11
I STEP TOWARDS him. He’s still in the hammock, and he takes my hand and pulls me close so I’m standing right beside him, and he slides my top up a little. He presses his mouth to my stomach, kissing me, trailing a path towards my hipbone. I close my eyes, leaning into him. His tongue is soft and warm against my skin.
And then I hear the backdoor flyscreen slam.
‘Mac? You still out here, man?’ Luke calls.
We freeze.
‘I’m still out here,’ Mac calls back, after a second.
‘Is Anna with you?’
A pause.
‘No,’ he calls.
I give him a little shove that sets the hammock swinging.
‘Why did you say no?’ I hiss.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies.
‘Now I’ll have to sneak back in.’
Now if Luke sees me out here, it will be a whole thing, because why would Mac lie about me being here if it wasn’t something suspicious.
‘I’ll distract them,’ Mac says.
‘Fine. You go in now. I’ll go in through the side laundry door in five minutes.’
Mac slips his hands off my waist and gets out of the hammock. He starts to go but turns back, leans down and places a quick, soft kiss on my lips, and then walks back to the house.
I wait a few minutes and then I walk towards the house and crouch behind a bush, where I can hear Luke and Mac talking, the two of them just outside the back door. Their conversation is going on and on, and I’m getting cold, and the intense sexiness of the hammock moment is definitely getting ruined. My knee is resting on something sharp and I am scared to move around and get comfortable in case they hear me. This is ridiculous.
‘Let’s go in,’ I hear Mac say, louder than is reasonable.
More talking, then the flyscreen door slams again. I stand up, stretch my legs, then hunch over again and hurry around the side of the house. I can hear them laughing in the lounge room. There’s a bunch of big windows in a row, blinds still open, and I have to pass them to get to the side door. I crouch down and crawl under the windowsill.
‘What are you doing?’
I look up and see Joel looking down at me. He is leaning out of the window.
‘What are you doing?’ I reply.
‘Looking at the moon,’ he says.
This is new. He never cared about the moon when we were together.
‘I was looking at the moon too,’ I say.
‘Why are you crawling?’
Mac’s face appears beside Joel’s out the window.
‘What are you doing in the garden?’ he says, sounding innocently confused, but his eyes are shining with amusement.
‘I’m going to my room,’ I say.
‘Why are you crawling though?’ Joel says. He’s very stuck on this detail.
‘I didn’t want you guys to see me.’
‘Why not?’ Joel is still looking bewildered. I stand up, brushing myself off, trying to look dignified.
‘I was hiding, I didn’t want you to see me, Joel, okay. I didn’t feel like talking to you,’ I say, snappishly.
‘Oh,’ he says, looking guilty.
‘I just need some space, that’s all,’ I say again, more quietly.
‘I get it,’ he says.
‘Goodnight,’ I say. I try to make eye contact with Mac but he’s moved away from the window.
I walk in the side door and go and sit in my room. I can’t relax. I need to talk to Mac, to confirm…what? That we aren’t telling anyone, that the hammock situation doesn’t change anything, that I am still making sensible choices and Patrick is my focus, that I blame the moon.
‘Hi,’ Hayley says, standing in the doorway.
‘Hey!’ I say, with a little too much enthusiasm. ‘How are you feeling? Better now you spoke to Luke? You seem calmer. You look calmer. Are you calmer?’ I am babbling.
‘Why are you being weird?’ Hayley frowns.
‘I’m not.’
‘You are. And you look weird.’
‘How do I look weird?’ I touch my hair, in case it’s ruffled.
‘Your face. Something’s different.’
‘In a good way or a bad way?’ I say. Now I’m touching my cheeks. What evidence could be there?
‘A good way, but a weird good way.’ She is squinting at me.
‘You’re the one being weird. Go to bed. You need a full night’s sleep.’
‘I’m too nervous to sleep.’
‘Everything is going to be fine.’
‘I’d rather you’d say, “Things will go wrong but it will still be fine.”’
‘Things will go wrong and you won’t even know because I’ll handle it.’
‘Fine. I’ll go to bed.’
Mac appears behind her in my doorway. My heart starts beating faster.
‘Hello. What are you up to?’ Hayley asks.
‘I came to ask Anna something.’
Hayley and I look at him expectantly. Please, don’t let him say anything with even the slightest layer of innuendo to it.
‘I wanted to see if you’d sign my copy of your book,’ he says to me, holding up The Hike .
‘Oh! That’s so sweet!’ Hayley says.
‘Where did you get that?’ I say, laughing.
‘Your mother sold me a copy at dinner.’
‘Of course she did,’ I say.
‘Did she give you a friends and family discount, at least?’ Hayley asks.
‘I think she charged full price. Thirty-five dollars?’
