Stan (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Stan

Kiss her.

Just bloody
kiss her, you idiot.

If there was ever
a time that called for it, it was now. Bel was rattled, her cheeks flushed, and
her senses dimmed by the overworking of her mind. I could tell just by the way
she breathed, that way she had so gently, teasingly ran the cloth over me in
delicious waves that did anything but keep me cool. Far from it. I wanted it to
last forever, so when she stopped and was all about to flee, I did everything
in the power of my stare to keep her there, to pin her there with no words. To
look into her wilful eyes and know that maybe, just maybe, if I did close the
distance between us, she would stay. There was only one way to find out, and as
my eyes slowly flicked from hers to her beautiful mouth and then back again, it
was the wordless, silent invitation I posed, one she seemed to understand. Her
breaths became laboured and her eyes widened slightly as I stepped forward,
moving closer, pressing against her unmoving body.

Was she
shaking?

I smiled, slowly
clasping the back of her neck, forcing her to lift her head up, eyes squarely
rested on me. Yes, I would kiss her, kiss her into next week, but not just
because I wanted to, but because, without an ounce of uncertainty, I knew she
wanted me, too.

And just when I
thought I would let the waves of certainty and courage take me there, I heard
the sound of the front door.

“Knock-knock!”
called Ellie’s voice down the hall.

Shit!

We broke away from
each other so fast, Bel almost toppled backwards over the coffee table as she
moved to get as far away from me as possible. I knew it was a shock to hear
Ellie’s voice but by the way Bel had reacted, like she had nearly been
electrocuted, actually made me frown a little as I quickly worked to pull my
shirt back on. Bel tried to act casually by turning the tap in the sink on and
off and then on again, as if she was doing some kind of invisible dishes or
something. In an effort to look anything but flustered she was failing rather
miserably.

“Hello-hello,”
Ellie sing-songed as she entered the lounge room, downing some plastic bags on
the bench. “Oh, hey,” she said, noticing Bel for the first time.

Ringer was not far
behind. “Thought you might need some supplies,” he said, holding up
Mad Max
Two.

“Oh, hell, no,
Ringer!” Ellie moaned. “Look, I love Mel as much as the next girl but I just
want to watch—”

“We are not
watching fucking
Steel Magnolias
, Ellie, and that’s final.”

As Ellie and
Ringer bickered like an old married couple, I watched Bel as she catatonically
stared in deep thought, down the drain, watching the water circle its way down.
Her attention only snapped into the present when Ringer challenged her.

“Sorry?” She
looked far away, blinking in confusion.

“What would you
prefer to watch?” asked Ellie, snatching the DVD from Ringer’s clasp and
slamming it down on the bench next to her own.

Bel looked from
them to the DVDs. Her brows furrowed as if she was trying to grasp onto the
question, but I knew it wasn’t the question that was troubling her.

“Umm, sorry, I’ve
got to go,” she said, before sliding between Ellie and Ringer and quickstepping
out the door, not so much as looking my way. It wasn’t until I heard the
distant slamming of the front door did Ellie and Ringer’s curious eyes set upon
me. Ringer smiled like a school boy and Ellie shook her head in dismay.

“What did you do?”

I ignored her
question, instead moving toward the bench, grabbing the DVDs.

“No, and no,” I
said, handing them back to Ellie and Ringer.

“Oh, sorry, did
you have something else on your social agenda for tonight?” Ringer asked, his
words dripping with sarcasm.

“It’s three in the
afternoon, I don’t have time for this.”

“Not now, fool,
but what are you doing later?” Ellie leant on the bench.

I could barely
think past this moment, past the urge to run after Bel and see if she was all
right.

“Do you want to do
Chinese takeaway tonight?” Ringer leant against the fridge door, studying the
menu.

I raked my hand
through my hair, sighing in frustration at my well-intentioned, if not slightly
annoying friends. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Stan,
you know what they say. No work, no play,” Ellie said, tilting to the side to
try and meet my eyeline.

“Look, whatever
you guys want—Chinese, great. I just have to do a few things before then.”

Like chase
after a girl.

“Awesome, we’ll
come back around seven then?”

“Sounds good,” I
said, not really paying attention as my eyes stared after where Bel had just
left.

“So, um, are we
catering for three or—”

“Four,” I said a
bit too quickly. “It will be four.” I reached for my wallet from the fruit bowl
to grab some cash.

