“So, how long have you two been going out?”
I knew Tash would pounce at the earliest opportunity. However, even though I was expecting it, I did think she’d at least wait until the waitress had finished seating us.
William sat next to me and intercepted the menu the waitress was thrusting in my direction, laying it on the table in front of me. He took one for himself and dragged his chair closer to mine (OMG!) and I watched, fascinated, as Tash’s expression morphed from curious through speculation and into calculation. A quiver wriggled through my stomach and I wasn’t sure whether it was nervous pleasure at the casual press of William’s thigh against mine, or sudden fear of what Tash might say or do next.
She was always on about how I should be more adventurous and she had an alarming habit of springing things on me in an effort to provoke some kind of response. It was usually easy enough to resist her; nearly everything she thought of was impossible anyway because of my hands. People who don’t have anything wrong with their hands have no idea how much they depend on them. They don’t have to think about it.
She gazed at me now for a long moment, her smoky eyes peering at me speculatively. “Well?”
“This is our first date,” William replied before I could form an answer.
“Yeah?” Tash said and her eyes narrowed at me meaningfully. I shook my head at her and she gave me a look that let me know I might escape a grilling tonight, but I was going to be closely interrogated at her earliest convenience on the matter of neglecting to inform her this was on the horizon. I didn’t need telepathy to understand that, at least. Imagine if she knew how long I’d been interested in William without telling her. Tash would never understand why I hadn’t told her.
How could she understand that the way I felt about William was just another reminder of the differences between me and ordinary girls? I was ugly with an ugly disease, so wishing for someone like William was just torturing myself. And even sitting here at the table in the brightly lit restaurant with the unbelievable but undeniable fact that William was sitting beside me didn’t ultimately change that. I didn’t know why he kept coming back or why he was here now. I tried not to question it, tried just to enjoy it while it lasted, but I was finding that impossible.
I looked down at the menu, pretending to read the selections, even though my stomach was tying itself in such painful complicated knots the thought of eating anything made me want to puke. Warmth and weight stole over my thigh just above my knee and I froze, my breath catching in my throat as William’s hand settled on my leg beneath the table where nobody could see. His long fingers wrapped around the hard bump of my kneecap and I had to squeeze my toes together inside my sneakers to force my leg to stay still.
I turned my head to look at him, wondering how he knew—if he knew—that it was safe to give my knee a friendly squeeze, like he’d just done, because for some random reason my knees and elbows remained basically unaffected by the JRA. So far, at least. William looked back at me, his deep blue eyes a lighter shade than usual under the artificial lighting, and his face creased up in that slow smile that turned my stomach over. His fingers closed briefly on my kneecap once more, then he looked away and asked Tash what dishes she recommended and I could breathe again.
Although I wasn’t going to have to pretend I wasn’t hungry. There was no way I could eat now.
“Is something wrong?” William waited until I was well clear before he shut the passenger door of his ute behind me. It might be only our first date, but I’d already learned he liked to open doors and to help me out of the car. I was torn between admiring such old-fashioned manners and wondering if he just did it because he thought I couldn’t. William thrust a leg out to gently push one of Dad’s panting dogs away. “Siddown,” he said firmly and the dog heard the calm authority in his voice and obediently padded back towards the shadows of the veranda to the rest of the pack, duty done.
The light from the porta-flood attached to the corner of the garage cast a circle of brightness over me, William and the front of his ute, leaving everything beyond in darkness. It was like standing beneath a spotlight on a stage and I shuffled my feet uncomfortably in the gravel of the driveway, paranoid that Dad or Jennie or either of my stepbrothers might be peering out through one of the many windows facing this way. I wouldn’t put it past them. Any of them.
“No, why?” I slid my hands into the pocket-pouch of my hoodie, insulating them from the cool late night air.
“You’ve been really quiet.”
I’m always quiet, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I shrugged.
“I’m fine,” I said. I shifted from one foot to another, the gravel making that crunching, slithery, kissing sound beneath my sneakers. Heat flushed through my skin at the thought of kissing and I stepped quickly out of the gravel and onto the brick path leading up to the veranda steps. I heard William’s boots crunching behind me and I stopped and turned, but I’d misjudged how closely he was following me because he was unexpectedly right there, the buttons of his shirt inches from my eyes.
I jerked backwards, my heel caught the raised edge of one of the old bricks and tipped me off balance. I tried to get my hands free of my pocket but I was too slow, too habitually afraid of hurting them, and I could feel myself going. I know that feeling, where your weight has passed that tipping point where it’s still possible to save yourself and a fall is inescapable. I’ve fallen off horses often enough to recognise when it’s worth hanging on and when it’s better to let go and prepare for the fall. I stopped trying to get my arms free for balance and just tucked my hands in closer to make sure they were protected.
Only, I didn’t fall. It took me longer to realise that than it had to resign myself to falling and I just stood there for an impossibly long moment with William holding my upper arms while I was still waiting for the crash onto the bricks. My disorientation was momentarily deepened when we were abruptly plunged into darkness.
“What the—are you OK?”
“Yes,” I muttered, head spinning as though I really had fallen. “You caught me.” Again. I was heading into Bella Swan territory—always needing to be saved.
“What’s happened to the light? Can you see? Are you OK?”