Hayley and I exchange a look. That’s two dollars above the retail price, so she’s officially ripping him off. That’s the price Mum charges when she doesn’t like someone. She buys all her copies of my book full-price from Bobbi’s shop, because she doesn’t want to undermine Bobbi’s business and she wants her sales to be counted as bookshop sales, so they’ll increase my chances of becoming a bestseller. Thirty dollars is her ‘I like you’ resale price, and twenty-five for friends and family, and then just twenty for a man she wants to set me up with. It’s a very bad sign for Mac.
‘You didn’t need to buy my book,’ I say, feeling slightly unhinged. Did he feel obliged? Did he buy it before or after the kissing? Maybe he thought it was a way to secure sex later tonight.
My sales aren’t so low that I can be wooed into bed by a book purchase. He’d need to buy at least five copies for that to work.
‘I don’t have a signing pen, sorry,’ I say, which is a lie. I have three good pens in my bag at all times, I just can’t face the pressure of signing his copy.
‘I have a pen in my bag,’ he says.
‘So do I, in my room somewhere,’ Hayley says.
I don’t want one of their ugly, cheap, probably blue-ink pens.
‘Actually, I think I do have a pen somewhere,’ I say, rummaging in my bag, pretending to be unsure if there is a pen there. This is why I hate lying. One little lie and then you have to do a whole performance.
I hold the pen over the title page.
‘Just signed, or personalised, or personalised with a message?’ I say. I am hot and flustered.
Hayley is looking at me strangely.
‘With a message,’ she and Mac say at the same time.
I have a little phrase I write in everyone’s books ‘Enjoy the walk!’ which is not especially clever or cute, in fact it’s quite awful, but it’s better than just ‘Enjoy!’ or ‘Thank you for reading!’ which are the only words that come into my head at these moments. Also at my launch I had a skull stamp I would use alongside the message, which changed the cheesy tone to something darker and more ironic.
Can I just give him that generic message? No. No. This man put his mouth on my body a mere thirty minutes ago.
‘Use his full name,’ Hayley says.
I look at Mac.
‘What’s your full name?’
‘Just Mac is fine.’
‘It’s Cormac,’ Hayley says, grinning.
‘Oh, I like that,’ I say.
To Cormac , I write. My hand is wobbly.
Thank you , I write. Fuck. Thank you? Thank you for what? If I don’t finish that sentence, he will definitely think the wrong things.
Thank you for buying my book , I write.
I hope you like it.
It’s been fun hanging out.
Every sentence is worse than the one before.
I sign my name, and then add two small hearts in a panic. Why ? I can feel sweat on my back. Should I draw a little picture as well? Something to detract from the hearts? Should I attempt to draw a skull? No. Stop.
Mac takes the book back and reads the message. He smiles.
‘It has been fun hanging out,’ he says, eyes open wide and innocent. I feel like a vein in my forehead might be pulsing.
‘Go to bed,’ I say to Hayley. ‘You really need sleep.’
Hayley hugs me goodnight and leaves, and I wonder if she’s wondering why Mac is still lingering in my room. I am wondering the same thing. Or not. But I am not just an open door, an open bed, to walk in and out of. I have standards. Despite the whole men’s bathroom and hammock situation.
‘So,’ I say.
‘So,’ he says. ‘I’m looking forward to reading your book.’
‘Don’t read it,’ I say. ‘It’s terrible.’
I don’t really believe this, but I can’t stop myself saying it sometimes. I need to take the pressure off, lower expectations.
‘Is that your sales pitch?’ he says.
‘I mean, don’t feel obliged to read it.’
‘Why would I feel obliged?’ he says.
‘Because you feel bad that you’re making me sleep in this horrible bunk bed.’
‘Oh, I don’t feel bad about that,’ he says.
‘All right, off you go then, you got your book signed. There’s nothing else here for you,’ I say, smiling.
He grins, turns, and pauses at the doorway. Then he turns back. He puts one hand on the top of the doorframe, on purpose, surely, because it makes his T-shirt ride up, exposing a strip of his stomach and he obviously knows he has a good stomach.
‘You’re welcome to share my bed,’ he says. ‘I mean, actually just share it, with no expectations that we would do anything.’
‘No thanks,’ I say, prissily.
I know I don’t have that level of self-control.
‘Okay,’ he says.
‘I’m fine here,’ I say.
‘All right. Good night, Anna.’
He shuts the door as he leaves, and I’m left in this tiny room, not even close to tired, jittery in fact. Thinking about him in that bed. His voice. His mouth, pressing against my skin.
I need to get him out of my head. I pick up my phone and write down what he said to me, out there. Let me show you what I was going to do before . I’m a writer after all, and maybe I could use that line one day.