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Ainslee followed Mum and my family out the door. “Don’t take long,” she trilled, planting a kiss on my cheek.
I couldn’t follow her—I had a pillow pressed against my dick, and it was freezing outside.
Thank God the master room of the shearer’s quarters had a small ensuite. I raced through a shower, then pulled on a long-sleeved tee shirt and a woollen jumper, with jeans and my Ariat boots. I tugged on a beanie and then steadied myself in front of the dusty mirror by the door.
Christ on a quad bike …
I hung my head in shame.You still think about Rosie after four years. And you should’ve talked to Ainslee straight away and set her straight rather than having sex.
“Fuck.” I stepped outside and hesitated on the top step to pull my phone from my back pocket, noting the time.’
I couldn’t go to the party just yet up at the old shearing shed.
Needed to get my head on straight.
I couldn’t still be thinking about Rosie, the girl next door. She used me and then broke my heart. How can I still be thinking about us after all this time?
No, today was an aberration. Today was a flight or fight moment, and I was about to lose my erection in the middle of sex and I just panicked.
That’s all.
I hit the dial button and headed across the house yard, past the chook pen, towards the homestead. Right now, I need my twin sister, Lily, for advice. As soon as my foot hit the bottom step to the back veranda, I immediately heard sobbing coming from inside the house and cancelled the call.
“Hello?” a woman called out. “Anyone?”
She was distressed. Maybe she was here for the party and was freaked out about the main house being empty. It’s not like the front door was ever locked. No one from the party could hear her. The music had been cranked up, and the crowd was singing along to the Spice Girls.
I adjusted my beanie and took the stairs two at a time and headed through the back door into the kitchen. I guess it was up to me, the birthday boy, to show them where the action was.
“You looking for the party? It’s out the back in the shearing shed.”
A whirlwind of floral ruffles ran into the kitchen and halted at the sight of me.
Rosie.
My breath hitched. My heart sped up. My brain caught up on the details. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her eye make-up was smudged. She was dressed to the nines for a much more formal occasion than my bonfire and a piss-up of a party in a shearing shed.
A hand flew to her mouth, trying to stop a sob from escaping. I’ve only ever seen Rosie cry twice, now included.
My body jerked into action like some white knight. I impulsively crossed the room and threw my arms around her, holding her against my chest. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I was twelve all over again. Her gallant, gullible knight in shining armour.
The first time I’d seen Rosie cry was when I’d just turned twelve before our family’s annual Bonfire BBQ. Rosie had been upset when a boy about her age had pulled on the ties of her bikini top and it had fallen off. Panicked and scared, she’d run away from the waterhole and hid in the bush, where I’d found her crying.
I surrendered my rashie instantly and gave her privacy to pull it on and asked her who had done this to her, wanting to thrash the idiot with my fists.
For twelve, I was huge. I’d had a growth spurt and was stacking on the inches in height every day. I’d been a gangly giraffe with bulk.
Rosie wouldn’t tell me who’d done it. That was the first time she’d hugged me and the first time I’d seen her cry. That day, she’d called me a good friend.
I’d held her, unsure what to do with an older girl hugging me, her hands on my bare skin, her body pressed against my chest, the faint scent of her shampoo cutting through the smell of creek water.
Mesmerised, I’d wanted to defend her honour like a knight in the fairytale books Mum used to read to us.
Eventually, Rosie let me go, embarrassed, her face puffy and red.
She’s beautiful, I had thought, besotted with the older teen, who was just about to turn sixteen.
