Where Sea Meets Sky (37 page)

But there’s no time for me to get lost on that panic-induced train of thought. The instructor makes me shimmy over to the door, and before I know what’s going on, the air is blasting me in the face and the world is thousands of feet below me. I think he’s counting down.

It doesn’t matter.

My feet have gone over the edge.

I’m falling.

The only thing I can think about is how fast it feels, but my mind keeps telling me that I’m not falling at all, that I’m floating on a big cushion of air instead. Air is a lot more solid than you think. Up here, it’s tangible, something you can hug or even fuck, I think to myself, almost smiling. I’m fucking the air, fucking the earth, and then the parachute is expanding above us, yanking us upward, and the weird little world I’m living in is gone and replaced with one my mind can better comprehend.

My instructor tells me something that sounds like we’re at five thousand feet—I can’t really recall from the safety videos where we’re supposed to be when we pull the chute. Now the dizzying vertigo sets in as Lake Taupo and the white peaks of the surrounding volcanoes rush toward me. My brain feels blitzed out, short-circuited, and all thoughts shut down. I can only dangle in my harness as we slice through the air on the way to the ground.

I make it. And when I’m free from the harness, I run, stagger, to Gemma and scoop her up in my arms, embracing her, spinning her around like the sappiest little shit who ever fell in love. She giggles and laughs and her eyes are like a spear to my heart and her smile is the sweetest sword and I think to myself,
How can I possibly leave her, this place. How can I ever let her go?

So, I decide on a new plan.

I won’t let her go.

I’ll stay.

Chapter Twenty-One

GEMMA

Dawn creeps up on us like flaming fingers reaching through the night. I stand outside of Mr. Orange, leaning against his solid mass, and watch the sky light up in the east. We freedom-camped along some unnamed river in the Northland, aka illegally parked overnight somewhere to sleep. When we stopped by the river so Josh could take a leak, we decided we didn’t want to move. We’d be staying at my grandfather’s soon, and it would be nice to be truly alone. No family, no other caravans, just us.

But the solitude is gnawing at me. I woke up early, feeling restless, anxious. Out here, in the chill of fading night, I can breathe.

Just barely, though.

It’s New Year’s Eve tonight, which means it’s a whole new year tomorrow. Which means eleven days from now, Josh is leaving. I can’t even comprehend the loss right now, and it’s not because I’m numb. It’s because I’m feeling too much. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know where to place these feelings, how to deal with them. I want there to be a cage where they can stay and not cause anyone any trouble.

But I’m struggling against my instincts. If I did that, locked my feelings away, then I wouldn’t have anything for the here and now. I wouldn’t feel like my soul is constantly in bloom. Every day it keeps getting prettier, feeling better, growing, and part of me is afraid it might never stop. It’s infinite, like the tattoo on my neck, like the pendant on Josh’s necklace.

When that first sun rose over that deserted beach on the East Cape and my fingers captured that moment, that
feeling
—hazy, grand, messy, warm—I felt like my heart rose as well.

I was shining on the inside.

It’s all because of Josh. All because of this funny, sexy, handsome, generous, adorable man who knows my body better than I do, who sees the real me underneath the ice and isn’t afraid of her. Who believes in who I am and what I can do, more than I can believe it myself.

That morning he showed me what he saw in me, and it was beautiful.

That morning I realized I love him. Deeply, desperately, dangerously.

I am in love with Joshua Miles, and it’s bringing me to life.

It’s killing me.

It’s making me crazy.

I think I love that part, too.

It twists and loops around us, tying us to one another. It steals my thoughts and makes me think of him. It steals my hands and makes me touch his skin. It’s brutal and kind and sharp and soft and warm and cold and freeing and imprisoning. It’s an incognito imposter taking over my world, spreading itself like a disease.

It’s a million and one things, and it’s real to the bone.

It’s
in
my bones.

It’s love. And I have no idea what it’s going to do next.

I can only hope that I’ll have the strength to keep it in line.

I stand outside, lost in my thoughts until the black fades to blue and the sun spears my eyes. I hear Josh stirring inside the bus.

“Baby,” he calls out, voice hoarse with sleep. I’ve started to love it when he calls me that. He doesn’t say it often, but when he does it is
so
sincere I can’t help but melt.

