The Problem With Crazy (19 page)

“What?” I was fairly sure my eyes were popping out of my head. “Aren’t you at least going to ask me if I want to share your umbrella?”

“I’ve already offered you a job.” Lachlan gave that lopsided smile of his again. “If I was to offer you my umbrella, you’d owe me big.”

“Excuse me? I have the job because Johnny said I did well at the trial.” My jaw dropped. The nerve. Like I owed him. He could take his stupid job, and his umbrella, for all I cared. Screw them both.

“Of course, I’d be willing to share if you did something for me.” Lachlan stepped closer. The rain that had been dripping from his umbrella now landed on the toes of my black shoes, creating dark mirrors.

“Go on,” I said, my eyebrows drawn.

“Well, I’ll gladly walk you to the parking lot,” Lachlan started, “if we both hop in a car together. I want you to come out with me tonight.”

“Where?”

“To try something new,” Lachlan said. “Remember? It’s all about living in the present.”

“Forget it.” I shook my head. I’d rather get wet than listen to more of his psycho bullshit. I already had Leslie for that.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and turned his back, taking long strides down the path into the rain. I watched him as he disappeared toward the parking lot, his umbrella bobbing as he walked.

I sucked in a deep breath.

It’s just a little rain.

I can do this
.

I gingerly put one foot forward. Rain soaked my ankle and sunk deep into my shoes. I stepped out again and my heel shot up. I stumbled backward, my hands grasping for stability on the brick pillar to my left. I jerked my foot back under the awning. I’d been out there for maybe two seconds and already I felt like I was in danger of falling over.

Symptoms of Huntington’s disease: loss of balance, and lack of basic co-ordination.

God, turn it off. I need to get out of my head.

Would spending the night with Lachlan really be so bad? He could share his umbrella, and I could lean on his arm.

And his family are broken, too.
Just like mine.

“Wait,” I yelled. “Wait!” The rain was so loud I wasn’t sure he’d hear me, but, sure enough, he turned, and jogged down the path, huge umbrella swaying from side to side.

“Okay.” I nodded.

“Okay …?” Lachlan squinted at me, and I slapped him lightly on the front of his shoulder. It was hard beneath my touch, much firmer than I’d thought it’d be.

Not that I’d thought about how his chest would feel at all.

Much.

“Okay, I’ll go on a date with you.”

“Who said anything about a date?” Lachlan asked, but his eyes were alive with mischief.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, like, a friend date.” I shook my head. Must he be so exasperating all the time?

“Friend date it is.” Lachlan grinned at me and held out his arm. “Shall we?”

I rolled my eyes and linked my arm through his, trying not to lean too close into his body but still be protected by the umbrella.

Two minutes into our walk, and I was certain I’d made the right decision. My ankles were the only part of me getting wet, but they were so thoroughly soaked I could hear my feet squelching in water that had infiltrated my shoe, making every step treacherous as I battled not only to gain purchase on the moss-covered path, but to keep traction within my shoe itself.

“Which car’s yours?” Lachlan yelled, struggling to be heard above the rain.

“Mine?” I ignored the slightly hurt voice in my head. He’d obviously gotten over the friend date idea. Not that I minded, of course. Not even a little bit.

“Yes.”

“That one.” I pointed. The lot had gotten very dark, and yellow streetlights highlighted its four corners. Lachlan guided me over to my vehicle, waiting as I retrieved my keys from the depths of my inky-black purse and turned them in the lock.

“Well, I guess I’ll be off, then.” I unlaced our arms. My elbow felt cold when it left the heat of his body.

“Off where?” Lachlan looked confused. “You owe me a friend date.”

“But we’re at my car.”

“Yes.” Lachlan nodded, like he was explaining the most obvious truth in the world. “But since I ride a motorbike—and I doubt that’s the try-something-new experience you’re after tonight—I thought we’d take your car.”

I blinked, my lashes sticking slightly to my cheeks, which had somehow gotten damp despite the umbrella’s protection. He was absolutely right. There was no way I was hopping on a bike with him, rain or not.

That just left one option; taking him home, or out, or wherever the hell we were going, in my car.

What have I got to lose?

“Hop in.” I gestured to my beat-up yellow machine. I opened the driver’s door and slid into the leather seat myself, watching as he jogged around the other side and fell into the seat next to me.

“Let’s go.” He grinned, closing the umbrella and tossing it in the back. To my surprise, I turned on the car and reversed out of the spot, leaving the parking lot with Lachlan in my passenger seat.

And despite the persistent alarm bells going off in my head, I didn’t ask him to put his wet umbrella in the plastic bag I specifically kept in the car for such a purpose.

Even though I really, really wanted to.

I
DROVE
toward home after Lachlan insisted he would be coming back to Sydney on Sunday for Johnny’s appointment and could pick up his bike then. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of us; he didn’t ask what my problem was, and I didn’t delve into his, even though we both could have taken a reasonable guess. He must have guessed something was up with my father, just like I knew his dad had passed away from cancer.

In some ways, I was dying to know. Why was he here? Was it just coping with grief, or was he sick, too? And, if so, how sick? How did he go about life, start a café, with that sense of impending doom hanging over his head?

