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She inhaled sharply when she turned to the last page. It was the photos from the previous night, when she’d dragged him into the photo booth. The first few pictures were just fun and silly, but the last one caught her. She remembered the moment. It was just after he had turned to her and said softly, “Happy birthday, darling.” She hadn’t realized the booth had snapped one more picture. She was sitting in his lap, her arm draped over his shoulders and his fingertips resting lightly at the back of her neck. Her forehead had been pressed to his, her hand cupping his face, her lips curved in a sweet smile, her eyes closed. She dropped the album onto the bed, pushing it away from her. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
She felt her heart thudding, hard and uncomfortable, in her chest. Throwing the duvet back, she blindly made her way to the bathroom, turning the shower on as hot as she could stand, pushing her hair back from her forehead, and holding her face under the stinging heat. She was in love. Madly, deeply, profoundly in love with Rafe. She felt tears well in her eyes, their sting almost as hot as the shower. This wasn’t part of the deal. There was no way she could hold herself back from him. She was going to ruin everything. She was going to get clingy, and smothering and ridiculous. She was going to alienate him. She was going to lose him. She burst into tears, letting them flow freely as the shower water washed them away.
Feeling more resolved after a good cry, Mikayla got out of the shower and toweled herself dry. There was only one thing for her to do. Cancel the friends with benefits in the hope that she could preserve the friendship. She really needed to think of a good plan of action. If she didn’t handle this very carefully, it would play out exactly as her mother said it would, with Rafe feeling too uncomfortable to come to any family gatherings. That would be too terrible for words. She threw on sweatpants and a t-shirt before heading out to the kitchen.
The last thing she felt like doing was eating breakfast, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, so she poured herself a bowl of cereal, sliced a banana into it, and sat on a stool at the kitchen bench. She forced herself to eat a spoonful, ignoring the fact that it tasted like ash in her mouth. Her phone pinged and she picked it up, checking the screen. It was an email from Ambulance HQ. Her heart thudded oddly in her chest when she opened it. It was an updated four-week roster. She opened the file and felt her eyes well with fresh tears. Rafe had rearranged the schedule. They didn’t have a single shift together for the next month.
She pushed the bowl of uneaten cereal away and moved into the lounge room. Curling up on the couch, she picked up a cushion, hugging it to her chest as she stared blindly at the coffee table. He must have felt it. Must have intuited her feelings for him and he was in retreat. Well, that was good. That would make it easier. He’ll most likely be relieved at the news that she wanted to cancel the arrangement between them. Now she just had to figure out when and how she was going to do that.
* * *
Rafe swung the sledgehammer hard, taking fierce satisfaction in the feeling of it hitting the wall and the plaster giving way. He swung again. And again. And again. He kept going until a line of sweat trickled down his back and half the wall was missing. He stepped back to survey his work. He was standing in the kitchen, now looking through a half-demolished partition into the dining and lounge room. He kicked some plaster aside with a booted foot and continued, allowing his mind to drift to the cause of his turmoil.
Swapping the shifts around had definitely been the right thing to do. Maybe he should have mentioned it to Mikayla first, but he hadn’t wanted to put her in the position of having to talk to him about it. He wanted to give her space. Give her space until he found a way to talk to her about what he had done. He wanted to apologize to her and hope that she could forgive him.
He had the plaster off down to the floor on one section of the wall, but the whole kitchen floor was covered with chunks of debris. He swore to himself as he turned and kicked away a pile. He hadn’t organized a skip bin or anything. Where the hell was he going to put all this plaster?
He froze as he caught sight of Mikayla, standing in the doorway, staring around in astonishment, plaster dust already sticking to her hair. “What the hell are you doing?”
He shrugged. What the hell was he doing?
“Right. Okay. Well, I’ve put the dogs in the yard. I just wanted to have a quick word before I head off to work.”
“Okay. Sorry I can’t offer you coffee. Or anything.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, not moving further than the doorway. “I saw that you’d changed some shifts around.”
“Yeah.” A shadow flickered across her face. He tried to think of a reasonable explanation he could offer her. I’m sorry, Mikayla, but I don’t trust myself around you anymore. I feel on edge when I’m with you. Everything feels intense, overwhelming and it makes me feel almost angry. I’m afraid I’m going to lose control. Cross the line. Do something you won’t be able to forgive me for. But he couldn’t say that, so he just said, “Thought it’d be good to mix it up a bit.” It sounded terribly lame, even to his own ears.
“Right. Makes sense.”
It didn’t, but oh well.
“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Ah, no, actually.” She swallowed nervously and he watched as she took a deep breath. He felt a sliver of foreboding curl in his gut. “I was just thinking that maybe it’s time to, ah, to stop the friends with benefits.”
“Right.”
She continued in a rush. “Yeah, I mean, it’s been fun and all, but you know, it’s probably burnt itself out now.”
“Right.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She gazed at him for a long moment. “So, we can go back to being friends.”
There was almost a question in her tone, as though she wasn’t sure about that. “Sure. Of course.”
“Okay. Great. Well, I’ve gotta get to work. I’ll see you later.”
“Seeya.”
* * *
Mikayla had a long, grueling, painful week. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone this long without seeing Rafe. The only time they communicated at all was to send excruciatingly polite text messages about Wesley and Buttercup. The unspoken agreement was that handing over the dogs would be organized in such a way that they didn’t need to see each other.
When it came to work, she knew Len and Bluey were confused and concerned, but thankfully, neither of them broached the subject. When she was at work, they just left her alone. If there wasn’t a call out, she spent most of the time during her shift sitting on the couch up on the mezzanine, staring out at the ocean, trying not to cry.
When it came to friends and family, she’d made a few lame excuses to bail out of catch ups and so far, they’d let her get away with it. But she knew that wouldn’t last for long. Neither Nora nor Juniper would put up with her shit for too much longer. She’d skived off Sunday lunch and she knew that one of them would be coming down on her. Sure enough, just after four o’clock, there was a knock on her front door. She took a deep, calming breath, noted that she didn’t feel any calmer and went to answer the door.
