“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, drawing my hand to his lips and kissing my fingers.
At that moment, there was nothing I wanted more in the whole world. I stood staring blankly down the driveway long after the Audi was gone from view.
The interrogation I was expecting from Alex never came. We sat at the table, eating the dinner he’d spent all of ten minutes preparing, in complete silence. It was torturous, almost as torturous as enduring the leftover pasta dish we were eating.
Cooking duties were shared in our house. My attempts at culinary brilliance were mildly successful, edible for the most part. Alex’s efforts left a lot to be desired. The menu at the café was seriously short because of it. The food he served was limited to cakes and muffins that he had delivered from the local bakery. If it were left to him, we would have lived on sandwiches. I would have preferred that. At least I could see what went into them.
I put my fork down.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to ask why Adam was here?” Alex put a forkful of food in his mouth, shrugged and said nothing. “Why aren’t you lecturing me? Why aren’t you pacing around the kitchen threatening to lock me in my room?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“As far as I know, you haven’t done anything to make me want to lock you in your room, so we’re okay.” He had obviously put some thought into this. His words were too prepared, too rehearsed.
“Okay then,” I mumbled.
“Okay then,” he repeated, smiling at me. He began pushing food around his plate as if the conversation had never happened.
“He might be important, Alex,” I warned, giving him one last chance to let me blow everything out of proportion.
He set his fork back on his plate, sighing loudly before speaking. “Just be happy, Charli...and go slowly.”
Why was my brother was being so uncharacteristically reasonable? I had no intention of taking things slowly with Adam; but he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing that.
***
The next day was hellish. Minutes dragged like hours. I ended up taking my watch off and hiding it in my pocket so I couldn’t keep checking the time.
Nicole and I sat together at lunchtime. I picked my sandwich apart while she picked me apart. No detail went unanalysed and no detail was too minor for her. Every time I passed something off as unimportant, she forced me to tell her more. It was a relief to hear the bell signalling the end of lunch. I threw my uneaten sandwich on the table, clapping my hands together loudly as I brushed off invisible crumbs.
“Say hi to Lily for me,” teased Nicole, as I made my way to the last class of the day, English. Lily Tate waved at me as I walked in, silently calling me over to sit with her. If I didn’t look at her, she’d give in eventually – at least, that was the plan. She picked up her bag, preparing to shift seats – foolishly I’d sat next to a spare desk. Mr Porter walked in, ordered her to sit back down, and saved me.
***
In the usual afterschool bolt for the door, even Lily didn’t hang back. I dragged my feet, taking longer than usual to pack my books away. By the time I reached the car park, it was all but deserted, and that was a good thing. Adam had managed to slip under the radar again, avoiding Lily, Lisa and anyone else vying for his attention.
“Two days in a row. I’m impressed,” I mocked.
Adam took my bag and slung it on the back seat. “Did you think I’d be a no-show?”
“I knew you’d be here,” I said confidently.
“Do you have any idea what you want to do today?” He brushed my hair off my shoulder.
“We could go back to my house, check out the north wing,” I joked.
“Or I could take you to my house,” he suggested.
I slid into the car and used the time it took him to walk around to the other side to work out how to reply.
“Gabrielle’s house?” My tone gave me away and he laughed.
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, I’m not sure what she’s told you but I’m not exactly her favourite person.” That was putting it mildly.
“She told me a few things,” he admitted. I looked at him through narrowed eyes, apprehensive but too curious not to know more.
“Like what?”
“She told me about the last French assignment you submitted.” His grin was wide.
I’d worked particularly hard on that assignment. The essay presented beautifully. It was grammatically correct – and written entirely in German. I knew even less German than French, but translating it on the Internet took no time at all. Needless to say, Mademoiselle Décarie failed me, and Alex barely spoke to me for three days.
“I’d had a bad week,” I explained.
Adam’s laugh was infectious. I smiled just long enough to let him know I wasn’t upset.
“Do you always put so much effort into being bad?” he asked. “Imagine if you used your powers for good.”
“I’d be passing French and your cousin would be looking for a new archenemy.”
“Why do you hate her so much?”
“I don’t hate her,” I explained. Hate was too strong a word. “We’ve just never gotten along.”
“Aren’t you worried about failing?”
“French is the only subject I’m failing. France does not rate highly on the list of places I want to visit. Why would I possibly need to be fluent in the language?” I asked gruffly.
“There are plenty of reasons to learn the language.”
“Name one.”
“Well, you might meet a charming French beau and fall desperately in love with him. You’d never be able to truly tell him how you feel because he wouldn’t understand you.”
“I’d teach him English,” I reasoned, making him laugh.
“Well, I hope for your sake you’re a better teacher than you are student.”
“Yeah, well, technically you’re French and you already speak English.”
It was too much to hope that he didn’t hear my remark. I sank in the seat and watched him from the corner of my eye.
“Mademoiselle Blake.” His voice was low and deliberately slow. “Are you desperately in love with me?”
