“Thanks very much, boys,” Leanne said as Marcus set the plates on the set table. Behind him, Nick walked in carrying two more plates of roast vegetables and what looked like plant-based meat. Carly’s eyes were drawn to his forearms, which were straining under the weight. “And thank you, Nicholas, for keeping the peace out there.”
“No problem, Leanne,” he smiled, putting the plates on the crowded table. “I’m glad I could negotiate in a situation with such … high stakes.”
His smile widened as six groans erupted in unison at his pun, and Carly chuckled despite herself. He looked over at her before she could wipe the smile off her face, and their eyes met amid the cacophony ofterribles andought to be ashameds. Carly felt suddenly shy as they looked at each other, and it occurred to her that if they had met each other like this, instead of in a series of billowing dumpster fires, they might have actually liked each other. If she’d met this version of Nick—surrounded by people he knew and liked, loose and a little goofy—maybe she wouldn’t have immediately decided he was an asshole. Maybe he wouldn’t have decided she was an insufferable ballet brat. They could have become friends during this trip, instead of unwilling errand buddies who tolerated each other long enough to take photos. Yet again, the memory of his face this morning, awash with gratitude and relief, swam unbidden into her mind. He’d been drenched in sunlight and water, and he’d stared at her like he could actually see her. Like he actually liked what he saw. Carly looked down at her drink and caught her breath, but when she glanced up again, he was still looking.
Chapter 12
A lot had changed since he’d left Sydney, but at least this one thing was the same: Marcus’s place felt as comfortable and welcoming as it had when he was fifteen years old and here for a sleepover. Even though Marcus and Heather had given the place a fresh coat of paint, it was just as warm and homey in here as he remembered. Leanne was still kind and no-nonsense, and they still had the old barbeque Marcus’s dad, Richard, had fired up seemingly every time Nick had come over. He had always felt like he could uncoil a little here. Breathe a little deeper. Relax more than he could in the dorms.
Another thing that hadn’t changed in his absence: Davo Campbell was still kind of a tosser. Davo had always had a knack for making his younger brother feel like the least important person in the room, and the last fifteen years clearly hadn’t broken him of his need to find little ways to dig at Marcus and try to get under his skin. The first time Nick had witnessed it, he’d wondered why all Davo’s seemingly friendly comments seemed to have an edge to them, a mean bite to the laughter. Now he understood that this was what passed for bonding for a lot of Australian men—taking the piss out of each other and saying “I’m just joking” if anyone called foul—but Nick had never had much patience for it. His tolerance was even lower after the years away. Leanne had called him the peacekeeper, but mostly he was there so that Davo could pull that shit on someone else, and give Marcus a break for a change.
No wonder Marcus hadn’t wanted Davo as his best man, Nick thought, as they all crowded around the table, drinks in hand. His toast would have been a nightmare.
“Leanne, Davo, why don’t you take your usual spots,” Heather called over the chatter, and Nick watched as Leanne took a seat at the head of the table and Davo took the chair opposite her, at what he remembered as Richard’s old place.
“I’m next to Izzy,” Alice said, pulling out the chair next to her girlfriend’s and placing her drink down.
“Oh,get a room,” Marcus said, and all the women laughed, including Carly. She was clutching her wine glass tightly, eyes wide, as though she was a little overwhelmed by the whole scene, and it took him a moment to realize that the only person she really knew here was Heather. Well, he supposed that if bickering constantly with someone and letting them take photos of you was a way to know them, then she knew him a bit, too.
He’d spent most of the day hunched over his computer editing photos of her. He’d had plenty to work with, because this morning’s photos had turned out really well. Not the ones Carly had taken, where he looked damp and bedraggled, his expression a strange mix of exhausted and exhilarated. But the ones he’d taken of her were the best work he’d done in months, in his opinion. Perhaps he should have been photographing dancers outside all this time. He’d done so many sessions in the studio, trying to capture intimate moments in rehearsal and class, but even the Paris Opera Ballet, which rehearsed in a studio with a soaring domed ceiling on the top floor of the famed Opera Garnier, didn’t have light like this. Heather had mentioned something about how the light was different in Sydney than in any other place she’d been—sharper, brighter, more saturated—and looking at the shots he’d taken at the pool and on the beach, Nick had to agree.
The shot of Carly in that deep kneeling backbend looked good in colour—the red and yellow flags, the pink horizon, and Carly’s red bun all made for a sense of warmth against the huge expanses of blue sky and water. But it looked striking in black and white, he thought; removing the colours made Carly look like a pale bird on the beach, a creature he’d just happened to capture as she stretched on the sand.
