Page 79 of Meet You in the Waves
“Okay,baby. Then hear me when I say this. I give in. I surrender everything to you. I’m coming back with you to Sydney. I can’t give you up. I need you. I need this.”
I heard his words, heard them pulsing inside me and inching their way into my mind and my heart. But his dick was still inside me which meant only one part of my brain was still functioning so I hauled myself off him while Nick dropped his head to the seat rest behind him.
“Ajay,” he sighed. “Baby. I mean it. Now that I’ve had you I don’t think I can live without you.”
“I know. I feel the same,” I returned, still sucking in air to my depleted lungs. “But you can’t move to Sydney, Nick. Not yet.
“I need to. I need you, Ajay.”
“You have, like, eleven months to go on your apprenticeship,” I pointed out. “You can’t walk away right at the pointy end.”
“I don’t care. I’ll get a job at your coffee shop. I’ll do anything to be with you.”
“I want that too,” I told him, taking his hand and entwining our fingers together, liking the way they slotted like that. His hand was larger than mine and so solid and firm. Skilful and strong. Safe. “But you’re finishing your apprenticeship first. I won’t let you walk away from that. Okay? It’s only eleven months.”
Nick glanced at me, sadness in those piercing blue eyes that were sparkling in the full summer sun, as blue as the water reflecting back at us as far as the eye could see. It was nothing but blue all around me. An assault of blue.
“Okay,” he finally conceded.
The words held no joy for me but I knew it was the right thing to do. Probably for the both of us. I was still finding my feet in Sydney as it was and I knew this relationship could consume us both if we let it. Time had always hung like a heavy weight around our summer together and I knew we had more than used it to the best of our abilities. It was like a relationship on steroids at this point – days on end spent up in each other, nights entwined together, no responsibilities, no real life pokingits way in where it was not wanted. It could probably do with a little calming down. A little dose of reality.
“We’ll make time for each other whenever we can,” I promised him. “I’ll spend all my uni breaks down here with you. Sleeping in your bed instead of the guest room. As your boyfriend instead of Dane’s best friend, though I’ll still be that too. And we’ll have dates at Paddy’s and the ice cream shop in town and we’ll surf every morning and you can bring me out on the boat and we can make love five times a day to make up for all the time apart.”
“Ten times a day,” he returned, bottom lip jutting out.
“Sure. Ten times a day,” I grinned, reaching out to nip on that pouty lip.
“And there will be lots of phone sex.”
“I can agree to that too,” I grinned.
“I’ll drive up to see you whenever I can,” he added, pulling my knuckles to his mouth and kissing each one of them in turn. “Maybe you could catch the train to Wollongong some weekends and we’ll meet half way?”
“A dirty weekend in Wollongong, huh?” I laughed. “Yeah, we can do that too, Nicky.”
He pulled me back onto his lap, his hands threading my curls and I rested my head against his warm chest as the day ticked ever closer towards its end. My last day with him. My last day of the most perfect summer I had ever had when I had accidentally found myself on the South Coast, meeting my best friend’s brother in the waves and unexpectedly falling head over heels and inside out in love. With him.
My Nicky.
CHAPTER 27
epilogue 1 – nick
10 months later
Iwas late. I hated being late for Ajay. Time was the most precious of commodities in our world and I hated to lose even a single second with him. I was more than a little desperate and anxious to be with him, with my boy. My Ajay. Who I hadn’t seen in over three long, long weeks for one stupid reason or another. It was the longest time we’d gone without any physical contact since last summer.
To say I was desperate to kiss his pouty, pink lips and sink into his tight, hot body was quite rightly the understatement of the year.
I had excellent reason for being late but any minute late was too long of a delay to being with Ajay. I missed him every single morning we were apart. Felt his absence every time I woke for a morning surf. Missed his body heat every time I climbed into my empty bed at night. Missed his body for all the other reasons I loved so much about him, his touch and his lips and his kisses. Running my hands through his curls.
Long distance relationships were hard. They were hard every time he left. Every goodbye and even every hello was hardbecause each hello just brought its own countdown to our hours together.
I had four weeks left to go on my apprenticeship. Four more weeks until Brad signed me off and I was a fully qualified carpenter. The building market was crying out for qualified carpenters like me. I knew I would be able to walk into any job in any city in the country.
There was only one city I wanted to be in. And that was whichever one Ajay was in.
Last weekend I’d had another mandatory occupational hazard training course that Brad would not let me get out of even when I’d begged. It was the last one available for the year and he wouldn’t have been able to sign me off if I didn’t attend. I’d almost thought it would be worth missing it but in the end Ajay had scolded me into going. Said he wouldn’t see me even if I did stupidly miss my training course.
