“Good,” he said, tapping on the steering wheel as the cars crawled. “If we ever make it up to the mountains, we can get lunch up there. And tomorrow we should hit one of the beaches on the other side of the Bridge.”
“Yes, I need to see as many of Sydney’s four hundred perfect beaches as possible.”
“It’s only 398,” he said, and she rolled her eyes. Pedant. “I think we should go to Bronte. It’s an underrated gem. Everyone knows Bondi and Coogee, but Bronte’s between them, and it’s got an even better pool than Freshwater. In my humble opinion.”
She snorted. “When has your opinion ever been humble?”
“Fine. It’s not humble, it’s just right. Bronte was one of my favorites as a kid. It’s a straight shot on the bus from the ANB dorms, and it was a nice way to escape the craziness of a hundred teenage ballet students all living on top of each other.”
“Sounds like the NYB school. One huge dorm full of hormones, hairspray, and the most competitive and tightly wound humans you’ll ever meet. Who are all exhausted and sore and starving half the time.”
“Exactly. So I’d go there and just be by myself. Or Marcus and I would go across the bridge to Balmoral Beach, which was a favorite for another reason.” He smiled to himself.
“What was the reason?” Carly asked, suspiciously.
“Ah, well, two reasons, really,” he allowed. “It’s a topless beach. At fifteen, we thought we’d struck gold.”
“You little pervs!”
“Yeah, that’s basically what Leanne said when she found out. We only went a few times before she busted us. Mostly when I wanted to get away from the dorms for a bit, I’d go to Marcus’s place.”
“Not home? Where is home?” She watched him as he flicked the blinker and joined a long line to get onto a highway.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Carly thought it was a pretty simple question.
He didn’t answer. The lights changed and he just made it through and merged onto the highway. Carly eyed him closely. He still looked a little underslept, but even when he was tired he was annoyingly handsome, his deep blue eyes bright and shimmering in the hot sunlight and his long lashes casting tiny shadows on his cheeks.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Hang on a second, I’m concentrating. It’s been a while since I drove on a highway on the left-hand side.”
Carly narrowed her eyes and watched his face, but he kept his eyes on the road. If she didn’t know better, she would say he was stalling.
“You haven’t answered my question,” she reminded him a few minutes later. Traffic had eased up and the car was speeding along the highway, which was flanked by clusters of eucalyptus trees and big-box stores.
“What question?” he asked, checking his mirrors. She gave him a skeptical look. He was definitely stalling. And he should definitely know by now that she wouldn’t be put off that easily.
“Where’s home?”
He sighed and looked over at her, his face a picture of amused disbelief. “You’re relentless, you know that?”
“I do,” she grinned. “And you’re bad at dodging questions, you know that?”
He sighed again. She was starting to like the sound, even if it was the sound of exasperation.
“I’m not dodging the question, it’s just not a very interesting answer. I grew up in a little town west of here, Springwood. It’s about half way up the mountains. We’ll drive through it today.”
“Springwood,” she repeated, rolling the name over her tongue. “Sounds pretty.”
“It is. Quiet, and surrounded by bushland.”
“How old were you when you left?”
“Fourteen. My ballet teacher, Miss Rosemary, had an old colleague who ran a summer intensive just for boys here in Sydney. She submitted an application for me without telling me or my parents, and I got in. Which isn’t as impressive as it sounds—they took just about anyone who applied, and there weren’t that many boys doing serious ballet back then. I think it’s changed now.”
“Right, now ballet isoverrunwith boys,” Carly replied sarcastically.
