The Boys of Summer (18 page)

We walked through the night, making our way
to the caravan park nearby. We gave up worrying about waiting for
Stan and Ellie who were stopping every five minutes for a quick
pash against a tree. I wanted to get as far away from them as
possible. The rest of us walked in uncomfortable silence, and Ellie
giggled and squealed followed by sucking noises behind us. Over and
over again.

I felt the butterflies in the pit of my
stomach. I didn’t miss Scott, that was for certain, but I did miss
the weight of a boy on top of me, making out for hours, and chaste
stolen kisses on the walk home at night. I missed the heart
palpitations and the strange stirrings I was only just beginning to
understand. I missed being the object of someone’s affection.

As we walked, Adam and Sean played footy with
a crushed beer can, even going so far as to run some commentary for
themselves. According to the commentators (Adam and Sean), Sean was
the number one Champion in the World and Adam was the undefeated
five-time Premiership Captain.

They were somewhat ambitious. I laughed at
their deluded fantasies as they darted further in front of Toby and
me.

And then I was painfully aware that I was
walking in the dark with a boy. Not
a
boy,
the
boy.
But I couldn’t have him. I couldn’t steal kisses from him. I
shouldn’t even look at him the way I do, the way I always have.
Still, it didn’t stop me from wanting to walk closer to him, just
so I could listen to his breathing or his low laugh as Sean tripped
over his own foot.

“And the World Champion goes down!” he
mused.

“Oh no! The impact of his ego hitting the
ground could tilt the world off its axis,” I added.

“Tsunamis and earthquakes will ripple through
the world.”

“A crater will form and create a new lake
system.”

“Where are you heading? Oh, we’re just going
to Lake Sean.”

We both lost it in dual fits of laughter at
our own commentary.

“What’s so funny?” Sean asked, but we were
far too amused to answer.

We stopped at the gate to Remington’s Caravan
Park, thinking it only appropriate to wait for the host of the
party to lead the way. Toby climbed onto the gate and sat, while I
fidgeted with impatience and shuffled from one leg to the other.
Finally, a figure appeared from the darkness. Ellie was walking,
her eyes cast down, arms crossed against her chest as if stemming
off a wayward chill that didn’t exist.

“Where’s Stan?” Sean asked.

She walked straight past us through the gate.
“Who cares?” she said coldly.

Adam and I looked at each other with grim
expressions.

Uh-oh
.

“Is she alright?” Toby jumped down from the
gate.

“Yeah, it’s probably nothing,” I said.
Knowing Ellie, it was definitely something, so friend duty
beckoned, and I followed her into the park.

I sat opposite Ellie on one of the logs that
had been cut purposefully and arranged in a circle. So campers
could sing ‘Kumbaya’, probably. It took everything in me not to so
much as crack a smile as I stared blankly at Ellie, registering
what she just told me. She was pretty upset so I had naturally
thought the worst: that nice guy Stan wasn’t actually a nice guy
after all and tried to force Ellie into something back in the
bushes. But as unlikely as it seemed, I was truly taken back when I
found out why Ellie was
actually
so distraught.

“You know how I have put on a bit of weight
since school stopped …”

I didn’t know or notice. Still I humoured her
with patient silence, urging her to continue.

“Well, we were kissing and his hands were
wandering around my back. Which distracted me and I just said to
him as a joke, ‘Don’t touch my flabby bits’ and then he said ‘But I
like every part of you, even your flabby bits’. Can you believe he
said that?”

I cringed inwardly, not because he said what
he said, but because my heart went out to the guy. What had been
meant as a really nice compliment along the lines of ‘I like you
just the way you are’ had received punishment. He had suffered one
hell of a case of foot in mouth that would take Ellie some getting
over.

“He said I was fat!”

I grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring
squeeze. “Oh Ellie, that’s not what he meant.”

“Well, that’s what he said.” She sniffed.

Oh God, how did I even begin to save this
train wreck? I knew she wouldn’t see reason. So I did what best
friends do. I deflected.

“Scott called me Tic Tac in front of the
entire bar, in front of Angela and Sean, Chris and Toby.”

