Free Stan by C.J. Duggan Page B

had a million secrets hidden
behind them. He stood so close and it was then I realised that this wasn’t the
first time I had been in his room, standing before him half dressed. But this
was different. The air seemed warmer, the space more enclosed, maybe it was the
dull lighting or the way he was looking at me. He wasn’t angry, it was
something else, another emotion that I couldn’t quite name. I was only aware of
my breathing and my heart thudding against my chest; my eyes flicked
momentarily to the deep swallow of his Adam’s apple and the way his breaths
felt against my skin. He stood so close. What alarmed me more was the fact I
didn’t step back, that even though there was room, I chose not to. For no real
reason of knowing, I was cemented in place, not through fear or anger but by
being ever watchful of the shadows that danced across his face in this moment
that stretched on forever. A moment that changed almost as if in slow motion.
His hand reached out and slowly slid down my arm, blazing a trail of fire down
my skin. Down, down until he reached my hand, slowly his fingers worked on
uncoiling mine from around the cord. My chest heaved embarrassingly shallow as
his ever-watchful gaze stared into my eyes. Each finger that unravelled mine
felt so intimate, almost as if he was undressing me. And just as he slid the
last piece of cord from my hand, he broke my gaze for a mere moment as he threw
the black cord back onto his bed, before looking back down at me with a smile.
    “You better go get
some sleep,” he said deeply, his voice like warm butter, the cocky smile that
lifted the corner of his lips the only thing that had me blinking myself into
the present.
    “Sleep?” I
repeated like an idiotic robot. I felt like I had been hypnotised; maybe I had?
But more to the point, it was a serious case of sleep deprivation and a pure
lack of oxygen that seemed to be sucked out of the air anytime Stan was near me
like he was now. It was the most unsettling feeling. I wanted to fight against
the emotion, the butterflies that fluttered against the pit of my stomach.
    Stan nodded. “Big
day tomorrow.”
    I blinked, trying
to grasp onto his words. I was the one that was acting drunk.
    Stan grabbed me by
my shoulders, turned me around, and as good as frog-marched me out of his room.
Confused and coming to my senses, I found myself standing in the middle of the
hall, and I spun around in time to catch Stan’s boyish grin.
    “Those toilets
aren’t going to clean themselves, you know,” he said with a wink. He slammed
his bedroom door closed, my mouth gaping in incredulous outrage.
    No, I got him all
right. Stan was not nice, or sweet. He was something else entirely.

 
     
    Chapter Fourteen
     
    Stan
     
    I can’t believe
I’m doing this.
    Risking life and
limb, I climbed over the apex of the games room roofline holding on with a
white-knuckled intensity as I reached out. My face turned bright red as I
stretched as far as I could manage, my fingertips grazing the edge of the
Sherrin footy that was nestled rather snuggly on the edge of the gutter.
    Bloody kids.
    “Can you get it?”
yelled an anxiously awaiting Samuel Becket. The only thing visible past the
edge of the roofline was his mop of fire-red hair. If the sun glinted on him
the wrong way I was in trouble of being blinded from the glare.
    “Almost,” I said.
One final breath and a stretch so far out, I swear I could feel my shoulder
dislodge from its socket.
    “Got it!”
    “Yaaaay!” A chorus
of cheers sounded from below; Samuel and his little brat pack of his sister and
cousins jumped up and down for joy. I tucked the footy under my arm and
carefully manoeuvred my way back across the roof and gingerly down the ladder,
which Samuel’s eldest sister, Rebecca, was holding steady.
    “Thanks, Bec,” I
said, skipping the last few steps and then jumping to the ground.
    “Phew! Here you
go.”
    “Thanks, Stan.”
Rebecca sighed and clutched the footy,