“Yeah, I did, when I was a kid that didn’t know any better. But I’m an adult now, and I know that giving up on you was the single biggest regret of my life.” He placed his hands on my cheeks and wiped my tears with his thumbs, his touch soft, soothing. “I won’t make that same mistake again. I promise.”
Unable to stop the tears that were now drowning my face, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my head against his neck. “Please don’t, Lots. And please don’t let me make that same mistake either.”
During the car ride to my house to drop Dudley off before we headed to the garden, I had time to think about how such an inconsequential event could be misunderstood and therefore cause a ripple effect that would last half a lifetime, perhaps even longer had it not been for a series of fortunate events. But then … that was how life worked sometimes, how it challenged us. There were paved paths and roads with flashing, neon lights; options set out before us that seemed the best choice to make. They were easy, unmarred, often convincingly safe, but not necessarily the direction we were meant to take. Because if we looked harder, made more effort, and ignored the seemingly obvious, sometimes, just sometimes, the correct path was the one hidden beneath the security blanket often laid.
“Let me get this straight again,” Elliot said, as we pulled up to the community garden. “You thought I was dating Maureen?”
“Yes,” I drawled while undoing my seatbelt.
“And that’s why you started plucking your eyebrows and hanging out with Kim Blaze and Lisa Clements-Baker?”
“Yesssss.”
“And why you lost your virginity to Joe Webb?”
I snapped my head in his direction. “WHAT? How do you know that?”
“I had my methods for discovery, even as a teenager.”
Glaring, I let out an embarrassed laugh, face-palmed, and groaned into my hands. “It was the worst thing ever. He was horrible. And keen. Super keen. Then again, the fact that he seemed to be trying to win a race was probably a good thing.”
Elliot laughed, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes as he took my hand in his. “All I ever wanted was to be your firsts.”
“You were, Lots. Many of them.”
“Yeah, just not the right ones.”
I squeezed his hand and went to ask him to elaborate but was interrupted by a rapping of knuckles on the car window beside me.
“You two lovebirds gonna leave the mobile nest, or am I gonna have to enter it?” Mum asked. “We’ve got a lot to do today, so get out of the car.”
Opening the door for me, she stood back and held it ajar as I swivelled in my seat. “Sorry to say, Mum, but I’ll be on light duties today.” I pointed to my bandaged foot.
“Oh, dear, what did you do?”
“I slipped in the bathroom and sprained my ankle.”
“Can you walk?”
“Kinda.”
“Don’t worry, Jeanette,” Elliot said, as he stepped up to my door and once again took my hands in his. “I’ll be carrying her to wherever she needs to go today.”
“You will not,” I stated with absolute certainty.
“Yeah, I will. Either that, or I’ll shove you in a wheelbarrow and wheel you around.”
Mum laughed. “I’d like to see that.”
Two hours later, and that was exactly what Mum was seeing as Elliot pushed me from one point of the garden to another in a wheelbarrow.
“If you crash this thing, I will never speak to you again,” I half barked half squealed.
“Have faith, oh head of chocolate curls, for I can steer this chariot like no other man before me.”
“Shut up, you idiot and watch that bum—”
He hit a small log and the force bounced me a little higher than what was deemed comfortable, my arse landing in the wheelbarrow with a thud. “Owwwwww.”
“Sorry,” he chuckled. “Driving hazard.”
“I’ll give you driving hazard.”
“So, where to, m’lady? Where can I deliver thee safely?”
“To where the greenhouse is going to be built, kind sir.”
He slowed down, almost stopping. “Why there?”
“Because I’m gonna help you build it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am. I’ll read out the instructions, you follow them. It will be easy.”
He performed a wide turn and pointed us toward where Mum and Helen were constructing planter boxes. “I’m sure our mums could do with more help.”
“Elliot Parker, turn us back around now. I’m not helping our mums.”
“Why not? Look at them, they’re flustered.”
I took in Helen’s confused stance, her fingers lightly scratching her head while assessing the tape measure. Mum wasn’t any further at ease, angrily wrestling with the battery pack attached to the drill. My guilty conscience reared its ugly head —they really did look as if they needed help — but I quickly buried the unwelcome nuisance, knowing that if I helped them, they’d spend more time hassling me about wedding dates and venues and nothing would get done anyway.
“No. They’ll sort themselves out. They always do.”
“I don’t think they will.”
“ELLIOT!” I growled.
“Okay, if you say so.” He steered the wheelbarrow to the right again, pointing us back on course. “This is a bad idea, Danielle.”
“It’s not. We’ll nail it.”
“I’d rather nail you.”
I looked around for something to throw at him, but I was the only thing in the wheelbarrow that could be thrown. “Keep that up and the only thing you’ll be nailing is your coffin.”
“Technically, I can’t nail my own coffin.”
Grrrr.
Technically …
I. Could. Nail. Him. In. The. Eyeball.
“It’s back to fucking front, Danielle!”
“It’s not … oh, wait, it is.” I turned the instructions back up the right way. “This greenhouse is stupid. Shouldn’t the panels be the same on both sides?”
