Stan (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Stan

I’m not sure
what this was.

But all I knew was
that I had a girl in my bed: a warm, beautiful girl that looked like an angel
and smelt like heaven. I blew out a laugh through my nose.

Jesus, Stan,
with thoughts like that, you should be a freakin’ poet.

“What’s so funny?”
Bel asked sleepily, her warm body nestled closely up against me, so torturous
it had made me unable to sleep. That, and the thought I would have her parents
on my doorstep with sticks of fire and bloodhounds at any given moment. I know
Bel said she had a night of freedom, but somehow I kind of doubted that. Her
head rested on my shoulder, her arms lazily snaked across my rib cage. I couldn’t
feel my arm anymore, it was numb from the lack of circulation. Still, I hadn’t
had the heart to move her, to wake her. It was hard enough stopping the first
time, not giving into those pleading eyes, and her soft whisperings that she
wouldn’t regret it in the morning. But as much as it killed, and oh, how it
killed me, I had to draw a line. We fooled around but nothing that would have
us regretting anything in the morning; at least, I hoped not. I sighed, peering
at my side table clock: two a.m. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew she couldn’t
stay, that her being here was pushing it beyond any sane limitations. Bel might
have wanted to risk it but the last thing I wanted was her to get in trouble
and not be allowed to come back to Onslow ever. With that motivation in mind, I
gently kissed the top of her head, moving into her as I rolled her gently off
my dead arm. Thinking I was home free, Bel reached out, and taking my hand she
guided it underneath the covers, sliding it under the thin fabric of her top
and onto her breast. I sighed.

“You’re so bad.”

“I will be if you
let me.”

Bel teasingly
rubbed her thigh against me; the back and forth friction was enough to make me
forget my own name. I thought maybe I could distract her movements by claiming
her lips. Feeling her body melt into a different kind of pleasure that made her
more pliant to me, I trailed my mouth along her neck, hoping maybe the
distraction would numb her thoughts, but of course, it didn’t.

She arched into my
touch. “Stan, please.” She breathed it out in such a way I was almost willing
to give her anything she wanted, but then as her tender hand splayed over my
stomach, lower, lower, breaching the elastic barrier of my tented boxers,
reality slammed into me. I snaked my hand around her wrist, breaking away from
her fevered mouth. I swallowed, trying to blink myself back into some form of
logical thinking.

“Bel,” I pleaded. “You’re
killing me.” My words were the agony I intended it to be as I rolled onto my
back, running my hands through my hair.

Bel nuzzled into
my neck. “Last night of freedom, remember? I don’t know when I’m going to see
you again.” Her voice was low, sad.

I hitched myself
onto my elbow, looking down on her, the darkness hiding me from those big blue
eyes that had me undone every time.

“That’s exactly
why we should wait; you think this is hard now? I don’t want to have a taste of
something amazing and then have it taken from me. If we’re going to do this, I’m
doing it for keeps, not for one night. That’s not who I am.”

Silence fell
between us. I could feel my chest constrict; the sudden unease surfaced in me
in thinking maybe this was just what Bel wanted: one night, a summer fling with
the caravan park boy she could tell her friends about back home.

I thought her
silence was the answer I feared, until she lifted herself up, her hand touching
the side of my face as she kissed me, so gently, so sweetly. The warmth from
them parted too soon. I couldn’t read her expression; I was unable to tell if
it was a kiss goodbye or something else.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Bel

The darkness
hid my tears.

Stan’s words, the
Stan that didn’t say much at all, just said all the things I wanted to hear. He
wasn’t like any other boy I had ever known. He was shy and sweet and
respectful, that was in a way, hard to believe. Most boys would have done the
deed and then be walking you to the door with a ‘have a nice life’. But not
Stan. As much as it killed me to leave him, I knew he was right.

My lips ghosted
against his gently, before pressing into a soft sweetness. I breathed the words
into him. “I’ll wait.” My voice shook. “I’ll wait for you forever.”

