‘We barely know each other,’ I repeat, his hand gripping harder on the chair between my legs, which are trembling now. None of this is what I had imagined. If it had felt dangerous having his gentle warmth near my wounds, now that the urgent heat of his obvious desire is this close to mine, I can barely take it.
‘Allow me to reintroduce myself, Audrey Sullivan,’ he says, voice low, chest rising and falling as he waits for my word. This is a hundred times hotter than I thought a science nerd could orchestrate, and my pulse is thundering now, the seconds blaring, every nerve ending screaming at his proximity.
‘Is this some sort of elevated, articulate request for consent?’ I ask, my breath quickening.
Dark eyes flash as they meet mine. ‘Is it approved?’
My lips brush his mouth in a kiss that starts gently and deepens quickly into the promise of something confident and assured. He lets go of the chair, hands travelling to my waist before he scoops me across his lap, scaffolding me as hedismantlesme—my anchored past, all the bad dates and failed relationships trying to hold me back from this bliss until the rope snaps and I’m drifting, untethered, into a rapid new current.
It’s all soft touches and firm intention, as if he’s never done this before and done it a thousand times. Cinnamon between our lips, fingers cradling my neck, thumb at the thrashing pulse beneath my ear, he whispers a redundant ‘May I?’ as fabric falls from my shoulder and he plants a line of kisses that feel like they’re being scorched onto my skin.
He may.Anything. Everything. All thought leaves my brain as my senses take over, back arching, hips sliding towards his,body angling to give him everything. Then, as the mess of my life collapses, long-forgotten music surges into my brain, clamouring for air as he touches me.
‘It was the second you dumped that ice at the party,’ he whispers between fevered kisses, one hand threaded through my hair, the other at my hip, under my top.
I drag up his singlet, palms trailing over the sculpted muscles of his chest as I pull it over his head and off his shoulders onto the floor. ‘It was your keynote address in Toronto for me …’
He pulls us apart, laughing.
‘What, you think you’re the only one who’s good at research?’ I challenge him.
And that’s it. In this moment, in his eyes, I am his match. It’s all music in my mind—his body and mine, sounds and colours I couldn’t speak into words if I tried.
When we finally break apart, we’re left with just our ragged breaths and the reliable ticking of Fraser’s watch. That, and the inevitable future that rolls out spectacularly in our path like a carpet.
THE MIDDLE
14
FRASER
‘You and Audrey should take the tickets,’ I tell Maggie. There’s a strict two-tickets-per-family policy at Parker’s scholarship concert, which presents the three of us with an awkward problem. ‘She’s spent the last six months preparing Parker for this. I’ve heard nearly every practice. You two should go.’
Maggie and I are at a playground with Parker, having ‘family time’. Her theory is that if we do this now, it will normalise shared birthdays and Christmases and Parker’s wedding and the grandchildren’s naming ceremonies. But now that I’ve mentioned Audrey, she looks like she’s at an awards ceremony, camera zoomed on her face while another nominee’s name is announced as the winner.
Parker is at the top of a zipline, waving at us.Nothing to see here. Just Mum and Dad about to rip through another swing of the split-family gauntlet.
‘Can’t Audrey get a ticket herself as the piano teacher?’
‘Come on, Maggie. You know she’s more than that.’
She shoots me the expression she’s been wearing since the moment I delivered the certainty she was craving:You were right, Mags. Thereissomething there …
Perhaps I shouldn’t have understated things, but I was still reeling. Swept into a relationship without my usual full battery of controlled tests and a thoroughly examined hypothesis.
‘It’s serious,’ I tell Maggie. What it is, is a chaotic, out-of-character, electric, tumbling freefall, and I need to restrain that joy during this conversation.
‘Serious?’ Maggie parrots, as if she’s lost her own vocabulary and can only recycle mine. I watch as she grapples with the idea that her ex-husband might have a second chance at romantic happiness and that it’s not the flash in the pan she predicted. ‘Fraser, it takes youagesto fall in love.’
We stare at each other, her statement cocooned from the noise of the playground while the truth lands.
It’s true that our relationship was more of a slow burn, a cautious start. But Audrey makes me rush to the water’s edge. I don’t care about doing this right or waiting for a sensible amount of time to elapse before I plunge towards her. I want her to crash into my life. I want her to rip up all the stones I paved so carefully and change the landscape of everything.
‘Mummy! Daddy! Look!’
We smile and clap and yell ‘Great job, Parks!’ hoping she won’t tumble off the monkey bars and break her wrists before the concert. I wouldn’t say this to Maggie, given psychology is generally her turf, but after Audrey found an article about the link between playground bravery and performance risks, part of our daughter’s rapid musical development has been the result of the two of them dangling from tree branches and diving from platforms while I keep my eyes shut.
Maggie’s inner authoritarian was always going to be threatened by the concept of another woman making micro-decisions about Parker’s life.Does she have permission to watch a PG-rated movie in class? Is she tall enough for the roller coaster?
