Chapter Twenty-Three
KALLEN
For the entirety of Sunday, a movie moment of Dan kissing me at the Pride pool party plays on repeat in my head, with no sign of getting on with the rest of the film.
I nearly tell Blake in a message, but my words don’t make it past the typing stage before I click the cross button.
I just can’t yet. Maybe Dan was only doing me a solid, anyway, so I didn’t have to be completely humiliated in front of Hudson and James as they ate each other’s faces in the pool.
‘Why don’t we give them a taste of their own medicine?’
When we went home together, I froze when I was reminded of Christian’s no-romance office rule.
Dan and I shouldn’t kiss again, even if he seems like relationship material to a tee. I can’t afford to lose my job. Katherine’s money tree isn’t available at the moment, so if I lost my position at Untold, I’d have no choice but to move out of my apartment if I couldn’t find a new job soon.
Keeping both mine and Dan’s best interests in mind, I think we pretend the kiss never happened.
Which I do as we drive on the Bruce Highway toward the Sunshine Coast on Monday morning, Ava Max playing throug h the sound system in Dan’s army green Suzuki Jimny. He’s singing along to the music as a mood lifter for the obvious elephant in the car: me .
I can’t help being awkward right now. But the further we venture from the city, the more I remind myself of the fact I’ve been wanting to go to Noosa for a while, and to enjoy it the best I can.
Even though Dan and I will be doing work together on the trip, there’ll surely be moments when I can escape from him, to make it clear that we’re coworkers above all else.
As Dan pumps petrol into the car, I admire his butt and bulging thighs in those tight black shorts.
Man, I’ve never been so attracted to anyone.
Saturday night was such a tease, one which could’ve become a main meal if I didn’t become so consumed with frightening future outcomes.
I indulge again as he walks inside to pay for said petrol.
However, immediately as he walks out, I tilt my head down to look at my phone.
I’m not sure how tinted these tinted windows are.
*
‘You want to play Scavenger Hunt?’ he asks me after we pass the Glass House Mountains, about an hour into our trip. The rugged volcanic peaks contrast against the relatively flat rural scenery to our left and right.
‘What’s Scavenger Hunt?’ I ask, stifling a smirk.
‘Well, it’s kind of like eye spy, but different. Someone makes a list of things they can see outside the car, and the other person has to find all of those things to win. ’
I pout my lips in consideration. ‘Sounds a lot easier than eye spy. Not that I’ve played much of it.’
‘Well, yeah, it gives you more time to consider what you’re looking for.’ He looks over at me for a brief beat, then back to the road.
‘Okay, can I go first?’ I ask, a wave of unexpected excitement lifting my spirits.
‘You can go first,’ Dan says. ‘But don’t make it too hard since I’m driving. Make it things I can see without having to look over my shoulder.’
‘Okay, okay.’ I look first to the sky. ‘So where did you learn to fly a drone?’
‘Aren’t you meant to be doing Scavenger Hunt?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m still thinking of some great things to include in my list. Drone story first.’
Dan slaps his hand on the steering wheel. ‘It’s not exactly a short story.’
I pass a look at the map on the car screen, shrugging. ‘We’ve still got an hour of driving left.’
He rolls his eyes and says, ‘Fine. Well, when I left my last job , I was very much burnt out. My job there was draining, and I worked long hours. So, around a year before quitting, I decided to budget and save up enough money to travel for a year. I saw a video on TikTok about ‘retiring as you go’ and taking a year-long sabbatical every five years and thought, let’s try this and see if I can pull it off. ’
Dan tells me about his travels during that year – how he flew to Berlin first, then Prague, Italy, Norway, France, the UK, and Ireland. It was the furthest he’d been from Australia, and it inspir ed a new venture for him.
A new camera became photography. Photography became a travel page, twenty thousand followers, then he bought a drone.
For a while, he thought content creation might be his next income stream. But the freelance work couldn’t keep up with the money he was spending. So after the year had ended, he flew back to Australia and looked for work again.
My brain and tongue don’t work together for a long moment after his story.
Because Dan is so privately introverted most of the time, I’ve imagined him as this boring person who revolves his life around work and doesn’t have much fun, unless on special occasions.
For example, a Pride pool party. But he’s lived.
Like, really lived. Retire as you go: what a vibe.
Perhaps I’ll make enough money to be able to do that someday. But alas, savings who?