“Fine,” I said truthfully, as my eyes began to adjust and that false-dizziness stopped. “The light’s on a sensor,” I added.
“Oh, OK.”
I couldn’t see his face clearly, just a pale shape in the darkness, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“You need to pick your feet up,” William said, “or I might think you’re falling for me.”
My throat swelled in alarm at how close he’d come to the truth, although the real truth was this was a fall I’d taken months ago. Every minute I spent with him only made me want him more.
“Melissa? That was a joke.”
“I know,” I choked out, wishing it wasn’t so, wishing there was some truth in those teasing words.
“Are you crying? Did I hurt you?” Anxiety changed the sound of his voice, made it deeper, and a strange little flutter passed through my belly.
“No, no, I’m fine.”
“Your hands?”
“Fine, really. I’m fine.” Although I was starting to be not fine. My hands, my stupid bloody hands. Always in the way. Always what people fixated on.
The weight of his hands on my arms became unbearable, like a promise of something I couldn’t have. “I better go in,” I muttered as I moved to pull away.
His fingers tightened on my arms, pulling me back. “Wait.”
“What for?” I turned towards him again, wondering what he wanted, heart thumping hard against my ribs, hard enough to make my stomach a little queasy.
“Just this,” he said as he bent down and kissed me.
Heat exploded in the anxious vault of my stomach and swarmed out through my veins, storming my skin. My twisted hands grew clammy where they hid in the safety of my pouch-pocket, even as my fingers curled in an instinctive desire to touch William like he was touching me as his hands dropped from my arms to slide across my back. His mouth on mine was startlingly hot; his lips a paradox of hard and soft. And he tasted of the pad-Thai noodles we’d shared for dinner. He arched over me and I tilted towards him, muscles quivering, as his mouth moved on mine. I was spellbound. I’d never known it was like this. Like speaking without words.
My heart thundered in my throat, my skin crawled, hot and prickly. When I felt his hand cradle the back of my neck, his fingers threading through my hair, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to touch him. I slid my hands out of my pocket and cautiously reached for him, pressing my forearms to his hips, wrists angled away.
William made a noise and I drew back, worried I’d done something wrong, but he pressed me closer and his mouth became somehow hotter and hungrier. My lips parted under the sudden fierceness of his. Any moment I was going to wake from this to find it a dream. Any moment he’d break off this kiss as he realised what he was doing and who he was doing it to. Any moment.
But that moment didn’t come. As William’s hands moved restlessly over my hair, my shoulders, my back, as we kissed in an instinctive, delicious dance I’d never imagined even in my wildest dreams, a twinned throbbing ache started low in my belly and deep in the joints of my fingers. I tensed my thighs, disturbed by an answering quiver in my stomach and tried to ignore the increasing clamour in my knuckles. But that was a call too well known to refuse.
As my attention was drawn away from the amazement of kissing William, I realised I had forgotten my habitual precautions about my hands. It was no wonder they were screaming for my attention; at some point I’d relaxed my wrists and my hands were pressed against William’s back. Against solid, warm muscle.
Reluctantly I curled my hands back into loose fists and as if he sensed my distraction, William’s mouth lifted from mine. I opened my eyes and blinked, a wave of cold blanketing me. Panic charged in where only a split second ago astonished delight had ruled. I was afraid of what would happen next. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what to say or do, or even where to look. I was shaking so hard I was afraid he’d hear my teeth chattering together like the rapid-fire clatter of horseshoes on concrete.
“I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
OK, not what I’d expected. I tangled my tongue, hesitating over the choice between blurting out “Me too” and “Really?”. My lips felt funny, kind of hot and tingly-numb. A blush rushed hotly over my face when I realised why.
“Oh,” I managed. My brain was processing everything slowly, as though it was bogged down in mud or something. I was definitely having trouble reorienting myself. After the kiss. Did everyone have this much trouble or was it just me? I peered up at William, so much taller than me, his expression hidden in the darkness. He still had his arms around me, resting lightly against the middle of my back, our bodies just barely touching at the hips, where my arms loosely gripped him.
The reality of it finally smacked me. This was William, who I’d secretly watched and wanted to notice me for so long, for what seemed like years. This was William. Standing here, holding me. I had to believe the evidence of my own eyes, of my own nerves, that he wanted to be here with me. That he wanted to touch me. To kiss me. Just as I’d so badly wanted to touch him and never dared believe I ever could.
I opened my fingers, relaxed my wrists and slid my hands timidly across his back, the fabric of his shirt smooth and cool beneath my hands, warming quickly when I pressed carefully against him. His muscles jerked and stiffened beneath my palms and I stopped, a flare of panic shooting through me, afraid that I’d made a mistake. But his hands moved then, sliding over my back and still lower, briefly cupping my backside. I rose on my toes in surprise, but by then his hands were safely gripping my waist and even that made my stomach curl and twist.
I swallowed and slid my hands across his back again, putting just the tiniest bit of pressure against him, as much as my hands could stand, but it was enough, it seemed, as he did the same, pulling me against him. I wanted him to kiss me again and I tilted my head back to say so. This time he did read my mind because his hands came up to cup my face and then he was kissing me again, just like I’d wanted, although never had I imagined anything like this.
Maybe that was a sign I was lacking imagination. But as William drew me deeper into his arms, as his boldness encouraged mine, my imagination or lack of it ceased to be a factor.