Chapter 63

Well.

I had put it out there in the universe with certainty and confidence and I knew I couldn’t take my words back. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to.

Almost every night we shared together in his bed left me tempted to make a move on him, to let him know that I thought I was ready. I knew that if I could push myself through the initial panic of being in an intimate situation with him, then the circumstances and his presence would keep any fears or trauma’s that I had aside.

Raia had suggested I share with Michael that I was ready –  leave it up to him to decide when that moment should be. We both agreed that I shouldn’t give him a time or a place because I would build it up in my head and create anxiety.

There was an air of electricity between us throughout dinner. At first he was anxious as well – since his little stay in hospital, he struggled with leaving Neverland and was incredibly worried about what people were thinking or feeling about him.  He seemed to calm down once I stopped him on the pier to talk some logic in to his feelings.

Hopefully, if necessary, he would be able to do the same for my anxiousness if it arose later.

We left the restaurant and Michael relaxed; he was less recognisable to everyone else in the dark. Even though it wasn’t ideal, he had opted for us to slip out through the kitchen of the restaurant in order to avoid other diners.

Once we’d left the pier, Michael told Carsen that we wanted to take a walk along the shore. I was happy for that. One of my favourite places was the ocean. It was a warm night with a cool breeze and both of us were planning on swimming. Or so we had talked about it earlier.

That was if I ever had the guts to take off my dress and show him basically what I would look like in my underwear.

He held my hand as we made our way to the sand. We avoided any late strolling people just in case, but I think people paid more attention to Carsen and the other two guards who stood back—the three of them were dressed in black suits and looked conspicuous.

They were several yards away so as to give us space, all seated side-by-side on a bench where the grass met the sand. It looked a little comical from afar.

Sometimes being around guards made me feel like a child – like we needed chaperones; though as much as I hated it, I understood the necessity.

“Thank you for dinner,” I told him with a smile as we made our way close to the gentle waves lapping against the sand.

“You’re welcome…” he replied. There was a tiny air of awkwardness between us; I imagined he was obsessing about what I had blatantly shared back at the restaurant.

“Do you want to sit here for a bit?” he asked, gesturing for a spot in the sand for us to sit down on.

I didn’t answer, I just sat down; he did too. I scooped up a handful of sand and let it fall between my fingers, waiting for him to talk.

“I can’t remember a time where I was able to just sit like this and watch the ocean,” he spoke wistfully as he looked toward the surf. He brought his knees up beneath his chin and drew some lines in the sand. “It feels good…”

I smiled empathetically and rested my head against his arm.

“Can I ask something?” I began softly. “I mean, I don’t want to upset you or ruin the night… but—“

“Sure anything, you won’t upset me,” he answered, but I wasn’t so sure.

“Do you really think you’re going to jail?” I asked daringly, “I mean, is that why you were really keen to get out and do something like this?”

He hesitated for a moment before drawing in a deep breath. “No…” he said softly, “it is such a surreal thought, going to jail… but, while I don’t believe I’ll really go to jail, I also am aware that sometimes bad things happen to innocent people.”

I knew he was referring to me, “and sometimes the person that commits those atrocities manage to get away with it and someone else has to burden the pain,” he finished. He didn’t look at me when he spoke. He bowed his head, staring at the sand that he was playing with.

“I guess that’s true. But you didn’t touch that kid and as convincing as Diane might or could be, there’s no proof that you did,” I pointed out.

“There’s a lot of things at stake in a high-profile case like this,” he explained, probably repeating the exact wording as Greg, who had visited almost every day since he arrived home from the hospital a couple weeks earlier. “Like, the judicial system will want to make an example of me because I’m a celebrity- they don’t want it to seem like status will get you out of doing time—and as dumb as it sounds, there could be an element of racism to it all-“

“Racism?” I scoffed, “are you kidding?”

“No,” he shook his head, “Look at this place, how many black people do you see?” he asked me, “I think people are too busy staring at Carsen and Richard behind us because they have darker skin than I do… At least, paying them more attention than they’re paying me.”

I thought about it, and it was true – from the time we arrived I had not seen a single other black person save for the security and Michael himself. However, Michael’s skin tone was much lighter than the two guards.

“When I moved to Los Olivos, I heard there was a bit of irritation because of how white the Santa Ynez Valley is,” he chuckled, “but to be honest, that just made me more sold on the property.”

I laughed too.

“Seriously though, I hope that the answer to who hurt Casey is just staring us in the face—I mean, if it was someone who worked for me, I’d kill them myself,” he spoke the words bitterly.

“No you wouldn’t, you’d let the police deal with it, because I’m not going to see you exonerated for this and then jailed for murder…”

He laughed briefly and bitterly.

