33
‘I LOVE it here.’ I look up at Paul through my eyelashes, my head resting on my forearms. We’re lying on a giant beach towel in a sand dune crater.
The sand is soft, and the wind whistles high above us.
The king tide woke me before sunrise, as if the waves were belting into the house, yet here, cocooned in the dune’s protection, the waves barely make a murmur.
It’s hard to believe that if I stood, I’d either be blown out to sea or would die of frostbite, whichever came first. Paul’s lying on his side next to me, the stem and frond of a bunny tail in his teeth.
We’re surrounded by them, our hollow oasis amongst plumes upon plumes of bunny tails that wave in the wind.
He’s threaded some through my hair, and he’s using another to draw on my back, bare except for my bikini, willowy bristles as soft as cotton wool.
‘You make me want to purr. What are you drawing?’
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m writing.’
‘What are you writing?’
‘You can’t read?’ The bunny tail dances across my skin, so light I can barely feel it.
‘Yeah, sorry, you’re going to have to spell it out for me.’
‘First word, five letters.’ The frond moves across my back. ‘D. R. E. A.’ he says, ‘M.’
‘Dream.’ My eyes close, the sun toasting my eyelids.
‘Second word, four letters. C. O. M. E.’
‘Come.’
‘You’ve got it. Third word, four letters. T. R. U. E.’
‘Dream come true,’ I say. And yes, he is. I never want this summer to end, these slow moments. Once school goes back, when Year Twelve starts, what then?
‘Never dare dreamed, ever me, ever you, ever more, your heart my core, my dream come true, my dream come true.’ He whispers the lyrics into my neck, his breath below my ear, his hand on my lower back, his fingers slipping under my waistband. How is it possible that my skin hasn’t turned to butter?
The blossom brushes against the top of my spine.
‘Still writing?’ I want to grind my hips into the sand beneath me.
‘Yep.’
‘Let me guess again?’
‘Nope, not this time.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a secret message,’ he says. ‘If I tell you I’ll have to kill you.’
‘Right now, you’re killing me anyway. How secret is secret?’
‘Not secret at all. It’s really pretty freakin’ obvious. Let’s see if you can figure it out. First word. One letter. You ready?’
He trails a long line down my spine.
‘I or l?’
‘Since when is “l” a word?’
‘Okay, I, first word is I. Right?’
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Second word. Four letters.’
Another long shiver moves down my spine, followed by a wide, slow circumference of my back. Next, he moves from my left shoulder to my sacrum and back up to my right shoulder.
‘L.O.V.’
‘I’m not done yet.’ He moves the bunny tail across my back from side to side. The breath leaves my chest. ‘Did you get that last letter?’
I roll over and reach for his face, but he leans back.
‘So, we have first word I, second word is brought to you by the letters L, O, V, and?’ he says.
‘Is it maybe E?’ I can barely get the words out.
‘Exactly. Last word. Three letters.’ The frond moves across my chest and down my stomach.
He could be writing the magnum carta for all I know; every nerve across my body feels alight.
He looks up from my chest, and his eyes feel like they’re seeing all the way through me, through the sand dune and into the Earth’s core.
His leg crosses mine, the hair of his calves electrified against my ankles.
My pulse hammers in my ears and I lick my lips, tasting the sea mist, a grain of sand under my tongue. ‘You get that?’
‘You love me?’
‘I love you,’ he says.
Bunny tail forgotten, he’s kissing me, and I never want him to stop.