36. Chapter 35
Chapter 35
James
I hadn’t planned on being out tonight, Willie had texted me the other day about coming out and I’d said no. That was a week ago before Katherine turned up on my front pouch, before I’d been to my mum's wedding, and before I’d been on the best date of my life.
So when Willie called me earlier to ask again, and told me he knew for sure Maddie and Katherine were coming, I said yes.
That led to me being back in The Sydney Siren, images of my first kiss with Kat flash in my mind. I know I need to tell her how I really feel, I need to give her a reason to stay here, to want to try us, whatever this is or could be but she needs to know how I feel about her.
Willie’s been telling me how he got a call from Maddie this morning about giving Katherine her first tattoo. He said that he’s been sworn to not say what she got, which is a weird thing when she’s going to have it on her body forever. “Yeah, she sat like a trooper.”
I laugh knowing she would have wanted to seem as cool as humanly possible, would have wanted him to think she was cool. “That girl is stronger than she looks.”
He smiles at me for a moment like he can read in my eyes how much I like her, then his face shifts. “Dude, weird question?” Most of Willie’s questions are.
“Shoot.” I turn my head back towards the door as we talk, wanting to see her the minute she enters the room. Wanting to see her eyes search the room for her nearest exits and then me.
“Do you know if Maddie’s seeing anyone?” I have to physically turn to look at him to be sure I’ve heard him right, because what? Not in the nearly ten years that I’ve known Willie has he ever made any indication he was interested in Maddie. Jesus, I don’t think I’d let him date her, anyway. I’d never stop Maddie if she really wanted to, but I’d also kill him if he hurt her.
“Not that I know of, why?” I say at such a slow pace I think he’s about to burst into flames but he recovers quickly as he always does.
He leans forward on the railing in front of us and I follow his action, setting my sight back in front of me again. “Oh, no reason.”
Yep, definitely need to keep an eye on him, but right now my eyes are on the red head who’s just walked in laughing with my best friend on her arm. She looks beautiful, of course; her hair is pulled back into a hair style I’ve seen on Maddie before, she can’t hide behind it like she likes to do. The dress she’s wearing isn’t one I think I’ve seen before, or it’s not one I’ve noticed before. It’s green and silky, hugging her in every place I’d like to put my hands.
“So you and Kat then? Saw that coming from a mile away,” he tells me, I don’t need to be looking at him to see the cocky grin he’s got on his face.
“Fuck off,” I tell him with no real threat, the smile on my face is enough for him to know I don’t mean it.
I watch as she and Maddie get their bearings but she doesn’t do her usual sweep of the place, not checking every corner or looking for the exits. Maybe it’s because she’s been here before but something pulls at my chest seeing her as comfortable as she is.
“Oh, come on, this is the first girl you’ve even considered dating ever, it’s big.” He doesn’t sound like he’s taking the piss, he sounds proud. I look at him and he’s got a real smile, one I don’t see very often. “I’m proud of you, man.”
“Thanks, but don't get all emotional on me, it’s weird.” We don’t do emotional conversations, maybe that’s why I’ve never noticed anything with him and Maddie, or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.
I look back at Katherine as she grabs her phone out of her bag and then brings it to her face as she and Maddie start to weave through the crowd in front of us.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and when I pull it on it’s her name on the screen.
“You know you kinda look like a creep watching the crowd like that?” she tells me over the noise on both ends of the call.
I raise my voice a little. “Maybe I was looking for someone.”
“Your next victim?” Somehow I can tell she’s closer just by the way the crowd sounds on the phone.
“No, I’ve already got one.” I look for her again but she’s nowhere in front of me. “But she’s a bit slippery.”
“You make me sound like a fish.” I can feel her behind me, hanging up the phone in the process.
I turn to look at her, the look on her face light and soft something I don’t see much, also catching Maddie and Willie at the bar behind her. I’m so close to her, I can smell her signature of sunshine and vanilla. I grab onto her waist and pull her back towards me until my back hits the railing behind me, my hands don’t leave her sides as my finger draws little circles on her right side.
“Who said I was talking about you?” I whisper into her ear, I’m so closer to her, my lips touch the lobe of her ear as I pull back.
She doesn’t let me get very far, she pulls me down to kiss her with her hand on the back of my neck. I’m a little shocked and it takes me a second to kiss her back. She’s never this forward but it looks good on her. It makes a nice change to me kissing her all the time, I guess it’s a little boost to me knowing she does actually want to kiss me.
We sink into a rhythm we’re both used to at this point, her biting at my bottom lip, my tongue winning the war with hers. It’s comfortable, and warm—it feels like home, and I don’t want to let her go. Even when she pulls away from me. My hands don’t slip from her and she doesn’t make a move to get out of my grip. Instead her hands rest on my chest like that’s where they belong.
My mind slips to the places I’ve tried my best to not let it. The place where this is it, just us. We do this kinda thing all the time, at weekends, at parties, around Ella. I hold her hand and kiss her forehead and it’s not the craziest thing in the world. As much as I have to lose, she has so much more.
“Hey,” Willie says, coming back to us with a fruity looking drink in his hand that he hands Kat once I let her go, reluctantly. “How’s the arm?”
“Oh, yeah, this secret tattoo, let’s see.” I want to know what this thing is that she wants to have for her for the rest of her life. Is it unbelievably sad that I’m jealous of that tattoo?
