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The rest of the house seemed silent as Logan ate a late breakfast in front of the TV. He flicked the channels restlessly, waiting for Wendy or their parents to wake up. New Year’s Day was such a non-event. Everyone slept all morning and spent the day feeling washed out.
At eleven o’clock Wendy eventually slouched into the room, clutching a bowl of cereal. She stopped abruptly when she saw him, and looked wary.
“Morning, weirdo,” Logan said, deliberately not taking his eyes off the TV.
He sensed Wendy relax as she plopped down in to a chair.
“Loser,” she returned the greeting with a relieved tone in her voice.
They ate breakfast in a companionable silence, and Logan shrugged off the disappointment that everything had returned to normal. But it was better this way. Only four more days and they would be back at school, and the kiss would just be a bizarre memory. He chalked it down to one of those things that happened sometimes at a party. Nothing more.
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THEY AVOIDED EACH OTHER after that, returning to their usual pattern until the last day, when Daniel had arranged a “fun family day”. They were going to ride horses across the hills and finish with a pub lunch. Marina wasn’t riding due to her condition, but she’d meet them with the car at the pub, and drive everyone home again after lunch.
Logan didn’t have any riding gear with him, but decided that jeans would be okay. The stables would give them hats, but he could really do with some riding gloves, as there was a frost in the air. He wondered if Wendy might have anything suitable.
He felt reluctant to knock on her door. She had made it pretty clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, and he was in agreement that it was probably for the best. Maybe Daniel could lend him some gloves. He was about to turn away again, when she opened the door an inch and peered round it.
“Oh, it’s you. I wondered who was skulking out here.”
“I don’t skulk. I was going to ask if you had any gloves I could borrow to ride today, but then I remembered what an oddball you were and decided not to bother,” he sniped back at her.
She rolled her eyes but gave a slight grin at his comment, as though pleased with him for bickering with her.
“I have spare gloves.” She let the door swing open a bit as she crossed the room to a chest of drawers.
“Wowser!” Logan couldn’t help the exclamation of appreciation as he saw what she was wearing. The long riding boots, jodhpurs and tweed jacket were all a snug fit, and added shape to her small curves.
“Don’t even go there,” she warned.
“Yeah, but... I mean, you really look good when you’re not being, well, you.”
She gave him an irritated glance. “You’re always you.”
“And I always look good, right?” He gave her the smoulder again and she repeated the eye roll.
“You’re always a massive big-head, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Logan felt his smile widen.
He might have decided to stay away from Wendy, but he found their sparring stimulating. It cheered him up somehow. How could he stop himself from teasing Wendy when it was just so much fun?
He followed her into the room and then his eyes fell on a notebook that lay on top of her bed with a pen beside it.
He started toward it. “You keep a diary? Am I in it? I bet I am.”
When he saw her turn with a look of horror, he raced to reach the diary before she realised what he was doing.
Wendy dropped the gloves she had just found and rushed toward the bed. Logan was ahead of her, so she threw herself at his waist to tackle him before he could get to the diary. His outstretched fingers plucked it up as she cannoned into him, and brought him crashing down on the bedcovers.
Logan laughed and held his prize high above their heads. Wendy screeched in exasperation and tried to grab for it. This time, when they rolled, it was Logan who pressed his lips to hers. He couldn’t help himself.
He dropped the diary in favour of grabbing her rear, which was just too enticing for words in the tight jodhpurs. He kept rolling her until she was once again trapped beneath him, and he kissed her with the same passion she had shown him on New Year’s Eve.
Wendy didn’t even try to stop him. She returned the kiss instantly with heated aggression, pushing her fingers into his hair once again, and keeping his lips firmly against her own.
They might not like each other, or even want to want each other, but there was no denying it was dynamite when they kissed. Hate and passion were definitely two sides of the same coin.
Logan slid his hands from her backside and up under her fitted jacket. When Wendy arched slightly towards him, he risked breaking the kiss in favour of trailing his lips downwards. She murmured incoherently at the small licks he gave to her neck, and her own hands began to trace the contours of his biceps. She even giggled when he nibbled at her earlobe.
Feeling like he was finally getting her to warm up to him he kissed her again, but more softly, almost tenderly, trying to show her how good that could be too. For a minute, Wendy seemed to be softening; she danced around his tongue with her own, and even when he relaxed his grip on her, she didn’t try to reverse their positions and put herself on top.
“You realise this is becoming a habit,” he teased.
“Two kisses do not a habit make,” she countered.
“Yes, but one kiss could be an accident, two is just careless.”
She gave him her trademark eye roll in reply.
“You know what?” he continued, “I think the weakness here is to do with not being ourselves. You liked me in fancy dress, and I like you dressed up too. Maybe what we need is less ‘us’ and more role-play.”
“Role play? Like a police outfit and handcuffs? Pervert.” She smiled, but didn’t disagree.
“Fine by me. So, how about it? I like the riding gear, but my fantasy is to see you in something Victorian. A really feminine old-fashioned dress.”
Wendy stiffened beneath him, her eyes turning cold again. “So, you basically want women to go back to being repressed? Giant skirts weighing them down – forced into a corset, unable to breathe – all to display their wares in the hope of attracting a husband?”
Logan was focussed on how his hands could completely circle Wendy’s tiny waist and missed her change of mood.
“Mmm, corset,” he said, appreciatively. “Or you could just be Wendy from the book, and I’ll be Peter Pan, waiting for you to give me a kiss.”
Wendy’s hands dropped away, and she shook her head.
“This will never happen again, Logan. You disgust me every time you speak. Yes, you’re good-looking, but it only goes skin deep.”
“And you’re so perfect?” He narrowed his eyes, catching up to the fact that things had turned sour again.
“Oh, grow up! This whole holiday has been a disaster from the moment it started. You and I would never ever have had anything to do with each other if we hadn’t been forced together by our stupid parents. Everything here is fake. Their world is fake. You’re fake! And now you want to copy them and act out roles that aren’t us at all? Well, guess what, you’re not Peter Pan, Logan, you’re just one of the lost boys, searching for his place in the world. Pretending doesn’t make it better. Just the opposite.”
Her perception hit him harder than any slap might have done. He pulled back, forgetting for a moment to conceal his vulnerability. She was right, he didn’t belong anywhere; he did want to carve out a place that was his away from all the craziness he’d grown up with. He did feel lost, and he was trying to act his way through it. How did she see that? Did she feel it too sometimes?
He suddenly wanted her to simply hold him, but instead he quickly hid his exposed emotions and put his metaphorical mask back on. With the amused look that he usually showed the world firmly in place, he stood up.
He reached down to the floor and picked up her diary, tossing it onto the bed beside her.
“Better write this one down, because it’s all you’re getting from me. And forget the gloves, I'd rather have cold hands and a warm heart.”