“Can I tell you something?” I asked him drawing in a breath as I did each time I wanted to share a bit of my heart that I knew was going to hurt.

“Sure…” he dusted the sand off of his hands and covered mine.

“I still don’t think I’ve processed the fact that Samuel is dead. I feel like I’ve totally blocked it out – that he’s still alive, but he’s just leaving me alone now like he did after the first time I spent in hospital…”

“I figured,” Michael nodded with understanding, “do you ever talk about it with Raia?”

“Yeah, we’re dealing with it at the moment. I feel a little short-changed that I never got to pursue it legally, but I don’t even know if I would have wanted to.”

“But the choice was taken from you and that’s the part that makes you feel short-changed,” he verbalised it for me. He had hit the mark.

I rested my head on his shoulder. “Anyway, in terms of Casey, I hope the real culprit is found, it would be awful to go through life knowing something has happened, but not knowing who the abuser was.”

I didn’t have sympathy for Diane, but it wasn’t her child’s fault her mother was a shameless, jealous liar.

“Let’s talk about something else… I don’t want us to get all morose again…” he managed a chuckle.

He was right.

“Well, whatever the reason, it does feel nice to just be hanging with you—on a beach, no concern about being spotted – that’s something I haven’t been accustomed to for awhile either.”

“Sorry about that,” he apologised almost wryly.

“No,” I shook my head, “that’s not what I was getting- nevermind, just… let’s enjoy this.”

He put his arm around me and drew me a little closer.

“How did you like your wine tonight?” he asked me, “it was your first alcoholic drink, right?”

I laughed, “Michael, Michael, Michael…” I sighed as if he were incredibly naïve. “Just because my parents seem like helicopter parents now, it hasn’t always been that way, I have had my time with alcohol.”

“Really?” his interest was immediately piqued, “tell me about it?”

I lifted my head, “well, I totally just built that up,” I laughed again, “remember my friend Peter? The guy I got you to pretend to be?”

He nodded, “Yeah, the guy you thought wasn’t interested in you.”

I rolled my eyes at his little, teasing smile. “Yeah, that’s the one… He convinced me to go to some awful frat party, this is how I deduced he was gay, by the way, why else would any non-frat student want to go to a frat party?”

Michael just laughed and shook his head at me and motioned for me to continue.

“Okay, okay… so it was every bit as awful as we both expected. We decided that we would both have two beers, or coolers or whatever, we were both uptight, uncool, friendless students so we wanted to relax. One turned in to another and another and before I knew it, Pete was on the carpet doing the worm in the middle of a circle of beefy frat guys cheering him on.”

Michael was genuinely laughing now, “Oh no… I almost want to cover my eyes cos I can see it…”

“Yeah, to paint you an even more descriptive picture, he was thin, tall and wiry, totally dorky—we ended up finding ourselves drinking out of a funnel – and then Peter decided we had to go, some guys kept trying to pull me away from him and he was incredibly drunk, but still worried about me…”

“Cos he liked you…” Michael interjected.

“Do you want to tell the story, Michael?” I asked with mock-seriousness before turning my glare in to a grin.

He grinned back at me, looking incredibly sexy. My heart skipped a beat and I spontaneously leaned in to kiss him.

He kissed me back for a brief few moments but pulled away, “don’t distract me, I want to hear the rest of this story—“

I giggled, “well, to cut a long story short—we decided we would go back to his apartment, in the cab on the way, I announced that we needed to stop at the supermarket to get some food and drinks. So we made the cabbie drop us off at a supermarket at around three in the morning, we bought a few things, I showed him how well I could moonwalk in the aisl-“

“You can moonwalk?!” Michael exclaimed incredulously as if I’d kept some huge secret from him.

“No,” I laughed, “but I thought I could… and drunk Peter thought I could, but you should have seen the night staff when each shook their heads at us—“ I paused, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, what an idiot, it’s so embarrassing!”

“Noooo,” he shook his head, “this is hilarious, girl, I almost want to get you drunk, you sound like a riot…”

I shook my head, “well… anyway, we got our munchies and as we got around the corner, we both spotted a lonely shopping cart…”

“Oh no… no you didn’t,” Michael covered his mouth knowing that the story wasn’t going to end well.

I burst out laughing, “you know in life… you have those moments…” I shook my head remembering the outcome, “where you almost foresee something before it actually happens?”

He nodded, “oh no, what happened?”

“Peter suggested that I get in the cart and he would push me through the parking lot which was close to his apartment. I want to say it was because I was such a woman of virtue and he wanted to make sure he got me home safely and in style…”

We shared more laughter. “And so I hopped in and you know, I think I was in the cart for about 6 seconds… he accidentally let go, it hit the curb and I went somersaulting out on to the road and bruised the crap out of my backside…we both laughed so hard that we almost peed ourselves…”

 “Oh shit… were you okay?” Michael was cracking up.

