Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid.... Avril Tremayne

you don’t really need, so go figure! And they took half my liver, which was haemorrhaging. Actually, did you know that the liver regenerates? Which means the chunk of my liver they cut out has probably grown back. Amazing!’

      ‘I’m sorry, Sunshine,’ Leo said.

      She rearranged herself in the bed again—flustery, unnecessary activity. ‘Which brings us to the important part of this discussion. Getting rid of your motorbike.’

      Leo said nothing.

      ‘Leo? You understand, don’t you?’

      He nodded slowly. ‘I understand why you hate motorbikes—because you blame yourself for the accident. You feel guilty because you couldn’t talk your sister out of that bike. Because she stayed in the city only for you, where she was an unhappy fish out of water. Because of what her boyfriend did. The way all those things led to both of you being on the bike at that precise moment at that speed. Because she died and you didn’t. And you’re here and she’s not.’

      Sunshine brushed away a tear. ‘That’s about the sum of it. I just miss her so much. And I’d do anything to have her back.’ She looked at him. ‘But you can’t bring someone back from the dead. So please get rid of it, Leo. Please?’

      ‘You don’t understand what that bike means to me.’ He grimaced. ‘My parents...they were druggies, and they didn’t give a damn. Your parents made sure you had support. I was my own support—and Caleb’s. Your parents made sure you had money, but when I was still a child I had to steal it, beg it, or make it—and I did all three! There was never food on the table unless I put it there. So I haunted restaurants around the city, pleading for leftovers. Eventually one of the chefs took pity on me and I got a job in a kitchen, and...’ Shrug. ‘Here I am.’

      Sunshine touched his hand.

      He looked at where her hand was, on his, with an odd expression on his face. And then he drew his hand away.

      ‘I’m not telling you all that to get sympathy, just to explain,’ he said. ‘And it could have been a lot worse. We weren’t sexually abused. Or beaten—well, not Caleb. And me not often, or more than I could take. Mainly we were just not important. Like a giant mistake that you can’t fix so you try to forget it. I grew up fast and hard—I had to. The upshot is that I don’t do frivolity. I’m not sociable unless there’s something in it for me. I don’t stop to smell the roses and hug the trees. I just push on, without indulging myself. Except for my bike.’

      ‘I see,’ Sunshine said. And she did. It was so very simple. Leo had his bike the way she had Moon’s ashes. Something that connected you to what you’d lost—what you couldn’t have: in her case her sister; in his a carefree youth.

      She swallowed around a sudden lump. ‘We’re not going to find common ground on this, are we? Because you deserve one piece of youthful folly and I can’t bear what that piece happens to be.’

      She got out of bed, grabbed her kimono off the floor, quickly pulled it on, and turned to face him. ‘This means, of course, that we’ll have to call it quits at two.’

      ‘At two...what? O’clock?’

      ‘Two times—as in not four. As in assignations.’

      ‘Why?’

      Why? She had a sudden memory of that electri-fried bat. ‘Because the thought of you on that bike already upsets me too much. That’s going to get harder, not easier, to cope with if we keep doing...this.’

      ‘This?’

      ‘Sex,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s my fault for starting it, and I’ll cop to that. I threw myself at you when you didn’t want to go there. The blame is squarely here, with me.’

      ‘If we’re talking blame, I threw myself at you tonight.’

      Sunshine dragged the edges of the kimono closed and started looking around for her sash. ‘Well, let’s unthrow ourselves.’

      ‘Come back to bed, Sunshine, and we’ll talk about it.’

      ‘Bed is the wrong place to talk.’

      ‘Four assignations was what we agreed on,’ Leo said.

      ‘Up to! They’re the salient words. Up to four. I’ve never got to four before. I’ve never got past two! And you can see why. It gets too emotional.’

      Leo shoved the quilt aside, got out of bed. ‘I’ll do you a deal on the motorbike,’ he offered, and started tugging on his clothes.

      ‘What kind of deal?’

      Wary. Very wary.

      ‘I’ll get rid of the bike the day after our fourth assignation. Or when you change your name to Allyn. Whichever comes first.’

      She licked her lips nervously. ‘That’s an odd deal.’

      ‘Is it? I’m offering to give up a piece of a past I never really had—the bike. In return, you give up something you can’t accept is past its use-by date—your sister’s two-year hold over you.’

      ‘She doesn’t have a hold over me.’

      ‘If she didn’t have a hold over you the four times thing wouldn’t exist. So—my bike for going where no man has gone before and risking the magic number four.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Then take the alternative option and change your name. You said it might be a way of moving on, so do it. Move on, Sunshine, one way or the other.’

      ‘I...I don’t know,’ she said, agonised.

      ‘Take some time and think about it,’ he said. ‘But not too long. Because—in case you haven’t quite figured me out yet—I don’t wait for what I want. I just go out and get it. Even if I have to steal it.’

      ‘You don’t really want me.’

      ‘I’m like an immortal lobster—who really knows? Let’s get to number four and see.’

      ‘Well, you can’t steal me.’

      ‘Don’t bet on it, sweetheart. I’ve spent my life getting my own way. And I can take things from you that you never knew you had.’

      She located her obi and whipped it up off the floor. ‘That’s not even worth a response.’

      Leo just smiled and started pulling on his boots.

      She tried, twice, to tie the sash, but her fingers were clumsy.

      And Leo’s hands were suddenly there—capable, efficient, tying it easily.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly when he had finished, and flicked her hair over her shoulders. ‘I’ll see you out.’

      She walked Leo to the apartment door. ‘So!’ she said. ‘I’ll email you about...about the clothes for the wedding and a few other things. And then... Well...’

      ‘And then...well...?’ Leo repeated, looking a little too wolfish and a lot too jaunty for a man who was waiting for an answer about sex that could, should—no, would!—go against him. And then he leant down and kissed her quickly on the mouth.

      She jumped back as though he’d scalded her.

      ‘It’s just a stolen kiss, Sunshine,’ he murmured. ‘Think of the calories.’

      * * *

      Sunshine stared into the darkness long after returning to bed.

      Leo would give up his motorbike.

      Into her head popped an image of Moonbeam—laughing as they left the party that night. Giving a wild shout as she started the bike. Zooming off with Sunshine on the back, gripping her tightly.

      And then darkness. And that feeling. Waking up in hospital and knowing, without needing to be told, that Moonbeam was gone. She never