Max (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Max

I could have called her out on it. I
really wanted to, but then where would the fun in that be?

I could be a saint and look after Mel, keep
her from harm and fiercely look out for her virtue just like Bluey had
entrusted me with, but then there was a demented, sick part of me that wanted
to torture her for a bit, get back at her in some way. And I knew just exactly
how to do it. I wasn’t a fool, I noticed the way she changed around me, it was
more than just shyness. Christ, she knew me better than anyone around here but
I didn’t see her blushing or stammering around Chris or Adam. Nope, she was
only uncomfortable around me, except for that small moment we had shared
before, where for the briefest of time our resolves melted and we were lost in
the laughter of a shared joke. I had heard the sweet, carefree laughter, seen
the bright, perfect line of her smile. I had caught myself looking at her, like
really looking at the unhinged Mel, the one that was never present around me,
and I wanted to see it again, although my plans weren’t exactly going to evoke
those emotions in her. Not by a long shot.

She took a long swig of her drink, averting
her eyes from me; she looked really uncomfortable and I couldn’t pinpoint if it
was because we were now alone or that she was squirming over the missed call on
Amy’s phone. I didn’t plan to go straight for the jugular, some things you had
to be subtle about.

I left the door, making my way around the
long line of the main bar, flipping up the divider and moving behind, pulling
open the cool room door and grabbing another cruiser. Against her better
judgement, Mel watched on with a confused air about her as I untwisted the
bottle and set it down in front of her.

“I-I thought we were only allowed one staff
drink after work?” she stammered.

“Don’t worry about it, this one’s on me,” I
said.

Mel paused a moment, before tentatively
picking up the Cruiser. “Thanks,” she said, before lifting the bottle to her
mouth, which was already comically stained with red from the raspberry liquor.
It accentuated the plump lines of her mouth, and it had me suddenly wondering
if those tinged lips would feel as soft as they looked. I shook my head,
grabbing myself another beer before any other crazy thoughts popped into my
head.

Where the hell had that come from?

Placing my beer on the bar, I delved into
my pocket, setting down some gold coinage next to my pot. “Here,” I motioned to
Mel, “chuck on some music,” I said, walking around the bar.

Mel’s eyes lit up as if she had won lotto
or something. Wow, she really did lead a sheltered life. She hopped off her
stool, scooping up the money and making her way over to the flashing jukebox.

“Any requests?” she called over her
shoulder.

“Two-two-zero-one,” I said without having
to think.

Mel squinted at the screen. “About a girl,”
she read, before turning to me with an air of surprise. “Nirvana?”

“Yeah, so?” I defended.

“Nothing. Just didn’t pick you for the
kind, is all.”

I smiled, taking a sip of my beer. What did
Melanie Sheehan know of me, apart from a common link with our families, and
being neighbours all these years? She knew as much about me as I did about her,
and it had never occurred for me to want to know more. Then why the hell were
there a million questions circling in my mind and they were all about her?

What the hell? While insanity was reigning
supreme in my fucked-up head, I allowed my eyes to wander. Allowed my eyes to
take in the long line of her smooth legs that led up to her denim skirt, a skirt
that would prove to be a bit difficult to edge up over her hips if need be, but
the buttons of her black shirt would peel apart easily enough.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Snap out of it,
Henry.

I wanted to douse my thoughts in lighter
fuel; the last thing I wanted was to have a boner for a girl who was in
so
many ways off limits. I needed to distract myself, point out the most
infuriating aspects of her personality, her massive flaws in her character to
make me stay the course. I slid off my stool, making my way to stand next to
her at the jukebox, wondering what was taking so long to choose a song.

“Two-two-oh-four if you’re stuck.” I nodded
to the glass.

Mel’s eyes darted. “More Nirvana?”

“You don’t have to seem so surprised,” I
said with a laugh.

Mel shrugged, her attention fixed on the
flipping CDs as she pushed through the selections. “I just thought Nirvana is
what bad boys listened to.”

My smile fell away as I stared at her
profile. The pink flashing lights of the jukebox lit her exquisite bone
structure, and then she did the worst thing imaginable: she glanced up at me,
beneath those thick, long lashes. Her demeanour was cheeky, almost challenging
with her little smirk. I held her eyes with mine, boring into her big baby
blues.

“I can be bad,” I said lowly, without an
ounce of humour. Mel’s smile slowly fell as her gaze darted across my face
almost like she was trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

I stepped closer to her, causing her to
crane her neck up to look at me. I thought she might have stepped away a little
but she stood her ground. I thought she might have turned a deeper shade of red
but she didn’t; she simply stared back into my eyes, a new air of confidence
about her that only made me want her all the more.

Fuck my fucking thoughts.