I was giggling, thinking of the whole ridiculous event. “Yes, fine… actually, apart from being really bruised the next day. Both of us ended up falling in to a heap laughing so hard and the next thing I remember actually is waking up in his living room with a blanket over me. And we both spent the rest of the day with our heads in buckets feeling quite ordinary.”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at Michael’s expression. I knew my story surprised him greatly.  His mouth was open but I could tell he wanted to laugh as well.

“You’re shocked, you thought I was an innocent little thing…”

“A delicate wallflower…” he added with that sexy grin still spread across his shocked expression.

“A graceful swan,” I continued.

“A real Princess of the people…”

We both cracked up. I embraced his arm close to me, feeling his hand resting upon my knee, enjoying our banter.

“Do you think less of me now?” I asked jokingly.

“No,” he chuckled, “but I obviously don’t know a lot about you and have assumed some things, done any crazy drugs? Jail time?” he jibed me.

“No, no, no… don’t be silly – that was probably the wildest thing I’ve ever done…well aside from jump on a plane at 17 or 18 and follow a popstar around.”

Michael laughed, “that is pretty wild and brave too… imagine if your first impression of me was on one of my bad days and I was rude or-“

“No, only one thing could have been worse than you being rude – if I met you and you were disinterested and too cool for it all; that would have broken my little heart because I built you up in my mind…”

“Whew…” he breathed, “lucky I wasn’t a total ass the first time we met…”

“No, you were like a prince charming…” I told him, “Honestly Michael, just who did you think you were being, being so nice that no man would ever match your kindness in a single meeting?”

He chuckled bashfully, “really, you got all that from one meeting?”

“A little bit… girls are incredibly intuitive – a lot of us are too dumb to ever trust that intuition when it’s bad, but yeah… we know when someone is good.”

“Well… thanks…”

“You know, I still have to pinch myself that you’re mine…” I murmured.

He gave me a little squeeze. He kissed my temple, allowing me to know he wanted to show me some affection. I turned to him, peeling my eyes away from the ocean.

He pressed his lips against mine. I felt his arms encircle around me. His body was always so warm. I reciprocated his embrace. He smelled so good, so clean and whatever cologne he was wearing really turned me on.

I loved being in close proximity to him. His kisses were slow and soft and sometimes it made my brain feel a little fuzzy. I opened my eyes as he broke away. He looked at me, sweeping his eyes over my face and smiled. “Gorgeous…” he murmured.

I could barely speak, when he got a little sentimental, he turned me to mush. “You are…” I murmured back.

He held me close to him, running his fingers through my hair. His touch brought goose bumps on the surface of my warm skin. His kissed me again, once, twice, three times until he made me giggle.

I was never really in to public displays—especially not with his security watching us like hawks, but I was able to finally forget about them, or at least not pay them any mind.

“I really love being with you…” he declared contentedly.

“Me too…” I drew him near me for a hug. “The best part of my day is waking up and remembering that I have you.”

“Mine too… as though finally through all this bullshit, it has some purpose- I have something driving me to fight hard to win this battle,” he admitted. I could sense his vulnerability in saying it.

“It’s nice to hear that…” I told him meaningfully.

I reached up, holding his cheeks in my hands and initiating another kiss. I let my tongue graze against his lower lip. I felt him chuckle. He opened his mouth and allowed me to kiss him properly. I could feel his eagerness and could still taste the remnants of wine upon his tongue from dinner.

“I love you…” he whispered to me, leaning his forehead against mine.

“I love you, too…” I replied.

I ran my fingers through his hair, resting my hand at the back of his neck. We stared googly-eyed at each other for a moment. “Do you want to swim?” he asked me.

“Can we swim back at the hotel?” I asked him. The room was pretty deluxe. We had a private pool. I wasn’t cool stripping down to my bathing suit in front of security guards.

He chuckled; I could tell he was a little disappointed. He wanted to swim in the beach. “Okay… wanna keep walking?”

I nodded. He got to his feet first and dusted himself off. He reached for my hand to help me up.

**

Michael motioned for me to enter our room first. I made my way inside, switching on some lights. I loved our villa-style room. I turned the lights on outside around the pool. I really wanted to go swimming.

“So… how are you going to do this?” Michael asked me, “you just gonna dive right in?”

“Yep…” I told him decisively. I had my green and black striped bikini beneath my dress. I knew he wasn’t expecting me to be so shameless, but I figured it was just another step closer to being intimate with him.

I took off my shoes and put them by the door before opening. I stepped outside and dipped my foot in to the small, kidney shaped pool. It was probably only about 4 meters long and about 2 and a half wide, but it was plenty big enough for us to relax in.