Ellie’s eyes narrowed with sympathy. Yep, it
was working.

“Don’t worry, Tess, they don’t know what it
stands for.”

I gave a half smile. “Angela knows what it
means, so they’ll know.”

“Oh, fuck Angela,” she snapped.

My eyes widened.

“Who cares, anyway, stuff them all, let’s go
find Adam and have a good time. We can make our own fun. You, me
and Adam and my back fat.”

I burst out laughing, and even Ellie joined
me. We had managed to drag each other out of the depths of despair
once again. We heard a snap of a branch to see Adam appear with a
guarded look on his face.

“Everything okay?” His eyes flicked from my
face to Ellie’s.

We could only manage to nod.

“Do you need me to call Stan out? Kick his
arse?”

This only made us laugh even harder.

“I’m serious,” he straightened. “I could take
him.”

Ellie snorted which made Adam break into a
smile and join us in our laughter. The kind where the outside world
would look in on us and think we were mad. Though it had been a bit
rocky this afternoon, we were back. We understood each other
perfectly and no matter what, we would always be there for one
another.

“Oh, my God! I gotta go pee, wait for me?”
Ellie wandered off to find the toilet block. I wiped away tears
that had emerged after laughing so hard. Adam straddled the log to
sit next to me.

“Seeing as this seems to be some kind of
circle of truth,” he said, “I have a confession to make.”

All of a sudden, I was very sober and my
laughter died down as I looked into Adam’s serious, earnest
eyes.

“I did give you a funny look today.” He
started to pick at the bark on the log, a sign that he was
uneasy.

“I just didn’t recognise you; when I was
standing on the porch at the hotel I saw Ellie walking up with some
girl, and I was watching this girl, in this hot, white bikini, and
I thought I have to know this girl, and then you came closer and I
saw it was you, but it couldn’t be you. This girl was so carefree,
confident. I thought it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. Then
you looked up and saw me, and the look on your face was the Tess I
knew. The goofy Tess McGee. I was a bit taken back. I saw the way
Toby and Sean were looking at you, and I kind of went all Alpha
male on you.”

He smiled sadly.

I didn’t dare breathe or think about asking
what he meant by the way Sean or Toby looked at me. I just remained
quiet.

“I was just being a jackass. I had only been
away for a few weeks and I felt, I don’t know, replaced. Pretty
stupid, huh?”

“Yes,” I said, “idiotic! As if I could
replace you!” I kicked him. So he wasn’t judging me – well, not in
the way that I had thought.

“Adam, you’re my best friend and that’s not
going to change, I can tell you that, so stop going all Alpha on
me, okay? Unless you want to avenge my honour with a banana because
you can totally do that anytime you want.”

He kicked me back, and we were us again.

“So … you thought I was sexy, huh?”

He threw his head back and groaned.

“You thought I was sexy.” I grinned.

Adam rolled his eyes.

“You totally love me, you want to write me
poetry, and …”

Adam covered my mouth with his hand, which
only made me laugh. “What is revealed in the circle of truth
remains in the circle of truth.”

“Nuh-uh, only if the circle of truth has a
cone of silence and as you can see …” I lifted my hands up to the
sky. “Nothing.”

He gave me a bored look.

It was then a delayed thought registered. “So
what you’re saying is the goofy Tess you know is
not
sexy?”

“Ugh, Tess, quit it already!”

“No, no, I want to know,” I said. I pointed
to myself. “You wouldn’t want to tap this?”

“Right now I want to choke you.”

He slid over to me and grabbed me closer to
him. My smile fell from my face with the unexpectedness of it. His
hands cupped my face, his lips hovering above mine.

“You seriously want to know, Tess?”

He closed the space and claimed my mouth with
an urgent, hot, delving kiss.

He smiled. “You are sexy, in your own
goofball way, you’re sweet and beautiful and smart and funny and,
although you kiss to the point where I feel like I want to go back
for seconds, you’re my best friend, and that’s why I don’t want to
tap that.”

I was breathing heavily, he had wiped my
brain blank, all thoughts, all smart-arse retaliation, everything
evaporated from my mind. He thought all those things of me, but,
above all, he valued our friendship. It was something I would
cherish for the rest of my life.

