warmer. If it meant wearing less than the thick coats required for Melbourne’s bitterly cold winters, I had a feeling there weren’t going to be too many complaints. That glare though, damn it was blinding.
Slipping my sunglasses over my eyes, I joined the girls on the alfresco patio with Adele’s soulful voice faintly serenading us in the background. I winced. It was far too early, even for music.
“I feel far from alive, let me tell you,” I moaned plonking down into one of the softly padded chairs surrounding the eight-seater timber table and tucking a leg beneath me.
Scarlett’s eyes rolled as her attention diverted back to Dominique. I shook my head in disgust. I despised gossip, something the pair of them did too well.
Leaning forward, I grabbed one of the fresh blueberry Danishes from the platter in the centre of the table and zoned out, preferring to fantasise about a future with Ari instead. That’s all it would ever amount to anyway. Fate had kept us apart for a reason. With my present lifestyle as well as an unsavoury past, to include Ari in that equation, it would be disastrous. A toxic mix.
Where he longed for white picket fences, I yearned for something else entirely. I blamed my upbringing.
My childhood wasn’t the dream most children wished for thanks to the complicated relationship with our parents, our mother more than our father for the most part. That altered too when everything in my world horrifically changed.
Our grandparents, on the contrary, were an entirely different story. They adored their grandchildren and often expressed their affections, more so when something was worth celebrating. Hence the double-fronted early Victorian cottage, an overly generous graduation gift from both sets. Most presumed it was because I’d graduated University, with honours. Alas, no, it was only high school. Admittedly, I had received the DUX award, giving them another reason to be incredibly proud.
Nonetheless, I’d always thought small gifts were a given, such as a necklace, or even a fancy pen; I assumed wrong — big time. So, not only was I presented with the house, they renovated it too, front to back, to my style, of course, sparing no expense either.
Besides not experiencing life living at RMIT alongside other students, the time spent on campus, I enjoyed it anyway. Studying Architecture and Design, as well as Interior Design, I had surpassed all expectations surprising even myself. The high recommendations from each of my professors and the Dean, were the icing on the cake, and thus, landing the job at Bricks and Mortar.
Then, there was Ari. I loved him, always had. My sixteenth birthday was the day I had planned to ask Ari to wait for me until I turned eighteen. It was a day that never came, nor was it celebrated. Instead, I locked my feelings away, building impenetrable walls around me, making it impossible for anyone to breach beyond them.
Finally, after ten long years, that day had arrived. With the right amount of encouragement, I had been ready to drop a part of that wall and take a precarious leap of faith – and like the coward, I was, and still am, I ran away leaving the one man I’d yearned for confused. Desolate. A decision that left me wracked with feelings of guilt and regret — the thought of not repairing that damage souring my already dampened mood. I’d call him later.
“Teddy, wake up!”
My head jerked towards a curiously frowning Poppy. “What?”
“What, or should I say whom, were you daydreaming about?”
“Nothing in particular,” I replied shrugging dismissively.
Poppy smirked as I reached over the table, grabbing another Danish. Lucky, I loved her.
When a stunningly attractive male visitor stepped outside, his hand awkwardly rubbing the back of his freshly washed hair, my hand paused mid-air as my jaw dropped in shock. Oh, it was the jock. What’s worse, he’d stayed here with Dominique. Oh. Oh, her domineering brother would not be pleased one little bit.
A shy smile formed blinding us with glaringly white teeth. “Um, hi.” He clumsily took the seat beside a beaming Dominique at the table, his gaze nervously darting between our gaping mouths and us.
“Whoops! Sorry girls, did I fail to mention I had company? Girls, this is Damien. Damien, girls,” she said casually. A bit late for introductions, I thought. “Close your mouths, you all look like codfish.”
The front doorbell began ringing incessantly. I ignored it in the hope someone else would think to answer the door. Not gonna happen by the looks of it.
I tried yelling out. “Can one of you get that, please? I’m kinda busy here!” Not one reply, typical. I sighed and ducked my head glancing outside. The probability of anyone amongst that rowdy lot hearing anything over that blaring music was nil anyway.
I had barely tipped the last of the ice cubes into the jug of homemade iced tea when the bell shrilled once more.
“All right, I’m coming!” Yelling, I had just enough time to shove the tea into the fridge before it rang again. “I hear you, as can the neighbours down the street.” I marched towards the front door, my footsteps thudding on the floorboards beneath my feet. I reefed it open, huffing, “Impatient mu…ch.” Oh, it was Ari. On the porch. My porch. Like a deer caught in headlights, I stilled, my voice gone. It had probably disappeared out the door and taken off up the footpath along with my manners.
His mouth twitched at the state of my obvious fluster. “Hi there.”
My brows creased at the black sports bag slung over his right shoulder. Had he planned to move in already? Perhaps he was using it as a ploy so I’d give in to him. Don’t be paranoid, Teddy.
I cleared my throat and found my voice. “Ari, what...what are you doing here?”
Pushing his tinted sunglasses off, he slid them through his unruly hair to the top of his head, allowing his darkly hooded eyes to roam unashamedly. My body responding naturally as my nipples hardened beneath the scorching gaze.
If we kept this up, we’d never move past the porch. Wouldn’t that give the neighbours something to talk about over their afternoon tea? The thought made me smile.
I intentionally cleared my throat, raising his ogling gaze off my chest. “Ari, why are you here?”
“I um...came to see you.” He was just as nervous as I felt, that much was obvious. “To chat, about us and what happened, or didn’t last night.” Of course, he was, you idiot.
My face flamed; this dancing around each other had to stop. “Well, you had better come in then.” Smiling softly, I opened the door wider and stepped back, waving my hand at him. “After you then.”
A charming crooked smile formed. “Thank you.”
“We can go to my bedroom; at least we won’t be interrupted in there.”
His eyebrows shot up in question as he stepped over the threshold into the foyer. “Does it have a lock on the door?”
I let out a small laugh gently closing the front door behind us. “Actually, yes, it does. So, there’s no chance of your sister barging in on us this time.”
“Well, after you.” He politely gestured, following me into the bedroom.
I stood back, watching his soft gaze quietly soaking in every detail. Stylishly decorated in various shades of blues and whites, my room had remained soft, yet feminine. It was my sanctuary.
“Why do women love pillows?” he muttered, shaking his head at the piles neatly stacked against the diamond-tufted headboard. I giggled. I loved my pillows. If he didn’t, then too bad.
His gaze then drew upwards to the room’s centrepiece, an antique crystal chandelier hanging from the centre of a decorative ceiling rose. From the architrave to the wide skirting skimming darkly stained Baltic timber floors, every feature in the bedroom was entirely original, painstakingly and lovingly restored, including the fireplace that faced my king-sized bed.
Ari’s eyes lit up like the