Page 11 of Wish You Weren't Here
‘Oh, I bet,’ I reply. ‘You would be too powerful if you had that going for you now. An Aussie accent and I might’ve said yes to going back to your hotel…’
‘Oh, really?’ he replies.
I don’t want to say that interacting with my family has egged me on – like, if they think I’m out having fun then I may as well be – but it did give me a moment to pause and rethink my decision. When something worth grabbing is on offer do I want to be the kind of person who plays it safe, or do I want to be the kind of person who says yes?
‘Yes.’
‘Fair dinkum,’ he says with a grin, as he slips back into the accent. ‘Let’s stop carrying on like a couple of pork chops and head off.’
I should probably find this ridiculous, but I don’t. I’m way into it. In fact, his silly, jokey accent is the reason I practically throw myself at him, our lips meeting again with a force that leaves me breathless.
‘The Calls, you say?’ I check between kisses, my heart racing.
‘Yeah,’ he replies, taking my hand.
‘That’s not far,’ I say, dragging him in the right direction. ‘This way.’
It’s only supposed to be a short walk, but it feels like a marathon when we keep stopping to kiss every few steps – under the train arches, in the courtyard outside the Marriott. At one point, a group of friendly drag queens even cheers us on as Ethan presses me against the wall of Viaduct Showbar, the heat between us building with every touch.
With the hotel almost in our sights, we manage to tear ourselves apart for long enough to make it there, and I’m even more relieved when he leads me to his ground-floor room, because the thought of being inside a small lift (even for less than a minute) with him feels like it might be too much to take.
Ethan unlocks his room and leads me inside. Bizarrely, now that we’re in here together with the door locked and no audience,there’s a bit of distance between us. I’m almost enjoying it, the anticipation, the wondering about what’s going to happen next…
Ethan approaches me slowly and drops to his knees in front of me. Wondering what he’s going to do makes my knees feel weak – like, literally weak, like I need to sit down, and with his face being just inches from my body there are no prizes for guessing what I have in mind.
He doesn’t touch me though, he reaches behind me, into the minibar. Eventually he returns to eye level with a bottle of champagne in his hand.
‘Drink?’ he suggests.
‘Sounds great,’ I reply.
I watch him as he fusses with the bottle for a second. Yes, I want a drink, but I want him even more.
I throw myself at him again, the two of us snapping together magnetically, knocking the (thankfully unopened) bottle from his hand. We kiss, only for a few seconds, before parting again.
Ethan picks up the bottle and goes to remove the cork. I want to tell him to stop but my drunken reflexes aren’t up to it. The words don’t come out in time and as he pulls the cork away the champagne erupts from the bottle, spraying us both.
‘Bathroom,’ I tell him quickly, noticing the open door behind him.
Ethan runs into the bathroom and steps into the large shower. The champagne is showing no signs of stopping so Ethan just holds it helplessly, laughing wildly at the ridiculousness of it all.
I’m soaking wet so I step into the shower with him. I lean over the bottle and drink from it, like it’s a garden hose on a hot day.
This just makes Ethan laugh even harder.
‘No point wasting it,’ I point out.
‘Fair enough,’ he replies, but as he goes to drink from the fountain it quickly dies down to nothing.
‘Ah, tough luck,’ I say with a pout. ‘It really does taste better, from anything but a glass.’
Ethan licks his lips. I would imagine they’re like mine – and the rest of my body – which is seriously sticky.
‘Oh, well, I can think of a way to test that,’ he says.
He leans forward and starts kissing my neck, slowly working his way down until he’s practically licking the champagne from my chest.
‘Mmm, you might be right,’ he tells me.
