All I Ever Wanted (14 page)

‘Kate's got her own dreams. She doesn't need your protection. Not from me, anyway.' I say.

‘You seem to know a lot about her.'

‘We talk. We're not all that different, you know.'

He laughs. ‘So why do you hang out with Tahnee if you have so much in common with Kate?'

He says it like Tahnee is nothing and my hackles go up. ‘What do you know about Tahnee?' It's so hard not to jump on him. Gouge his eyes out with my fingernails. ‘She's
good
, too.'

‘Yeah, I've heard about how good she is. Ryan has a big mouth.'

I let out all the breath I've been holding in a rush. There's no telling him. That he doesn't know anything about me or mine. And goddamn, he's still gorgeous.

‘Ryan's not good enough for Tahnee,' I say.

He gives me a searching look. ‘I hear you.'

‘Why didn't he just drop us off at Feeney's?' I grumble.

‘He's scared of him, and your family, that's why.'

‘Scared of
him
? Feeney's not scary.' I think of him with his quaint little mannerisms. I hardly know him, but scary? No. My brothers are scary, if only for their sheer size and their ability to break commandments without breaking a sweat. God must have swapped conscience for brawn when he doled out character to those two. I miss them.

‘Apparently he's well-connected.'

A truck passes without slowing. In its wake, the vacuum behind it, I hear a siren going off somewhere.

‘We must be close,' Jordan says. ‘Do you have your phone? Can't you call someone to pick us up?'

‘I left it at home. I wasn't exactly planning on getting abducted.'

‘Mine's out of battery.'

‘Great.'

We trudge along. Jordan walks a little behind me and I'm concentrating so hard on walking normally that I can't actually do it. I put my hands in my pockets because my arms feel unnatural. A band of sweat is forming under my bra. I feel desperately unattractive and stupid and wonder at how my pathetic paranoia can override everything else.

‘Bingo,' he says.

I nearly slam into a bus stop.

‘Two-two-three. We can ride it to the interchange.' He leans up against the post.

I'm grateful for the bus's screeching arrival. Ten minutes of excruciating silence have passed and in that time I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably exactly what he thinks I am. Gawky, underbred, evil.

The realisation that he's forever out of my league hits hard, but I'm okay with it. I'm not even angry with him any more, just tired and resigned. More than anything I just want to get the package back. I want to return to where it all started and get things right. I wouldn't stop, he wouldn't take the package and I would have my dignity and secrets intact.

But he blows it.

He sits next to me on the bus—
right
next to me—so close we're swapping heat and that bean of hope starts jumping again.

‘Why are you getting off?' Jordan asks when I pull the bell.

‘I'm going to Feeney's,' I say. ‘Might as well get it over with.'

‘Now?'

‘Relax. He's just like one of those cuddly little Pekingese. You don't have to come. I'll be fine.'

‘It's not you I'm worried about,' he says.

Jordan walks with me to Feeney's and stops a few houses away. He looks nervous, and again I wonder why everyone is so damn scared of Feeney Tucker. He's just a middle-aged guy with friends in high places and a garden that looks like something from a Dr Seuss book.

I wander up the path between beds of pink pig-face and vicious cacti. I go three rounds with the doorbell, a tinkly tune that reminds me of ballerinas and jewellery boxes. I have the sense I'm being watched.

The door opens.

‘Little Dodd,' Feeney says, like he's identifying me by genus and species.

‘I need your help,' I mutter.

‘Indeed. Come in.'

I've never been past Feeney's front door before and I'm not sure what to expect. He shows me into a sitting-room that's eerily feminine. Someone else must live here. Someone who collects miniature teapots and red glass sculptures that look like blood clots and half-formed embryos.

‘Sit,' he tells me.

I move to a couch covered in a plastic sheet. It crackles rudely when I sit. Maybe all this froth is just designed to throw his victims off. Maybe he's a serial killer.

‘How's Mother? Does she know you're here? You'll tell her I can't call her but I'm thinking of her,' he orders, without waiting for my answer. ‘Rudy, some tea, please.'