Lachlan broke the silence once we hit the freeway. The skies had cleared up and were more of an omniscient dark haze, than a waterfall of doom. “So, tell me something you haven’t done before but always kind of wanted to.”

“I don’t know.” I immediately banished the obvious “have sex” from my mind. It wasn’t exactly a first I was looking to break right now.

“There must be lots of things you haven’t done but wanted to,” Lachlan continued, like my answer presented no problem to him. “How about sky diving? Have you ever been sky diving?”

“No.” My knuckles popped as I gripped the steering wheel. “
And
it’s night
and
it’s just been storming. I can’t think of a worse idea!”

“Okay, I’ll cross it off the list.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Clearly he’d been stirring. Jerk.

“I’d say get a tattoo, but I already have one,” I said loftily.

“You do?”

“Yep.” Score one, me.

“What of?”

“A musical note.” I twisted my lips into a grimace. A musical note I’d gotten with Dave, at the same time as he got his.

“I’ve never had a tattoo removed before,” I offered brightly.

“Nice try, Kate,” Lachlan said my name with delicacy. “But some scars you need to bear.”

I ignored his cryptic words and concentrated on driving, weaving the car to the far lane and checking my headlights were on. It was dark, but the moon bathed the freeway in an eerie light, its orange glow providing enough illumination to make out the ridges of cliffs on either side of the empty road.

We drove in silence for a while, me concentrating on the speedometer, Lachlan with his eyebrows furrowed, his hands loosely draped over his knees.

At the sign, we took the turnoff for Lakes, and I followed the streets to my house. I waited for him to say something, to come up with some brilliant plan, or to at least tell me where he lived so I could drop him off.

For some reason, though, I didn’t want to break the silence. I didn’t really want the trip to end.

“Left,” Lachlan said, when we were about five kilometres from my house. I shot him a quizzical look and turned off the main road onto a side street. It was close to where I lived, sure, but I’d never really been the exploring type. And I knew this street ended in bushland, anyway.

Bushland
.

I barely knew this guy.

Uh-oh.

I’ve seen this horror movie.

Is he taking me here to kill me?

“Uh, so, where are we going?” I chanced a quick look over at him. His eyes were alive again, focused on a prize I couldn’t see. He didn’t look like a serial killer. My gaze trailed down his arms …

Those arm muscles look toned; like they could seriously do some damage.

Or like they could sweep me up and pull me toward him in a Mills-and-Boon style passionate embrace …

The heat was in my cheeks before I even realised what I was thinking. I quickly reached for the AC and turned it up as high as it would go, letting the frosty air cool me down to a somewhat normal temperature.

“Park over here,” Lachlan said once we reached the end of the street. I pulled up to the wooden barrier and killed the engine, letting the silence of the night fill the car. It was dark here, just shy of completely black. The only lights came from my clock radio, which reflected the nine pm time, the full moon, and a streetlamp three houses from us that reflected the sheen of wetness covering the road below.

“So, have you taken me here to kill me?” I joked. Or, I hoped that was what I was doing.

“I’m relieved you’re so untrusting, but no,” Lachlan said and opened the car door. The sounds of the summer night came rushing in to greet me: crickets, the wind, the rush of water falling over rocks somewhere in the distance. “Come on.”

He hopped out of the car and shut the door carefully behind him. I wondered what the hell his plan was. If he thought I’d never been bushwalking at night, it was true, but there was a reason for that, such as, oh, yeah, it was
dangerous
and you could easily
slip and break a leg.

I was about to tell him all this as I met him around the front of the car when he reached out—and held my hand.

“Let’s go,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and started to walk. My eyes widened, and I tried to make sense of my thoughts. I didn’t want to go in the bush with him. It was dangerous. And why was he holding my hand?

And why was my hand so sweaty?

We moved around the wooden guardrail and started to descend a leafy track, our way lit by the moon, and tiny white markers reflecting off the spotlight on Lachlan’s phone. The ground was slippery but not unmanageable, and as we kept walking, I found myself—strangely—enjoying it.

The humid summer air bathed my skin. The sound of the wind, the crickets and the rushing of water were sharp, and the smells—the scent of rain, the hint of some native flower here, the earthy smell of mud there—it was amazing. I didn’t even think to be scared.

We turned another corner and entered a clearing. Lachlan shone the light of his phone forward and I saw the gleaming lines of rocks, then the steady falling of a waterfall plummeting down to meet a silvery pool beneath it.

I dropped his hand and raced forward. I stopped at the edge and looked out. The waterfall rushed down to meet the lake in a chaos of bubbles that quickly dispersed so they were no more than ripples by the time the water met the sand. It was a living, breathing thing, this beautiful copse of woodland. I felt myself still, my whole body stone: it was without a doubt one of the most exquisite things I had ever seen.

“Is this—okay?” Lachlan asked. I didn’t realise he’d come to join me but there he was, phone-light in hand.

“Okay?” I bit my lip. “It’s
more
than okay. It’s just—it’s everything.”

It felt like the craziness of the past few weeks was nothing, nothing at all compared this intense natural wonder. I blinked and stared again, barely believing it was real. How had this beauty been so close to me for so long, yet I’d never seen it?