Page 44 of Away We Go

We chat easily as we fall into a work rhythm: I fill the box and he seals it and carries it to the truck. It’s true what they say; many hands make light work. Especially if those hands belong to Nicolai.

“You know, it’s a shame more people aren’t here to help.” Over the past two hours, the group of volunteers had shrunk from a dozen to now just a handful. “Mallory was saying once these sorts of disasters are out of the news, people forget about them.”

He nods, rubbing his hand along his jaw. This, I’ve learned, is his thinking face.

“Hey, Mallory?” he calls out.

She skips to our station.

“Do you mind if I take a photo and post about being here? About what good work you’re all doing?”

She raises a brow at him. “Knock yourself out, honey. If your friends and family see your post about it, maybe it’ll inspire them to follow your lead.”

I stifle a snicker as she leaves. “She does not know who you are.”

His smile is wry. “Yeah, I gathered.”

I watch him fiddle with his phone. “Are you really going to post about this?” Nicky has thirty million followers on Instagram, and I know he’s very picky about what goes on his social media. It’s what made him choosing to post two of my photos to his grid this year even more special.

“Is this important to you?”

I look around, imagining what it would be like to lose everything. To have to rely on a charity for necessities. In my life, I’ve been lucky to never have experienced that sort of hardship, butI know of people who lost their homes, their livelihoods to bushfires back home. So, if I can help, if we can help, even just calling attention to the situation, then I want to do it.

“It is.”

He pulls me close, tucking me in under his arm, and leans down to press his cheek against mine.

“What are you doing?” My words are garbled, the aftereffects of having his face touching mine. We are doing so muchtouching.

“Smile.”

He frames the two of us with the charity banner in the background and takes the selfie. “Hmm,” he sinks his teeth into his lower lip as he looks at it. “Let’s try that again.”

This time he pulls me in front of him, wrapping his arm around my waist, resting his hand on my stomach. He leans over me from behind and rests his head on my head.

Oxygen! I need oxygen.

“Okay, are you ready? Smile.”

As a reflex, I tilt my head to the side and smile up at him.

“I got it.”

He lets me go like it was no big deal that his front wasjust touching my backand, shaking myself out of my stupor, I demand to see the photo before he sends it out to the world.

“No can do.” He holds his phone up high and away from me, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. “It’s done.”

I gape at him and scramble to find my phone. With my stomach in knots—who takes only two shots and uses zero filters to put up a post for millions of people to see?—I open the app. And there, in all its colourful glory, it is.

The photo has us slightly off-centre with the charity banner in full frame. In it, Nicky’s head is lightly touching mine, and he is grinning at the camera. And me? Well, I’m not even looking at thecamera. Instead, I’m staring at him with what can only be described as a look of adoration on my face.

I’m going to kill him. And then myself.

“You look beautiful,” he assures me softly.

I’m too mortified to take in his words, focussed only on my frizzy hair sticking up at the side of my face and the volcano pimple on my forehead that my concealer just can’t cover. Oh, and the fact that I look all in love with him or something.

Which I’mnot.

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