Title/Prompt: Warm
Rating/Warnings: M [language, sex]
Word count: 10366
Summary: When sleepless nights are clinging to her skin and her hair is electric from restlessly shifting against her pillow, Ben Hobart emails Mallory a photograph of the view from his back porch, and the words, Plenty of room here.
Notes: Written for porn battle xiv (fiery fourteen) at oxoniensis' journal livejournal and dreamwidth. But this took off so fast the 'porn' part of it is really scaled down, and it's definitely more of a Mallory/Ben fic than it is a smut piece. Huge, huge thanks to isabelquinn for being my beta and squee partner. I had so much fun writing this one.
The porn battle prompts I used are: curls, write, Australia
Mallory's not sure what comes first – the writer's block or the breakdown. Success comes at such a heavy price she's starting to wonder if it's worth it.
"You need a break, honey," her mom tells her over the phone. "Come home for a few days."
Mallory is heating canned soup and watching the rain pour down the windows of the apartment. "No, I'll be okay," she says, but she can't even summon the energy to lie properly; to put a convincing tone into her voice. "It's just the weather, I think."
Vanessa spends more time at her boyfriend's house than she does at the apartment, but when she comes home it's with A Plan, and Mallory is often subjected to being dragged out into the rain for poetry readings and gallery viewings.
"You just need something to inspire you again," Vanessa insists. "You'll see something, or hear something, and then your imagination will take off and you'll be filling notebooks with words before you know it."
Mallory doesn't argue, but she doesn't believe her, either.
Claire, classically contradictory, is at once helpful and not. She brings boxes from bakeries, but by the time she's made it up the wrought-iron staircase to Mallory and Vanessa's apartment, the sugar flowers are all gone and there are suspicious, finger-thick swirls in the frosting on the cupcakes.
"Eat these," she says. "They're not as good as Mom's, but they'll do in a crisis."
"I'm not having a crisis," Mallory says, stretched out on the couch, her cheek pillowed on one of the sagging cushions.
"You know what you should do?" Claire asks.
"What?" Mallory asks, already dreading the advice which is to come.
"Something dramatic," Claire says, tossing her colour-streaked hair over her shoulder. "Have an affair or something."
Mallory can't help but laugh into the couch cushions. "Right," she says. "Because that's me."
"Get a tattoo," Claire says, eyes widening with excitement.
"You get a tattoo," Mallory says. "If you haven't already."
"Nah," Claire says, pulling the sleeves of her shirt up to show of her bare arms. "Mom would kill me."
Mallory eyes the green and pink stripes through Claire's hair, but decides not to say anything.
"Take a trip," Claire says, poking Mallory in the ribs and sitting on the floor beside the couch. "Do something. The poetry readings are only making it worse."
"I'm fine," Mallory insists. "It's just writer's block."
Claire gives her a surprisingly stern look. "I don't think so," she says. Thankfully though, she doesn't elaborate.
Mallory's at another midnight poetry reading in some freezing open-air space down by the river. Vanessa is quivering with excitement at her side, her breath rapturous. Mallory trembles with the cold. She can feel her bones aching with it, and she feels light and weak with exhaustion. She just wants to go to bed.
Her mind starts to drift, and she pulls up a mental image of her desk, walled with crooked piles of books and papers, her blank notebook sitting on the scratched leather square in the middle, the paper too stark and full of nothing.
She pulls her scarf up over her nose and silently worries that it's been too long anyway; that everyone has forgotten about her first novel and now they're onto a new fad.
Success is fleeting, and she hasn't been quick enough to catch the next wave.
Claire and Vanessa have an argument that lasts for days. Mallory doesn't know or care what it's about, until Vanessa storms into her study and says, "Dave's getting married."
Mallory feels her stomach drop. "Oh," she says.
"Claire didn't want me to tell you," Vanessa says, with the superior air of someone who knows they're right and everyone else is wrong. "But I thought you should know."
"Okay," Mallory says.
Vanessa folds her arms and watches Mallory carefully. "Are you okay?"
Mallory nods, and eventually Vanessa leaves her alone.
After ten minutes of silence and trying not to cry, Mallory rummages under her desk for her laptop. It was a gift from the triplets, and it came with a birthday card that stated they didn't owe her another present for ten years because of how much they'd spent on this one. She doesn't tell them she prefers to write by hand, ink to paper, because she's sure they'd be disgusted, and Jordan would spend at least an hour lecturing her on the benefits of technology and what will happen if she allows herself to be left behind.
She loads her email, deleting most of it without reading it so she doesn't have to deal with the guilt of missed party invitations, or announcements that probably warranted some sort of congratulatory comment or gift from her.
Hey, I'm thinking of taking a vacation. Any ideas?
She sends it before she can really think about it.
Two days later, when sleepless nights are clinging to her skin and her hair is electric from restlessly shifting against her pillow, Ben Hobart emails her a photograph of the view from his back porch, and the words, Plenty of room here.
Flying makes her queasy and light-headed; makes her feel like she's almost stepped out of herself and some parts of her body are a half a step behind others. She lands in Melbourne at six o'clock in the morning and she has no idea what day it is or whether she should be hungry for breakfast or ready to curl up in bed.