“Not desperately,” I muttered.
“I guess we’ll have to work on that then,” he replied, grinning like he’d won something.
When he turned south onto the main road, I knew he was serious about taking me to Gabrielle’s house. Dread washed over me. “Ah, I really don’t want to do this today. I think I’m going to have to ease into that one.”
“I thought you were braver than that, Charli,” he said, glancing briefly at me.
“I didn’t expect to need bravery today. I was concentrating on cute and witty.”
Adam laughed. “So where will we go? You’re going to have to help me out. I’m new in town.”
I leaned towards the window, looking up at the sky. It was dark and overcast but not raining. “Well, the weather seems to be holding. We’ll go to the beach.” I gave directions, leading him to the outskirts of the south side of town. Past the turnoff to Gabrielle’s house a small road deviated off the highway, poorly marked– another secret place. The Audi hummed to a stop as we pulled up at the rusted gate blocking the track. Beyond stood a row of seven little shacks, dotted along the beach like children’s cubby houses.
“Who lives here?” he asked.
“No one. They’re fishing shacks,” I explained. “People use them in the summer as holiday homes.”
Most of the shacks were owned by locals. The rent they commanded over the summer months was phenomenal considering they were in such a poor state of repair. Tiny, two-room weatherboard houses with million-dollar views across the Cove.
We got out of the car and a large clump of brown clay fell at my feet.
“You should really wash your car,” I teased, stamping to remove the muddy mess from my shoes. “Rental companies don’t take kindly to people abusing their vehicles.”
Adam slung his arm loosely around my shoulder as we walked to the gate. “It’s not a rental car.”
“You borrowed it?”
“I bought it, Charli. I’m here for a couple of months.” His tone implied it was no big deal.
I overlooked the fact that he’d changed his mind about leaving early. My focus was entirely on the extravagance of buying an Audi to use on an eight-week holiday. “It’s a very expensive car,” I said, choking out my words.
He looked embarrassed. “It will still be a very expensive car when I sell it in a couple of months.”
“Well, you might want to wash it first,” I teased. Adam’s arm slipped from my shoulders. I stopped and turned to face him. He avoided my gaze. “Are you a real life prince, Adam Décarie?”
When he smiled his whole face brightened. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“If you were a rich prince, that would explain the car.”
“No, Charli.”
“The boss of a giant French drug cartel?” He rolled his eyes “No; no, you’re right. Gabrielle would be the boss. You’d be her right-hand man. She’d make a much better tyrant.”
“Her aide-de-camp,” he said, scrambling my brain with his seductive accent.
“What does that mean?”
“If you paid more attention in French, you’d know,” he pointed out.
I began walking again and Adam followed, as he did whenever I led him into the great unknown.
“I’m guessing you don’t have a key for the gate?” he asked, as if he knew the answer.
“If they really wanted us to stay out, the gate would be twenty feet high with barbed wire at the top,” I reasoned.
He shook his head. “I can’t argue with logic like that.”
Before I knew what was happening, he scooped me off my feet, effortlessly lowering me to the sandy ground on the other side of the gate.
“You look nervous Monsieur Décarie,” I purred in my hopeless French accent. “Is this your first break and enter?”
“I get the impression it isn’t yours.” He arched an eyebrow suggestively.
“The harder the access, the sweeter the find,” I quipped.
We made our way down the sandy track, past the shacks to the open beach. The sky was foreboding, threatening rain, and the wind squalled relentlessly. The stretch of beach near the shacks didn’t have the protection of the cliffs further around the Cove, but it was quiet and deserted.
He drew in a deep breath. “The air is so clean here.”
“I know. It’s ironic really,” I replied, brushing my wind-lashed hair off my face. “Sometimes I find it hard to breathe.”
Reading between the lines was something Adam was becoming very good at. “And breaking rules makes breathing easier?”
“It keeps things interesting,” I replied. “Small town girls lead small town lives, Adam. Jumping a few gates now and then is good for the soul.”
“I doubt there’s very much about you that’s small town,” he said dryly.
“I’m biding my time until my real life kicks in.”
“How will you know when that happens?”
“It will be when I no longer have a list of things I’ve never done,” I explained, still fighting the wind for control of my hair.
Our stroll slowed to a stop and I wondered if I’d said something wrong. Adam took a step back. “I’d like to see that list sometime,” he said, seemingly preoccupied as he wandered away. He leaned down and picked up a long stringy reed, twirling it around his fingers. “Turn around,” he instructed. He combed his fingers through my hair and managed to fashion a loose ponytail, securing it with the reed.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, feeling behind my head to check his handiwork – which, remarkably, seemed to be holding better than Nicole’s effort a few days earlier. I felt his hand on my shoulder and turned back to face him.
Adam swept his hand slowly across my forehead. “I wish I could trust what I’m feeling right now,” he murmured.
His doubt punched through me. Of course he couldn’t trust it. It was unfair to think he could overlook how awful I was to him in the beginning. I stepped away, giving him the space I was sure he needed.