I turned to Michael, “are you going to join me, or?”

“Sure… I might go get some towels.”

“You do that…” I watched him turn and head off to grab some towels.

I lifted my dress over my head and folded it up neatly and placing it on a plastic deck chair by the pool. I sat on the edge and submerged my legs in the water and waited for Michael to return.

I stared in to the water for a moment and thought about where I wanted the night to head. Did I want to sleep with him on this very night? Did I want to just start getting a little more intimate?

I didn’t even notice him standing in the doorway watching me right away. He had a half smile on his face and was dressed down to a pair of shorts, holding two crisp, clean towels under his arm.

“Quit smiling like that, its creepy…” I told him bashfully.

“Well, no scales, no hairy chest…you were insecure? You’re nuts.” He took a step outside and placed the towels down beside my dress. I knew my face was burning red.

“Stop it…”

He chuckled and sat down next to me. He put his arms around me and kissed my neck softly. I started to snuggle in closer to him but he had other plans, with a single shove he pushed me in to the water causing me to squeal and grab him, trying to pull him in with me, but I lost.

I came to the surface, probably looking like a drowned rat. I glared at him as he threw his head back, laughing, thinking he was just so hilarious.

“You suck, you really, really suck...” I told him floating on my back and kicking water in to his face.

He just laughed more and slipped in to the water. It wasn’t too deep, the deep end was probably around five feet, he swam over to me with his big stupid grin on his face.

“You look gorgeous in your bikini…” he told me. I felt his hands upon my bare hips.

“Thank you…” I said slowly, watching his eyes fall to my chest that was half submerged in water.

He drew me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me and kissing me. It was so good to be in water on a nice warm night, feeling our bare skin against one another without my panic ruining me.  

“I loved our date tonight…” he spoke slowly as his eyes reached mine. “It was nice to walk along the beach… and sit and hang out without worrying about being bothered.”

I smiled at him, “Yeah… that was really nice, thanks for a nice evening… and this, this hotel is beautiful… I love this pool, it’s so cute and romantic.” He leaned in and kissed me. I loved the way his lips felt against mine; soft and pillowy, he showed me constant affection in the most absent-minded ways…

“Well… this is nice…” I whispered, pulling away.

“It is…” his voice trailed off.

“I was so nervous—“ I blurted out as his hands smoothed over my wet hair.

“What about? Telling me what you did earlier?” he asked. I knew it had been on his mind.

“Well that… but also, just being this naked with you…” I laughed at my own stupidity. “I know it sounds stupid.”

He shook his head and smiled, looking in to my eyes. “What did you think I’d say? Did you think I’d really look you up and down and be all, ‘ugggghhhh you’re hideous! Put your dress back on!’”

I cracked up, feeling my cheeks flush. “No but… you know… this is just a process for me, you know that.”

He turned serious, “I know, I didn’t mean to make fun, I guess I just want you to know that I didn’t keep asking you to swim with me cos I wanted to get you naked, I actually just love swimming.”

I smiled at him, “and you wanted to make sure I didn’t truly have a hairy chest.”

He laughed but nodded jokingly, “A little from column A, a little from column B, I suppose.” He pressed his lips against mine, “but seriously, drop the insecurity, you have nothing to be anxious about.”

“I’m not even sure its insecurity, its one step closer to intimacy…” I admitted.

“Mal, what you told me tonight in the restaurant, about being ready—are you sure you really feel like that?”

“Yes…” I nodded, “I talked about it with Raia,” I added. It seemed like an odd place to have such a serious conversation but we had such a gorgeous atmosphere around us that made it feel right. “I started feeling this way just before you went to hospital, but I didn’t know if I trusted my own instincts. Raia suggested that I tell you when I was ready, but perhaps try not to turn it in to the kind of situation where we choose a time and a place because I’ll focus on it and it’ll create unwanted anxiety.”

“Okay, I just wanted to be sure, my heart…” he replied. “You just want to leave the planning and timing with me?”

I nodded. “And if it doesn’t feel right in the moment—“

“You’ll let me know,” he finished, “and that’ll be okay too.”

I hoped so. I knew the concern was still written all over my face, I couldn’t help it. A big part of me asked myself why I had even opened my mouth – I felt a little conflicted, but the other part of me loved him too much to listen to what my head tried to make me believe.

“Come here…” he drew me closer to him and slipped his arms around my shoulders, embracing me close to him. My breasts pushed in to his bare chest and I couldn’t help but smile to myself, proud that I was able to remain so close to him with very little article of fabric separating our bare bodies. “I don’t need you to stress—I want to be able to just hang out in the pool, admiring you both close and far in your teeny tiny bikini.”

I smacked him playfully, pushing him away, loving the sound of his cheeky laughter.