There are surprisingly few other people in the terminal. It wouldn't matter if there were – Ben Hobart is still the easiest guy to spot in a crowd. He's almost a full head taller than anyone else and his hair gleams bright red under the fluorescent lights.
He grins and hugs her waist, picking her up and asking against her shoulder, "You are the famous author Mallory Pike, right?"
Mal'ry.
"Shut up," Mallory says tiredly, but she grins back at him and touches his cheek. "Thanks for this."
"Don't thank me yet," Ben says. "You haven't seen the spider-infested sofa bed you'll be sleeping on."
She laughs as he sets her down. "It'll be okay."
He takes her suitcase in one hand and her right hand in the other and leads her outside. The morning is cool and bright. Yellow taxis are lined up along the front of the airport, but Ben leads her over the road to the short-term parking.
"Do you want brekky or anything?" he asks. "We can stop and get a coffee. There's not much here, but if you're desperate I can run back and get you something with caffeine in it."
"No, it's okay," Mallory says. She watches Ben heave her suitcase into the trunk of his car.
"It's a fair way to my place, but we'll make a couple of stops for food or coffee," Ben says, grinning at her. He tilts his head. "You want to drive?"
"What?" Mallory asks. She steps back. "No, sorry." She goes around to the other side of the car, too tired to feel embarrassed. She feels off balance as Ben gets in behind the wheel on the right side of the car.
"Here you go," he says, passing her a bottle of water. "You know, Claire and Vanessa sent me a bunch of instructions, ordering me to look after you and not talk about things that will annoy you or upset you."
"Like what?" Mallory asks warily.
"Like your book, or Nicky's hypochondria, or some guy named Dave."
Mallory gives a tired laugh and leans her temple against the car window, closing her eyes. "I'm going to kill them both when I get home."
"Ah, they're worried about you," Ben says fondly, and then he lets the subject drop as he steers the car forward, the rising sun casting shadows out in front of them.
"What's your place like?" Mallory asks, trying to fight her jet lag. Her eyes are dry and tired from the flight and her glasses are somewhere in the pocket of her hand luggage, which is in the trunk.
"Small," Ben says, almost apologetically. "It's not flash. Don't let your expectations get too high."
Mallory laughs. "No, it'll be fine. I just – I've seen your back yard but I haven't seen anything else." She tries to recall the photo he sent her, the rays of the rising sun sending streaks across the camera lens, the grass like straw and the mountains purple-blue in the distance.
"It's old," Ben says. "I bought it meaning to do it up and I just haven't got around to doing it yet. It's got two little bedrooms and a really big kitchen. The lounge is decent but I spend most of my time on the back verandah – at least until it gets too hot."
He glances at her and grins. "You're probably gonna get really bored," he says. "There's not much to do out here. There's a town about ten minutes away but there's not much there but a pub and a post office. And there's a place about an hour away with shops and a cinema, so we can drive down there now and then if you like. And then the beach is about two and a half hours away."
"Are you going to be working much?" Mallory asks worriedly, suddenly wondering if she's going to be responsible for herself, having to figure out what to do or where to go, and having to drive on the left side of the road which, so far, seems completely wrong and terrifying.
"Nah, I took some time off," Ben says. "They didn't mind. I've never asked for time off before."
"Oh, good," Mallory says, relieved. Guilt twinges in her chest. "You didn't have to, though. I mean, I'd be okay."
"I know," he says simply. "But I've just about earned a holiday anyway. Kicking around doing nothing for a bit seems like a nice idea."
Ben's photo was deceiving. The colour is richer, the grass tawny and long, and the mountains are a lot closer than they looked in the photo, the misty-blue canopy of trees broken with grey slabs of rock. A large tree stands leaning at the back of the house, long pale leaves and white branches. The ground around the house is bare dust and the house is weatherboard with a roof of corrugated iron.
Mallory is in love with it before she's even out of the car.
There's a dog waiting in the shade beside a kennel made out of paint-stripped boards, straining at a chain pegged into the ground. He barks and wags his tail, prancing back and forth in the dust until Ben releases him. He runs in a wide circle before he sprints his way to the car.
"Sit!" Ben roars, but the dog jumps excitedly, marking Mallory's t-shirt with prints and trying to lick her hands.
She laughs and waves it down, and it runs back to Ben before it disappears around the side of the house.
"Sorry," Ben says. "He always goes kinda crazy when I chain him up. I only ever do it when I leave without him, so he's not used to it."
"It's okay." Mallory takes her hand luggage while Ben swings her suitcase out of the trunk. "What's his name?" she asks, watching the dog slip under a fence and bound through the long grass.
"Skip," Ben says, shouldering the front door open. "He'll settle down in a minute."
Mallory's bedroom is small. A single bed is crammed between the wall and an old wooden closet. When she sits on the edge of the mattress, the metal springs squeal beneath her.
"I thought you said I'd be sleeping on a spider-infested fold out," she says.
"Well, that can be arranged, if you'd prefer," Ben says, leaning against the door-frame.
"I think I prefer this," Mallory says. The mountains stand at the back of the house, but through her window she can see the tree-lined road they drove down to reach the front gate, and Skip's kennel.
