AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“God, you guys are born to be actors!” Louisa’s voice brought them back to reality, and tension stiffened Wentworth’s shoulders. “I’m heading up the rigging to adjust the overhead lights. If you’d embrace, side by side?”
Wentworth looked to Elliot for more directions, and Elliot hooked his thigh further up Wentworth’s hip and turned them. Immediately, Wentworth draped an arm around his waist, keeping their arousals pressed close, private.
“Are you worried about our audience noticing?”
“Something like that.”
“Not quite like our penguin audience, is it?”
Laughter jolted out of Wentworth, shaking the bed, puffing at his cheek. “Oh God, the penguins. No, not quite like that.”
Light beamed down on them, making Elliot’s eyes tear up. Louisa sang down an apology and adjusted the intensity. She called out to the cameraman, and another light beamed on them, haloing Wentworth in a glittery aura. Louisa adjusted lights until the cameraman gave her the okay. The prima. The perfect.
“Okay, that should do it. Thanks guys.”
Elliot and Wentworth continued to gaze at one another. Slowly their breaths evened out, and they got their reactions under control.
“Why?” Elliot whispered, clutching him. “Why was this so easy?”
Wentworth’s head dipped, lips poised at his ear. “Sex was never our problem.”
He pulled away and Elliot shivered at the loss, at the heaviness in those words.
In the background, Louisa cursed the lights for not turning off from the control board. The rigging creaked and groaned as she climbed up to do it manually.
Wentworth dressed swiftly, and Elliot did the same, neither looking at the other but thrumming with awareness nevertheless.
Stiffly, they moved toward Louisa.
Her gaze locked on Wentworth as she climbed down from the rigging. “Thank you, so much—that you’d do that for me, I just . . .” She laughed in awe, cheeks flushed. “Could this be the beginning of something beautiful?” She stopped climbing, opened her arms wide and fell toward Wentworth, who sprang into action and caught her.
“Gosh, the feeling of falling.” In love went unsaid, but perhaps heard?
Wentworth shifted; his face tightened along with the set of his shoulders.
Louisa climbed up the rigging again, a few feet higher. “I won’t ever get enough of it.”
She threw out her arms again but Wentworth, too absorbed in his thoughts, was a split second too slow.
“No!” he cried, as if it could reverse her fall. As if she could stop.
Louisa tried to catch herself. Though she hit the ground arms first, her head banged against the floor.
She slumped, lifeless.
The cameraman was too far away, and Wentworth was crippled with shock. He couldn’t move, but he called Elliot’s name. A guttural plea for help.
It ripped through Elliot, sparking life to his limbs, and in seconds he was kneeling beside Louisa. No open wound, no blood. Eyes closed.
“Oh, God,” Wentworth shook. “I didn’t catch her.”
Elliot checked for her pulse, and found one. A faint tick, tick, tick. “She’s alive,” he said. “Look at me, Wentworth. Look at me.”
Panicked, Wentworth did as Elliot instructed. Fright filled his eyes. No time to assuage his feelings.
“I’m calling the ambulance. You find Benny and bring him here.”
“Benny.” Wentworth spurred into action.
Elliot pulled out his phone and dialled emergency services.
The cameraman came over and asked if he should help move Louisa.
“No. We need to make sure she hasn’t injured her neck. Moving her might make it worse.” Elliot instructed him to man the door. No one in except for Dr Benwick and first responders.
“What about Wentworth?”
“No, not him.” This freaked him out. Elliot wouldn’t make him witness it if things . . . He’d seen the horror on his face. The guilt. The pain.
Elliot had to protect him.
Louisa stirred. Her eyes opened briefly, unfocused, and shut again.
More proof of life, but the extent of her injuries was uncertain.
He kept his fingers on her hand, gently, a way of communicating she wasn’t alone if she was able to recognise it. Fear slithered through him, and his throat lumped. Louisa, so full of life . . .
How quickly everything could change.
“I’m so sorry, Elliot.”
“Sorry for what, Mum?”
Elliot’s eyes prickled and he forced back the memory of her. How lonely he’d been when she’d gone . . .
“Are you okay?” the cameraman asked.
He cleared his throat. “Let Wentworth in too.”
Windy waves
Wavy winds
The boat, the boat
Sails away
Water the colour of tears
W. McAllister, with Ask Austen Studios, “Drowning”
Benny transformed from melancholic and moody to confidence on legs. He checked Louisa’s vitals, used the penlight he carried to check her eyes. Carefully, he secured her and sent the cameraman for blankets.
Elliot and Wentworth watched gravely, side by side, ready to do Benny’s bidding. Their sleeves brushed, and Elliot felt the vibration of Wentworth’s tremors, an echo of his own. The lump in his throat hurt, his eyes prickled.
He leaned lightly against Wentworth, a question, and Wentworth instinctively opened his arm, curling it around him. Elliot sank into his warm hold and offered Wentworth an arm around his waist too.