“Okay, fine, but you can’t laugh or make it a thing,” she tells me, only me. I look at Maddie who’s trying so desperately to hide her smile behind the straw in her drink, Willie looking at her just as confused as me. I’m guessing he doesn’t understand the context of what he’s put on her.
Kat turns to the side slightly, showing me the back of her arm and I finally get why she was being weird about it. The back of her bicep now has the delicate swirls of a lighthouse, not exactly the one we went to but I think it’s implied by the text under that reads ‘the joy’. A somewhat quote of what she told me her dad used to say .
When she turns back around, the pink on her cheeks is bright enough for me to see in the dim light of the bar. “It’s beautiful,” I tell her because my heart is literally in my throat.
I wanted to talk to her, tell her what I’m feeling, and finally find out how she feels too.
Now I’m not sure I’m in any state to be doing that now, I’m not sure I’ll get a sentence out at this rate.
“Hey, Willie, you fancy a dance?” I hear Maddie ask to the side of me but I don’t turn. I have my hand on Kat’s elbow like she might float away from me at any moment. They walk away and it’s just us in our little bubble looking at each other in the way we do.
“Maybe we should talk?” she says, pulling me towards a fire exit I'm sure we’re not meant to go through.
When we’re outside the warm air hits my bare arms, but when she stops walking, she shivers. I run a hand down her arm making sure not it’s not the arm with the tattoo.
She looks me over like she needs time, I can see the little cogs in her mind going, the soft and light version of Katherine gone. Taking a long drink, she goes to run a hand through her hair and falters when she remembers it’s braided back.
“What did you want to talk about Katherine?” I ask her, feeling like I might have to kick this into gear.
“You know…” She barely looks at me as she scans the alley way, anywhere but my face.
I grab hold of her chin tilting her head so she looks at me again. “I want you to tell me.”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” She tries to shake me off but I don’t let my hand move from her.
“Me? Easy? Never.” I tease.
“You, me, we need to decide what this is, what’s going on.” She sounds as frazzled as I feel. But I’m impressed, a little shocked at how direct that really was. I’d like to think for a second that maybe I have rubbed off on her.
It takes me a second to say. “What do you want to be going on?”
“This isn’t just about me,” she fires back, still trying to make me make the decision.
“True, but I have a feeling what you want isn’t always what you do, so I want to know what you actually want . Do you understand?”
I watch her swallow and I let go of her taking a step back like we’ll need the space to fit this conversation between us.
“I want this to not be so hard,” she says mostly under her breath and I don’t make like I heard her. “You and me, I can’t pretend I don’t like you anymore, it's too hard now.” There it is , I’m not on my own in this. “And I get it, everything with your mom makes it hard for you to want anything but I can’t just be some girl you have sex with. I’m a sensitive person, as much as I tried not to be.”
And I’m lost again.
“Just some girl I have sex with, is that how you see this?” I skip over the line about my mum because I know she’s right, she knows she’s right. I know that’s why I haven’t had a serious relationship ever but this isn’t about that. “Katherine, you know I haven’t slept with another girl since our first kiss. That’s not because I just didn’t have time, that’s because I physically couldn’t want anyone else. You’re all I’ve been able to think about, I think feelings have been involved in this for longer than either of us realise.” It seems obvious to me, and apparently everyone else around us, but not to her. Has she honestly been thinking I’ve been thinking about her non-stop just because I want to have sex with her?
The look on her face tells me she did in fact think that.
“Well.” She’s gone so pale I’m surprised she’s able to speak really. “I feel kinda out of my depth now, I had this whole thing worked out in my mind of what to say when you told me it’s hard for you to commit to one girl,” she half laughs, at herself more than me.
I just want to hold her. “If anyone was going to get me to commit to one girl, it was you, Sunshine.”
Her face does this light and airy thing I love so much and her eyes are soft when she looks at me like no one’s ever really talked to her all that before. “Are you sure? I don’t want to pressure you or make you do anything you don’t want to, but honestly, which is kinda hard for me, I can’t seem to think about anything else other than you either.”
I step closer to her. “Why does it kinda sound like you're trying to talk me out of this? Katherine, I’m not saying that I’ll be perfect or that this will work straight away, but I think we should at least give ourselves the chance to find out.” I’m not sure who’s more shocked by my words, her or me, but I don’t stop. “I think we both know I’m not going to be your soulmate and I can’t ask you to give up on that but I am asking if you’ll give me a shot to at least try and show you what we could have.”
She falters for a second like she wants to answer right away but holds herself back, but she takes a step towards me anyway. “Okay, but you have to understand my brain’s not going to make it easy on us. I’ll think everything through three hundred times and I’ll be anxious I’m doing everything wrong all the time.” She smiles at me a little the way she does when she's told me something so honest it worries her.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less but I’ll be there when the dark clouds roll in and I’ll find all your emergency exits for you,” I laugh, linking my arms around her waist pulling her closer to me. Something on her face tells me no one has ever noticed that before. “Slow and steady wins the race, Kat.”
“Are you calling me a turtle now?” she asks, leaning back in my arms so she can look up at me.
“No, I’m saying we’ll be slow and steady, no rushing, no expectations, we’ll just see what happens, no pressure,” I tell her because I think that’s what we both need to know. That neither one of us is pressured into anything here, that we can just tread along the beach and see what happens.
“No pressure,” she repeats back like a little promise to ourselves.