I look around, but there's nobody there. My stomach is twisted in knots and I'm thinking that this was a very, very bad idea.

‘Someone has a birthday coming up soon, I hear. Seventeen. The cusp of it all.' He plays his fingers over some imaginary instrument and it is this that freaks me out the most.

‘I need some gear,' I say, because I have to say something, or run.

‘Gear,' he says in a mild tone. ‘I'm disappointed in you, Little Dodd.'

I hear the crescendo of a boiling kettle, the slosh as it pours and the clink of a teaspoon. I hold my breath.

The doorway is too small for the man who comes through it. He ducks, squeezing his elbows together to make room for the tray he's carrying. On it, a teapot and two ridiculously tiny cups. I'm having another Alice moment.

‘Here, Rudy. Thank you.'

The giant places the tray on the table between us. There's a bulge where a gun would be if it was strapped to his outer thigh and another where his legs end in steel-capped boots. His eyes are ice-cold and empty. Suddenly, the Feeney fear factor makes a whole lot of sense.

Hot tea pours like truth serum down my throat and I blurt, ‘I lost the package. I lost it, and I can't tell Mum.'

‘You lost it, or it was taken?'

‘Taken,' I confess.

Feeney tuts. ‘So, why do you want gear?'

‘To trade for it.'

Feeney and the giant exchange a look. ‘That stuff can be replaced. I'll make a phone call,' he says, sighing. ‘I'll deal with this. You just go about being seventeen.'

I get the impression Feeney knows everything. I think that he can make just about anything go away, including Welles, but I'm so close. So close to rewinding this week.

‘I'm going to meet him at the lake, on Sunday. At two.'

‘You don't go. You stay home, you leave it alone,' Feeney says. ‘I'll take care of it. Okay, Little Dodd?'

I nod.

Feeney insists I finish my tea and actually pats the top of my head when I leave.

‘Chip off the old block,' I hear him say, as the door closes behind me.

SEVENTEEN

Jordan is sitting on the curb around the corner.

‘What happened? What did you tell him?'

‘It's done,' is all I say because I don't want to talk about it.

‘Did you mention my name?'

‘Maybe. Accidentally, just one time,' I lie.

‘Shit,' he says and takes my hand. ‘Come on. I need a drink. My place is closer.'

He holds my hand the whole way, leading me like a child. Every few steps I have to jog to catch up and my chest aches with the effort of trying to breathe normally. His hand is warm and hard and mine fits inside it like it was meant to be there.

I follow him into the cool, silent house. He leaves me at the bathroom door and I hear him clanging about in the kitchen. I wash my hands and face in the dinner-plate basin and pat my cheeks with the apple-scented towel. In the mirror, my face is flushed and my eyes are bright. It's obvious—I am still in love. No amount of treason will change that. You can't just switch off attraction.

He calls me to his room and hands me a beer. My hands are in my pockets and I've bitten the inside of my cheek. It's all I can do not to lean over and breathe him in. He's so close.

‘So, what now?' he asks.

I take a mouthful of beer and it slides down, cool and bitter. ‘I don't know. I suppose he'll turn up on Sunday. He wants the stuff so he'll show.'

I wonder,
Who is this girl?
She sounds like she's calm and certain. On the outside, anyway. Inside, it feels like I've built this enormous sandcastle and I'm waiting to see how long it'll stand before the tide erodes it away, like it was never there.

‘I'm sorry. I really am,' he says. He plugs his phone into a charger and tosses it to me. ‘Give me your mobile number. I'll come with you on Sunday, make sure you'll be okay.'

I lob it back. ‘I don't need your help.'

We play hot potato with the phone until we're both grinning. I give in and key my number into it.

‘Look, I don't usually have anything to do with all that stuff,' I say. ‘I don't know how you knew I had it and I don't know why you took it, but that was the first time I ever picked up drugs.'

‘Huh.'

‘You don't believe me? Oh, that's right. I'm
you people
.'

‘Look, I did something stupid and I paid for it. I just don't want my sister involved. Stop stalking her and I'll help you.'

‘Stalking
her
?'