"So," Ben says. "D'you wanna fight the jet lag or give in to it?"
"No, I feel okay," Mallory says. "Would it be okay to take a shower, though?"
"Yeah." Ben leads her through the house. The walls are pasted with mismatched wallpapers, faded and curling. The floors throughout are bare boards, except for the kitchen, which is cool, dark slate.
"You've ah – you've gotta come outside to get to the bathroom," Ben says apologetically. He pushes through a screen door and points at the end of the back porch, where another little room has been tacked onto the end of the house. The shower is over a wide claw-foot tub and the floor is made of the same slate as the kitchen.
"Towels are behind the door," Ben says, motioning with his hand. "Don't forget to bring your clothes in with you so you don't have to do a nudie run back through the house." He grins and bumps his shoulder against hers on the way out. "Not that I'll perve."
Mallory can feel the blood flush to her cheeks.
"Hey," he says suddenly, "I need to take James' car back. He's got my ute – we did a swap yesterday for the airport run. I'll be back in half an hour or so."
"Okay." Mallory smiles at him. "Say hey to James for me."
"I'll take Skip, so don't panic if you can't find him."
"Okay."
The shower pressure is a lot better than Mallory thought it would be. At first the water gutters and pours into the tub, but once the hot water kicks in it sprays evenly, heavy and hard against the top of her head.
She uses Ben's shampoo and leaves the bathroom windows open to the view of the mountains behind the house, the air breathing cool over her wet skin.
She wanders through the house in bare feet, her hair hanging in damp ringlets over her shoulders. She peeks into Ben's bedroom at the unmade bed and breathes in the faint trace of deodorant and the warm, dusty smell rising from the curtains.
A letter is propped up against the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the scrubbed kitchen table, Mallory's name scrawled across it. Mallory lifts it with a sense of dread, which is replaced with surprise when she realises it's from Vanessa, not Ben.
She sits on the couch in the living room to read it.
So this is a list of rules, it starts, without so much as a hint of 'dear Mallory' or anything.
1) Don't mope.
2) Don't email. Ben has promised me he'll keep you well supplied with stamps, so if you have anything to tell us, write it down.
3) We love you. Which I know is not a 'rule' per se, but it needed to be said.
–Vanessa (and Claire) xoxo
Mallory gives a small laugh and brings her knees up to her chest, curling her arms around herself. She's too tired to think much about anything, but she files away a little reminder to write Vanessa as soon as she can, just to put her mind at ease.
"So like, I don't wanna brag," Ben says, stirring the pan, "but I'm basically a chef."
Mallory laughs. "It smells good," she admits.
"Let's eat out on the verandah," he says, tipping half of the pan onto a plate for her, the other half onto his own. "It's cool enough out there now."
They sit side by side on an old couch which only seems marginally worse than the one inside, Skip begging for morsels off Ben's plate.
"So what else did you promise my sisters?" Mallory asks once she's eaten her fill. "I saw Vanessa's letter."
Ben is stretched out beside her, long legs propped up on a milk crate. Skip is inching on his belly towards his empty plate, left on the loose boards of the verandah beside the couch.
"Leave it," Ben warns, and Skip rolls over and hangs his tongue out the side of his mouth.
Mallory laughs.
"I didn't promise a lot," Ben says. "They didn't ask for much. Just to make sure you smile now and then, and to write them letters instead of emails. Made me swear I wouldn't mention things you usually don't want to talk about." He shrugs. "I dunno," he says. "Seems like you come with a big list of Do's and Don'ts."
Mallory finds she doesn't really have an explanation for him, though she still feels she owes him one. He pats her knee when he gets up. "Cuppa?" he asks. "Tea or coffee?"
"Actually, I think I'll just get some sleep," Mallory says tiredly. "But I'll help with the washing up first."
"Nah," Ben says. "Go to bed. You look like you haven't slept in weeks." He pulls her up with a laugh, and his arm lingers briefly around her waist. "Give us a yell if you need anything," he says.
Mallory leans against him and closes her eyes, suddenly more exhausted than she's ever been in her life. "Thanks," she says quietly. "I will."
Mallory wakes up, disoriented and dry-mouthed, without a clue of the time. She staggers from the bed, wincing as the springs squeal in the quiet house, and feels her way through the moonlit kitchen to the sink, where she draws a glass of water and peers out at the paddocks opposite, the grass silver.
She went to bed before sunset and it feels like it should be morning already; feels like the sun should be peeking at the horizon. When she checks the clock over the mantle in the living room, she's disappointed to see it's just after two o'clock.
The back of the house is open, cool air drifting through the screen door. Mallory eases it open and sinks onto the couch on the verandah, feeling wide awake. Something chirps incessantly from the long grass on the other side of the fence, a cricket or something, lonely and loud.
After a while, Mallory tries to compose a letter to Vanessa in her head, but the words won't come.
Her heart sinks. What hope is there of writing another book when she can't even write a simple letter?
She shuffles back to bed, feeling defeated and a little cheated, like the southern hemisphere had promised her something and then failed to deliver.
It's colder than it was four hours ago. Mallory pulls a sweater on and peers out the window. The light is already yellow, the sun starting to peek over the edge of the mountains behind the house. She finds Ben on the back verandah, his hair standing on end and his eyes bright and alert.