“Yeah,” I answer, sliding open the door. He’s sitting up with a mess of hair and my eyes dance over his bare chest, his tattoos, his wide, expansive shoulders. I drink him in, my hands itching to touch him.

I step inside Mr. Orange and climb back into bed with him. Now that he’s awake, I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts. Now I can breathe. Now he can distract me.

I run my finger over his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, stopping at his cushiony lips when he playfully bites me.

“Last morning of the year,” he murmurs around my finger. “What are you doing up so early?”

I grin at him. “Trying to figure out how to make the last morning of the year . . . memorable.”

His expression turns cocksure. He raises his brow and looks me up and down. My breasts are practically falling out of the flimsy camisole. “Sweetheart, just you here like this is already making a memory I’ll fall back on again and again.”

“Calling me sweetheart again, are you?” I tease.

“Only because it makes you wet,” he answers with a knowing smirk.

He’s right of course. But in this case, I love it when he’s right.

I take his hand and guide it down the front of my underwear to prove his point. I don’t mind feeding his ego. He deserves it.

Morning sex is the absolute best. We’re both so sleepy and slow that it’s like lazily discovering a new day. My hands find their way to his rigid cock and stroke it languorously. He sucks on my nipples while his fingers explore me in and out. We tumble into the bed, rolling, reaching, quietly yearning. It’s a slow dance of tangled sheets and warm limbs and easy smiles. He guides himself into me, eyes half-closed, mouth wet and open. We kiss through our stupor. He fills me to the brim and I expand to let him in. Push and pull. Give and take.

In the mornings we take our time, relishing every lick, pinch, stroke, squeeze. When I come it’s through shaky breaths and hushed groans, like it’s a subtle surprise. He’s louder but softer, and there’s a moment where it’s so easy to just fall asleep all over again, with him still inside me, and have another morning when we wake.

But we always have places to go. I tear myself away from him, clean up, and slip into shorts and a singlet, pulling my hair back in a ponytail. Lately I’ve been going makeup free and he seems to love it, always counting the freckles on my nose.

Soon we’re hitting the road, stopping at a takeaway shop for coffees and sammies in the town of Whangarei and piloting toward my grandfather.

“Where are we going again?” Josh asks as he peruses a road map. “I mean, the name of the place.”

I eye it briefly. “It’s probably hard to find on the map. It’s up in the Bay of Islands, a place called Bland Bay.”

He snorts. “Bland Bay? How exciting.”

“It’s not so bland, you’ll see.”

Two hours later we’re coasting down a hill toward a small peninsula. On one side of us is the bay, with its beautiful crescent moon of white sand. On the other side of the narrow neck is the protected Whangaruru Harbour. There’s not much here except for a strip of road, a small store by the campground, and a scattering of holiday homes, all bordering the harbor.

My grandfather’s place, where he lives with Uncle Robbie and Aunt Shelley, is past the narrow isthmus and up a gravel road that takes you across a crop of rolling farmland to his house at the very end. It’s a large, isolated plot of land bordering the edge of the white-sand bay.

I put Mr. Orange in park beside my uncle’s car, an old, shiny Datsun. The house, a white, sprawling one-level, sits behind a row of spiky flax and ornamental wind grass. Two giant pōhutukawa trees, their flowers still a brilliant pinkish red, flank the house on one end.

“This is it,” I say. “End of the line.”

“Boring Bay,” he muses, taking in the wide green field rolling down to the beach.

“Bland Bay,” I correct him and get out of the bus.

The screen door to the house swings open and my Uncle Robbie comes out with his pit bull, Barker, at his side. My uncle looks as he always does—red baseball cap, hefty gut, barefoot. I have honestly never seen him in shoes.

“
Kia ora
, Gem!” he greets me, pulling me into a hearty embrace. He smells like lime and beer and aftershave, his usual combination. Barker sits at my feet and whines for me to pet him.

I do so, scratching the soft spots behind Barker’s floppy ears, and say, “Hey Uncle Robbie. Look what I brought with me; Mr. Orange and Mr. Josh Miles.”

My uncle fixes his twinkling eyes on Josh and goes over to him for a hug. “
Kia ora
, Josh Miles.”