The ones he’d taken by the pool, though, were even better. He’d stared for a full minute at the best of the bunch, a shot of Carly with one foot extended in a tendu and her supporting leg slightly bent. Her free arm was extended at forty-five degrees, and she was looking up at her hand as she prepared to sweep the arm, and then her whole body, down over her stretched leg. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could almost feel the breath she was taking and would sigh out as she folded over. The warm morning light caught all the oranges and golds in her curls and made her brown eyes glow as she watched her own fingers, her face lit with anticipation and pleasure. Once again, he was struck by how happy she looked when was dancing, even if it was just a simple barre exercise by the beach. She looked content and in control. She might be pure chaos the rest of the time, but something happened to her face when she danced. No wonder she didn’t know what she was going to do once she retired:thiswas the thing that brought her joy so deep it all but screamed off the screen. Even her ridiculous hot pink nails looked right in this light.
Tonight, her curls looked damp from the shower, and she was wearing a sage green linen shirt-dress that stopped just above her knees. Against the green fabric, the orange-red of her roiling curls looked brighter and more saturated than usual. The dress was loose and somewhat shapeless, but low-cut enough to reveal her sternum, which he knew from staring at photos of her was paler than her arms and legs, with freckles scattered across it. He tightened his jaw and told himself that he probably shouldn’t be thinking about the freckles on her sternum.
She met his eyes over the table as the laughter petered out, and he swore he saw her grip on her glass get even tighter.
“Uh, I’ll sit next to Heather, if that’s okay?” she asked the room, and Leanne nodded her approval. Carly pulled out her chair and took a big swig of her wine.
“And I’d like to sit next to my future wife,” Marcus grinned, dropping a kiss on Heather’s temple and shooting a challenging, amused look across the table at Alice. That left Marcus to take Heather’s other side and Nick to squeeze in alongside Izzy. Directly opposite Carly. She smiled a little as she sat down, and it wasn’t the too-wide, just-for-show smile she’d thrown his way every other time they’d been around Heather and Marcus. It was quiet, just a flash of white teeth visible above her full bottom lip, and before he could think better of it, he felt himself return it.
With some difficulty, he pulled his chair out and folded himself into it, and Izzy leaned into Alice to make space for him. Still, it was a tight squeeze; this table was probably fine for a six person Sunday dinner, but eight was pushing it.
“All right everyone, no need to stand on ceremony. Just dig in,” Leanne said, and then the table was a mess of arms and hands and tongs as all eight of them passed platters around and loaded up their plates. He watched as Izzy heaped salad onto Alice’s plate and Marcus took a few seconds to select the best-looking piece of grilled eggplant for Heather. Meanwhile, Heather served Leanne a bit of everything, saving the older woman from having to deal with the tongs or the salad servers. Davo had already started cutting into his steak.
“So, Nicholas,” Leanne started, once much of the food had been transferred from serving dishes to plates, and Nick sat up a little straighter at her tone.
“Am I also about to get grilled?” he joked, and Leanne chuckled. Alice and Izzy groaned in unison, and Carly gave her head a tiny shake as she cut up a piece of meat.
Leanne gave him a warm smile. “It’s not a grilling, I just want to know how life has been since I last saw you, what was it, a decade ago?”
“Something like that. Right before I moved to Paris, I think.”
Leanne’s face took on a dreamy, faraway look. “Paris,” she sighed. “I’ve always wanted to go. Tell me everything. Do you have a collection of striped shirts and a bike with a bread basket on the back?”
Nick tilted his head skeptically. It was like the reverse of what French people sometimes asked him when he revealed he’d grown up in Australia—Est-ce que vous aviez un kangourou en lieu d’un chien?—and about as far removed from reality.
“I think I only have one striped shirt, and I had a moped for a while, but it’s mostly the Métro for me.”
Leanne sighed again. “Even public transit sounds more romantic in French.”
“I don’t know, taking a bus over the Harbour Bridge every day is pretty romantic,” Heather piped up. “Oh, that reminds me, Carly, we should take a ferry into the city this week. Best commute in the world. No offense to the Métro, Nick,” she added.
“None taken,” he said quickly, as Carly nodded at Heather. He shoved some grilled zucchini in his mouth, hoping Heather would keep talking so that Leanne couldn’t ask any more questions about his life in Paris. Hisformerlife in Paris. His former commute to his former job from his former apartment with his former girlfriend.
But instead Heather kept eating, and Leanne did have more questions.