He grins at her. "How'd you sleep?"
"I woke up at two o'clock," Mallory says. "But I still slept better than I have in a long time."
Ben makes her a cup of unsweetened tea in a chipped enamel mug, the teabag left to steep. She curls the string around her fingers and sips it, watching Skip nosing his way along the fence. Further over, in the middle of the paddock, grey kangaroos stand with their chests to the sun, stretching and scratching.
They're bigger than Mallory thought they would be, and she's excited about seeing them in the wild without having to go looking for them, but she doesn't say anything to Ben in case he laughs at her.
"So I'm happy to hang around here today," he says. "But if there's something you want to do, don't be afraid to ask."
"Hanging out sounds good to me," Mallory says.
"It's supposed to be hot today," Ben says, glancing up at the sky. "You won't feel like doing much after lunch."
"Because of the weather, or your cooking?" Mallory teases.
He laughs and shakes his head. "Zing," he says. "You got me."
The first letter Mallory writes to Vanessa is short.
Flight was horrible. By the time I landed in Melbourne I felt like a melted candle. Ben is still the most easy-going guy in the world. Australia is beautiful. Miss you.
(And I love you, too, per se.)
She has no idea how long it will take a letter to reach Vanessa, but she's not sure time is much of an issue. She has no plans or dates in her mind in regards to going home, and Ben has only vaguely mentioned she's welcome to stay as long as she likes, but he has to go back to work at the end of March.
He doesn't talk unless he's prompted, which suits Mallory just fine. Their silences are never uncomfortable and she never gets the impression he's curious about why she's there, or why he's been warned to never talk about her writing, or a guy named Dave.
"Do you ever get lonely out here, all by yourself?" Mallory asks one morning, the chipped enamel mug cupped in her hands, tea steaming slowly.
"Nah," Ben says. "Town's not that far away. I go to the pub most Friday nights. James lives just down the road, and I've got Skip. Mum and Dad live on the other side of Melbourne and I see 'em every couple of months."
"What about Mathew and Johnny?" she asks.
"Johnny's at uni, studying agriculture," Ben says. "Mat's picking fruit up in Queensland. He's a bit of a wanderer." He shrugs, staring out across the paddocks at the back of the house. "I like peace and quiet," he says.
"Is that a hint for me to leave?" Mallory asks, not really believing so for a moment.
"Nah," he laughs. His hand drops down to her knee and he takes another gulp of tea. "You can stay as long as you like."
Please don't start abusing the phrase 'per se'.
Claire is making it a rule that all of your letters have to be at least 200 words long from now on, which I think is reasonable.
Jordan won the case he's been working on. Adam and Byron took him out to celebrate and I haven't heard from any of them since. Dad went by just to make sure they were all alive, and I haven't heard anything which would suggest the contrary, so I'm assuming they're still hungover and they'll write to you soon. (It's a rule.)
Nicky thinks he has Mono.
Margo asked for your address, so expect a letter from her soon. She called the other night to say the group had stopped in Montreal and their first performance is on Saturday. She sounded miserable; I think she's out of pills and it sounds like the bus journey was rough.
Have you seen any of the other Hobarts? What's Ben's house like? Is the weather nice? It's pouring rain here.
Miss you, love you. Vanessa.
P.S. Claire is making herself at home here while you're on the other side of the world. She keeps trying to bribe me with cupcakes, but I thought you should know. She's in your bed and everything.
Ben takes Mallory to the pub one Friday night, suggesting it out of the blue and pulling her over to his ute before she can protest. Skip jumps onto the tray on the back and barks until they reach the main road.
The pub is small and crowded, kept dark with the ceiling fans on lazy rotation. Ben sits beside Mallory at the bar with a grin and falls into easy conversation, introducing her to bronzed men who never take their hats off, and the woman pouring drinks, Jane, who swears heavily and threatens to cut off the beer if people don't stop talking shit.
It's loud and hot but Mallory finds she doesn't mind. She listens to Ben talk about the lack of rain and the abundance of fly-strike, how shit the cricket has been this year and whether or not the fish are biting up near Echuca. She listens to the way everyone calls him Benny or Blue, and realises he's not the only one here who calls her Mal'ry.
"I read your book," Jane says off-handedly, setting another beer down in front of her. "It was really good."
"Oh," Mallory says, embarrassed. "Thanks."
"Gonna write another one?"
"My publisher wants me to."
Jane grins at her and wanders off to pour another jug of beer from the tap.
Mallory listens to the conversation around her, not following much of it, but it doesn't bother her. She watches Ben, the way he leans one muscled arm against the bar, his hand nursing his beer. She laughs when people tease him about how pale he still is. Then they reason Mallory is worse, and her name for the rest of the night is Casper.
The evening has well and truly drawn in when they get home, the sun gone but the sky still mauve and yellow. Cockatoos are roosting in the trees along the road, making an amount of noise that Mallory still can't quite believe.
They sit on the back verandah and Ben opens another beer for her, slipping it into a foam sleeve and propping his feet up on the milk crate. "Okay?" he asks.
