Give Me Love

by Kate McCarthy

  Not being able to stop myself if I tried, I reached out a hand and brushed it down the side of his face. The corners of his lips turned up slightly at my gesture.

  “It’s a good way to be, Jared.”

  His mouth opened to speak but my phone buzzed from the bedside table, and he turned and snatched it up. He looked at the screen and a frown furrowed his brow. He tossed it at me irritably.

  “It’s from Tate.”

  “Hey!” I responded when it hit me in the shoulder. “What was that for?”

  “I don’t like Tate. He’s shifty.”

  I snorted with laughter at how ridiculous that sounded. “Tate shifty?”

  Jared crawled back into my bed with his own coffee while I opened the message.

  T: Morning, Evie. How did you pull up last night?

  E: Didn’t get home till early hours. Just woke up. How about you?

  “What’d he say?” Jared asked.

  I yawned and stretched. “Just asking how the night went.”

  T: That’s a nice visual, you waking up in bed. Can I take you out tonight?

  I flushed and Jared leaned over my shoulder. “What is it?”

  “He just asked me out.”

  “Show me?”

  I handed over the phone and watched Jared read the message, lips pressed together firmly as he handed it back.

  I took the phone in my hand unsure of what to say in the unnatural quiet. I typed out a response as Jared fluffed the pillow to sit back more comfortably and took a sip of his coffee.

  E: Ok. What time?

  T: Pick you up at 5?

  E: See you then.

  T: Will look forward to it. Dress casual. Wear non slip shoes.

  “Well?” Jared asked impatiently as he watched me messaging.

  “He’s picking me up at five. It sounds a bit exciting. I have to wear non slip shoes.”

  “I don’t like this, Evie.”

  “Who I date is my business. If you don’t like it, then you should just leave.”

  “So you just do whatever you want without a thought or care to anyone else, huh?”

  “Am I supposed to check in with all and sundry for approval before I date someone?” I folded my arms and narrowed my gaze. “Or just check in with you?”

  Jared tipped his head to the ceiling with a deep breath as though frustrated, and I waved my hand at the door.

  “Don’t you have some criminals to round up and shoot at today?”

  “Shit. Look, Evie, I’m sorry. We’re friends, okay?” His eyes returned to me and softened. “I care about you. A lot.”

  My eyes searched his face and seeing only sincerity, I nodded. “I care about you too, Jared.”

  His lips curved in response, and he stood up quickly as I placed the phone on the bedside table and picked up my tea. When he flipped open the blinds, I squealed in agony, sure my retinas turned to ash from the blinding glare flooding the room.

  I put my tea back down and burrowed deep down beneath the covers.

  “Come on, friend. Let’s go to the beach instead of wasting the day away.” He came and ripped the covers off, grabbing my hand and yanking me out of bed.

  “Jared!” I squealed again. “I’m not dressed.”

  He stopped to rake a roasting gaze over my silk and lace clad form.

  “Rubbish.” He pushed me towards the wardrobe. “I saw you wear less last night. Get dressed,” he ordered and sailed happily out the door.

  Happy at the idea of a trip to the beach, I resigned myself to the fact that avoiding Jared was going to be an impossibility. Frankly, when I got past the part of the breath-losing, heart-thumping, speech-muting feelings whenever he was close, I really enjoyed having him around. He had a way of making me feel like I could be myself in his company, like he enjoyed me for who I was. There was no criticism or reprove, just a sense of warmth and acceptance that I’d never found with anyone else. This friendship was important to me for those very reasons, and I wasn’t willing to lose it.

  Sipping at my tea, I perused the chaos that was now my wardrobe after Mac’s petty attack from yesterday. I pulled a white and navy string bikini from a drawer, a pair of denim shorts from the floor, and a plain white tank top. Dressed, I passed a prone Mac and Henry lazing motionless on the couch and headed for the kitchen to flick the kettle on.

  “Who wants a cuppa?” I yelled out.

  “Me,” Mac and Henry both shouted back from the couch.