He deadpanned. “No, they shouldn’t. If they were, it wouldn’t be a very good greenhouse.”
“You’re such a smartarse.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Technically, it was.”
I picked up the bag of screws with the intent to launch them at his head, but, instead, I just clenched them tightly and screamed inside.
“I told you this was a bad idea.”
“It wasn’t. You not listening to me and jumping three or four steps ahead is the bad idea.”
“There’s no point in me waiting for you to instruct me when I know what comes next. That’s not efficient time management.”
“But that’s the problem,” I shouted. “You don’t know what comes next. You’re guessing and guessing wrong.”
“I am not. You’re reading the steps in the wrong order.”
“Fuck you!”
“Danielle Uma Cunningham! Language.”
I snapped my head around to find Mum and Helen, standing behind me, Mum’s hands on her hips, Helen scowling at Elliot.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
“Yes, why are you two arguing? The whole neighbourhood can hear you.” Helen added.
I glared at Elliot and the bastard glared back.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s nothing,” I said, faux-laughing it off. “My stubborn schnookums is trying to finish the job too soon.”
Elliot matched my contrived chuckle. “Honey, you should know I never finish a job too soon.”
“Elliot!” Helen gasped.
Mum giggled. “Oh my!”
Me? Well, I could’ve nailed his coffin shut for him. In fact, I knew just how to do it.
“Speaking of finishing jobs … Mum, didn’t you need someone to fix Jackson’s kennel?”
“Yes, it’s leaking.”
“I thought so.” I lifted my leg and placed my foot on the ground. “E
lliot will do it, won’t you, babe?”
“What? I will?”
“Sure. We’ll stop by on the way home.” I fired him a ‘sucker’ smile.
“Oh, wonderful!” Mum clapped with joy. “I have a roast lamb defrosting on the bench. I’ll cook us all a lovely dinner.”
“What an excellent idea!” Helen chimed in. “I baked a sponge cake last night. We can have that for dessert.”
I went to butt in and diffuse the unplanned dinner and dessert situation, but Elliot beat me to it, except he didn’t diffuse anything. He only lit another fuse instead.
“Sounds perfect, doesn’t it, honey? And maybe we can share some wedding plans, too.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
“So what do you plan on saying at the dinner table when they ask us about our so-called wedding plans?” I hissed while simultaneously admiring his jean-covered arse, which was poking out from Jackson’s dog kennel.
Jackson wagged his pompom-like poodle tail and sniffed Elliot’s butt, for probably the fourth time.
Elliot jerked and hit his head on the roof of the kennel… for probably the fourth time. “Danielle, seriously? Get that dog away from my arse!”
I snorted, trying to stop myself from laughing. “Sorry. My bad.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
Crawling out backward, Elliot sat back on his heels and rubbed his wayward black hair. He looked both adorable and delicious, and definitely on the grumpy side.
“I’m gonna need a shower,” he said, screwing up his nose. “I smell like wet dog.”
I rolled my eyes. “Suck it up, princess.”
He rose to his feet and stalked toward me, his eyes unwavering as they pinned me to the spot. I hobbled backward, my eyes wide, the backdoor to the house coming into contact with my heels. “What are you do—”
Elliot grabbed my hips and pressed me against the door, holding me there while he nuzzled my cheekbones with his nose. It was weird as fuck until I realised what he was up to, the stench of wet dog inadmissible.
“Yuck,” I said, pushing him back “Get off me. You stink.”
“Suck it up, princess,” he replied, smiling.
I skip-hopped away from him toward the lemon tree, hoping I’d be able to use it as a barrier between us. “Stay there.” I held out my hand, my fingers splayed.
His smile grew and he looked up, as if he’d spotted something in the branches above. “It all started here, you know.”
“What?” I looked up, too, squinting but unable to pinpoint what he was referring to.
“Here. Behind this tree.” He walked around to where I was standing.
“What are you talking about?”
“I proposed to you here.”
The memory of Elliot and I sitting on the ground at the base of the tree trunk, eating Cheezels from the box we’d stolen out of the kitchen cupboard came careening into my mind. We’d been giggling and scoffing them as quickly as possible, cheesy orange crumbs covering our hands and faces.
“Yeah, you did,” I said, smiling, a fuzzy feeling warming me all over.
“You placed one on your finger and took it off with your mouth then tried to whistle through the hole.”
I laughed. “I still can’t whistle.”
“Really? Damn it. That was gonna be another dare for you to do last night.”
I playfully whacked his arm. “Ha ha.”
Reaching up, I grabbed a lemon and twisted it clean from its branch, a question on my mind that I wanted an answer to but not quite sure I wanted to ask.
“Dinner’s ready!” Mum yelled, banging on the kitchen window to get our attention.
Elliot waved to her and went to head back to the house when I reached out and grabbed his arm, finding the courage to ask him what I wanted to. “Lots, why’d you propose to me that day?”
He stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and slid his hand into mine. “Because I knew you’d say yes.”
Danielle and I had grown much closer since the moment under the lemon tree. We’d spent more time together and reminisced about the past, and as funny as that sounded, in the few weeks we’d been back in each other’s lives, it was as if the seventeen years spent apart had never happened.
