Rows of chairs are lined up neatly, ready for the ceremony. Everything is covered with ribbons (black or white, of course) – I’ve just realised we’re technically walking down the aisle.
‘I thought this place was locked,’ I say.
‘It was,’ he replies. ‘I got the key, to get a cushion out of the storeroom, for one of the sunloungers. I was thinking I might sleep outside tonight.’
‘Don’t you want to sleep with me?’ I ask him.
For a second or two nothing happens and then, all at once, it’s like the starter pistol has been fired. Our bodies snap together. We kiss for a few seconds before I leap into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist. Ethan drops to the floor – in what I think was supposed to be a controlled way – but we knock over a bunch of chairs in the process.
‘I’ll stand those back up, I swear,’ he mumbles, his words almost inaudible as I pepper his lips with kisses.
Now that we’ve started, it’s impossible to stop. It’s for the best though, that we’re reuniting out here.
Down in the garden, in the dark pool house, with the ocean roaring nearby, it’s sort of like a horror movie: no one can hear you scream.
46
‘I don’t ever want to move again,’ I say with a sigh.
‘And you wouldn’t have to except – a few small things – one being that we don’t live in Australia, and we have to go home, the other being that there’s going to be a wedding ceremony here in a few hours, and the two of us lying naked on the floor might kill the mood,’ Ethan replies.
‘Perhaps,’ I say. ‘I suppose we could take this party inside.’
‘Okay but I hate to break it to you, we do need to move all the chairs back into place first,’ he says.
‘I guess I can handle that,’ I say with a smile.
It’s dark but I don’t have to search for long to locate my bra. I quickly put it on, throwing my dress over the top, and I’ve located one of my shoes when I realise Ethan isn’t moving.
‘Shit,’ he says softly.
‘What?’ I reply.
Oh, God, don’t tell me he’s regretting it already. I thought we’d turned a corner, that this was going to be the start of something.
‘The bench,’ he says. ‘Your family bench… we’ve broken it.’
Shiiiit. Suddenly I wish it really was just Ethan having cold feet, that I could deal with.
‘What? How?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know if we landed on it, or we knocked it with a chair but… look,’ he says.
Sure enough, the bench is in three pieces.
‘Can you fix it?’ I ask him, panic consuming me.
Ethan gets down on his knees and tries to click the bench back together. I grab my phone from my bag and shine my torch on it. Oh, thank God, I think he’s done it.
Ethan turns around and cautiously tries to put his weight on the bench, but the second he gets near it, it falls apart again.
‘Shit,’ I blurt.
‘Look, it’s okay, we?—’
‘It’s not okay though, is it?’ I snap back. ‘I knew this would happen, I knew we should stay away from each other, that we shouldn’t do this, that?—’
‘Do not say we’re cursed, or that it’s the universe, or whatever,’ he tells me. ‘It’s not that.’
