Page 15 of Pas de Don't
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded, meeting his eyes for a brief, stomach-flipping moment, and then fixing her gaze firmly straight ahead. “Set...go!”
She scrambled backward, glancing over her shoulder and realizing almost immediately what a terrible idea this had been. What if she sprained her ankle goofing around on her second day in Sydney? She picked her feet up high to clear each step, holding her breath as though that would keep her from tripping and falling backward. Marcus sped past her on the other side. She tried to move her feet faster, but it was no use. She was going to lose.
“Noooo!” Heather squealed. A tourist at the bottom of the stairs turned to look up at her, clearly baffled.
When she arrived at the top, panting, Marcus met her with a triumphant smile.
“Sir Limpsalot,” he said, “is pretty fast.”
She caught her breath, brushing her hair back out of her face and tightening her ponytail.
“Well done,” she said.
“It wasn’t really a fair matchup,” he conceded, with a glance down at the crutches. “God knows I’ve had enough time to get good at moving around on these things.”
“Still, a proper tour guide would have let me win,” she said.
“Ah, well,” he said, shaking his head ruefully, “I’m a volunteer tour guide. You get what you pay for.”
Marcus couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled this much. By the time they reached the middle of the Harbour Bridge, his cheeks actually ached. They paused at the midpoint, because Heather said that the first time she’d come over the Bridge she’d meant to look up but had gotten distracted. So they paused a few minutes, the wind whipping up their hair as the cars roared past on the roadway, taking in the hundreds of lines of steel intersecting overhead.
On a normal day, he’d be walking alone, trying to get home as fast as possible, trying to break a sweat. Trying to feel like his body was still the tool he needed it to be. Today, though, he was happy to move leisurely, Heather strolling beside him. It wasn’t that he’d normally ignore the beauty of the harbour—it was hard to miss, even if you’d grown up around it and commuted over it to work every day. But he usually had other things on his mind.
Now, he noticed the way the Bridge vibrated under his feet and through his crutches, how the mirrored sides of the high-rise apartment buildings across the roadway reflected the sky and turned the towers blue. And he was hyperaware of Heather, of her presence next to him, her movements in his peripheral vision. As they’d lined up to race at the bottom of the steps, he’d even caught a trace of her scent: lavender and the sweat of a hard class. His pulsehad spiked as he’d crested the top, and it still hadn’t settled, even though he’d slowed to an easy pace. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop glancing over at Heather every few moments—and each time he did, he felt his pulse kick again, until their stroll felt more like an interval workout.
As she admired the Bridge, Marcus tried to follow her gaze instead of tracing the long expanse of the skin of her neck with his eyes as she tipped her head way back. The line from her chin to the hollow at the base of her throat made a smooth, graceful curve.
At the very centre of the Bridge, two enormous flags fluttered in the brisk breeze.
“What are they?” she called over the din of the traffic.
He leant closer to make himself heard, and as he did so, his upper arm just happened to press gently against her sharp shoulder. Heat radiated down his arm and into his chest from where their bodies met, and he resisted the urge to flex. Just. Marcus held his breath, wondering if she’d lean away, break the contact, but she stayed and turned towards him to hear his reply.Barremagazine hadn’t done her justice, hadn’t captured the way her mahogany eyes sparkled with curiosity and interest, or the clever, skeptical arch of her eyebrows.
Marcus reminded himself to inhale so he could answer her question.
“The blue one is the Australian flag. The red, black, and yellow one is the Aboriginal flag. The fight to get it up there permanently took years.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, taking a photo of the flags through the gaps in the elaborate crisscrossing steel. Then she turned and took a few of the harbour and the Opera House across the water, and they continued on until they reached the other side of the Bridge.
“How far are we from Kirribilli?” she asked before giving in to an enormous yawn.
Marcus gestured with his chin towards the top of another set of sandstone stairs. “We’re here.”
Down the stairs, they found themselves on the neighbourhood’s main drag, across the street from a bottle shop and a little Thai restaurant.
“I can’t believe you do that every day,” she yawned again, her shoulders drooping a little. “That’s a long walk.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t just get off a plane from the other side of the world. And I didn’t take a ballet class, either.” He tried, but failed, to keep any bitterness out of his voice. “Plus, sometimes I take the bus or the ferry.”
A third yawn.
“I’m sorry, am I boring you with my thrilling tales of Sydney’s public transit system?”
“No!” Heather said, with a little shake of her head. “I think I just need a nap. I know I’m not supposed to, with the time difference and everything, but I’m beat.”
“Of course. I can walk you home, and we can continue our tour of Sydney tomorrow, if you like.” She looked surprised for a moment.
“Unless,” he said quickly, worrying he’d overstepped, “you think you’ve got it from here.”