There was a coughing sound, and I broke away
from Adam with such speed I nearly toppled off the log. The Onslow
Boys stood before us. Sean gave a wry smile. Toby was deadly
serious, and poor Stan’s worried eyes weren’t focused on us; he had
his own troubles. My eyes darted back to Toby, who unflinchingly
stared back at me with a deep, burning gaze.

“Don’t mind us.” Sean propped himself on the
opposite log. As usual, Toby chose to stand.

“Do you know where Ellie went?” Stan asked.
“Is she still pissed?”

Adam answered for me. “A word of advice,
Stan, let that one cool down for a bit.”

***

It was Ellie’s laughter that sent me in the
opposite direction of the toilet blocks. I found her near the
swimming pool talking to a couple of tall boys with towels draped
around their necks, smiling down at Ellie.

“Tess! Come and meet Wes and Mark.”

I didn’t want to meet Wes and Mark. I just
wanted to get to the shed, and I wanted Ellie in tow.

I offered a pleasant enough smile as I turned
to Ellie. “They’re waiting for us.”

“Oh, right!” Ellie agreed (thank God!).

“Do you guys wanna come to a party?”

“Uh, Ellie, I don’t think we’re in a position
to invite people,” I whispered.

“Oh, it’ll be fine.” She waved me away, which
really got my back up.

“Half of Onslow will be there, and the boys
are staying at the caravan park anyway, right?”

I knew exactly what she was up to, and I did
not like ‘Operation Make Stan Jealous’ one bit.

“Whatever! Do what you want, I know you will
anyway,” I snapped and walked off without so much as a backwards
glance.

I loved Ellie, but she sure could infuriate
me sometimes.

I followed the thunderous rock music that
filtered through the night.

It led me towards a giant shed that housed an
array of mis-matched sofas, a pool table, a folded down table
tennis; aside from the high tech stereo and a giant television, the
rest looked like stuff that had been salvaged from hard rubbish
day. It was a man’s paradise!

Sure the style was stuck in the 70s, but the
shed was packed with people, most I had never seen before.
Seriously,
did I know anyone here?

‘Heartache Tonight’ thumped out of the
mounted sound system, and I tried not to scoff at how appropriate
the song choice was. I spotted Toby reading the back of a CD cover
near the stereo, when he looked up at me.

I wandered over. “Your choice, no doubt?”

“What makes you say that?” He looked back
down at the cover.

“Oh, I don’t know, seems like your kind of
music. Plus you were playing The Eagles in your car.”

He didn’t say anything.

I picked up the cover to the album, looking
over the track list. It was the same as my dad’s tape I had been
listening to in my room.

“I like number nine,” I announced.

Toby didn’t respond; instead, as the song
faded out he took the CD from my hands and put it into the player,
flicking it to song nine. Then he turned and sat on the couch.

Huh. Maybe he’d had a fight with Angela? I
silently hoped so. I sat next to him as Timothy Schmit’s voice
filled the room, with ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’. I tilted my head
down, getting in his eye line to coax him to look at me.

“Please don’t make me have to use a really
hideous cliché,” I whined.

That had him looking at me, frowning as if he
didn’t speak English.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. You asked for it:
penny for your thoughts.”

“Oh.” That made him smile. “Yeah, that’s
pretty hideous.”

At a loss as to what to say, I thought I
would give not being a smart arse a go and see how that worked.

“Look, you don’t have to fix my bike. I was
just razzing you about it.”

His gaze flicked up. “No, no, a deal’s a deal
… I don’t mind.”

“Just saying.”

“Do you need a lift home later?” he blurted
out.

I stammered at the question.

“That was a part of the second condition,
wasn’t it?”

“Ah, yeah, it was.” I felt all uncertain and
coy.

“Just checking.” He leaned back on the couch,
his eyes lighting with that familiar spark.

“I haven’t read the contract yet, so I’m a
bit fuzzy on the details.”

I smiled and shook my head. “My secretary is
so fired.”

Toby seemed to relax. “Give her a go, she’s
probably out on the town with the netball girls.”

“Ha! Even more reason to sack her.”