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“Great. Come along then.” Griffen opened our front door, stepping into the ground floor corridor.
I followed my new landlord and moon-wedded wife as they headed past other apartment doors and didn’t stop until we reached the maintenance rooms.
Music played in one home above me.
A baby screamed in another.
The pressure of life existing all around us made my back prickle with warning.
So many people.
So many eyes and mouths.
Too many eyes to see that I didn’t belong and too many mouths to share my secret.
The black whispers did their best to twist my guts with worry.
Could I do this?
Could we do this?
Were we safe to do this?
I did my best to listen to what Griffen said. I balled my hands and told my ever-present anxiety to shut the fuck up.
This was just another sala.
This complex was just another garden.
As long as I didn’t do something stupid, and no one figured out I didn’t belong...I’d be fine.
Three years.
It wasn’t that long.
And then Neri and I could go back home to the reef, the rainforest, and a town that didn’t threaten me.
* * * * *
“Apartment 1A. Yes, that’s right. Ground floor. Buzz the intercom when you’re here, and I’ll come right out.” Neri nodded to whatever the pizza guy said before hanging up and sliding her phone back into the pocket of her oversized light-grey hoodie she’d slipped into an hour ago.
The sun had set, the lights had been turned on—revealing more pockmarks and stains—and we’d spent the last two hours unloading the Cherokee and dragging in the bare essentials we’d brought from Port Douglas. A blow-up mattress was now covered in blankets and pillows in the largest bedroom. Our towels hung side by side in the monstrosity of a bathroom, the kitchen held scant knives, forks, and glasses, and we’d set up the camp chairs in the living room along with the lamp and side table that Jack had told me to take from my old room.
Tomorrow, Neri and I would engage Google’s help to find the local thrift stores to buy a bedframe, couch, and coffee table. We’d purchase a new mattress from the cheapest store we could, and anything else we needed we could buy online when we realised what was missing.
At least, I could do that now.
Up until recently, buying anything online was impossible for me as I didn’t have a credit card. But...not only had Jack arranged this apartment for us, a job for me, and a car for Neri, he’d also kindly opened a new bank account linked to Neri’s. He’d put some of my cash into it, ready to be used with a supplementary credit card number.
It didn’t matter that the card had Jack’s name on it, all the incomings and outgoings were mine.
I didn’t think having a piece of plastic would give me such a strange peace of mind, but it did. Yet another layer of camouflage while I hid in plain sight.
“Dinner will be here in thirty minutes or so.” Neri came toward me, a smile I was all too familiar with teasing her lips.
I stopped fiddling with a light switch that didn’t seem to turn anything on and spun to face her. “Neri...stop with the look.”
“What look?”
“You know what look.”
“The look that says I’ll be on my knees for you in about two seconds?”
I groaned as she rested her palms on my chest, gathering my white t-shirt in her fists. “We need to christen our new home, Aslan.”
“Our new home needs a fire hose and buckets of bleach before I fuck you on any of its surfaces.”
“Germaphobe.”
“And proud of it.”
She chuckled. “Tell you what. We can postpone sex in every room until tomorrow. I’m knackered from the long drive and really just want to have a shower, stuff copious amounts of three-cheese pizza in my face, and then crash into bed with you, but...we have to do one thing first.”
I brushed gold-glittering chocolate strands off her gorgeous cheek. “And what’s that, hayatim?”
Linking her fingers with mine, she tugged me into the centre of the living room. The two camping chairs that we’d used in Daintree flanked us. Back then, when we’d camped in a jungle and I’d almost had a panic attack at the crocs and spiders and everything else waiting to kill the love of my life, she’d been fifteen and I’d been nineteen. We’d been hot with hormones, broken by boundaries, and desperate to be together.
Now...we not only were together, but we lived together.
Holy fuck...we’re living together.
I blinked as the reality chose that moment to slam into me.
This wasn’t us messing around playing house while her parents were at a conference or research trip. There was no reason to hide and a shit ton more responsibility to pay the rent, keep ourselves fed, bathed, and properly attired to function in society.
My existence in this borrowed country might not be what I’d envisioned when I was fourteen and my world hadn’t imploded. I might once have dreamed of a stone house in Foça, Izmir, following in the footsteps of my father.