“
Kia ora
, Mr. Uncle Robbie,” Josh says amiably as he’s squeezed into a bear hug.

Uncle Robbie pulls back to assess him and then slaps him hard on the back. “Aye, you’re a good mate.” Then he goes to Mr. Orange and for a moment I think he’s going to hug the bus but he just pounds his fist against a front tire. “Still in one piece.”

I exchange a look with Josh. He won’t be able to tell the window was replaced, and I really hope he doesn’t notice the lack of porn because that conversation would be embarrassing.

“Gemma!”

I turn around to see Auntie Shelley coming out of the house, wearing one of her signature long sarongs, her curly black hair blowing in the wind. She’s always had this ageless quality about her, and her cheeks have this rosy, freshly-scrubbed look.

She hugs me and tells me she missed me, even though I just saw her in November to get Mr. Orange. She looks over my shoulder at Josh, who is talking to Uncle Robbie about Mr. Orange.

I quickly introduce them and Auntie Shelley gives him a warm, and less boisterous, greeting than Uncle Robbie did.

“How are you liking the winterless north?” she asks him.

“Winterless north?” Josh repeats.

“It’s a right lie,” Uncle Robbie says. “In the winter it will piss buckets for weeks on end.”

Auntie Shelley narrows her eyes at his language. She’s always been a bit of a prude, a bit churchy and proper, while her husband is the complete opposite. But somehow it works.

We’re ushered inside and there’s my grandpa sitting down on his recliner, watching the telly. I have a rush of trepidation as we stand in the TV room, wondering if he’ll like Josh. My grandfather is lovely as all out, but he can be a bit hard to please, and for some reason I really want his approval. He’s like the last test Josh has to pass before he’s really welcomed into the Henare family.

And then what?
I think to myself. I tell my inner voice to shut up.

“Pops,” I say to him, and he slowly swivels around in his chair to face us. He’s not quite Dr. Evil and he’s not stroking a cat, but he’s got to be an intimidating sight for Josh. For one, he’s not smiling, and he’s a tall, massive man. His long gray hair is pulled off his weathered face into a ponytail and his eyes shine with suspicion. Two, he’s got the Maori
tā moko
tribal tattoos snaking up his neck and onto the sides of his face, making him look a bit primal.

Then again, Josh has ink everywhere.

“This is Josh,” I tell him, and my grandfather stares at him for a beat that seems to go on and on.

Josh stands his ground. “Mr. Henare.” He gives him a firm nod and then sticks out his hand.

My grandfather eyes his hand, eyes Josh, eyes his tattoos, and then looks at me. I can only smile.

“This your boy?” he asks me in a gruff voice.

Josh looks at me and I can tell he’s on edge; his hand starts to shake a little. I’m not sure how fast the news of Josh and I being “together” spread through the family, but apparently it was fast enough.

So I smile and nod. “Yes, he’s my boy.”

Well, man. Very much a man
. But I keep those thoughts to myself. I’m getting a bit flushed.

“And he treats you well?”

“He treats me far better than I deserve, Pops,” I say honestly. If only he knew.

“All right then,” he says and he rises powerfully out of the chair. He may have a bad knee, but his moments are so fluid you can barely tell he’s limping.

He grabs hold of Josh’s hand and pulls him toward him to do the
hongi
. They are both the exact same height and Josh holds his own as my grandfather presses his nose and forehead against his. They shake. My grandfather smiles. “We’re not always so formal with each other like this but welcome to the
whānau
.”

Josh smiles back. He’s learned by now that
whānau
means family.

Pops breaks away and looks at me. “He seems like a good egg,” he says. He appraises Josh. “So how have you been enjoying New Zealand? You showing her her own country and all that?”

“Well, actually,” Josh muses with a cheeky grin. “She’s been showing me.”

“Aye, Gemma’s calling the shots again, is she,” my grandfather says and goes to sit back down. “Pushy little thing.”

“Hey,” I protest, throwing an arm out to Josh. “You try taking him and my cousin around the islands. Talk about indecisive. If it wasn’t for me calling the shots, we would’ve been going around circles in Auckland this whole time.”

Josh laughs. “It’s true. I’m just along for the ride. And I’ve been loving it.” He gives me a knowing look. “And I managed to get her to go dolphin swimming and jump out of an airplane.”