"Yeah." Mallory smiles at him and mouths the lip of the frosty bottle. "They were all really nice." She gives him a sly smile. "You're pretty popular."
He laughs and shakes his head, twisting the cap off another beer and flipping it away into the shadows with a quick snap of his thumb. "They're all right," is all he says. He tips his head back against the couch and looks at her for a long moment. "Jane was asking about your book," he says.
"Oh, it's okay," Mallory says. "Don't worry about what Vanessa and Claire say. It's not like I'll have a breakdown just because someone mentions it."
"Why don't you like talking about it?" Ben asks. "I think it's pretty good. Lacking a red-headed hero here and there, but..."
Mallory laughs and eyes him critically. "Maybe next time."
He grins, but doesn't push her to say anything else.
"I don't mind talking about the book I've already published," Mallory says slowly, but there's an ache in her stomach as she says so. "I'm just feeling a lot of pressure to get the next one done. I'm scared if I try again, everyone will realise that I just got lucky the first time. That it wasn't really skill or good writing that got me here, it was just luck and timing."
"Oh, bugger everyone else," Ben says. He takes a long pull from his beer. "If it'll just make you unhappy, don't do it, Mal."
"It's not writing that makes me unhappy, it's everything that comes with it now," she says anxiously, thinking about the nerve-wracking wait for reviews and the whirlwind publicity tours. "It's not as simple and straight-forward as I thought it would be." She looks down at her hands, wrapped around her beer. "Maybe I should have stuck to picture books."
"Couldn't you write a kids' book next?" Ben asks. "Are you under a contract or anything?"
"No," Mallory says thoughtfully. "They tried hard, but Vanessa made me swear not to sign an agreement that dictated how much I had to produce, or when. I think she was right."
They sit in silence for a few minutes more, until Ben says, "What about Dave?"
Mallory's stomach twists uncomfortably. "He's just... nobody," she says, trailing off. "I mean, he was somebody. But he's nobody now." She rubs her thumb against the lip of her beer bottle. "He's getting married, anyway."
Ben doesn't ask her to elaborate.
Ben has gone into town for the mail and groceries. Mallory sits on the couch on the back verandah with a pen and her notebook, Skip stretched out at her feet.
She starts the letter by answering Vanessa's questions, but finds herself writing paragraphs that have nothing to do with anything; things she's not even sure are true. She describes the house with all of its run-down charm and starts conjuring up the ghosts of people who could have lived here before Ben; who must have used the enormous fireplace in the kitchen to cook things; who must have run sheep or cattle on the land surrounding them to make a living. She writes about what it would have been like if the house had been there before the town; what it would be like to live a life that was self-sustaining; what it would be like to have the house full of children.
She reads over it and crosses Vanessa's name out at the top. She rewrites what she's got, neatly and quickly on fresh paper. By the time Ben comes home she's folding the third draft of a short story into an envelope addressed to Vanessa.
She helps him unpack the groceries while Skip noses around their feet, hoping to come across something for him.
"Here," Ben says, unwrapping a roll of butcher's paper to reveal an enormous bone with shreds of meat still clinging to it. "Don't go and bury it."
Skip grabs it happily and pushes his way through the screen door, wagging his tail.
"Did you get me a present, too?" Mallory asks.
"Chocolate paddle pop?" Ben asks.
"What's that?"
"Chocolate ice cream on a stick. Kind of like a fudgsicle, only better."
Mallory narrows her eyes at him. "Oh really?"
"Hey," Ben says with a grin, "if you don't want to eat them..."
Mallory snatches one from the box and escapes outside, laughing at Ben's wide eyes. Skip is gnawing on his bone at one end of the verandah. Mallory flops onto the couch and unwraps her paddle pop, shifting the loose pages of her first and second drafts so Ben can sit beside her.
"Your letters are getting longer," he says.
Mallory grins at him. "Uh-huh," she says. "I hope Vanessa is happy with this one."
"So you and Benny met while he was in America?" Jane leans against the bar with her chin in her hand.
"Yup," Mallory says. "We went to school together."
The pub isn't as crowded tonight, and Jane has time to wander around and chat to people between pouring beers. She settles with Mallory, who is at the bar alone while Ben plays pool with James and two men Ben knows well enough to insult and still have them buy him beer.
"How long was he there for?" Jane asked curiously.
"Four years or so," Mallory said. "His family moved back here when he was fifteen."
"And you stayed friends all this time?" Jane asks. She lowers her voice and gives Mallory a knowing smile. "Or are you more than friends?"
Mallory almost says that Ben was her first kiss – that they're friends now, but once upon a time she had felt butterflies in her stomach just at the mention of his name – but then she realises telling Jane would probably be a bad idea. Gossip spreads fast in a small town, and what's meant to be a cute story could easily become something else; something out of control.
"Just friends," Mallory says, though she's probably hesitated a little too long.
Jane shrugs and props her chin in her hand. "If you say so."
The sky is alight with stars when Ben and Mallory get home. She stands for a moment, looking up, no city glow to steal the spotlight. Ben stands beside her silently.
"Hey," Mallory says softly, folding her arms across her chest. "Thanks for letting me come and stay with you." She shifts her eyes away from the stars for a moment to look at him. "I know it had a lot of potential to be really weird."
