Skin Deep (35 page)

‘What?’

He smiles and brushes my nose with his forefinger. ‘You’ve got freckles there. Cute.’

My heart thuds inside my ribs so hard I think I can hear it.

‘I wanted to say I’d come back if I could. But that might never have happened. And that day was . . . I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘No, of course you weren’t.’

‘I should’ve said thank you for what you did too. Didn’t even get that right.’

I think for a moment he’s going to shy away, but he takes my face between his hands. ‘Look, I don’t know what you want, but I do know what I want. I want to hang out with you again. And if you want it to be just friends then I understand and I’ll go with that because it’s better than nothing. But I missed you like hell and if you want it like it was before, like I do . . . Oh shit, I’m making a mess of this.’

‘You’re not,’ I whisper.

His grin flashes. ‘I’m not? So what do you want?’

‘How it was.’

He strokes my cheek. ‘It can’t be exactly like that, I guess. I’m not on your doorstep any more, but that might freak your dad less. I can see you some nights after work, there’s my early finish on Saturdays, and we’ve got Sundays. You sure you want to make the effort? I do, but do you?’

I hear Lindz’s voice in my head, laughing and bright like she used to be with me before her mum left: ‘Go for it, girl.’ I take the edge of his T-shirt sleeve between my fingers. ‘At least you’ve stopped riding about half-naked. If you came off that bike, you really would be a mess.’

The smug, laughing-eyes grin I remember plasters itself to his face. He lets me go and whips the T-shirt off. ‘That better? Does that help you to make your mind up?’

I’m right. His shoulders are broader and he’s been working at the yard without a shirt again because his skin is tanned all over. I run my finger along his collarbone because I’m allowed to now. ‘I don’t need any help making my mind up, but I’m not complaining about having a carrot dangled.’

‘Are you calling me a carrot?’ He strokes my hair away from my face. ‘There’s a blackbird up there watching us. I wonder if birds watch us for entertainment, like we watch TV. Maybe we’re his
Eastenders
.’

I look at the bird and it looks back at me, head cocked to one side, beady eyes gleaming.

Ryan whispers in my ear, all wicked snigger. ‘Want to give it something worth watching?’

I nod and he takes my face again and kisses me long and slow.

The blackbird watches us, me and the Boat Boy, our arms wrapped round each other while the sun sparkles on the dragonfly’s wings and glints off the water of the Orange River.

Thank you to Debbie Bennett and Kathleen Reid for helping with the research for this book. And to John Booth for asking some vital questions in the early stages. Shoshanna Einfeld, you held my hand across the ocean when I needed to keep believing the book would make it onto the shelves – thank you for keeping me strong and making me laugh. Berni Stevens, you were my first writing friend and you’ve supported me so much through the writing process, finding an agent, selling the book – thank you for being such an awesome cheerleader.

To very generous Simon Trewin, thank you for monitoring my baby steps into the world of publishing. And I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Felicity Carter, without whom I don’t think I’d be in print yet – thank you so much for all your help and advice when I was starting out as a writer.

Thanks to two very important people: my editor at Egmont, Stella Paskins, for pushing me to achieve the best I could for this book and making it so much better than I ever could on my own; and my fantastic agent, Ariella Feiner, for taking a chance on me and being the best agent I could wish for. To the rest of the team at Egmont, and Jane Willis at United Agents – more thanks.

And finally, a big thanks to my mother for reading and rereading the early drafts, and to Paul, for patiently putting up with me during the edits.