  I peered out the kitchen window to see Jared wearing a t-shirt and pair of Henry’s boardshorts sitting on the back deck talking seriously on the phone.

  “Mac, how does Jared have his coffee?” I called out.

  “White, no sugar,” she called back feebly.

  Frog walked in from next door and gave Henry a slap up the back of the head on his way to the kitchen. Henry, to his credit because no one has reflexes when hungover, managed to stick out a foot and trip him up. Frog stumbled into the kitchen with an “oomph” and opened the fridge door.

  “Where’s the milk?” he asked after peering in there for about an hour.

  “Are you having a man’s look?”

  I pushed him out of the way with a huff and looked into the fridge to see if we were actually out of milk and found the fridge completely barren.

  “No beach today,” I told Jared when he walked back inside. “I have to go food shopping.” I waved my hand at the empty fridge as evidence before slamming the door shut.

  In response, he grabbed my car keys off the bench and flung them at me. “Well, let’s go then.”

  “You’re not going to spend your day off at the supermarket with me, are you? What a total drag. Hungover, people ramming their trolleys into your ankles, mile long lines at the checkout, screaming kids. I could go on.”

  The list really was endless considering food shopping was not high on my list of fun things to do. It was also unfortunate that food shopping brought out the indecision in me. I could spend ten minutes trying to decide whether I wanted to buy barbecue or salt and vinegar flavoured chips. Then it was whether they should be crinkle cut or thin and crispy. Serious decisions like that could not be made lightly.

  Mac, her impatience rising to the fore, couldn’t handle my indecisive side. She would solve the problem by throwing both packets of chips in the trolley, and then we would end up spending way more than we should.

  “Better you than me, dude,” Frog said before making a quick escape next door, making sure to slap Henry up the back of the head again on his way out.

  “With the two of us, we’ll get it done faster, and then we can still go to the beach.”

  My eyebrows raised to my hairline in disbelief because obviously if he thought food shopping with me would be quick, he had another thing coming. “If you say so.”

  I picked my handbag up off the counter and slid my feet into my flip flops by the door. Mac and Henry were still motionless on the couch. “You guys wanna come?”

  Henry groaned pathetically in response to my question. Mac was obviously asleep. Otherwise, I would be watching her smug grin of delight at the thought of Jared and I doing something as domesticated as food shopping together.

  When we arrived at the supermarket, I discovered that Jared was surprisingly health conscious. How this was something that hadn’t come to my attention over the years I did not know. This was not good news. In fact, there was only bad and worse news. The bad was I was watching Jared busily fling healthy food in the trolley. The worse was none of us would actually eat any of it. Our systems would declare war. Not only that, there would be riots. Without chips and chocolate, we would all turn on each other. It would be like Lord of the Flies.

  Panicked at the notion of being flayed alive with a stick, I started flinging chips and chocolate in the trolley with unprecedented reckless abandon. I watched in horror as Jared kept putting it all back on the shelves, and I literally gagged when he replaced it with bags of brown rice and chickpeas. In desperation, I resorted to hiding
whole blocks of chocolate underneath the packets of wholemeal wraps I found in there. I would have slid them into my handbag as well, but I didn’t want Big Brother to think I was shoplifting and then get arrested.

  “Jared,” I growled, fed up when he grabbed the garlic bread I threw in and put it back on the shelf. No one messed with my garlic bread. “Put it back.” I revved up for a garlic bread face off.

  “Evie,” he retorted, clearly exasperated. “You can’t eat that crap; it’s all white bread and butter.”

  I reached back to the shelves, grabbed the bread, and threw it back in the trolley. “I know. Yummy!”

  He took it out again. People gave us odd looks as they darted in between us like birds, trying to grab at the produce we were blocking during our OK Corral showdown.

  “Jared, it’s not like you’ll be eating all this food. You don’t live with us.”

  “No, I don’t, but I plan on hanging around a hell of a lot, so I will be eating it.”

  Clearly fighting a losing battle, I hissed at him. “You suck.”

  He pushed the trolley along quickly, ignoring my juvenile retort.

