It Started With A Kiss (4 page)

“
I had to get changed after
ballet.”

“
I’m glad you’re here,” he
said, grabbing hold of her hand and dragging her towards the double
doors of the theatre. “You can save me from Jessica. She’s being
annoying again.”

It was no secret the Jessica had a crush on
Nate. She followed him around like a puppy, even inviting herself
along when they went to the beach. Not that Jessica surfed. She was
a girlie girl. She sat on the sand in her sparkly bikini and
watched. She jumped up and down and applauded Nate’s prowess so
that her breasts jiggled. It was very distracting. One time, after
a particularly rigorous display, a couple of the boys fell off
their surfboards.

Georgie gave a giggle. “Nathan’s got a
girlfriend, Nathan’s got a girlfriend,” she teased.

“
Shut up. She’s not my
girlfriend. The only girlfriend I have is you.”

Georgie refrained from reminding him that she
hadn’t been his girlfriend since they got married in his wardrobe
when they were eight. They were mates.

“
You look pretty, by the
way,” he said, as they shuffled along the row to their seats. He
put the snacks down in between them. “That top looks
nice.”

“
It’s new.”

“
Well, it looks good. You
look good.” His cheery blue eyes glanced over her body before
coming to rest on her face. For some reason, Georgie felt herself
blushing.

“
Thank you.”

Then Nate’s focus moved to her lips and
Georgie reddened even more. So much for him not noticing the
lip-gloss. His eyes were stuck to it, like her lips were made of
Super Glue. Trying to concentrate on something, anything other than
the way he was looking at her, Georgie twisted at the garnet ring
he’d given her because he said it matched her eyes. She shoved her
hands between her knees, wiggling her legs up and down. He was
making her feel all weird inside. It was very uncomfortable.

“
Georgie?”

Georgie pretended to watch the previews that
had come up on the screen. “Hmm?”

“
Nothing.” Nate half-turned
towards the movie too, a queer look on his face. Then he blurted,
“Are you wearing lipstick?”

Geez, what was his problem? It was as if by
putting on a bit of make-up she’d transformed from best friend
Georgie to a new Georgie he’d never known existed and now he
couldn’t stop staring. But she hadn’t done it to make Nate notice
her. She’d only wanted to be like the other girls.

“
Is there something wrong
with that?”

Nate shrugged. “Nup. I like you better
without it, though. It makes you look like you ate too many toffee
apples. I like you better when you’ve just got out of the surf and
your hair’s all messy.”

So much for never commenting on her
looks.

“
And I like you better when
you’re not being an idiot. If you don’t cut it out, I’ll swap
places with Jessica and leave you to fight her off.”

“
You wouldn’t
dare.”

“
Watch me.” Half joking,
Georgie stood up in her place, waving to the girl further down the
row. “Hey, Jessica…”

Quicker than she could say popcorn, Nate
yanked her back into her seat. His expression was desperate.
“Alright, Alright. I didn’t mean it. Please, don’t leave. Don’t
make me sit next to Jessica. The way she looks at me is scary.”

Sort of like the way he’d been looking at her
a minute ago.

Georgie shook her head. Honestly, sometimes
Nate was clueless. He pretended to be cool and stuff but really, he
was clueless. “That’s because she’s hot for you, silly.”

Nate slunk down in his seat, giving a
sideways glance to where the other girl sat. “Well, I’m not hot for
her. She’s loud and her boobs are way too big.”

Georgie would lay bets that Nate hadn’t
shared that fact with any of his other friends. Chest size seemed
to be their main topic of conversation these days.

The movie started and the pair settled down.
Because the theatre was empty apart from the birthday party, there
was plenty of room to spread out so Georgie bent her long legs onto
the seat in front of her. Nate did the same and together they dug
into the huge bucket of popcorn and took alternate sips of the Coke
Nate had bought. Some of the other kids had paired off as soon as
the lights had dimmed and were sitting very close to each other but
not Georgie and Nate. They were just, well, Georgie and Nate, two
best friends.

