‘Ha ha, my self-esteem precedes me,’ I reply, embarrassed but impressed by his insight. ‘I guess I’m more used to attracting flies than bees.’
He gestures to Will. ‘Not anymore.’
Shame he’s already found his bloody queen, I think, but I give Brad a hug anyway and thank him for all his support this week.
‘Go have fun,’ he says, squeezing me back. ‘And you have my email; I expect progress updates.’
I say cheerio and make my way over to Will, who’s surrounded by people but quickly focuses on me, his eyes like amatory laser beams. I love the way he does that and it’s absurd how quickly my body responds.
‘You want to go back to mine?’ he asks quietly.
‘Yes… but shouldn’t we stay and do goodbyes, though?’
He tilts his head to the side and considers this.
‘No.’
‘Good enough for me.’
We inconspicuously slip away, though to be fair, no one is paying us much attention. Half the crowd have already dispersed, and the rest are having a singalong around the bonfire. I could be piggy-backing Will naked, and I doubt it would distract them from ‘The Greatest Love of All’, which is being slowly murdered by the remaining few.
Once out of sight, he grabs my hand and rushes me back to his cabin but instead of ripping my clothes off he takes off my glasses, strokes my face and then kisses me so softly, it’s like a tiptoe across my lips.
‘I don’t want to rush this,’ he says, his hands moving down to mine. ‘I want to… well, you know what I mean, right?’
He can’t say ‘make love’ because a) it’s creepy and b) it turns what we’re doing into something much bigger than either of us are willing to acknowledge. I smile, indicating that I understand what he means. However, previous experience with Will has shown that desire is a far greater force than whatever willpower we foolishly think we have control of.
Three hours later, we’ve collapsed in bed, having shagged ourselves into a ridiculous, sweaty mess. In our defence, we did start slowly and there now isn’t an inch of me he can’t identify from touch alone, but as anticipated, sheer unadulterated lust won. I’m not sure we’re capable of having sex again, even if we wanted to. It was perfect.
We lie together, inches apart, kicking off the covers for air. I’m aware that my mascara is probably halfway down my cheeks but it’s not my main concern. My main concern is how he’ll react to what I’m about to say.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he remarks, shifting uncomfortably away from one of several wet patches. ‘Something on your mind?’
‘I think we should say our goodbyes tonight,’ I reply. ‘Like, now.’
‘Now?’
I nod, staring at the ceiling. ‘I just don’t want any difficult farewells tomorrow morning.’
‘Why would it be difficult?’ he asks, turning on his side. His hair is a disaster. It’s adorable.
‘Do I need to spell it out?’ I sigh, my gaze still fixed on the ceiling light. ‘What I said in class about meeting people you adore? I meant it.’
‘Oh.’
‘I adore you.’
I feel his hand rest on my arm. ‘Nora—’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ I insist. ‘I’m notmadly in love with youor anything. I’m justintoyou… it’ll pass. These things always do, otherwise I’d still be pining over Neil Fletcher from primary school.’
He chuckles. ‘Kimberly Spencer for me. She played the guitar horribly, but she was a goddess.’
‘Well, I played the recorder. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.’
‘The recorder? Wow, now I’ll never get over you.’ He laughs again before pulling me into him. We lie quietly, holding each other for our last few moments. He kisses the top of my head then sighs.
‘I wish we had longer.’