Ben laughs and leans against the side of the ute, his hands in his pockets. "That's okay," he says. "It's not like we're strangers."
"No," Mallory says, and she thinks back over all the letters and emails sent over the years, the occasional phone call that always left her with a smile on her face. "But we haven't seen each other in a long time," she adds. "More than ten years."
"You haven't changed that much," he says. "It's not a big deal, Mal. You needed to get away."
She rocks on her heels, not sure what else to say. He shrugs and puts his arm around her shoulders, and they walk back to the house in silence.
Vanessa framed your story. It's hanging above her desk, and she keeps tapping it with her pencil and now the glass has got eraser marks all over it. It's driving me crazy.
Will you write me one as well?
P.S. Anything she's told you about me living here is a total lie.
A heatwave strikes, and Mallory complains that this is what Hell must be like. Ben laughs at her, but after a few days even he wears down.
It gets too hot to sit out on the verandah. They close the house against the sun and sit in the kitchen, the slate floor keeping it a little cooler than the rest of the house. Skip stretches out in front of the empty fireplace, and Ben declares it An Emergency and keeps the fridge stocked with beer and watermelon.
A fire breaks out somewhere to the west, and brown smoke drifts in a haze around the edges of the sky. Mallory can smell it on the wind, and the radio is full of shifting updates and worried voices.
When the wind changes and the smoke starts to billow in a huge column again, Ben tells her the town fire truck is going out to assist.
"I'll be gone all day tomorrow," he says. "James is coming too, he'll pick me up so you'll have the ute if you need to go somewhere."
"I don't want to drive that thing," Mallory says nervously. "I haven't driven stick in years, and it's all backwards here anyway. I can't use my left hand to change gear."
"You'll be right," Ben insists. He's shaking out a bright yellow jacket with CFA printed on the back, reflective bands around the wrists.
"Is the fire close?" Mallory asks, feeling worried.
"Not as close as it looks," Ben says. "But the crews have been on it for days and our truck's just sitting there waiting." He grins at her. "May as well make ourselves useful."
Mallory waves goodbye to Ben and James the following morning, clutching Skip's collar as he tries to follow. She lets him go once James' car is almost out of sight, and Skip runs up the road before circling back, panting hard under the hot sun.
"It's just you and me, buddy," Mallory says sympathetically. "But he'll be back later."
She stands on the front verandah for a while, watching the smoke drift in the sky, and then she thinks about what would happen if Ben didn't come back; if something went wrong. If he got hurt, or if the fire swept around and somehow did manage to get to the house and he wasn't there; if she had to try to save it, or run for safety with gears grinding in the ute and Skip on the seat beside her.
She squeezes her fingers into fists and feels the breeze stir her ponytail, curls shifting against the back of her neck. "Come on, Skip," she says. "Let's go in where it's cool."
Skip sleeps under the kitchen table while Mallory writes her fears out on paper, the radio murmuring updates in the corner.
The four o'clock weather update brings news of a cool change spreading across the state, and Mallory stretches and stands on the back verandah, staring up at the mountains and feeling a new softness in the breeze. She shifts her notebook to the couch and sits with her feet braced against the milk crate Ben uses for a footstool, the pages curling under her hand with the weight of ink and pressure.
On the back page, she's got three roughly-written paragraphs, each with its own title: Beginning, Middle, End.
Clouds are starting to overtake the smoke in the sky when Ben finally comes home, the sun setting blood-red in the west. James drops him at the gate, waving one arm out the window at Mallory as he turns in a circle around the gum tree in the yard and heads towards the road again.
Skip jumps up against Ben's legs, wagging his tail. "Miss me, mate?" Ben asks, rubbing the top of Skip's head. He's already peeled his jacket off, but his t-shirt is soaked with sweat. "Hey," he says to Mallory tiredly.
"Are you okay?" Mallory asks. "Is the fire under control? Has anyone lost their house?"
"No houses lost, I don't think." Ben disappears into the kitchen and emerges with three beers, one of which he passes to Mallory. "A couple of sheds, and there's some stock missing – but they might have made it down to the river. They've got it contained now anyhow."
Mallory can smell the fire on him, burnt eucalyptus, sweat, smoke and hot dust. Charcoal is smudged around the bottom of his yellow uniform. She watches as he drains half of one bottle in two long swallows and walks past her to the bathroom.
"That looks like a bloody long letter you're writing," he calls back to her, turning the cold water on in the bath.
"Well," Mallory says, fingering the corner of one page, her fingers already aching from clutching her pen all day. "How would you feel about a red-headed hero being in my next book?"
Ben pulls his shirt over his head and grins at her. "Wouldn't say no to it," he says.
Mallory smiles and shrugs. "No promises anything will come of it."
"You know," Ben says, hopping on one foot as he tugs his boot off, "I'm a little disappointed your hair isn't as orange as it used to be."
"It was never as orange as yours," Mallory says, keeping her eyes on the page. She can see Ben out of the corner of her eye, stripping off and apparently not caring at all about having the door open. "It's still red in the sun."
"You dyed it darker, didn't you."