Then something bad happened. She smiled.
Smiled that fucking irresistible smile and I did everything in my power to make
sure my breaths were even, to remain cool and calm standing so near her,
feeling the heat of her, the smell of her all leading to my rambling thoughts
of wondering what she might taste like.

Raspberry.

Mel shook her head slightly. “No, you’re a
good guy, you’ve always been a good guy,” she said, with a knowing smirk.

I breathed out a laugh; she had no idea. No
idea how many times I had fucked a girl against a wall, or pressed up against
this very jukebox as I whispered dirty promises into her ear. I wasn’t like one
of those boorish, dusty pricks from Ballan with weathered skin beyond their
young years, who would no doubt die virgins while they followed their daddies
on the farm. I wanted more—needed more—and maybe Miranda and I had been spoilt
with the opportunity to do the one thing many kids from Ballan didn’t get to do
… leave. I recognised the same affliction in Mel’s life: tied to the land, tied
to obligation, to her dad who was no doubt using the accident as some excuse to
keep his only child, his only daughter near and dear to him. This week to Mel
would be a chance at freedom like she had never known before. Had she even been
with a bloke before? I couldn’t imagine there being a real chance in the likes
of Ballan—no wonder she had to make up a boyfriend. For the first time I saw it
for what it was: just like Miranda and Mel had lied about that night, sneaking
out, drinking having fun, it was all just a chance to escape, escape the
everyday grind of their not-so-enthralling lives. I got that. I had been there.
I recognised the same desperation in Mel, it was like a fucking eureka moment
of epic proportions. Now instead of deliberately taunting her, I felt the need
to liberate her, give her a taste of freedom in the dying days the likes of
which she had never known. But I wasn’t completely naive to think I wasn’t
giving myself the permission to do the very thing I had wanted to do.

“Would you think me bad if I said I wanted
to kiss you?” I asked, my eyes firmly set on watching hers. Mel’s eyes widened
and I could so subtly see the physical hitch in her breath that made me smile.

Her eyes ticked over my face in a long
moment seeing if I was telling the truth, but as I hedged closer and lifted my
hand to brush the back of my fingers against her cheek, she finally blinked
back into the present and stepped back in a panic.

“Goodnight!” she shouted as she ran through
the bar and disappeared through the restaurant partition.

Fuck! I was seriously out of practice. What
the hell had I been thinking? Had I read her completely wrong?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mel

I was in danger of wearing a track in
the floor of my room.

I woke groggily after a mostly sleepless
night, with what had nearly happened between Max and me playing on a constant
torturous loop in my mind. Max wanted to kiss me; he was going to kiss me. And
what did I do? Ran like a freakin’ screaming virgin up the stairs. Okay, so I
was a virgin. Still, I didn’t want him to know that. As far as I was concerned,
I wanted him to think of me as this worldly woman who had lots and lots of sex,
especially with my boyfriend. Boyfriend. He had still wanted to kiss me even
thinking I had a boyfriend. Any such behaviour usually had me thinking less of
someone with no morals, but deep down I knew, or rather suspected, he doubted
Ben’s existence, and then my paranoid mind wondered if last night was a test?
If I kissed him it would only prove that Ben was a lie.

If
he kissed
me, I wanted it to be for the right reasons, because he wanted to, not because
he was aiming to catch me out. He tried as much sneakily listening into the
kitchen, and redialling the phone after I had used it. No, if one thing was for
sure he must never know the truth, he must never know about me making Ben up.

“Oh God, do you think he’s onto us?” I
asked, biting my thumb and feeling as if the pit of my stomach was going to
give way at any moment.

Amy sat in the middle of my bed. I had given
her the rundown from last night of which she was absolutely delighted about.

“Relax, we got this,” Amy reassured.

It didn’t help.

“You saw the look on his face when he told
you about redialling the phone; he knows about it, I have no doubt,” I rambled
on.

“So what if he does? Great. It just means
you guys can get it ON if you want to.”

It wasn’t as simple as that. Beyond
anything, I didn’t want Max to think of me as a liar. Everyone already had
pegged me as that—my dad had sure as hell reminded me about it every day since
that night—and the last person in the world I wanted to look at me with that
judgement was Max.

“I really don’t want him to find out,” I
said.

“He is not going to find out.”

I stilled. “How do you know?” I snapped.

Amy smiled broadly. “Because, my dear, I
have a very cunning plan B.”

“Plan B? What plan B? I don’t know anything
about plan B.”

Amy sighed, stretching her neck back and
looking up at the heavens as if summoning the gods to give her strength. “That’s
because I have only just put it into place.”

“WHAT?” My eyes widened. “What have you
done?”

“Oh, wow, don’t be thankful or anything,
like geez, Amy, thanks for throwing Max off the scent of impending discovery.”