  “Fine, but you just wait ‘til the guys see all this vegetation...” I waved my hand at the trolley “...and then I’ll be the one that has to deal when it degenerates into savagery.”

  “Evie.” He stopped the trolley. “I think you’re exaggerating. I’m just looking out for you that’s all.”

  “Seeing me pounded by a bunch of savages with sticks is a mad way of showing it,” I mumbled under my breath.

  The checkout involved another scuffle over who would pay for the food, then we left, Jared smug in his victory. We came home to a deserted lounge room as we chucked shopping bags on the kitchen counter.

  “Mac,” Jared yelled up the stairway.

  “Yeah?” she bleated back feebly.

  “Groceries on the counter. We did the shop, you can put them away.”

  I picked up the beach bag I’d packed and placed by the front door earlier, and we walked down to the beach, stopping to pick up lunch: sushi rolls (Jared) and a hamburger with the works (me).

  The beach was busy which was not unusual for a hot summer’s day. People were playing beach footy and flinging frisbies and little kids were making sandcastles and giggling as they made grabs for the little crabs that scurried frantically for their lives.

  Finding a nice spot, we laid out our towels before hitting the water. I decided I like Beach Jared way better than Supermarket Jared. He was actually fun to hang out with. We spent an hour body surfing and dunking each other, and I was a prune by the time we flung ourselves down on our towels to dry off under the hot sun.

  Fearing another Hellgirl episode, I re-slathered on the sunscreen before grabbing my book out of my beach bag to have a read. It was the latest book in a popular vampire series, and I’d been itching to start it for ages.

  Jared lay on his stomach, head on his folded arms, facing me with his eyes closed. I ignored how delicious the spots of water that dotted his skin looked and opened my book.

  Jared peeked one eye open at my movement and took in the cover. It depicted a huge muscle chested guy with serious tattoos and green eyes that glared at you fiercely.

  “Whatcha reading?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes at the question. If there was ever anything more annoying. “A book.”

  He huffed a little bit at my deliberate ignorance. “What’s it about?”

  “Vampires,” I said as I re-read the same paragraph again.

  “Is there lots of sex in it?”

  I threw my book down in exasperation and half turned to glare at him. “I hope so but I’ll never find out if you keep chatting to me while I’m trying to read it!”

  I saw his eyes hit my chest. Remembering that Mac said Jared was a boob man, I quickly rolled on my stomach.

  “Will you read the sex parts to me when you get to them?”

  Read them to you? I’d rather re-enact them with you.

  Oh God, I really would and not even Supermarket Jared could throw me off the path my mind was wandering down.

  “Maybe.”

  That would be hot.

  Jared obviously thought so too because the laziness left his eyes and they started to sear my skin.

  Stop flirting, you idiot!

  I picked up my book again and stuck my head in it so closely I couldn’t even read the words. Jared sighed and flopped over to his stomach.

  “Ready to talk yet?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “How about if I ask you the questions?”

  “No.”

  Jared looked amused rather than deterred. “I’ll find out eventually.”

  I put my book back down with a huff. “Yeah? How do you suppose you’ll do that?”

  He rolled onto his side and his eyes did that warm and gentle thing again that made my heart turn to mush. “Because one day you’ll belong to me, Evie, and I’ll know everything about you.”

  Jared looked completely serious and left me with absolutely no doubt that he meant what he said.

  Chapter Six

  J: Ok, so give it up. Where did he take you?

  E: You are just dying to know aren’t you?

  Tate and I were just sitting down on a blanket at Mrs. Macquarie's Chair along the city’s harbour for fish and chips when the message arrived.

  J: Give it up.

  I replied by messaging him an earlier snapped photo of our twilight Sydney Harbour Bridge climb. It was epic and far removed from the Computer Convention I was originally expecting. The views were amazing, and the sunset was a riot of pinks, oranges, and reds. Heady stuff for a first date and Tate seemed a nice enough person, but with the huffing and puffing of climbing the huge Australian icon, there hadn’t been much of a chance to talk.

  J: I’m impressed. Where do you go from there – base jumping off Centrepoint Tower?