"Maybe." She dares a sideways glance at him, but quickly looks away again. "And you," she says, gripping her pen in her fist, "used to wear glasses. But you don't anymore."
"Well," Ben says, "technically, I guess I'm supposed to. Especially when I'm driving."
"That's comforting to know," Mallory retorts. "Maybe it'd be safer if I drove."
Ben laughs. "Maybe." He sinks into the tub with a loud sigh of relief, the water still running. Skip trots in and looks over the lip of the bath expectantly.
"Don't you dare," Ben warns, twisting his next beer open. "If I had to ask someone to join me, Skip, it wouldn't be you."
Mallory grins down at the page in front of her, her cheeks warm.
Dusk breaks with a thunderstorm that hangs at the edge of the horizon. Mallory and Ben sit on the front step and watch it slowly roll in over the paddocks. The smell of rain mingles with smoke on the wind, and the sky grows darker and darker.
"This will help the fire situation, right?" Mallory asks, leaning against one of the verandah posts. There's no couch out here, the afternoon sun usually making it too hot to sit with much comfort. The wooden boards beneath her are warm under her bare thighs.
"If we get more rain than lightning," Ben says. "A cool change is always good." He leans against the wall of the house, facing her. "So your writer's block came unblocked today, huh?"
"Well," Mallory says cautiously. "I guess. I wouldn't say I'm completely happy with what I wrote, but at least ideas are starting to flow again."
"You just needed a handsome muse." Ben gives her a cheeky grin.
She laughs and looks out towards the storm again. "If you say so." She pulls her ponytail free and takes her time combing her hair between her fingers. "I guess Dave was my muse, before," she says after a moment. Her mouth feel dry and she swallows, not looking up at Ben. "He was – the character in my first book, Daniel?" She glances up at him to make sure he understands. "I guess Daniel was Dave. And Dave was Daniel. I didn't really mean for it to turn out that way. I guess I kind of projected what I wanted with Dave into the book."
"Don't a lot of authors write parts of themselves into their books?" Ben asks.
"I think so," Mallory says, shrugging. "I always have, anyway. I'm not sure it's a good idea to ever admit it, though. And there's a stigma that comes with it, like you shouldn't write something so easy."
Ben pulls a face and sips at his beer. "Snobs," is all he says.
Mallory smiles and rests her foot against the edge of the verandah, her knee under her chin. "Dave didn't like it," she says after a moment. "The book gained momentum and people we knew started asking him about things I'd written. And I hadn't put anything true in there, not really. But he knew me, I guess, and he didn't like that there were so many similarities between this character I'd written, and him."
Ben thinks for a moment. "Why not? Daniel's not a bad character to be compared to."
"I don't know," Mallory says, feeling a familiar weight of miserable guilt in her stomach. "I guess I used the book to try and advance our relationship to a place he wasn't ready for it to go."
"But didn't he read the book before it was published?" Ben asks. "You didn't just spring it on him, did you?"
"He read it," Mallory says. "But his reaction is understandable, I think. I had a different view of my book before it became popular, too. He liked it until it started becoming successful."
"He sounds like a dickhead," Ben says.
Mallory opens her mouth to argue, but closes it again and watches the lightning for a moment, great forks of it threading across the sky. "It doesn't matter, anyway," she says eventually. "We broke up and he found someone else, and now he's getting married."
"Do you love him?" Ben asks.
Mallory glances at him. "I did," she says. "When he left I felt like it was my fault. Like I'd driven him away. I felt like I should have been content with what I had with him instead of putting all these stupid little dreams and fantasies into a novel." She bites her lip, realising she's probably done the same thing with the pages written that afternoon.
"I think you're better off without him," Ben says.
"I think so, too," Mallory answers, but there's still a little ache in her chest. She tips her head back to rest it against the post behind her, and she can feel the thunder tremble through the house as it rolls overhead.
When the rain starts to fall, sparse drops hammering onto the iron roof, Ben pulls her up gently and steps in under the shelter of the verandah. "I'm glad you're writing again," he says. "I think the world needs another Mallory Pike novel or two."
"You think?" Mallory asks. She smiles up at him.
He laces his fingers between hers quietly, his thumb stroking over the heel of her hand. "Definitely."
He kisses her softly, one palm cupped against her cheek, fingertips stirring her hair and tracing gently over the arch of her ear. She sways against him, transported back to chaste kisses of her childhood and the deeper, desperate kisses of a wintry afternoon they had spent in Brenner Field, clutching one another with tears on their skin, wishing they didn't have to part, promising to be in touch always.
"I'm glad you're okay," Ben murmurs, leaning his brow against hers. His fingers slip down over her throat and drop to find her hand again.
She nods quietly, eyes closed. "Yeah," she whispers.
The storm passes and takes the rain with it, leaving only pock-marked dust and the heavy scent of damp grass around the house.
Mallory slips under the sheets of her bed and stares up at the ceiling, listening to the last traces of thunder dying at the horizon and thinking about the way Ben kissed her. She thinks about her notebook, pages imprinted with words she barely even had to stop and think about; words that came faster than she could write.
She dares to hope there will be more there tomorrow; dares to hope that this could be her next book. She thinks about what it would be like to talk to her publisher about it.