Ringer sidestepped
away. “Put your money away, you mug. I’ve got it.” Ringer made his way out,
down toward the hall. Pausing in the doorway, he said, “You coming or staying,
Parker?”

It wasn’t until
then I realised Ellie was staring at me, a small smile curving her lips. “Yeah,
I’m coming.” Ringer saluted and headed through the doorway.

I crossed my arms,
challenging Ellie’s cocky stance. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” she
said, backing out toward the hall. “But just so you know … your shirt’s on
inside out.” And with a parting wink and a laugh, Ellie skipped out of the
room.

It wasn’t until I
heard the distant slam of the door did I look down at my shirt.

“Son of a bitch!”

Chapter Nineteen

Bel

Hot tears
welled and trailed down my cheeks.

I was such an
idiot.

I had run to the
point of wanting to throw up, my hands on my knees, hunched over, fighting for
breath, walking, stopping, walking. With my hands on my head, I fought back the
sobs that couldn’t come because I was so breathless. What was I thinking? The
sound of Ellie’s voice ringing out haunted me, the vision of her walking in
without a care in the world, so trusting, so unknowing of the fact I was wiping
down her half-naked boyfriend, and by all accounts, was on the verge of kissing
him right before we had almost been sprung.

I didn’t like who
I was becoming, about the strange things I felt whenever I was near or around
Stan. It was confusing. The way I swore he looked at me, him literally saying
he didn’t want me to stop, and then the most certain moment when he was going
to kiss me. Oh, this was trouble—deep, deep trouble—and I wanted no part of it.
My things may have still been back at his house but there was no way I was
going back there tonight, not ever. I crunched a determined path to where our
van was housed, walking over the crest to where I could clearly see where it
sat down on the ravine overlooking the water. I paused, troubled by how it didn’t
really feel like a refuge.

It would be the
first place he looked.

Shit.

I didn’t want to
be found. I couldn’t be found. Not tonight.
How
could I get away from
here? What we did and what we nearly did was so wrong, so, so wrong, and albeit
I wasn’t exactly the president of Ellie Parker’s fan club, it gave me no right
to touch her boyfriend. Every time I closed my eyes I remembered his skin—his
taut, smooth skin—and lean muscles, the squareness of his shoulders; I had
wanted to kiss him. So much. I felt the pull, the lure towards him. I shook it
from my memory.

No!

Regardless of how
I felt, or how he felt, there was one thing that was clear. It could never
happen. I breathed deeply, grasping onto the silver lining of the situation.
Nothing did happen; we were still innocent of any major wrongdoing. A line had
definitely been crossed but the line was still salvageable. I took it as a one
and only warning to stay well clear of Stanley Remington and in order to do
that, I would have to go to the last place on earth he would think of looking.

***

I found him like a
cliché.

There he was, his
dust-covered boots perched on the rail of his verandah, tilting on the back
legs of his chair, casually strumming a guitar.

Max looked
ludicrously cool.

I neared the
cabin, pausing at the steps. “Are you singing the blues?” I asked.

A smile lined his
lips as he worked on tuning his guitar; he didn’t look at me straight away. “I’m
singing the minty rolling blues.”

I fought not to
laugh. “Oh no, how does that go?”

“It’s about a girl
who upended a bowl of mints.”

“I see, does it
have a happy ending?”

“Depends if you
like mints or not.”

“Fair point; do
you mind if I pull up a step?”

“Pull up a chair.”
He motioned with a nod of his head. I made my way up the steps to the small
verandah of his cabin, pulling out the spare chair from the small table.

“Thanks.” I
smiled, feeling somewhat less exposed, especially with the ivy canopy that
blocked me in on the side of the cabin.

“So, how do you
like Onslow?” I tried for small talk.

I almost made the
rookie mistake of asking him about Ballan, but then it would have been obvious
I had snooped at his paperwork. And as it was, I already felt like a bit of creeper
just being there. I didn’t want to come across as a full-fledged stalker.

“Oh, I think it
will take about twenty years before I’m accepted as a local.” He idly strummed
his guitar.

“I think it’s
actually more like twenty-five years,” I added.

Max shook his
head. “Sounds just like home.”

“Really? And where’s
home?” I asked innocently.