It's funny and I laugh out loud, a manic giggle. He's got me all boxed up in a brown, shabby little package, like the one he stole from me. He thinks his sister has shiny paper, hospital corners and a big pink bow.

‘Why do you want it back so much, anyway? Seems to me you'd be better off just letting it go.'

‘It's mine and I want it back.'

Vengeance. Revenge. Call it what you like. I'm done with letting things go. Now I'm breaking rules. Nothing happens when you play it safe. You just get stagnant.

I ask, ‘Why did you get mixed up with them, anyway? Since we're playing true confession.'

He sighs. ‘They stole my car. I had no insurance. I heard from someone else that they had it, that it was being stripped down, so I went and bargained to get it back.'

‘So, what did they make you do?'

‘A few things. Illegal things. Anyway, we watched you leave Feeney's and Welles was convinced you were picking up gear. He couldn't get it any other way and he knew you wouldn't stop for him so he told me to smile and talk to you. To see if you would stop. And you did.' He shrugs.

I don't tell him that I stopped because I thought he'd finally noticed me. Since that moment, my precious rules were broken and now I know there is no going back.

‘I'm not what you think I am,' I say, defiant.

‘What are you?' he taunts.

He sits on the bed and his jeans pull tight across his thighs. Longish hair flops into his face and I want to brush it away, so I can see his eyes. Right now, it doesn't matter that he's the enemy.

‘Just a girl,' I say.

He stares at me. ‘Say that again.'

‘You heard.' I meet his stare as the penny drops.

‘That was you?'

‘Yes.' I finish the beer and put the bottle down on the side table.

I sit next to him on his bed. Our weight rolls us in toward each other and there's a patch of mingled breath between us. Warm and sweet.

‘You're shaking,' he says.

‘I'm scared,' I admit.

His eyes flare with interest and something else.

This is what it's all about. Taking chances. Sucking the nectar out of life. Since I'm breaking all the rules, I might as well have my dream on a plate.

‘I'm scared,' I tell him again.

He takes both my hands and rolls me lengthwise, onto the bed, leaving my arms above my head. His fingers run down along the inner skin, to my elbow. Baby soft, barely there. Our heartbeats smash together, his hard and steady, mine like a running rabbit. His hands work down, dragging over my hips, then back up to my waist.

His kiss, when it comes, is softer and warmer than anything I have imagined. I could drown in it. I want to let go of everything, every nagging little part of me that wants to stop because this
is
the vortex. The quicksand that I could fall into, willingly, and never leave. The end of me.

Cool air on my skin as he pulls my top over my head. I feel the spread of goose bumps like a rash. He takes off his T-shirt and I get to look at him, most of him, lean and brown and smooth. He looks back at me as if I'm a beautiful thing, too.

‘You're cold,' he says, touching my skin with the back of his hand.

‘Yes.'

He pulls the quilt over us and our heat stops rising and stays. Now, I can feel the full weight of him and softer pieces of me fit into his hollows and curves. Is this how it is? That you feel like you could just sink into each other and be whole?

Somehow our clothes end up scrunched at the foot of the bed and suddenly it's all there, our skin, with nothing else between us.

‘Is this okay?' he asks.

‘Yes,' I say. Yes, yes, yes.

I think of Tahnee and I feel close to her, even with the gap between us. I get it. I totally get how this can be more than anything, if only for a moment. I see how my disapproval has ruined it for her. My judgment must have been every bit as painful to her as those photos on her pinboard were to me. I know that I can be kinder, if she'll give me a chance.

I kiss him back. It doesn't matter that I have no idea what I'm doing. I try to get as much of him as I can. His breath is ragged and fast and it makes me feel as knowing and sure as I've ever been, about things I've never done.

‘Just a girl. Hah.' He shakes his head. ‘I had you all wrong, that's for sure.'

I go cold.

It's his tone. He might as well have slapped money down on the table. I don't know whether to be offended or flattered that he thinks I know what I'm doing, that I can have this effect on a guy who obviously knows what
he's
doing. I want to stop him. I want to tell him that this is special, that I have dreamed about him for years. I don't want some clichéd, teenage cherry-popping ceremony. I want more than this.