I picked up my paintbrush, the feel of where he touched me burning on my skin. “She left with my parents for a few days to go fruit picking.”

  “Fruit picking?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Even after the wall was finished, there was a hesitation about Jake, as though he didn’t want to leave, like he hung in suspension, waiting for something. Eventually he walked toward the door.

  “Thanks for hanging with me tonight,” he said, turning to face me.

  “Thanks for painting my lounge.”

  I sort of bounced on my feet, feeling too buzzed and extremely tired at the same time. Jake looked out into the night. The breeze played with his hair. I longed to reach out and stroke it. Would it be soft? Or would it be coarse and tough like the man himself?

  I shook my head, clearing the distracting thoughts. “Are you going to be alright running home? I would offer you a ride but—”

  “You don’t drive.” Jake’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’ll be fine. Pretty sure I can look after myself.” He walked a few steps backward and held up one hand in a motionless wave. “Well, bye then, Amelia Ryan.”

  “Goodbye, Jake Thornton.”

  He turned, jogging a few steps down the steep driveway before stopping. He stood for a few moments, his breath coming out as white puffs in the night air before turning around and walking back to stand in front of me. He looked down and I felt his breath tickle my skin.

  “Amelia?”

  “Yes?”

  He chewed on his lip, pulling it in and out between his teeth. His gaze, dark and illuminated by the light coming from the open door, flicked between my eyes and my lips.

  “Would it be okay if I kissed you?”

  I’d never been asked if someone could kiss me before. Usually, it was something that happened spontaneously, without premeditation or thought. But his question made the air thicken around me, constricting my chest.

  “Yes.” The word was just a whisper in the night.

  Taking a step closer, Jake lifted his hands to cup my face. The roughness of his skin sent shivers of anticipation down my spine. His head lowered and then his lips brushed against mine softly. Then he moved away, though his hands still gripped the side of my face and he looked at me questioningly.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, I pushed myself to my tiptoes and he lowered his head again, his mouth meeting mine with a passion that made me moan. Pulling me closer, his arms left my face to wrap around my shoulders, almost as though he wanted me to crawl up his body.

  His kiss left me breathless.

  His kiss left me a quivering mess of desire.

  He pulled away, his hands moving to cup my face again and peered into my eyes. “Goodnight.” There was the faintest smile on his lips. Almost a smirk.

  “Goodnight,” I echoed because there was nothing else I could say, nothing else I could do. He’d wiped all thoughts from my mind, drowning out awareness of anything but him.

  And then he ran off into the night.

  8

  JAKE

  My original feelings about Amelia were right. She deserved better than the likes of me. I’d left her house that first night after dropping her and her sister home knowing it, and I knew it now. But that still hadn’t stopped me from going back. It still hadn’t stopped me from asking permission to kiss her like some fucking pre-schooler. It still didn’t stop me from wanting to fuck her.

  Only now it had become more.

  I had taken her home that night intending to lose myself in her. I had imagined it going differently than it did. In my mind, she threw herself at me like she did that first date. She would climb onto my lap, wrap those hands around my neck just like she had before, and I would devour her. What I didn’t imagine was her feigning not to know who I was, for her to pretend as though we’d never met. I didn’t imagine it being so easy to talk to her. I didn’t imagine sipping fucking herbal tea with her.

  It was that look of dismissal that did it for me, that had me hooked. It had been so long since a woman looked at me that way, turning her head as though she wasn’t interested when I knew she was lying. It made something rear up inside me. It was her eyes that had betrayed her. When she looked over me, there was a hunger in her gaze and I couldn’t stop the raw lust that coiled in my core.

  I wanted her.

  I wanted to fist my hands in her jet-black hair. I wanted to press my mouth against her blood-red lips. I wanted her to sigh my name, scream it. I wanted to thrust deep inside her and hear her whimper.

  But nothing had gone to plan.

  She’d stepped away from me when I’d touched her. She’d stared at me with eyes filled with longing but she refused to act on it. So I’d left unsatisfied and with a painful erection that I had to deal to myself.

  I thought that would be it, that I’d forget about her, that she was nothing more than an urge I’d failed to act upon on a frustratingly lonely night. But I was wrong.

  I thought about her constantly. Even alcohol couldn’t dull her from my brain. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t go back, but I did anyway. When I couldn’t sleep, my feet hit the pavement in the direction of her house. I’d stopped in my tracks when I saw her through the window. She was painting her walls wearing nothing but a paint-splattered t-shirt and slippers that rose high up her calves. I’d just stood there and watched like a fucking perverted peeping tom as she climbed up and down that ladder, completely oblivious to the creep outside her window. And each time she stretched high to paint, her t-shirt rode up and exposed the cheeks of her ass. She had on underwear, but they were plain, white with little daisies all over them, and for some reason they drove me more insane than if they had been made of lace.

  I think it was the innocence of them.

  The innocence of her.

  So, even though I told myself I wouldn’t, I found myself knocking on her door. And then, I’d laid on the couch and watched her, words and chatter falling from my mouth like I was paying her to listen. I’d never opened up that easily to anyone. Not my brothers. Not my mother. Not the woman who’s been assigned to talk to me after leaving the army.

