I shove the tip of her board into the sand and against my will my feet turn towards her. Pulling the wet suit down around her hips, revealing the barley there, lace topped bikini -thing she has on and forcing any saliva in my mouth to dissipate, the little dove looks fucking phenomenal when fork of lightening lights up the sky and bounces off her perfect skin. Could it be possible that I’d read this chick all wrong? What if she was lost like I was? It meant nothing putting on a show for other people. The things a forced smile could hide, the depths a few faked laughs could dive to. It was easy convincing the people around you that you had everything together, what wasn’t so easy was convincing yourself. For me, I’d given up but Luna? I never painted her as having the same desperation as me. Maybe she was just plain stupid.
“Lighten up City Boy!” she laughs, the sweet sound travelling all around us.
“I always surf at night. Especially during storms”, she smiles widely, revealing all white, even teeth.
“Why?” my own voice doesn’t match her confident tone, instead sounding panicked and worried. A gust of wind brushes past us, flicking her wet hair in a few different directions and showering me in sea-drops.
“It makes me feel alive” she shrugs, pulling her board out of the sand and walking further up the beach. Those words swim around my head like shark infested waters, does she mean that?
“What do you need to feel alive for?” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, the words I’ve been swallowing down for the past three days rolling off my tongue and forming conversational sentences.
Turning on the sand, her bare feet with black painted nails dig into the grains as she eyes me, the distant flash of lightening behind me illuminates her in an angelic glow once more. The faint drops of rain start to hit at my jacket, the tiny droplets threatening more danger.
“Sometimes we all need to feel vulnerable Reid” the sweet decibels of her words cut through my chest and bury themselves beneath my skin. Vulnerable was an understatement. I was so far past that point I couldn’t give a fuck what slapped me in the face. What I wasn’t prepared for was that slap being in the shape of perfect woman with an attraction so strong I could hardly stop my feet from stalking closer towards her. Maybe it was the sea air, or the fact that Mother Nature was throwing electricity around like it was free. Ma
ybe it was her. The moon shining brightly between the breaks in the clouds on that dark beach and guiding me towards her, pulling me into her orbit and refusing to let me go. My steps didn’t falter when I stepped closer to her, the sea air disappearing and being replaced with her.
My nostrils flare and my skin sparks when my fingertips brush her flushed skin at her hip. The heat almost burning me and forcing me to pull away, but I don’t. Instead I grip her curves and pull her closer to me, those big blue eyes, dark in the night sky, wide and curious as I search her face for a reason to stop. I come up empty and my neck instinctively bends towards her. Sharply inhaling she tilts her head in the opposite direction, inviting me into her space instead of shoving me away like she should. My tongue is thick in my mouth, my blood racing through me as if my body needs her. Needs the hit.
My lips brush against hers softly, the feeling only teasing me of what she could taste like if I truly pushed her. The soft mewl that leaves the depth of her throat has my hand coming up to her nape, forcing her to push further into my mouth. Thick, plump lips hit mine as my tongue pokes out in an attempt to taste her, a move I’m sure will be the end of me. Hints of coffee and strawberries hit me when my tongue brushes across hers, the intoxicating taste fills my stomach with want, with need. My hand tightens around the back of her head, her sharp intake of breath telling me it’s too much, that I’m too much for her and forcing me to take a step back. My entire world spun on its axis, everything I’d stood for over the past ten years turned on its head from just one fucking kiss. It was the storm, or so I told myself. The way it messes with you, the electrifying feeling in the air, the need to be reckless and uncaring. That was me. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I’d just kissed one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. I didn’t care about the flurry of butterflies in my stomach and I didn’t care about that dreamy look in her eyes when I finally broke away from her.
Delia Bay Page 7