As the opening credits appeared, Georgie felt
Nate sneeze and his shoulder rub against hers. It sounded like his
Hay Fever was playing up again. Nate suffered terribly in summer.
Only last week, he’d been to a doctor about getting his nostrils
desensitized but they wanted to wait till he finished growing.
Personally, Georgie hoped he didn’t grow another centimeter. He
already looked like a giraffe and he towered so far over her, she
needed a stepladder to look him in the eye. She turned to enquire
if he was okay but he was staring straight at the screen like it
hadn’t even happened. Deciding he was probably fine, she dug her
hand into the bucket of popcorn and did the same.

Then, Nate sneezed a second time. This time
his hand simultaneously came to rest on her bare knee. What was he
doing? He never touched her unless it was to punch her in the arm.
He’d given her a hug once when she got upset over that dog movie —
the dog had died — but as soon as she’d stopped crying he’d gone
back to normal. She watched, appalled as he lifted the armrest and
scrooched closer, his eyes never leaving the screen. A vein pumped
rapidly in the side of his neck. Clearly, something was up. This
wasn’t like Nate at all.

“
What’re you doing?” she
hissed, indicating the position of his body touching
hers.

“
Nothing.”

“
You have your hand on my
knee.”

“
I know. I thought it was
what you wanted me to do,” he whispered, so quietly she had to
practically put her ear to his mouth to hear him. His hand gave her
knee a cursory rub.

“
Why would you think
that?”

“
You’re wearing lipstick
and you bought a new top. Isn’t that what girls do when they want a
guy to notice them?”

And before she could think of an appropriate
come-back, Nate leant into her chest, and, pressing her back into
the red velvet of the seat, locked his lips with hers. They were
soft and warm and not at all what Georgie expected. Her body began
to quiver. Butterflies flew around in the pit of her stomach. The
bucket of popcorn fell into her lap and spilled between them.

“
Get off me!” she
screeched, her hands pushing against his chest. “Now.”

“
What? Why?”

“
What do you mean ‘why’?
You kissed me, you oaf.”

“
I thought you wanted me
to.”

“
Well, next time you decide
to use your brain, can you let me know first?” She bent down,
flicking bits of popcorn from her lap to the floor and examining
the splodges of butter on her front. “My top’s ruined. Mum’ll kill
me.”

“
Didn’t you like
it?”

Was he kidding?

“
That’s not the point.” How
would she know if she liked it, anyway? It had been over faster
than she could blink.

Pushing the armrest down between them,
Georgie flopped back in her seat. If this was the result of her
attempt to look more like a girl, she wouldn’t bother again. She
had no idea what prompted Nate to react the way he had. He’d never
shown that type of interest in her before. He was like her brother,
for Pete’s sake. It was disgusting. Sort of.

For the rest of the movie, Nate sat in stony
silence, his face grumpier than a bear without dinner. Usually
annoyingly talkative, especially in the serious parts, he refused
to engage with Georgie, even after she apologized for spilling the
popcorn and bought him a bag of Gummi Bears as a replacement.

Georgie sulked too. If this was how he was
going to behave for the rest of their lives, she would just give in
and let Jessica have him.

Chapter 5

They’d been sitting in the café for most of
the afternoon. Juices had progressed to coffee, food and then
alcohol. It was as if the twelve years they’d been apart had never
happened, except that it had. They knew nothing about what the
other had been doing. They’d never sought each other out on
Facebook or asked mutual acquaintances how they were doing. Since
Georgie and Nate broke up, in the summer when she was to leave and
go to University, they’d never spoken again. The only reminder of
their life long friendship was the ring Georgie wore, and the
picture Nate carried in his wallet. It was the way they’d believed
it should be — a clean break, a chance for each other to live their
life.

“
What’s been going on,
then?” Nate asked.

