Displaced Read Online Free PDF Page A

rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been my goal for years, and I’ve saved every cent I can lay my hands on. And yeah. My flight’s already booked.”
    “How soon?”
    “Next week.”
    My turn to stare at the sea, the sensation of loss painfully familiar. Why did I care? As Butch darted up to me and licked my hand, I clung to the truth. TJ was just another anonymous fuck. I’d have forgotten him by tomorrow.
    TJ’s friend was a bright-eyed, plump lady with weather-beaten skin and a mop of tangled grey curls. She could have been anywhere between fifty and eighty, and moved slowly to greet us, leaning heavily on a wooden stick. Butch was visibly delighted to see her and bounded up, his tail wagging fit to burst. She hugged TJ hard and then turned to me. “I’m Elizabeth. And who might you be?”
    TJ wriggled from her embrace. “This is Henare,” he announced, a curious note of pride in his voice.
    I shook her hand, surprised by the firm grip. “I’m honoured to meet you.” My manners were rusty, but she smiled and tilted her head to one side, as though looking for something.
    “You too,” she murmured. “Now are you both ready to work? I have a mountain of logs just waiting for your attention.”
    There was something solid and mindless about heavy labour, and I lost myself in an afternoon of chopping, hauling, and stacking. TJ threw himself into the task and there was no need for conversation, but he bantered with me, teasing and playful. He treated me like a friend. A lover .
    As for laughing, my sides ached and my stomach hurt more and more as the day passed. I had never been so amused by anything, as by the sight of Butch galloping after a stray seagull, with no hope of catching it. The gull squawked rudely and then returned to taunt the hound some more.
    Elizabeth brought us drinks and snacks, and after refusing the first time, I acquiesced and sampled her food. Little sticky pastries, fragrant with spice and drenched in sugar, they melted on my tongue. It would almost be worth being human if I could eat these every day. For once, I didn’t gaze blindly to the ocean and brood over what I had lost; instead I sat with TJ in the late afternoon sunshine, and just enjoyed the moment.
    Did he have any idea of how delectable he looked? He sat in the doorway to Elizabeth’s woodshed, dust and woodchips clinging to his clothes, and a twig tangled in his hair. Dirt smudged both cheeks, but his smile was bright and happy.
    “Thanks, Henare.” He squinted at me in the sunshine. “I’ve got it done in half the time with your help.”
    I inclined my head, unsure how to answer. I enjoyed it too? You made me forget for a few hours? The realisation that he too would be leaving soon, left a bitter taste in my mouth, one that not even Elizabeth’s baking could shift.
    Walking back, I contemplated how to ask TJ to return to my cottage with me, when he nudged my arm with his elbow. “Hey, my housemate is away for a couple of days. We could go to my place if you like.”
    His place, a tidy clapboard house, was a short walk from the beach and by my reckoning, we had four hours before the sun set. We could do a lot in that time. We’d barely made it through the door before he was in my arms, and we were kissing the fuck out of each other. Desire, on a slow simmer all day, ratcheted up to fever pitch in the blink of an eye.
    TJ smelled of wood and green leaves, and his lips tasted of sugary spice. The combination would always remind me of this man, and take me back to this moment in time. I hungered for him with an urgency I’d long forgotten.
    With our clothes making a trail across the floor, we fell onto his bed in a tangle of limbs. TJ lay beneath me, his cock grasped in one firm fist, while he ground onto my belly. Every movement made me harder, and he paused his teasing to kiss me, sucking on my bottom lip for a second.
    “I’ve got lube and condoms in the drawer.” He didn’t take his eyes off me, the