  I shuddered at the thought Tate might be a potential adrenaline junky. I wasn’t scared of heights. Okay, I was a little. Alright, maybe a lot. It would explain the jelly legs at the top of the bridge as I stood there sucking in deep breaths and gazed at the cars whizzing by beneath us. Jumping out of an aeroplane seemed to me a perfectly reckless pursuit of finding a high and would never make it on my bucket list.

  A message arrived soon after from Henry.

  H: Message me if you need rescue.

  I knew I wouldn’t hear from Mac. The fiery laser beams she shot my way when Tate picked me up could have been seen from space. I tried to respond with my own laser death rays. Unfortunately, Mac was made of Teflon, so they slid right off.

  Tate began unwrapping the paper holding our fish and chips. “So you and Jared seem pretty close. Do I need to be worried?”

  I smoothed out the edges of the wrinkled paper, buying some time while I figured out how to respond, and Tate watched me as he munched on a chip.

  “Jared and I have been friends for years, and I don’t want to compromise that,” I explained as I picked up a chip. “Otherwise, you should probably know that I’m not looking for a relationship. They tend to get really complicated, and right now I need to focus on my music career, you know?” I waved my chip about before popping it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing. “I can’t really offer any commitment, Tate. I work every weekend, even some week nights, and hopefully there’ll be a lot of travel in our immediate future, so it’s not really fair to expect someone to deal with me not being around.”

  It wasn’t the full story, but a first date with Tate hardly qualified for soul baring confessions about why I wasn’t willing to open up my heart.

  My phone buzzed madly again. Not wishing to be rude, I ignored it and tore a piece of battered fish in half and started eating it.

  “I’m happy with casual,” Tate replied and undid the tops of two bottles of coke, handing the diet one to me. “Hell, do you know how hard it is trying to work a relationship when you’re a copper? Late night shifts, call outs, constant danger
. Who wants to marry that? I can’t do anything else though. It’s who I am, same as Mitch. Besides,” he said with a wicked grin, “I’m still young and if it means I get to date gorgeous girls like you, then I’m cool with that.”

  My phone buzzed madly again, and I shrugged my shoulders in apology. “Sorry.”

  “Popular, huh? Better answer it in case it’s important.”

  I somehow didn’t think so, but I checked it anyway.

  J: So what’s for dinner?

  Someone had nothing better to do tonight than harass me on my date.

  E: Fish and chips on the harbour.

  J: Is he trying to clog your arteries and kill you?

  E: Yes, it seems that is his fiendish plan, and after several decades when I suffer a heart attack, it will reach its heinous fruition.

  J: Smart ass.

  E: Isn’t the football on?

  I switched off my phone and shoved it back in my bag.

  “So...” I took a sip of my drink “...tell me why you decided to be a detective?”

  Tate and I chatted for another hour while we finished our dinner before leaving at a respectable hour, Tate citing a dawn start for work tomorrow morning.

  He walked me to the door, and before I’d even had time to blink, he leaned in and kissed me, sealing his mouth over mine. His tongue slid over my lips, and I opened my mouth, letting it sweep inside. I kissed him with everything I had, giving him all my best moves, seeing if it was at all possible to replicate the kiss I’d shared with Jared. When Tate’s hand shifted lower and gripped my ass, I pulled back. Disappointed that it seemed only Jared it could evoke the feelings I longed for when he kissed me, I was also relieved because they weren’t the sort of feelings I wanted to have with Tate if things were supposed to be casual.

  “Jesus, Evie,” he panted. His eyes were glazed over, and I almost thought he was trembling. “You’re really good at that.”

  I nodded in mock seriousness to lighten the moment. “I get that a lot.”

  “You do?”

  “No.” I grinned. “I’m just teasing you.”

  He chuckled and brushed a finger across my cheek. “I’ll call you.”

  I nodded and ducked inside the front door, latching it behind me. I was greeted by my beautiful band boys with whoops and drunken laughter as they sat around the dining table playing poker, yelling loudly, and getting through what appeared to be every single drop of alcohol we had in the house.