Page 63 of Take Her On

“There’s just a lot going on, isn’t there?” Jamie said, trying to sound chipper. “It’d be nice to get away for a while.” She snapped up straight, startling Maya. “Let’s do it!”

“What? Do what?”

“Go to the beach. Now. Let’s just go. We need this.” She jumped up from the bed, picking up her discarded clothes from the floor.

“We can’t just go to the beach.”

“Why not?” She pulled her Nike sports bra over her head—the woman was like a walking advertisement. “Oh, wait. Your grandparents?”

Maya hadn’t even meant that. She’d meant the idea of going to the beach on a whim. It felt like something Maya couldn’t do: be that spontaneous. Her mum was away for work, which made it difficult, but the way Jamie’s excitement fell from her face made her say, “Alright.”

“Really?”

“I’ll have to speak with Grandma first, though.”

Jamie leaped at her, knocking her back onto the mattress. “Oh my god, this is going to be so much fun.”

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Maya couldn’t fight the huge smile on her face as she pressed her weight on top of her. She fought off Jamie’s attempts at tickling and pushed her onto her back. Jamie’s eyes dipped, and a ping of pleasure fired between Maya’s legs.

“We don’t have time for that right now,” she teased. “Come on.”

Less than twenty minutes later, Maya pulled up on their street and shut off Jamie’s engine. Her driving had improved a lot in the previous few weeks, even though she’d just been driving the same routes back and forth. A few days ago she’d stalled the car in the middle of a roundabout and knocked the wipers on max speed, all to the beat of Madonna’s “Material Girl”. But apart from that, she’d say she was doing pretty well. Her pedestrian tally was still at zero; that had to count for something.

“I’m gonna nip into my parents’ house to get a few things,” Jamie said, scratching at her neck. “Meet you out here in five?”

“Alright.”

As soon as Maya walked through the front door, Grandma ambushed her, eyes wide and the ever-present red tea towel held at her hip.

“Is that Jamie again?” she asked knowingly, her white eyebrows raised.

Maya hung her bag of study books over the banister, trying to act cool. “Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.”

There was no use hiding things from Grandma. She’d not missed the amount of time Maya had been spending with Jamie, and the fire warming her cheeks was pretty telling.

“Do I need to inform the Witch Club yet? Linda can prepare a tip-top fertility brew. Her Cockerpoo had fourteen pups, you know—”

“No need for a fertility brew yet, Grandma.”

And being Linda’s guinea-pig certainly didn’t sound appealing.

A smile pulled at her grandmother’s mouth, and she bounced her eyebrows again. “You sure? You seem pretty smitten to me.”

“Grandma.” Maya resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing it would get her a clip with the tea towel.

“When are you going to invite her in?”

Maya opened her mouth to speak, but Grandma cut her off with a wave of her finger. “And don’t say it’s to do with your mother, because we both know she’s not here.”

Grandma had agreed not to discuss Maya’s new relationship with her mum, after she’d explained she wanted to take things slowly. Clearly, regarding the mention of Linda’s fertility brew, the message was getting distorted somewhere in the airwaves.

“I know young love makes you want to bottle it and save it all for yourself, but I’m getting old, dear. I want to see you happy.”

That struck a nerve. And dammit, Grandma knew it too, judging by the way she was aiming puppy eyes at her.

“You’ve met her already, Grandma. She sat right there on the sofa.”

“Mm-hmm. And a lot has changed since you couldn’t stand to look at the girl. Isn’t that right?”