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We walked together along the beach, and Dean led me up some wooden steps to a beachfront cottage, King plodding beside us.
“Nice place,” I said.
“It’s a holiday rental. I’ve got it until the end of next week, so I have time to find somewhere else.”
“You looking to buy or rent?”
“Rent. I’m only here for a few months, and then I can go back.”
There was something odd about the way he said that, but while I pondered it, he opened a sliding door and flicked on the inside light.
“I’ve got beer or whisky.”
It’d be safer to avoid spirits. “Beer, please.”
“Grab a seat.” He gestured to the chairs around a wooden table on the deck. “I’ll be right with you.”
He returned with two bottles of local ale, and a bowl of water for King. He got bonus points, right there.
“Is this one okay?” He held up the bottles. “I only picked them up today. It could taste like dishwater, for all I know.”
“I’ve not tried it before.”
“We can risk it together, then.” He snapped off the caps, handed one to me, and waited for me to chink my bottle against his. “Cheers.”
I took a tentative sip. I rarely drank beer, but this one tasted fine. Light and hoppy, it was thirst quenching, and I drank with more confidence. “It’s good.”
“Yeah. Not bad.” He twisted the bottle, to examine the label in the light that spilled from the kitchen. “There’s a place I like to hang out, Brothers Brewery in Mt. Eden, and they brew all their stuff on site. I don’t know if they sell it around here.”
I shrugged. “Wellington has almost as many craft beers as it has coffee brands.” His earlier words jogged my memory. “You said you can go back after a few months? You’re not staying down here?”
He drained the bottle and placed it on the table. “Want another?”
“No, thanks.”
He went back to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of whisky and two tumblers.
I eyed the glasses. This would be a bad idea. Very bad.
“I need a real drink,” he said. He opened the bottle and poured a generous measure into one of the tumblers. “Join me?”
I meant to say no, so why did sure fall out of my mouth instead?
Dean poured another drink, to match the first. “Dunno if you like Scottish malt whisky, but I can vouch for this one. It’s called Laphroig, and it’s my favourite. It may be an acquired taste, though.”
I’d drunk whisky before—hell, there was little I hadn’t sampled—but I treated this one with caution. Abandoning my half-empty beer, I picked up the heavy tumbler, cradled it in my palm, and took a sniff of the liquor. It reminded me of a bonfire on the beach, with a curiously salty tang overlying the smokiness. I had a cautious taste, a little sip, but the flavour exploded on my tongue. Smoother than I expected, it was rich like expensive dark chocolate, and heady. “Wow.”
“You like? Good.” He gulped at it like water, and concern pinged at me.
The list of shouldn’ts screamed at me. Shouldn’t be here, with alcohol, with a man used to heavy drinking. I might be fine with half a beer, but whisky was a whole different ballgame.
I silenced the nagging voice inside my head by taking a drink. And another. It was good. I liked it.
The alcohol made me more confident, and I repeated the question he ducked. “You don’t plan to stay here?”
“Nah.” He sat back in his seat and gazed into his drink, as though it held the secrets to the universe. “I’m a city boy. I hate the rural life.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.” Why was I pushing him? I hated when people tried to get me to talk about myself, but something about him called out to me on a visceral level. I sensed he was hurting too.
“My best friend died on a callout. I blamed his buddy for not following procedure and endangering them both. I got in a fight with him and got to choose between suspension or riding it out here until the fuss dies down.”
“You’re being punished?”
“Yeah.” He sloshed more whisky into his glass and leaned across, to top up mine as well. “I did nothing wrong. That fuckwit, Richard Goodwin, walked away from it. Hal is dead, and Dickless doesn’t even get a reprimand, while I get sent to this hole for six freaking months.” He blew out a breath. “I tell you, I’m counting the days until I can go home.”
“I’m sorry about your friend.” It was easy to talk to him in the dark. “I know how that feels.”
He gazed at me over the top of his glass. The liquid glinted in the half-light. “Tell me.”
I took another slug of the malt. “Marnie was my best friend. She was in trouble, and I didn’t do anything to help.” My throat constricted, and I drank some more. “And now she’s gone, and it’s my fault.”
I blinked to hold back the tears, but one still rolled down my cheek. He might not see it.
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“She fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck.”
“How can that be your fault?”
“Her cat was missing. She asked me if I’d help look for her, but I was distracted.” Drunk. “She went by herself, and her ex was there. He said he startled her and she fell, but if I’d gone...” The words tangled up on my tongue, and I had to stop. “She was always there for me. The one time she asked for something, I didn’t go. I don’t deserve friends.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, his voice like gravel. “It’s easy to say, you can’t blame yourself, but what do I know? I should have seen Dickless came out alone, but I wasn’t paying attention. It was a warehouse we’d been to three times in the past month, and each time the alarm was activated by mistake. We thought this was another error.”
He stared into his glass. “There was a gas leak. The fire came out of nowhere. I was too busy saving my own ass, to look out for Hal and Dickless.”
His pain lanced through me.
The last thing I should do was take another drink.
The liquor had lost its harsh edge and felt smooth as satin. Warmth hummed along my veins, as good as cannabis. I was buzzed, for sure, and I felt daring. Reckless.
“Something else we have in common,” I said.
Dean cocked his head on one side. A silent question.
“We’ve both lost our friends. We both feel guilty.” I ticked them off against my fingers. “We’re both new in town.”
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence, and I hummed to the music from the party. I sat up and propped both elbows on the table. “Know what I want to do right now?”
“What?”
“Dance.” I stood, holding the edge of the table with my fingers. “Dance with me?”
“Where?”
“Here.” I spread my arms. “On the deck. On the sand. I don’t care.”
“Are you drunk?”
I was offended. “A gentleman never asks that.” I stepped around the table, taking care not to trip over my sleeping dog, and grabbed Dean’s hand. “Dance. Please?”
He swallowed the remains of his drink, and then stood and moved with me to a space on the wooden deck. “Okay.”
It made a crazy kinda sense. I used to love parties and clubs, dancing, drinking, and losing myself in a blur of people and alcohol. Now there was just me and Dean and the music. It was another Event Horizon song, a ballad that tugged at my heartstrings.
Dean looped his arms around my middle, and I wrapped mine around his neck. He was taller, but I liked that in a guy. We swayed together, and I pressed my face against his throat. He smelled fine, though he was running earlier.
“This song,” I said. “He wrote this about his wife, because he loves her so very much. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Uh huh.”
“Have you ever loved a woman enough to do that?”
“I don’t write songs.”
“Hmmm... If you did?”
He gathered me closer, and we shuffled our feet, moving in time to the haunting guitar chords. “No. How about you?”
“Not a woman,” I said, and he chuckled. “But yes. I’ve been in love. I still am, really,” I said.
“And yet you’re dancing with me.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“That you’re dancing with me?”
“No.” Desolation engulfed me. “That I love him.”
We swayed some more. “Maybe you should tell him?”
“No. That’s a bad idea. Horrendously bad. Catastrophically bad.”
“I get the picture. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you tell him? The guy you’re in love with.”
“Because he just proposed to someone else.”
“Shit.” He gave me a squeeze. “I’m sorry, sandy girl.”
“I’m sorry too.”
I sang the last chorus—or mumbled it, more like—but when the song finished, I stayed in Dean’s arms. I liked it here. I felt safe. And my dog liked him.
It might make things between us a thousand times more awkward, but I had nothing to lose.
I stretched up and brushed my lips across his. “I don’t have to go home tonight.”