“Ballan.” He
looked at me expectantly, and when I didn’t have a trace of recognition, he
smirked. “Yeah, exactly. No one knows where it is.”

“It’s far away
though, yeah?” That much I knew.

“Yeah, it’s far
away and very different to Onslow. Aside from the small-town syndrome people
tend to suffer from. No offence.”

I shrugged. “None
taken, I don’t live here.”

Max stopped
mid-strum, looking at me with interest. “But you work here?”

“Nope.” I laughed.

“So you were
merely raiding the mint jar?” He placed his guitar aside, pushing the strands
of dirty-blond hair from his vision so he could look at me.

“I was just
helping out, or in my case not helping.” I grimaced.

The front legs of
Max’s chairs met the ground. “Want a beer?” he asked, getting up from his chair
and heading into the open door of his cabin.

“Ah, sure.”

It felt weird
being here and if my mother knew I had brazenly wandered up to some boy’s cabin
and pulled up a chair for a late Saturday afternoon beer, she would have a
conniption and grill me about stranger danger. I mean, who knows? He might have
left Ballan with a warrant on his head. He could be a hardened criminal
assuming the persona of Max Henry, smoking-hot, baby-faced farm boy for all I
knew, but as Max appeared with two stubbies in his hand, twisting off the lid
and throwing it into the ashtray, I couldn’t help but feel kind of calm in his
understated cool, casual presence.

“Sorry, it’s only
a Cascade light.” He smirked, almost embarrassed as he handed me my stubby and
motioned me for a cheers. “It’s five o’clock in the world somewhere, right?” he
said with a wink.

I clinked the
glass against his. “That’s right,” I agreed. Sure it was late afternoon and we
were cracking a few beers, but, hey, it was Saturday, and it was summer, so it
was kind of allowed. I swigged on what I knew would be a vile-tasting beer;
light or heavy, the frothy liquid amber, I was certainly not a fan.

I pretended to
study the label as a way of distracting myself from cringing from the
aftertaste.

Fascinating.

Maybe it was the
beer? Maybe it was the dimming of the sun or the good company, but I felt
myself finally relax in a way that I hadn’t felt this summer at all. No
parents, no annoying brothers, and no Stan.

Instead, after a
while, tears brimmed my eyes for a whole other reason, and I was breathless.
Not because I was running from something, but because Max was funny even with
the lamest, cleanest jokes.

He sipped his
beer, quenching his thirst before beginning his story.

“A brain and a
pair of jumper leads walk into a bar.

The brain says to
the barman, ‘Two beers, thanks, mate.’ But the barman just says,

‘No, no beer for
you.’

The brain is like,
‘Come on, mate, just one beer!’ The barman just looks stony-faced and says,
‘Not a chance.’

The brain arks up
and asks, ‘Bloody why not?’

The bartender
points to him. ‘Because you’re out of your head and your friend’s about to
start something.’”

I choke on the
mouthful of beer I have just attempted to swallow. By now I should know better
than to do such a thing when Max is talking. I catch my breath through the
laughter. “That is so bad it’s good.” I shake my head.

“There once was a
man from Nantucket—”

I waved his words
away. “No. No more, I beg of you,” I pleaded, clasping the sides of my aching
belly. Max’s words were interrupted by the sound of an approaching car, rolling
along, crunching the long, sweeping stone drive not long before a beam of
headlights momentarily blinded us. We held up our hands to protect our vision
before we saw a white Toyota Hilux come into view, the scrawling of ‘Sean
Murphy, This ‘N’ That Building’ stencilled on the side of his vehicle. The next
thing I saw was a muscled, tanned arm perched on the wound-down window of the
Ute. The man behind the wheel saluted us as he slowly rolled into the park.

“Nice night for
it,” he called out with a winning smile.

Max and I
instinctively held up our beers in a unified salute.

“Indeed,” Max
replied as the Ute continued to roll down the drive.

There hadn’t been
much traffic in and out of the park tonight; most people were too keen on
lighting up their barbies, settling in for the evening with late night swims.
The smell of people cooking up barbecues filled the air in the most delicious
way, causing my stomach to rumble with the need for sustenance. As if thinking
the same thing, or maybe he had heard the mortifying rumble of my tummy
demanding food, Max stood and stretched his arms to the sky.

“You hungry?”

And for the second
time today I replied, “Famished.”

I just hoped it
didn’t involve cold pizza.