Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
“Did you see me arrive last night?” I say, suddenly aware how exposed I am to his observation. Suddenly wishing I was naked rather than dressed like this. “Are you trying your luck again?”
Damon cocks his head, his bright eyes zigzagging from fuzzy ducky to fuzzy ducky. “I hadn’t thought of it. But if you’re interested . . .” He gestures lazily to my lap. “That ducky looks like it’ll honk with a single squeeze.”
“It’ll quack.”
“Squeeze it and we’ll find out.”
I cover myself and glower at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“It’s my bach.”
Damon reveals the contents of his other hand. A canister. Pictures of fishes are on it. “I need to feed Fidget and change his water.”
A naughty glint fills his eye as he takes me in again.
I wag a finger in warning, but another part of me is wagging too. “None of that.”
Damon takes a few steps back and lounges nonchalantly against my doorframe. He’s massive there. He’s big anywhere, but he’s especially big in my room. It’s a wonder he didn’t break the bed that time, or bust through the wall . . . I shake off those thoughts and jerk my gaze away from the semi-behaving chunk above his thighs. His slow smirk is one too much.
I leap up, crying out for a drink. Of tea. Because I’m civilised, and also because I haven’t been to a liquor store yet.
“Don’t mind if I join you.”
I pull out tea bags from a swollen drawer that might not have been opened since my granny was here. The jug is boiling.
And so is my face.
Of course it would be Damon who fed Fishy-Fidget-Whatever. He probably offered to do it to help someone out. If it’s not Troy’s fish, maybe one of my cousins won it at a fair last summer and wasn’t allowed to take it home, and . . . and Damon saw that six year old weeping on the beach and took pity on him, promised he’d take care until the following summer . . .
Or maybe when Mum was here she thought it’d be nice for the bach to have a pet, and she’d hired Damon to take care of it while no one in the family was there. Except, why not hire a kid desperate for some extra pocket money?
Dammit, I’m gonna have to ask him.
Damon and a whole bunch of curious questions saunter into the kitchen. It’s narrow, with overhanging cupboards that seem to crowd us, and we glance at one another from either end. A Mexican standoff. The first to whip out our question, the winner.
“Splash of milk?”
“What have you been up to, Leon?”
Technically, my gun is smoking first. But only Damon’s bullet has hit the mark. Mine has strayed wide off it, not even to a nearby fence, or an adjacent neighbourhood. Mine was fired in the North Island and is lodging itself in a glacier on the South Island.
Damon fires again. “Been a while since you rolled into town.”
“Was that one or two sugars?”
“Just milk, thanks.”
No problem. “I have some in the car.” The air gets thin as I sidle past him, hands where he can see them. Hands where I can see them. “Let me just . . .”
I launch myself towards the door to the carport, grab the key off the hook, and spin on the threshold. Damon is following me. “Stay there. I’ll get it.”
My sneaky sideways glance has him hesitating.
I rub my nape, and the key snags in my curls. I pull free, hiding a pained wince, and try shooing him back inside.
His eyes narrow with a shrewd, fascinated spark.
I start to perspire.
“Leon . . .”
I hear the silent question, the silent command. There’s a note in his voice that ripples right through me and makes me ridiculously weak in the knees.
I steel myself and toss him a grin. “I’m not hiding anything.”
His eyebrow reaches his hairline.
“Just stop the jug from boiling dry.”
I stalk off outside and give it an extra few seconds to be sure he’s not lurking in the doorway, then key open the boot to my eighty bottles of milk.
I grab one by the neck and—
“Well, well, well.”
I stiffen at the amusement firing close to my back. He must’ve snuck round via the veranda. He’s still all stealth and speed.
“That’s a lot of milk”—his hazel eyes are all questions—“for someone lactose intolerant.”
I groan and shut the boot while my mind trips on how he knows I’m intolerant. I hardly think he’d have stored such information—we were a fleeting fuck, nothing more. Maybe he recalls from all those times waiting at the ice cream truck? I was the only kid who bought juicy blocks. Probably a weird enough detail to stick in his memory. The boy who only ate the boring ones.