This evening’s art class is different. I’m present and relaxed, able to enjoy it for what it is. Josh is a professional and gives each student equal portions of his time and attention, but he’s not even trying to conceal what we’ve become to each other. Earlier, when he was giving me some constructive feedback on my work, one of his hands rested casually on my lower back. It felt so intensely intimate, especially when his fingers found their way under the hem of my T-shirt and made tiny circles on my skin. I was unable to concentrate nor hear a single thing he said. My whole world was reduced to a square inch of skin for those seconds, and everything else faded to insignificance.
“You and Josh, huh?” Brooke leans across and whispers with a conspiratorial smile and a wink when Josh is on the other side of the room.
“Seems so,” I reply, grinning.
Her smile widens. “You go, girl. He is so hot.” She wipes her brow. “I honestly thought he was taken. He didn’t seem at all available, or I would’ve jumped his bones first night.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “Shhh. He’ll hear you.”
She shrugs. “I’m an open book. Doesn’t matter anyway. Plenty of fish in the sea.”
I don’t tell her I would have no idea about that. I’ve never been fishing. Not in the sense she means anyway.
She adds a few more strokes to her painting before leaning back and asking, “Are you free on Friday night?”
I hesitate, not because I don’t want to go out and celebrate her birthday, but because it occurs to me that I’m making friends and planting roots for the first time since I moved to the city.
“Come on. It’s my birthday, and we’re going to Pulse for drinks and dancing.” She pouts and hits me with her puppy-dog eyes. “Please.”
She claps, then stands up. “I have a request.” She waits for everyone, including Josh, to look at her. “It’s my birthday tomorrow, and you’re all invited to Pulse to celebrate . . . well, to celebrate me.” She waves her hands in front of her. “I’ve got a bunch of my friends coming already, so just turn up anytime from eight-thirty.” Then she points to Josh. “I really want Emerson to come, and I know she will if you’re there.”
My cheeks heat, and I can’t look at him, so instead, I watch her in awe. She is so open and confident. I always had an inner confidence, but I kept it mostly hidden, reserved only for myself and, until recently, one other person. Due to my outer shield, I’ve been referred to as aloof, shy, vacant, and dull, but I never cared, and I never will. I rely on myself and I choose who I let in. I find love in my own way and on my own terms. And it seems I’ve found it again in a way I would’ve never expected.
When I hear a throat being cleared, I realise I’ve just been staring at Brooke, and I snap myself back to the here and now. I feel Josh’s eyes on me, and I lift my gaze to meet his. Even from the other side of the room, his emerald eyes burn with intensity and affection.
He breaks eye contact to address the room. “Happy birthday for tomorrow, Brooke. I’ll definitely try to make an appearance.”
At the end of the class when everyone has gone, Josh and I are alone in the gallery. I keep working on my last painting while he packs up the supplies and returns them to the shelves.
“Will you go to Brooke’s birthday bash with me tomorrow night?” he asks as he lifts the last box.
“I will,” I reply, adding some yellow flecks to my sunrise.
He walks across the room and pulls out a stool. Grabbing mine, he drags me away from my easel so we’re sitting face-to-face. “I want us to go together, and I want to spend the whole night with you.” He reaches out and runs his hands up my legs. “I want to wake up next to you on Saturday morning.”
All I can think about is how much I want that, too. Then it hits me that he might be thinking he’ll stay over at my place, and my blood runs cold. I don’t think I’m ready to have him there before I’ve said goodbye to Mereki. It isn’t fair. “We could spend the weekend again at your place,” I reply, placing my hands over his.
“Does it not make more sense to stay at yours tomorrow?” His hands move farther up my thighs. “Then you stay at mine Saturday night, or we could spend the whole weekend at yours.”
This is moving too fast. I’ve barely caught my breath before I’m planning a second weekend with Josh, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. All I can do, because it’s all I’ve ever done, is go with what feels right, but this whole situation is confusing. The idea of having Josh spend the night in my home . . . the home I share with Mereki, however cold and lonely I’ve felt there, is wrong on every level, but I have no way of making him understand. I can’t tell him everything because I don’t have the right words. I don’t know if I’ll ever have them. Memories of his arms around me, his lips kissing me, and his whispered words making me feel whole again bombard my muddled brain. All those things felt so incredibly right. “Okay,” I say, feeling anything but okay. “Sure.”
He picks up my bag and throws it over his shoulder, takes my hand, and pulls me to standing. “I better hit the road. Leroy will start wondering where I am.”
“Oh, maybe it’s better we do go home to yours tomorrow night then. What will you do with Leroy?”
Ushering me towards the door, he says, “I’ll drop him at Clare’s Friday afternoon and pick him up the next day. I think he loves her more than me.”
Shit.
“I’ll drive you home,” he says when we stop at his Landcruiser parked right out the front of the gallery.
“I have my car here. I’ve been driving into work Wednesdays and Thursdays for the late finish. I’m parked on Melling Street where it’s not metered.”
He insists on driving me to my car, then kisses me goodbye. When I’m safely inside, he drives away. Life for me is still complicated, but I’m moving forward, and that’s a whole lot better than standing still and infinitely better than going backwards.
As I drive home, a memory hits me out of nowhere. My hands tighten on the steering wheel as my mind attempts to block something I don’t want to remember. It was about a year before Ki and I finally got together. We must’ve been about sixteen at the time.
“What is your problem, Mereki?” I ask, stabbing him in the arm with my pointer finger.
He turns to face me, raises his eyebrows, cocks his head to one side, then looks away. Not a single word passes his lips, but his silence speaks volumes.
“Are you angry at me for what happened with Jacob today?” It is the only thing that makes any sense. Jacob had asked me out to dinner in front of Ki and half the school as we were lining up for lunch earlier today. I didn’t say yes of course, but I also didn’t want to make a big scene, so I pretended I needed to go to the bathroom and avoided responding.
He snorts but doesn’t meet my gaze. I’ve hit a nerve. I’m sure of it. His jaw clenches, and I’m worried he’s going to snap his fishing rod in two from the white-knuckled grip he has going on.
“You can’t possibly think I’d go out with Jacob Smith.” Gagging, my whole body shivers in disgust.
Ki reels in his line, picks up his fishing box and walks away from me and our place by the river. Seeing red, I storm after him.
“Silent treatment is so immature, Mereki,” I call out. “Is it possible your maturity is decreasing with age?” Frustration and my own anger lace my tone. “Are you gonna go home and cry to your mother now?”
He throws me an angry look over his shoulder but still doesn’t say anything. Mereki is my best friend. He’s definitely my only real friend, but his anger management needs work. Giving me the silent treatment is never an option. Never ever. We talk, we laugh, he fishes, I do art. We have so many positive ways of communicating that this is unacceptable to me. Silent treatment never solves anything.