“I want us to be friends, Adam.” It felt like the blackest kind of lie but I was convinced it was what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Charli.” The words seemed to hitch in his throat.
I folded my arms across my chest like a shield, worried that the broken parts of my heart would fall at his feet enabling him to stomp on them some more. “All of this defies logic. I can’t explain any of it.”
I wondered if I had misinterpreted things. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” I replied, admitting defeat.
“Explaining it may incite a terrible case of flee-itis,” he warned, smiling just enough to make me think it wasn’t all bad.
“Try,” I pressed.
His arms dropped to his sides before he reached out to me, taking my face in his hands. “There aren’t words for this,” he murmured, frowning.
“You speak two languages. You can’t string something together?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, without one ounce of sincerity. “I’ll try.”
I watched his mouth open as if he was going to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, he lunged forward, reclaiming my face in his hands.
I tasted the salty ocean air on his lips as they crushed against mine, hard at first, then scaling back to a light touch that sent a hot rush through my body. The warmth of his hands on my face remained long after he moved them, trailing down my arms as he reached for my hands. He rested his forehead on mine. “I wished for you,” he whispered, so quietly that I struggled to hear.
“What did that feel like? I’ve never made a wish in my life.” My voice was as shaky as my words were stupid.
“Everybody wishes for something, Charli.”
I put just enough space between us to be able to look at him. “Not me. I’ve saved them all up. Birthday candles, shooting stars, stray eyelashes...ladybugs. I’ve saved them all up. I figure I’m owed hundreds of wishes now.”
Both of his hands moved to cradle my face, locking my eyes to his. “You’re a complicated girl.”
I turned away to break his hold on me. “I am. I’m like a great big jigsaw puzzle, with a few missing pieces.”
“Which pieces are missing?”
“All the important ones unfortunately, courage being the main omission.”
“You don’t think you’re courageous?” he asked, reaching for my hand and pulling me back to his side as we continued our stroll.
“Not when it counts. If I had been braver, I wouldn’t have let you go on that first day. I would have been sickly sweet and enchanting, making it impossible for you to doubt that you’d come here for any other reason than me.”
Adam stopped walking, jerking me to a stop. “So why do you think we were destined to meet, Charli?” His tone made it sound like it was the most important question on earth.
I shrugged. “I’ve never claimed to know the reasons. Maybe you’ve got my missing pieces.”
He patted himself down, pretending to check his pockets. “Perhaps they’re in my other coat,” he teased, making me giggle.
The afternoon passed in a blur. Daylight in the Cove during winter faded quickly. Overcast days led to the blackest of nights, and trying to find our way back to the car on a moonless night would not have been anywhere near as romantic as it sounded.
“I should get you home,” he breathed, perhaps realising this.
“You should,” I agreed, very reluctantly.
***
I wasn’t surprised to see Alex’s Ute in the driveway. “I’ll walk you in,” offered Adam, undoing his seatbelt.
“No, it’s fine. It’s cold.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “I thought you said Alex was okay with this.”
“He is, I promise. But I was supposed to be coveri
ng a shift for him at the café this afternoon,” I confessed.
“Are you in trouble?”
“Always,” I said, matching his expression. “To varying degrees.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He brushed my face with the back of his hand, making my heart fly. I nodded worried that my words would be gibberish if I tried to speak.
I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and never stop kissing him, but there was a fair chance that Alex was watching. He’d shown remarkable understanding when it came to my newfound love life – not even I was willing to push my luck. I was almost to the veranda when Adam called to me.
“You might need this,” he said, walking towards me with my bag.
“Thank you.”
He slung the bag over my shoulder. The lock he had on my eyes lingered a little too long. “What?” I asked, confused by the silence.
“Fais de beaux rêves, ma Coccinelle.” His silky accent shattered my concentration. Any ability I had to comprehend what he was saying was now redundant.
“Okay.” It was the absolute best reply I could muster. I didn’t even wait for his car to leave. I raced into the house, heading straight for the bookshelf in the lounge.
“Charli?” Alex sounded mad already.
“Give me a minute.” I ran my finger along the line of books, searching for my French dictionary.
“I want to talk to you,” he demanded, ignoring my plea for time.
“Found it,” I said gleefully, grabbing the book off the shelf and waving it at him.
Alex snatched the dictionary from my grasp and dropped it on the coffee table. “What happened to working this afternoon?”
“I lost track of time. I’m sorry,” I replied, knowing I’d have to work much harder to appease him.
He started pacing the room, resting his hands behind his head as if his brain ached. It seemed to take an eternity for him to speak. I knew he was beyond angry now. I also knew it had very little to do with me not showing up for work. Finally he turned to face me. “This isn’t a democracy, Charli. One of us gets to be the boss and guess what?”
“What?”
“It’s still me.” He didn’t sound as menacing as he’d probably intended.
I kicked up anyway. “You’re not the boss, Alex!”