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“I honestly do.”
By now they’dwalked across the footbridge, commenting on how pretty the lights around Elizabeth Quay were as they changed from blue to green to pink to mauve.They’d stopped a couple of times, turned back towards the city and he’d pointed out the building he worked in.
On the far side, they stood gazing across the expanse of water to the twinkling lights of south Perth.
Carts cast her a covert sideways glance.
Tendrils of hair had strayed across her cheek, courtesy of the evening breeze.She pushed them back from her face and put her hands on the railing.Tentatively, he placed his left hand next to hers.
Their pinkies touched.Sensation prickled up and down his spine, and then, because he was always on the alert for rejection, he panicked.
“See those red and green lights out there?”He lifted the hand that had been nudging hers and pointed to the middle of the river.“They’re called port and starboard markers.”
Her skirt rustled.Had she moved away?Damn!
“What are they for?”she asked.
“They’re for night-time navigation,” he croaked.“Boats go through the markers so they don’t hit a rock or a sand bank or something.”Meanwhile, his heart had capsized and was sinking into the briny depths.He’d given completely the wrong signal.Go away.Not come closer.How in shite’s name was he going to put this right?
“Oh, I see,” Judith said.He was almost certain she’d edged closer.
Put your hand back on the rail, you moron.
With superhuman effort he reeled in his arm.Phew, now his hand was next to hers.He willed his muscles to relax.“Yeah, in a boat you always pass to the right of a starboard light and to the left of a port light, kind of, but it’s a bit more complicated than that depending on whether you’re going upstream or downstream.”
By now he’d got his pinky to creep another agonising millimetre, and almost jumped as the edges of their hands came into contact.Neither of them moved.
“Like road rules but on water,” Judith observed.
“Yeah.”
It was now or never.Barely able to breathe, he lifted his hand and rested it gently over hers.
She shifted, as though about to tug her hand away.
Horror swamped him, an apology arcing up his throat, when suddenly her fingers curled around his.And squeezed.
Carts stared straight ahead until his eyes smarted.Holy freakin’ smoke.They were… they wereactuallyholding hands.
Runnels of delight sped up his arm, down his spine and sent alarming cues south of his waist.Luckily his new jacket would hide the evidence.Except he’d look like a complete dork trying to tug his jacket round his groin and hold her hand at the same time.And then what?Like, they wereonlyat the hand-holding stage.What would happen if they freakin’ kissed…?
Think of a blank screen.
He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but the trouble with blank screens was they cut off your access to words.
Luckily Judith asked, “So the green light is port?”
Somehow, he got his addled brain to form words.“Other way round.Green is starboard and red is port.”
Was his hand getting sweaty?Would that put her off?
“You know a lot about boating for someone who’s never sailed,” Judith said.
“My dad used to own a yacht when I was a kid, nothing swanky or anything, just a dinghy really with one sail and an outboard motor.Most Sundays in summer Mum would pack a picnic lunch, and we’d go out on the river, do a bit of fishing and crabbing and stuff.”Recalling those happier times loosened some of the tension in his muscles.And suddenly the reality of standing here holding Judith’s hand sank in like golden syrup on pancakes.
“What a great way to spend your childhood,” she mused.“My dad was always too busy with his building company to do things like that at weekends.Our idea of fun as kids was being taken to the newest display home.I remember one time Pippa scribbled all over the lounge room walls.I took the blame to stop her getting into trouble.”
“Seriously, that’s your most fun memory?”