For the past hour they’d been talking about
old times but not a word had been uttered about the present. It was
almost as if they were too scared to open the box, in case it
contained something they didn’t want to know about.

“
Not a great deal.” Under
the table, Georgie felt Nate’s knee knocking against hers, as he
tapped his foot the way he used to when he was nervous. She smiled
a little to herself and fingered the rim of her glass. “I went to
Uni, got my degree. Then I did Honors and a Masters. I moved to
Sydney after that, got a job in this huge building firm, designing
interiors for show homes. I didn’t like it much. I didn’t like
being told how to be creative.”

“
You didn’t become a
vet?”

Georgie threw an incredulous look in Nate’s
direction. “And stick my hand up a cow’s bottom? No, thank you.
Once I got to Melbourne and started the course, I discovered it
wasn’t my thing. Architectural design was much more fun. And
cleaner.”

“
I never told you but I
couldn’t imagine you knee-deep in cow shit.”

How well he must have known her.

“
You were right. I think I
only chose it ‘cause Mum and Dad wanted me to. You get those ideas
in your head and they’re hard to dismiss, especially when you’re
young and you think your parents must be right. What about
you?”

“
I never became a fireman.
And Batman’s offsider didn’t have quite the same ring once I grew
up.”

“
But you looked so good in
tights.” Georgie smirked. “What did you end up doing?”

“
After the split, I bummed
around for a year or so, travelling. I told myself it was a gap
year but I think it was because I was trying to block you from my
mind by filling it with new experiences. I ended up in Bali,
working in a bar. I surfed all day and drank all night. I met lots
of pretty girls in bikinis but none of them held a candle to you.”
His face softened as he reached across the table to take her hand.
“I missed our trips to the beach and the fun we used to
have.”

“
Me too.”

“
Then the bombing happened.
That was a wake-up call. It gave me this urge to be at home with
the people who loved me.”

“
Wow. You weren’t hurt?”
Georgie knew a number of people who’d been directly affected by the
bombings in Bali. It had taken them ages to move on from
it.

“
I was okay but I knew
people in that bar. People who died. I couldn’t handle any more so
I came home, got my shit together and got a degree. Now I’m an
engineer. I fly in and out of South Africa, sometimes Mongolia.
It’s interesting and it pays well but it’s dangerous.”

“
Ever the
thrill-seeker.”

“
Isn’t that how life’s
meant to be?”

“
I almost got married,”
Georgie blurted, instantly wondering why she had. Nate didn’t need
to know stuff like that. It would only hurt him but in the whole
time they’d been apart that was the most outrageous thing she’d
almost done. She couldn’t think of one thing, other than dancing on
a table when drunk that would prove to him she was the same girl
she used to be. Being without Nate had dimmed the switch on her
enthusiasm for life.

Georgie looked down at Nate’s hand, covering
hers. That switch was definitely turned on now. It was firing
missiles through her body.

“
You’re kidding?” Nate
joked, letting out a laugh so loud, people at the other tables
turned to stare. “That’s the best you can do? I tell you I’m
basically the
Blood Diamond
guy and you say ‘I nearly got
married’?”

“
Well, he
was
a mobster. Big drug
lord. Huge amounts of cash. He got sent down for ten years so I
broke it off. I actually had to leave Sydney… if you know what I
mean.”

Nate sat up in his chair. “Jesus, Georgie,
how’d you get mixed up with someone like that? You always hated
drugs.”

“
I’m joking. As if I’d go
out with a drug lord. I wouldn’t even know where to find one. I was
engaged, though. His name was Matt. He worked for the same firm as
me in Sydney. He was very dashing. He looked a bit like
you.”

“
What happened?”

“
I caught him doing the
dirty on the kitchen bench after I got home early from a girls’
weekend. It was all very
Bridget
Jones
. Apparently, he had every woman in
the office, under the age of thirty, on some sort of speed dial
attached to his penis; I just refused to see it. I had no idea men
could play you like that.”