Page 22 of Lost in the Current of You

It was like a magnet was pulling us together. I didn’t realise we had taken a step towards each other until he tucked a blonde flyaway piece of hair behind my ear and whispered words that only I could hear. “I wish I didn’t have to leave either. This is the most I’ve enjoyed life in a really long time. And I don’t think that would have been possible without you.”

He stepped closer and I felt his breath dance across my lips. His hand was holding the back of my neck with his thumb sweeping across my jaw and I felt weakened by his touch.

I had thought about how it would feel to have his lips on mine a lot since I met him, but never did I think it would become real. Because it was him and I. And I was one of his friends' sisters and one of his best friends’ exes. Not a good mix for any fantasy I’d had of the possibility of us.

“Reece.” My words came out as a breath and sounded like a mix of a plea and warning. A ‘please’ and a ‘don’t start something you’ll regret’.

But even I could hear the plea louder than the warning, and I think he could too because his eyes darkened. So many emotions swirled in his eyes that I couldn’t even pick one.

“Kody,” he whispered back.

Our breaths mixed and I was consumed in the moment.

Then the spell was broken, the speakerphone of the boat crackling to life, announcing the end of the night and to prepare to disembark from the boat. I jumped away from him, blinking out of the daze I had been in. It was like glass shattered and the fog disappeared, making me realise the people around us, my friend's mere metres away, but none were paying attention.

It seemed to click for him, too because he was frowning as he combed his fingers through his hair, lacing them behind his neck as he stepped away from me.

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and cleared his throat, not meeting my eyes. “I should get back to Jake and Sage.”

I nodded as I swallowed, feeling everything we just said about not wanting to leave here fray apart. Because we couldn’t wait to get away from the tension we had created in our desperate need to cling to this time.

He turned and left down the stairs without another word, and I tilted my head back, closing my eyes and wishing I could dive into the water and sink until no one could hear me scream.

Because somehow I always happen to mess up every good thing in my life.

8

We flew home noon the next day, the bliss of the week officially over. I was slightly anxious to return home, knowing my mother would call the second the plane touched down.

I wasn’t ready to talk to her, knowing it would be focused on my next steps in life, plans and future goals, and all the things I was scared to think about. But, I knew I couldn’t avoid it. I had expected it. She allowed me to go on this trip so long as I met with her to talk about my future after I came back.

She was scared of me having no plan. I was scared of having a plan.

After the boat party ended, Avery, Alex, and I went straight to the hotel and fell asleep. I checked my phone on the way back, and it lit up with several texts from my mother, reminding me of her agreement and to call her tomorrow. I didn’t bother replying, I knew she would call regardless.

My brother also texted me to let me know he was coming to pick me up from the airport instead of Dad, so I flicked him the details of my flight.

Reece and his friends had the same flight back as us, but it was awkward as hell. The moment his eyes met mine when we arrived at the gate, I could feel the tension strain between us. There wasn’t time for us to talk, and even if there was, I didn’t know what I would say. But the distance ate at me.

I was building courage to talk to him as soon as we got out of the loud airport, but my chance fizzled out when Nate was there waiting for me. Leaning against his 4x4 ute, a smug grin stretched across his cheeks as he held a sign against his chest with ‘Kodaline’ scrawled across it, an inside joke of ours. I rolled my eyes as my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

He dropped the sign when his eyes rose to the boys standing behind me, and surprise flickered across his face. I was long forgotten in his mind when he reunited with Reece.

“Dude!” Nate walked past me and clapped Reece on the back. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you went to the Goldie? What happened to that?” He peppered question after question before moving on to greet Jake and Sage the same.

Nate turned back to Reece for his final question. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Reece’s gaze flicked to mine momentarily before focusing back on my brother as he shrugged. “Guess I forgot.”

Nate slugged Reece on the shoulder before he started chatting away about Townsville, and all the things he’s done. I could slowly feel the distance between Reece and me stretch with every second. The acknowledgement of my brother being his friend. The realisation that whatever had begun on our week away, will never be the same back home. The realisation of how caught up we were when his head tilted towards mine the night before like he was going to kiss me.

While my brother talked animatedly to Jake and Sage, Reece’s gaze travelled over my brother's shoulder to where I stood by Nate’s ute. I was too far away to read anything by it, but I could still feel the heat of them from this distance. With our gaze locked, everything faded away around us, Alex and Avery’s bickering turning into a muffled echo. It was like we were taking in the last moments of that holiday fog as it dwindled away.

“Alright,” Nate announced, snapping me from the daze as he started walking back to me. He wrapped me in his arms as his first greeting to me before turning back to his friends, keeping an arm over my shoulder. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, then. Make sure you put on a good performance for me. I expect greatness.”

Jake pointed to me. “You better be there, too, Dakota. I want the whole cheering squad there shouting my name.”

I smirked as Sage rolled his eyes beside him.

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