Leaving the warmth
of his bed, the cocoon of his arms, was like a form of torture as I gathered
myself to leave, watching on as Stan pulled his top over his square shoulders
and over his toned body and covering himself again.

Yep! Torture.

I slipped my shoes
back on, readying myself to make the long trek back to the van before I really
pushed my luck with my parents. Knowing them, they would be up by dawn packing
up the campsite and readying for home. The very thought of it was like punching
a hole into my chest.

“You ready?” I
heard the jingle of the keys, my eyes snapping up to see Stan by the door.

“You didn’t think
I would let you walk back in the dark?”

***

Stan’s car pulled
up in the same place Sean had picked me up from. This time, he came closer to
the vantage point so as to see me make it down the incline and into my van
safely.

He killed the
engine, resting his arm on my headrest. He gently tucked a tendril of hair
behind my ear.

“Will I see you
tomorrow?” I asked, trying not to let emotion override me.

“You mean today?”
Stan’s eyes flicked to the dashboard clock.

I rolled my eyes. “Tomorrow,
today, will I see you?”

The light from the
moon illuminated his teeth into a brilliant glow. “You’ll be seeing me,” he
said, and with that he leant over and kissed me, slowly and tenderly, lingering
with an essence that had me wishing I could stay here with him forever. When he
broke away, my stomach dropped.

“See ya,” I said
quietly, sliding from the passenger side and clicking the door shut as quietly
as possible. I lingered a moment, our eyes exchanging silent meanings before I
turned, jogging down the incline, my path lit by the headlights of Stan’s car
guiding me all the way to the safety of my front door. Only then did the
headlights fade as Stan turned his car back on and drove away.

***

Somehow, some way,
I had managed to slip into the van undetected, and by morning with the mad
running around I knew would be happening, it would be the perfect distraction
for me. Not once did my parents ask what time I came home. What my movie was
like. Nothing. It kind of put me in an even worse mood knowing, potentially, I
could have stayed longer with Stan.

Stan, who I still
hadn’t seen.

I was sulking
around all morning, and by lunchtime I was damn right unbearable. Screaming at poor
Alex, snapping at my dad and blaming him for everything apart from global
warming. And having found out that the reason my mum had been missing for the
past hour was because she took it upon herself to have a last-minute cuppa with
Paula Remington. How fucking fabulous was that?

I slung the last
of my bags in the back of the Pajero, trying to fight the tears that threatened
to fall, when I heard the distant, familiar whistle of ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’
close in from across the track. Shielding the sun from my eyes, I took in the
sight of Stan, leading the way as Glen, Paula, and Mum walked behind him. He
had his sunnies on which made it difficult to make eye contact with him.

“G’day, Stan.” Dad
met him with a handshake.

“All packed then?”
Stan asked, chirpy and cheerful as ever.

“Yep, almost.” My
dad nodded, his hands on his hips, looking around the campsite making sure he
hadn’t missed anything.

“We just thought
we’d come and see you off,” chimed Paula.

“Yeah, we changed
the sign to ‘Back in ten’. Seemed more realistic.” Everyone chuckled.

Crazy!

Stan didn’t even
look at me, he smiled along, toed the dirt with his infuriating hands in his
pockets.

Is this how it was
going to be? He was just politely going to say ‘See ya?’ with his folks and
walk up the track whistling without a care in the world? Had he not wanted to
have sex with me because he wasn’t really interested? He hadn’t said much, so
perhaps I had been wrong about him after all. A new anger burned within me.
Along with relief I hadn’t slept with him last night. I was wrong, so wrong. He
was
just like all the others. I slammed the car door so hard, everyone
turned to look at me.

“Let’s go!’ I
snapped, barely trying to keep it together, wishing I had sunglasses.

“Are all your bags
packed?” my mum asked. There was a no-nonsense tone in her voice.

“I only have the
one.” I glowered.

Mum moved toward
the back, double-checking the cargo like the control freak she was. “This one?”
Mum lifted a large purple Quicksilver backpack.