  But I’d also never had someone look at me the way she did.

  Like she saw me.

  Like she wasn’t waiting for the me of before to return.

  Like she wanted me. Me. Not someone who looked like me with long hair and smooth muscles to show them a good time for the night. But me. The me of now.

  She looked at me as though I were whole.

  I guess that’s why I’d asked her permission. I’d never done it before but for some reason, it just felt right. I wanted her to want me. I wanted her to be filled with as much need, as much want, as much longing as I was. It was a throbbing ache inside me, the need for her approval. I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t know why. All I knew was that I wanted her to want me. I needed her to need me.

  It took all my strength to turn and jog away. But I was scared of what I’d do if I didn’t. If I was being honest, I was scared she'd want me to stop and I wouldn’t be able to.

  I was scared of hurting her.

  Around her I felt a sense of calm, of peace, like I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. But I knew she couldn’t fix me. I never expected her to. I knew that she was another addiction I was using to distract myself, but I was willing to take any distraction I could.

  Anything to numb the pain.

  Anything to still the confused waves of emotion that crashed down upon me unexpectedly like a rain-storm in summer.

  Anything to stop the memories.

  Anything to forget.

  9

  AMELIA

  I was dressed as Boudica the Warrior Queen. A red wig (stolen from the Anne of Green Gables costume) trailed as a thick braid over my shoulder. My woolen cape, compliments of Braveheart, was fastened with a gold clasp. The tunic was white, but not too white thanks to Peter Pan and my thick brown-leather belt and blade of my replica dagger came from our Viking collection. I had finished off the costume with a plain tan skirt that hung below my knees and some brown leather sandals which looked more Roman than Celtic, but I wasn’t going for historical accuracy.

  So far, no one had guessed my outfit, despite me greeting each customer in a classic warrior pose with my dagger drawn. Someone had guessed Merida from Brave but that was as close as anyone got. I even put up a photo on our Facebook page. I tried to look fierce, but it was a little hard with Mrs Reynolds scowling at me while she took it.

  “Smile,” she had said. “No one wants to see a sour-faced Boudica.”

  I changed my pose and drew out my dagger menacingly, smiling with what I hoped was a ferocious and wicked glint to my eye.

  Mrs Reynolds sighed and took another shot which cut off half my head and had the shelves behind me tilted at a strange angle. “I suppose it will have to do.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was from our lack of followers, or the lack of people’s imagination, but there was not one guess beneath the post, despite offering a fifty percent discount off their next costume hire for the first person to guess it correctly.

  I hit the refresh button on the old computer Mrs Reynolds insisted I use, and after a considerable length of time when I wasn’t sure if the computer would die or not, a comment popped up.

  It was from my mother.

  Are you Lucille Ball? I love Lucille Ball. You look so pretty with red hair!

  Definitely not Lucille Ball.

  The family had been away for five days now and Mum had called to report on their progress every day. Already I had received two calls from her that morning. One to complain about Molly not getting out of bed until at least ten each morning and the other was to ask me if I wanted any red currents. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them but I said yes to keep her happy.

  I was just about to close the computer back down, (to save power as per Mrs Reynolds’ instructions) when I decided to open a new tab. The search bar sat empty. I chewed on my bottom lip, toying with it at the same time as I toyed with whether I was comfortable finding out information this way. In the end, I decided I was good with it, typed ‘Jake Thornton’ and hit the enter button.

  There were a few images which came up, mainly of Hamish and Tyler Thornton and their involvement in the business. There were a few articles on Thornton Industries which I skipped over until I came to one detailing how Hamish Thornton drove his car into the glass front of a casino. There were even news clips on it, the anchors reporting it having a hard time keeping their faces straight. There were lots of articles on Gabe and Tyler, most of them claiming some overly dramatic fight between the two brothers that I had no interest in, so I kept scrolling until I found one about Jake. One. Only one. It was an article on a gossip-style blog. Someone who considered themselves a reporter by attending events and reporting on overheard rumors.

  It quoted a supposed ex-girlfriend of Jake’s talking about how different he was when he came back from his time in the army. It said he was racked with guilt. It said he had been ordered to do things he didn’t want to do. It had no legitimate sources. Nothing to give credibility. But it did have a photo. It was one taken from a Thornton Industries event which had been cropped to remove the other people in it. Jake wasn’t smiling and it reminded me of the Jake I knew at the boxing match. Sullen. Dark. Intimidating.

  I ran my finger over the screen and then brought it to my lips, rubbing it back and forth across the place that I still felt his kiss the most. The memory of it was strong, even days later. He had been so careful, so gentle, yet so demanding and in control at the same time.

  I’d never been kissed that way before.

  I wanted to be kissed that way again.

  When I realized what I was doing, I pressed the ‘x’ in the corner of the screen and shut the computer down. Then I started it back up and deleted the history. Not that Mrs Reynolds would have the first clue about checking the browser history, but it made me feel a little stalker-like leaving the evidence there. And then I thought it was probably more stalker-like to remove it.

  I had hoped he might come back after that night he had helped me paint. Not that same night, but maybe the next. He didn’t. Or the next. Or the next.

