“Good girl,” Mum said proudly. “Say hi for us.”
“Yep. Will do.”
I hurried out, ran across our back lawn as fast as my body would allow me, squeezed through the fence and ran straight to Zane’s backdoor. I didn’t even hesitate to stick my key in the lock and pull the door open.
“What’s the emergency?” I cried as I slid in.
Zane looked at me over piles of wrapping paper and ribbons on their dining table. His eyes darted down and back to me like it was obvious. “Help!”
I frowned and took it all in. “Present wrapping warrants an SOS now?”
He shrugged. “Eden’s gonna be home any minute and Mum wants all this packed away.”
Because Eden totally wasn’t expecting any presents for her twenty-first. Cue eye-roll.
I flailed my arms. “So? Wrap her present, then.” I didn’t see what the problem was.
“I would…” he started, batting his eyes and using that wheedling tone of voice.
“What do you want?” I asked, suspicious for a very good reason.
“I want one of those bows you do.”
“A bow?” I asked, disbelieving him. “You sent me an SOS, all caps ‘not a drill’, for a freaking bow?”
He batted his eyes, clasping his arms in front of his body. “You wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course, I would have! I just might not have raced over here at what counts for warp speed in this body.”
“For what?”
“Never mind. You want a bow?”
He nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Dude, I thought someone was dead.”
He shrugged with a grin. “That’s not my bad.”
“That is totally your bad. You can’t just SOS me like that and have me thinking it’s not something disastrous!”
“Chill out, Char. It was just a text.”
I grunted in frustration. “Can you at least agree that SOSes should be reserved for actual emergencies?”
“Okay. Fine. I agree. And I promise I will only use an SOS for real proper emergencies in future.”
“You said that last time.”
“I know. But I extra, double promise this time.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“A question.”
“Oh, my God. What?”
“Do only deaths count as emergencies?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t even with you. How about you just do you and I’ll learn to ask more questions?” I asked, exhausted with him already.
“Okay. Now. Bow…?”
“You could at least say please,” I said as I wandered over.
“I technically already did.”
“You too good for more than one?” I asked him.
He gave me one of those grins that he thought was adorable and would get him out of any sort of trouble. He was, annoyingly, semi-right.
“Where even is the present under all this mess?” I asked him.
I recognised almost every sheet of wrapping paper on the table. There was at least thirteen years’ worth of paper here. Almost every roll bought for one purpose and then never used again. Except for when Zane was in charge of wrapping his own gifts. Then he’d scrounge around and find the closest thing he could that worked.
His parents had obviously already wrapped their gift for Eden because Zane dug around and eventually unearthed a present covered in ‘Happy 21st birthday’ paper.
“Here!” he cried triumphantly.
“You didn’t want to leave some of the tape on the roll?” I asked sarcastically.
“I didn’t want the edges to get caught.”
I nodded, but was already looking for some ribbon to go with the paper. When I finally found some, I measured it to size.
“Where’s the stapler?”
“I don’t have it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where it is. Can’t you just do it with the thing and the sticky tape?”
I glared at him. Knowing him, it would take me less time to put it together his way than it would take him to find a stapler.
“Fine.”
As I got to work, Zane sat on one of the dining chairs, putting his feet up on the table, and watched me work. I let that go…for a short time.
I sighed as I struggled with the ribbon. “The least you could do is be helpful. Come and put your finger here for me.”
Zane obligingly stepped up and held the piece of ribbon down for me while I tried to mould the other bit.
“What are you going to do when we don’t live over each other’s back fence?” I asked, meaning it entirely rhetorical.
But he answered, without missing a beat, “Come next door and ask for your help.”
I looked up and realised he was closer than I’d expected. Which was surprising because his shoulder was bumping mine so I should have known he was that close.
There was no panic as I looked into his eyes. I was warm and my palms got a little sweaty, my mouth was a little dry, but I was calm. The heartbeat thudding in my chest was slow and steady. It was anticipatory, but ready.
“We’re not always going to live next door to each other,” I said softly.
“Yes. We are.”
I smiled involuntarily at his total certainty. “We’re not.”
“Why not?”
“Reality aside, because I’m not going to be at your beck and call for the rest of my life.” I kept my voice soft, light. I wasn’t making an argument, even a sardonic one.
A smile lit his grey eyes and they shone. “Don’t think of it as beck and call. Think of it as…”
“The closest to a live-in house keeper you can manage?”
His lips blossomed into a full smile. “I was gonna go with a close conscience, but yours is just as good.”
“Oh, it is?”
“It is.”
We were already really close. Many would say too close. Suggestively close. I felt myself lick my lips. Zane’s eyes darted down and back to mine. There was something soft in his eyes, something I felt deep in me. Something in me that recognised it and returned it. It was a lifetime of friendship. A lifetime of understanding. A lifetime behind and ahead of us.
Our faces were getting closer and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it. My heart fluttered wildly, but there were no warning bells.
“Eden’s going to walk in that door any second, Zane,” his mum chastised as she walked in. “Have you…? Oh, Charley.”
I looked at Zane for a moment more, then smiled at her. “Hey, Claudia.”
She smiled back warmly. “Lovely to see you. You staying for dinner, darling?”
I shook my head. “Just helping Zane with his bow.”
“You do make such lovely bows. Thank you.”
I shrugged, feeling my cheeks blush. “All good.”