She’d stayed over with Pugly another two times, and I was starting to get used to the little turd-dropping, four-legged, furry Redbull. He was growing on me, as much as Pugly could. I think he was getting used to my place as well, because he’d stopped using my shower as a toilet and was using the dog mats sporadically placed around the apartment instead. It was a steppingstone in the right direction for Pugly and I … provided I didn’t step on the mats when I wasn’t looking where I was walking.
Which happened every now and again.
Danielle and I had been dating. Well, in my eyes, we had. We’d been ice skating at the nearby rink, gone out for dinner, seen a movie, and walked from one end of the city to the other hand in hand, just talking about life and all the things we’d experienced since being apart.
I learned that she finished high school and had plans to study Business Operations so that she could follow her dream and open her own clothing store, but that she never chased that dream because she haphazardly landed the job she currently had and absolutely loved it. She’d always been a passionate Essendon Bombers football club supporter, and she adored retail, so I guess working with both really was a dream come true for her.
During our city walk that cool winter’s night, her button nose pink, her scarf of the same colour wrapped tightly around her neck, she’d explained how she’d become friends with Chris, having met him shortly after he’d been traded to the team when he’d stumbled into the store one Sunday morning, shirtless and without his wallet. Apparently, he’d been out the night before and had ended up at some random girl’s house — which just so happened to be around the corner — and instead of waking up the poor girl who was sleeping in his shirt, he’d just skipped out on her and escaped to the sanctity of the club, or more accurately the club’s store, so that he could get a new shirt and call one of his teammates to pick him up.
The story made me laugh — it seemed fitting — but what also made me laugh was the fact that Danielle and Chris became roommates as a result so that she could keep him out of trouble and he could keep her fed. She said he was akin to her own personal Gordon Ramsey, but instead of him getting into trouble out of anger, he found strife from being too damn horny instead.
Hearing that, rang alarm bells, because I sure as hell didn’t want any horny fucker around Danielle, let alone living under the same roof as her. But when she assured me that he was one of the best friends she’d ever had, my unease lifted. After all, I knew her stance on fucking her friends.
Boy, did I ever.
Deep down in the confines of my heart, I hoped that stance would change where I was concerned. In fact, I already felt things beginning to shift for the two of us. We couldn’t keep our hands off one another for starters, regardless of whether anyone was watching. Handholding. Hugs. A lingering kiss. Nothing like that first night when she stayed over, but the chemistry was certainly there, bubbling under the surface ready to explode.
A bit like my cock.
And speaking of exploding cocks, I was almost sure we were about to witness something extraordinary at the lion enclosure at Melbourne Zoo — our fourth, or was it fifth, date.
“Lots!” Danielle exclaimed, her fingers tightly clenched around my arm. “Are they? … Is that? … Oh shit, they are! They’re going to mate.” She let go of my arm and pressed herself against the enclosure glass like a perverted starfish. “Ohhh! This is exciting! I’ve never seen lions go at it before.”
I couldn’t help but scan the length of her from behind: tight jeans hugging her tiny legs and perky arse, white Converse runners, and fitted flannel shirt. Cute and incredibly sexy; perfectly Danielle.
“You’re a little kinky,” I said, raising my eyebrow. “I like it.”
She quickly glanced over
her shoulder and fired me a playful glare. “I’m just curious.” She turned back to face the lions. “Ooooh … did he just bite her head? Wow! This is hot.”
I laughed and stepped up beside her, albeit refraining from mashing my face against the glass.
“Has he even found her hole yet? I mean, it looks like he’s just rubbing his lion dick all over her lioness back.”
“He will.” I smiled in anticipation, having seen a documentary on lions previously, which included mating rituals, so I knew what to expect.
“She’s biting him back! Yes! Bite him back, girl. Bite. Him. Back.”
The male lion growled and tensed, and the female growled in response then rolled onto her back, her jaws ferociously snapping in his direction. Danielle’s eyes were wide. Anticipatory. Until she noticed both lions lie down and appear to take a nap.
“That’s it?” she asked, turning to face me as if I knew the answer, of which I did.
“Yeah, pretty much. They might do that again, a couple of times.”
“Nooooo! What an anticlimax.”
“For you or the lioness?”
She attempted her signature arm whack, but I jumped out of reach just in time. “Maybe you need to watch antechinus mate. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be disappointed with the male’s efforts.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, as we made our way toward the giraffes and zebras. “And what the hell is an antineckee what?”
“It’s a marsupial. And you’ll be impressed because he’ll go at it for up to fourteen hours then die of exhaustion.”
Danielle laughed. “He’ll fuck himself to death?”
“Yeah. Poor little dude. Talk about dedication to the job.”
She kept laughing, and the sound filled me with so much happiness that if I had fairy dust, I could’ve flown to fucking Neverland. It was the only sound I ever wanted to hear.
“You’re evil, Danielle Cunningham. Where’s your respect for the unfortunate root rat?”
“I have none. Well, not for an animal that literally screws itself over.”
This time, I couldn’t help but laugh. She had a point.
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