Star Struck by Jane Lovering Page B

over my chest.
    â€˜You thinking about the accident?’ Felix’s voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘Your fingers.’
    I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans. ‘Faith, actually.’ Felix gave an almost inaudible sigh. ‘She wanted to go to America, didn’t she?’
    â€˜Yeah.’ He bent to examine the toe of his shoe. ‘Never got the chance.’
    â€˜I miss her.’ Inside my pockets my thumbs were running along the fingertip scars, tracing them. Inside my head the colours of the accident raged, the blue flames, the red-hot metal. Not memories, something older, harder and more primitive.
    â€˜You and me both, babe. You and me both.’
    Another silence. A loved-up couple who’d been strolling around outside under the almost unnaturally clear desert sky came towards us, hand in hand. As they passed, I saw the girl’s eyes, dark in the moonlight, flick to my face and I felt the almost pre-emptive embarrassment rise into my throat. ‘I think … Can we go up to the room now?’
    â€˜Sure.’ But Fe didn’t move; he seemed lost inside his thoughts, scuffing his feet in the dust. I felt a little burst of fondness for him, he looked so young with his tousled hair and his face all scrunched up. So unaware of how people looked at me, and, by extension, him.
    â€˜I am glad we came, Fe.’
    Then his head came up and that choirboy smile folded his cheeks. ‘That’s really good, Skye. I mean, this whole thing, it’s been good for you, yeah? Even if you never get inside the supremely tight pants of the T-M, you’re having a great time, aren’t you? And then there’s our Jack –’
    â€˜He’s weird.’
    â€˜Whatever. Just you remember, darling, who saw him first.’ Felix pushed himself away from the wall. ‘C’mon.’
    But the motel had erupted into noise and light. With the coming dark, even those not attending Gethryn’s little address-the-masses moment had crowded inside and I could hear the voices bursting through every wall. ‘I think I might just stay out here for a bit longer, actually. If that’s okay.’
    He nodded. ‘The T-M isn’t likely to strike twice in one night, though, lover.’
    â€˜I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet.’
    â€˜Two shakes then.’ He leapt inside and was back in a couple of minutes with a large glass of something amber. ‘Here. Drink that down and you’ll be fit for an early night.’
    I sniffed it. ‘Wow. Smells like paint stripper.’
    â€˜That, darling, is a Broken Hill Special.’
    â€˜Smells like it. Broken something, anyway.’ I sniffed again. ‘Intestines, possibly.’
    â€˜Chug-a-lug, there’s a good girl.’
    I took a cautious first sip. The warmth rode down my throat like a roping cowboy, captured my tonsils and begged for backup. ‘It’s not bad. It’s a bit like … tequila?’
    â€˜Mm, mostly tequila.’ Felix watched me drain the glass, then took the empty and sat next to me on the edge of the little raised wall that circled the entire motel, as though it marked some kind of border. ‘Ever thought about moving out here? To the States?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜You could sell the house, make enough to move. Might do you good. I’m sure you talked about moving to the States, you know.’
    I frowned. Trying to find the memories was like staring into a black maelstrom and made my forehead ache. ‘Did I?’
    â€˜That’s what you told me.’
    I shook my head. ‘I wish I could remember. Sometimes I feel like one of those pod aliens – everything you tell me about the past sounds so weird and so unlike me, as though I was someone different before. Like I’m a new soul in a body you think you know.’
    Felix shrugged an elegant shoulder and stared off into the desert. There was an expression on