It took everything
in me not to create a scene and scream at her.

Yes!

But as she lifted
the backpack from the back with a groan, and carried it around the car and
dumped it at my feet, my mouth fell open.

“That’s not going
to Maitland.” She looked at me pointedly.

“W-what?”

“You’re not going
to Maitland.”

I searched my mum’s
face, her bemused yet earnest face, before it flicked to my dad who merely
shrugged in good humour.

“I don’t
understand.”

My focus shifted
toward Paula and Glen who watched on with much amusement. By now, Stan had
lifted his sunnies and was looking at me with a devilish look in his eyes.

Mum clasped my
shoulders. “Paula and Glen said they would be happy for you to stay for the
summer.”

“It’s true,” added
Paula. “If you don’t mind staying with us, we’d love to have you.”

Still unable to
voice any words from shock, my mum squeezed my shoulders. “It’s not your fault
we have to go home, and it hasn’t been much of a summer for you.”

I tried to look at
Stan. If only they had known what kind of summer I had had.

Mum swept the hair
from my eyes. “There are, of course, conditions attached.”

“Anything,
anything!”

“Well, as you
know, you’ll be staying up at the house.”

“Agreed, totally,”
I said all too quickly.

“You’ll be home
for Christmas,” Dad said sternly as he came to stand beside Mum.

“Look forward to
it.”

“And this might be
the deal breaker.” Mum smirked. “You’re to help out around the park; it’s not
going to be a free ride.”

“Fine.”

“I’m afraid you
have Stan to thank for that one,” added Glen.

I turned to Stan,
curving my brow. “Oh?”

The same boyish
smile I so loved was there. “Yeah, I’m starting a new job. I’m going into
partnership with my mate, Sean.”

So that’s what
Sean had to see him about.

“Sounds too good
to refuse,” I said.

“That’s what we
think,” Paula said.

“So if you don’t
mind sweeping verandahs and manning the office …” Stan teased.

“Scrubbing
toilets?”

“That too,” he
said, stepping forward and lifting my bag onto his shoulder, looking down on me
with a knowing smile.

I couldn’t contain
my own goofy grin, squinting against the sun. “Sounds perfect!”

Epilogue

Some things
were meant to be.

For instance,
mopping out the bathroom floor of cabin seventeen seemed more than appropriate.

“You don’t have to
do that,” Max said, watching on from the doorway of his cabin.

“Oh, get over it.
I had some spare time so I thought I would just give it the once-over. Besides,
you don’t want to fall into the eternal realm of this feeling like a bachelor
pad,” I said, carrying out the mop and bucket and wiping my brow.

“So does your
boyfriend know you’re here?”

I smirked, looking
away. “My boyfriend?”

“Stan? You can’t
tell me that any girl would willingly spend her summers scrubbing toilets for
the sheer thrill of it,” he teased, taking a seat and leaning back on the legs
of his chair, picking up his guitar. “Must be love,” he said, strumming lazily
as he watched me pour the dirty water out of my bucket. “I see he is moving
back into the main house.”

I spun around,
almost dropping my bucket. “What did you just say?”

He shrugged one
shoulder in that cool, casual way of his. “I heard Paula talking about it while
I was doing laundry.”

“What did she say?”

“She was kitting
out his room for the return of her prodigal son. Apparently it would be ‘easier’
for him to stay up at the house with his ‘new job’.” Max air quoted each word
sarcastically, but he knew, like I knew, the ‘exact’ reason Stan was coming
back to the house, and my stomach twisted with delight. My summer had gone from
bleak and non-existent to each day being a new discovery, with every stolen
moment with Stan like heaven, and all of a sudden ‘waiting’ didn’t feel like
forever.

“Try not to look
so happy about it.”

I sighed. “Goodbye,
Max, a pleasure as always.”

Max started
strumming and singing the words to Dire Straits’ ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ I spun
around, walking backwards down the drive, laughing.

“Stan loves that
song!” I called.

“I bet he does.”
Max winked. “I. Bet. He. Does.”