‘You weren’t lying when you said it wasn’t a short story,’ I say, my lip curling.
He shrugs. ‘I did warn you.’
‘I feel like not enough,’ I tell him. ‘A story of that magnitude should have a hazard ahead sign.’
‘Well, for the record, I nearly got stuck in a snowstorm in Italy, and there were no hazard warning signs there. Did meet some lovely people who were also stuck, though, and bonded with them about how we nearly could’ve died.’
‘Doesn't that just sound like a Lindsay Lohan Christmas rom-com waiting to happen?’
Dan chuckles. ‘It actually was a few days before Christmas.’
My face softens. ‘Of course it was.’
‘Have you th ought up your list for Scavenger Hunt?’
‘Haven’t even thought about it.’
‘Wow,’ Dan groans. ‘You’re a piece of work, you know that?’
‘Blame it on my upbringing,’ I quip. ‘Alright, does it matter how many things are on the list?’
‘No. Just make it a few so it’s at least a little interesting.’
Looking out the window, I admire the mountainous countryside, not a building in sight.
‘Here we go. Rock, pine tree, shrub, tar, and packet.’
Dan takes a moment to scan the surroundings without taking his eyes off the road.
‘Okay, I’ve found them all, except for uh…packet?’
As a tease, I point to the empty packet of chips on the dashboard.
Dan’s mouth curves into a smile. ‘Really?’
‘Hey, you said it could be anything without taking your eyes off the road.’
My comfortability around Dan makes me forget about the kiss.
But after his turn at Scavenger Hunt, we don’t opt for a second round.
A more comfortable silence than its predecessor arrives, and my gaze hits the hills, mind wandering, reminded of him pushing me against the wall outside the hotel two nights ago.
‘Have you travelled much?’ Dan soon asks me.
To which I scoff. ‘If relocating counts, then sure.’
‘I think relocating counts.’
‘Well then, I’ve travelled from Sydney to Toowoomba, and Toowoomba to Brisbane.
I’ve done some weekend getaways to Sunshine Coast and Byron with Blake.
But that ’s about it. I wish I travelled more in my early twenties, but the friends I had didn’t travel, and I was way too scared to go out on my own. ’
‘I love travelling on my own,’ Dan says. ‘It’s such a different experience. You can do everything on your own terms and at your own pace. And you have so much time with your thoughts to reflect. I did a lot of that in Europe.’
‘I’d love to go overseas. I’ve never been.’ I catch myself as these words leave my mouth, realising it’s far from the first time I’ve said this. But this time feels different. Might just be who I’m speaking to.
‘It’s lots of fun,’ Dan continues. ‘Discovering different cultures and places. Eating delicious food. One of the things I noticed most about Europe was that the mountains there made Australia’s look like hills.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ I say, following it with silent jealousy of Dan eating pasta and drinking wine at some lavish villa in Italy.
Undeniably, him opening up to me like he has about his travels makes me want to explore more. Much, much more.
‘I’d love to go to Tahiti or Bora Bora,’ I then tell him. The first places that come to mind.
Dan nods in acceptance. ‘I reckon they would have pretty great beaches.’
Without warning, financial reality snaps its fingers in front of my face. ‘Yeah, so does Australia, though. And much cheaper to get to.’
‘There’s nothing like flying over a whole ocean, but you’re right, our beaches are elite,’ Dan says with an impish smile.
‘I remember when I was young, before my mum passed away, we took a family trip over to WA. I was super young, so I don’t remember it too well, but we still have photos of it.
The beaches are just so blue, and they get the most gorgeous sunsets over the water.
You can also swim with whale sharks there…
at Ningaloo Reef. It’s like a more untouched, less-crowded Great Barrier Reef. ’
I look over to him, his eyes a little glassy, even from their corners.
‘Did you swim with the whale sharks there?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah, we all did.’ His voice sounds brittle. ‘It was, um…the last trip we took as a family before Mum passed away.’
I’m not sure what to say at first, so I allow a pause to pass. ‘That would’ve been special. Dan, how did your mum die? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m okay to talk about it.
’ The words leave his mouth stronger than the ones before them.
‘She died of an asthma attack. It was very sudden. Me and my sister were at school when it happened, and when we got picked up at the end of the day, Dad was distraught, you know. It was a very sad time. But it made us stronger as a family. And my nan stepped in as a mother figure, which created something special, I think.’