  I didn’t have his phone number. He wasn’t on social media. And I didn’t know where he lived. I had no way of contacting him unless I got Molly to ask Tyler for his number. I considered it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It reeked of too much desperation and Molly had shown enough of that for the two of us.

  Glancing over at the clock, I prayed for the minutes to pass faster. It had been a long shift, not because I was busy, quite the opposite. There was a total of five people that had come into the store, and not one of them was looking for a costume. We did alterations as well, little things like taking up hems, repairing tears, and adding zips and pockets. Really, it was the main source of business for Mrs Reynolds, but I hoped that one day the costume shop would take over, if only Mrs Reynolds would let me promote it… or die and leave the shop to me.

  Either was fine.

  Mrs Reynolds insisted the shop stay open until nine every night. But only the costume shop. The whirr of the sewing machines out back had longed stopped so I was here alone. At 8:30pm, I walked out the front door, ready to pull in the sign on the footpath and lock the doors and go home early, when a car pulled up to the entrance, jerking as someone approached too fast and stopped too quickly. Two women got out of the car, dressed exquisitely, one walking with a slight limp. They looked familiar but I couldn’t place them.

  They looked up at the sign that hung above the entrance and then at me. A wave of confusion passed over their faces and their eyes trailed from my head to my toes in unison, like they were perfect marionettes controlled by the same person.

  I looked down at the open sign I was dragging behind me and back at them, hoping they might just get into the vehicle and drive away.

  They didn’t.

  “I won’t be long, I promise. You see…” The blonde one launched into some big explanation about how she was supposed to go to a fancy-dress birthday party, and she’d been meaning to come and get her and her husband’s costumes sorted earlier but the day had just got away on her. The other woman rolled her eyes.

  Placing the sign inside the doorway, I stood to the side and ushered the woman in. “Sure,” I said. “Why not. What sort of a warrior would I be if I didn’t help a damsel in distress?”

  The dark-haired one laughed. Sort of. Really, it was a strained chuckle out of politeness. The blonde one just barged on in as though she expected nothing less.

  Once inside, the blonde lady’s eyes grew wide as she looked around the cavernous shop filled with racks upon racks of clothing and costumes. You could tell she was overwhelmed. It was something I’d talked about with Mrs Reynolds, but she wouldn’t let me organize it. She said she liked the chaotic mess. It created more mystery. The shop would have so much potential if she’d just let me do a few things, like change the name. As Jake had noted, ‘Mrs Reynolds’ Costume Shop’ was far from creative, even though creativity and talent dripped from Mrs Reynolds’ fingers. No one could sew costumes like she could. No. Sew is the wrong word. She didn’t just sew, she created. She created masterpieces that rivaled most of the outfits we’d bought from old movie sets. But she wouldn’t let me showcase them. I wanted to put them on mannequins, a striking display for when the customers first walked in the door. Instead, they were shoved on the racks like everything else.

  “It’s a ‘P’ party,” the lady said when her eyes focused on me again. “I need two costumes beginning with ‘P’. We’ll start with one for me first and worry about Hamish later.”

  I turned sharply at the name Hamish. And that’s when it came back to me. This was Billie Thornton, Hamish Thornton’s third wife. The one who had been at the boxing match with him. The one who’d had the baby. She looked good for not long having had a baby. There was no extra weight to her. No pouch around her stomach. I’m sure it drove her friends insane.

  Trying not to let my knowledge of who she was show, I started listing off the usual suspects as the dark-haired woman wandered about the shop, the thud of her single crutch echoing off the walls.

  “Police. Pirate. Panda. Peasant. Oh,” I said as an idea popped into my head. “What about Pennywise?”

  “Pennywise?” Billie’s frown told me she had no idea who I was talking about.

  I went back to listing the usual suspects. “Pimp. Pilot. Prisoner.” With another idea forming in my head, I walked over to a rack, pulled out an orange jumpsuit, and held it against me. “With your blonde hair, you could go as Piper from Orange is the New Black. Prisoner Piper!”

  I was pretty impressed with my suggestion, double ‘P’ even, but Mrs Thornton, or Billie or whatever she liked to be called was not. She looked around the room again as though inspiration would suddenly strike. Her eyes drifted up to the loft, but it had ‘staff only’ signs at the bottoms of the stairs. It was storage only.

  “I was thinking about Peter Pan for my husband.”

  I put the orange jumpsuit back. “Sure. We can do that.” I started to walk over to where Peter Pan and the rest of the crowd from Neverland hung out, when I remembered something.

  “There is one small problem.”

  The lady just blinked.

  “I’m wearing Peter Pan’s tunic.”

  “But it’s white. Peter Pan should wear green.”

  “There’s a green vest. Do you need it today?”

  She blinked again and nodded. I pinched the material between my fingers, holding it out and looking at her apologetically. “I swear I haven’t worn it for long and it doesn’t smell.” I gave myself a whiff just to make sure and smiled at her when the result came back okay.

  She looked slightly horrified then sighed. “I suppose it will have to do.” Her voice showed she wasn’t happy. “And what about something for me?”

 

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