I felt my chest tighten. Fear did all sorts
of things, and this was surely going to have my heart stop.

Again, I breathed in calmly before
repeating myself. “Amy, what have you done?”

Amy didn’t appear to be so confident now,
evident by how she shifted slightly. “Well, I might have innocently mentioned
something to Melba,” she said.

“Melba?” I said, confused. “What has Melba
got to do with any of this?”

“I may have made mention of something I
wanted to get back to Max.” She picked at the frayed edge of the doona in
innocent wonder.

Oh God.

“Because if there is one person that can’t
keep a secret, it’s Melba.”

I swallowed, my heart drumming deafening
beats in my ears. “What could you have possibly wanted to get back to Max?” I
was that stressed, I could barely get the words out.

Amy grimaced. Grimacing was bad, very bad,
and then when she finally spoke it was even worse.

“I may have alluded to the fact you needed
some time off tonight because your boyfriend was coming to Onslow to visit you.”

Whaaaaaaaat?

“W-why would you do that?”

I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

“Don’t worry, we can make it work,” she
added.

“Amy, if you make mention of hiring a male
gigolo, I swear to God,” I warned.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “They
would have to come from Maitland, and we couldn’t afford that.”

“That is not funny,” I gritted.

“Oh, lighten up, this will really throw him
off the trail of suspicion.”

“There is one vital flaw in your ingenious
plan though.”

Amy curved her brow at me.

“You see, the thing is … I don’t have a
fucking boyfriend, so it’s going to make it a little difficult to pull this one
off, don’t you think?” I shouted.

Amy merely laughed. “Oh, ye of little
faith.”

***

I didn’t know exactly what the grand master
plan was, but we both knew that it wouldn’t take long for the rumour to
circulate regarding the visitation of Ben Erickson. This was perhaps the
biggest problem of all, not getting a chance to circumnavigate the lie and cut
it off at the pass.

“Think of it this way, you can ask Melba if
it’s okay to knock off early so you can go meet up with Ben,” said Amy.

“And what? I go and hide under a bed for an
hour?”

“Okay, maybe I need to map out the plans a
bit better.” Amy tucked her legs into a criss-crossed position on my bed. “I
have given this a lot of thought, and if you want to get Max’s attention, there
are a few things we have to do.”

“You mean I have to do.”

“With my help.”

“Okay, so plan B is fake visit from fake
boyfriend.” I counted on my finger.

“That’s the initial step, but the main
focus of plan B is evidence.” Amy’s eyes were wild with excitement.

“Evidence?”

“We need to provide proof that Ben exists,
wiping out any doubt in anyone’s mind that you indeed very much have a
boyfriend.”

“W-what kind of evidence?”

“Back to that later.” Amy waved away my
question. “Now, Plan C, and you’ll love this.”

Oh God.

“Plan C sees you having this massive fight
with Ben. There will be drama and tears, and much consoling needed … cue Max to
the rescue to a suddenly single Mel … perfect!”

I was failing to share Amy’s enthusiasm.

“This sounds like the makings of a bad
rom-com.”

“Listen, I grew up in this place and I have
seen all sorts of goings on in the shadows with all sorts of people. Nothing is
impossible.”

I sighed; my head was beginning to pound as
I tried to remember the difference between Plan B and C, wondering what had
been A and God forbid there was going to be a D.

“So what is my first point of call?” I
asked, resigning myself to the fact Amy was like a dog with a bone—she was
never going to let this rest. There really was something to be said about
small-town boredom.

Amy squealed, clapping her hands. “Okay,
first things first. Ask Melba for an hour off so you can go meet up with your
boyfriend, use tears if you have to, but you need to get out of this pub.”

“Okay.” I was beginning to slowly get
engaged in Amy’s enthusiasm.

“Then head upstairs and meet me on the back
fire escape. I’m not working tonight so I’ll be sure to be there.”

“Right.” I nodded, feeling convinced, until
I suddenly realised I didn’t know what about. “And then what?” I said,
confusion lining my face.

“Plan B initiated … evidence.”

“But what kind—”

Amy held up her hand. “No questions, just
trust me. Get that hour off and all will be revealed,” she said, scooting off
the bed and heading for the door. “Oh, and one last thing: make yourself look
like you might actually be meeting your boyfriend; you know, maybe put on some
lippy or something, and a bit of blush.”

“Well, that might be a bit tricky,
considering I have brought a toothbrush, hair brush and deodorant as my
supplies.”

Amy simply shook her head. “Such a country
bumpkin.”

“Hey, Amy.”

She sighed, doubling back. “Yes, Melanie?”

“Why couldn’t we just have a simple fight
and say we broke up?”

Amy rolled her eyes. “You are such a
novice. Do you want Max to actually believe you?” she asked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then trust me, stick to the plan.”