Health Care

By the looks of things, Melissa and Christopher are back on good terms. Over the last two weeks, I have seen them out in town three times. It seems Christopher is becoming more accustomed to drinking, as this time in Ocean he didn’t bother hiring out a booth. In fact, they’ve since been paired with another couple, presumably Melissa’s friends, and now venture everywhere as some sort of cutesy ‘foursome’.

I guess he seems happy, although my mum disagrees. According to the ladies in Thompson’s, he’s been as miserable and as moody as ever. Perhaps it’s his new experience of hangovers. I wonder what Loretta and Timothy think. Christopher sure is a hard book to read.

Either way, Sam has still made a few visits. In fact, he’s driving down tonight. Mum has even stocked up with nachos, beers and ice cream. We almost have our own shelf in the fridge.

“Well, I like to spoil you kids,” she says. “After all, maybe it’s getting serious.” Mum raises her eyebrows at me and I squirm uncomfortably. Sam and I still haven’t talked about ‘getting serious’. Aside from the odd mention of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, we haven’t really talked about anything serious at all. Mind you, with Christopher and Melissa getting to the stage of ‘double dates’, I sure wonder if there’s something I’m missing.

In other news, Katherine’s found herself a man. Another unlikely love story, seeing as he’s Lucy’s work colleague and he and Katherine met in town. His name is Aaron: young, feisty and incredibly fashionable. He’s already taken Katherine to the cinema and they text during every waking hour of the day, it seems.

By 7pm, Sam arrives and swoops me into another giant hug on the doorstep. He’s brought a rucksack with him and curiously, a plastic shopping bag.

“Just some treats,” he smiles at me. Treats? What sort of treats?

He cocks his head around the door to the living room and says a quick hello to my parents before following me upstairs. He cheekily tugs on my leggings as I walk in front of him. Oh, here we go.

He collapses on my bed and kicks off his shoes. He looks exhausted already.

In an attempt to restore some life into him, I fish around in the shopping bag and marvel on what he’s bought. He sits up expectantly, watching what I pull out. He’s like a child on Christmas Day.

So far I’ve found strawberries, a giant slab of chocolate, Pringles, fruit pastilles and three DVDs: one gory horror film and two comedies. The gory horror film is purely his taste.

“I thought we could watch the horror film in between two comedies,” he suggests.

The horror film looks horrendous: the title written in what’s meant to be splattered blood. I stare incredously at him. I can’t believe he really likes this sort of stuff. Does he have some traumatic past he’s not telling me about? Is he psychologically damaged? I’ll have to ask.

At gone 9pm, Sam’s pulled on an adorable pair of check pyjama pants and a baggy black shirt. With his tousled hair, he looks cuter than ever. I’ve matched him in a pair of pink polka dot Capri pants. My parents are already in bed, so we’re tiptoeing around the kitchen, grilling cheese onto our nachos.

Sam is as playful as ever, throwing handfuls of washing up liquid at me as it forms a thick foam. I retaliate, swinging my foot into the backs of his knees so they give way beneath him. In the end, he scoops me up and sits me on the kitchen side. He runs a hand along our granite worktop; his dark eyes flashing at me.

“How long do those nachos take?” he asks, fairly innocently. I eye him suspiciously.

“Just as long as the cheese takes,” I reply warily. “But you can turn the temperature down.”

“To delay their cooking time?” he says, his voice rising again.

“Yes,” I reply slowly. He’s still rubbing his palm across the work surface. “Are you trying to get me to offer myself to you on the kitchen side?” I snap at him. He stills his hand and raising his eyebrows in a ‘Who? Me? Never!’ sort of way. I resist the urge to squeal with girlish delight. Instead, I bite my lip.

Within a nanosecond, Sam has flicked the oven right off. I hiss at him to turn it back up to a bare minimum, just so the whirr of the oven masks any noises. Gripping hold of my knees, he tugs me to the edge of the worktop and eases my legs apart. He stands in between them, running his hands around my waist as I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him close. He gives me a devilish grin, and we melt into each other’s mouths. Electricity dances between our tongues.

*

We freeze. From upstairs, I hear Mum slowly pull open her bedroom door. Sam is still holding onto my bare thighs in a vice grip. I can feel his baited breath on my neck. He’s still throbbing there. I can feel him in between my legs; the dull pulse in the pit of my stomach. After the toilet chain has been pulled and the bedroom door closed again, Sam breaths a half-laugh of relief and presses his lips into my neck.

“God, this is so hot,” he whispers. Hearing him say that is hot. Jesus, of all places – the kitchen side. My legs are wrapped around his waist, clenching and pulling him in. He doesn’t stop, he’s beginning to pant. I can feel the sweat on his back. Until, oh God, he’s talking again.

“Oh God, oh God,” he moans in barely more than a whisper. “Alex, seriously,” he puffs. I groan in appreciation. He kisses me furiously on the mouth, pushing his tongue in further. I take it, kissing him back, hard, until he breathes sharply. “This is it, shit, shit, I’m gonna – oh!” he gasps. His grip around my leg tightens, yet his whole body relaxes; breathing a sigh of release. I clench his shoulders until his breathing slows, and soft loving kisses dance their way up my neck.

He grins wickedly at me and wipes the beads of sweat from his brow. Perhaps leaving the oven to tick over wasn’t the best idea. The kitchen is sweltering, and yet the nachos still aren’t done. I ask Sam if he’s still up for eating them.

“Are you crazy?” he hisses. “I’ve worked up my appetite now!”

I roll my eyes and whack up the temperature. Within a matter of minutes, the nachos are sizzling with melted cheese and spicy salsa. Divine.

Snuggled in my bed, we pick at the tortilla chips with our fingers and flick on the television. Sam had already loaded up the DVD player. I was now being forced to endure one and a half hours of violent bloodshed and excessive gore.

“I forgot to tell you what I did today,” Sam says over the crunching of his chips.

“Oh yeah, what was that?” I say, watching him. He chews his nachos impatiently in order to reply.

“I booked another holiday for me and the guys!”