And then she wonders if it's a mistake to have Ben be her muse, because she doesn't think she could lose him after losing Dave.
One heartbreak is more than enough.
Wouldn't it be really romantic if you married Ben Hobart, and he was your first kiss and your last kiss?
My first kiss was Hunter Bruno, and he's a total asshole now. What was I thinking.
Vanessa is trying to make me pay rent. I need you to talk to her and tell her she's being an unreasonable dictator.
Mallory had expected the beach to be packed, but there are barely a dozen other people on the sand. Ben says it'll fill up as the day goes on. He starts talking about how popular the coast is with surfers, and what the temperature is going to be like for the rest of the week, but Mallory finds it hard to concentrate when his hands are smoothing over her back and shoulders, rubbing sunscreen into her skin.
"Lift your hair," he says after a minute, giving the end of her ponytail a tug. She hastily combs it over her shoulder and his palm glides warm against the back of her neck.
"There are no sharks here, right?" she asks after a moment, watching the waves rolling in, white foam hissing against the sand.
"Um." Ben thinks for a minute and Mallory turns and looks at him over her shoulder.
"If you're trying to scare me..." she warns.
He grins. "Look," he says, "every now and then a shark will turn up, but I don't think you have much to worry about."
"That's really comforting," Mallory says. "I'm not going in, now."
He laughs. "Come on," he says. "Out of the two of us, I'm the meatier one. Any shark with a grain of sense would go for me first."
"Ben," Mallory whines.
He laughs and holds the tube of sunscreen over her shoulder, wiggling it in his hand. "Return the favour?" he asks.
She tries to do it briskly. He's got freckles on his shoulders and his skin is a couple of shades darker than her own. She starts to slow down a little, watching the cream absorb away into his skin, and she applies pressure with her thumbs, feeling the shape of the muscles across his back. When she thinks it's starting to become obvious that she's lingering on such a silly little task, she backs away and says, "All done."
Ben grins at her and tugs at her hand. "Come on then."
"Is it going to be cold?" Mallory asks, not feeling as though the day has heated up enough to warrant splashing into the water.
"The Southern Ocean!" Ben shouts over the roar of the waves. "Right off Antarctica!"
She squeals as the water hits her warm skin, but Ben grips her hand and leads her further out. It takes a long time for the water to deepen, but the waves roll up and over her hips before falling down to her knees again, and after a while it's deep enough she has to jump to keep her head over the next wave.
She can't quite get the idea of sharks out of her head, though, so she keeps a hold on Ben's hand. He dips below the next wave and when he comes up his hair is dark and water clings to his lashes.
"So you're not dying to get back to your pens and notebooks?" he asks, steering her weightless body closer to him.
"Not right now."
"But you are writing again," he says, probing for confirmation.
"Yes," Mallory says, and then she adds, "Vanessa will be very pleased with you."
He laughs and hugs his arms tight around her waist so she's pulled up against him, the sunscreen slippery on their skin. "I didn't do much."
"Vanessa and Claire both think you did," Mallory informs him. "You certainly didn't make things worse, anyway."
He laughs and bounces her lightly in the water, rising up over the swell of the next wave. "Does that mean I get a cut of the profit when your next book hits the shelves?"
"Nice try," Mallory says. "The triplets have already tried to claim a share, and I successfully won that argument."
He laughs again and then his lips are pressing against her neck and his thumbs are tracing curls against the small of her back. She tips her head forward and feels the next wave roll against her shoulder blades.
"You kissed me," she reminds him. "When the storm came through, you kissed me."
"I kissed you a lot of times before that," he reminds her, and she can feel his teeth against her shoulder as he grins. "A long time ago, though."
"I liked this one best," she says.
"Yeah, me too." He bobs gently below her, hands on her waist, letting the water lift and drop them slowly. "I reckon we could beat it, though."
"Would you forfeit your claim on any profit you think you're entitled to?" she asks with a smile, drawing back slightly.
His grin widens and his gaze drops to her mouth before he meets her eyes again. "Righto," he says. "I'll accept other forms of payment."
Despite their best efforts, both Ben and Mallory arrive back at the house sunburnt.
"I'm going to peel," Mallory moans, touching her nose lightly.
"It's not that bad," Ben assures her, and then he has to jump out of the ute to go and release Skip from his chain. Skip races towards Mallory and leaps at her before he tears around the side of the house again, barking.
Ben takes Mallory's hand and squeezes it. "Let him burn off some energy," he says.
Mallory's skin feels stiff with salt, and her hair is rough and curly with it, flyaway around her shoulders. Ben tangles his fingers in it once they're inside and kisses her again. He tastes like heat and ocean.
"Ben," she whispers, shuffling with him into his bedroom, the warm afternoon air blooming and hot at the front of the house. "Will you read what I've written? Will you tell me if it's okay?"
"Right now?" he asks, cupping her face in his hands.
She grins, fists caught in the bottom of his t-shirt. "Not right now. But promise me, if it's bad, if you don't like it, you'll tell me and you'll let me fix it, and you won't be mad."
"I'll love it," he says. His lips brush over her nose and she can feel her hot skin tighten under the warmth of his breath.
"Just don't pretend it's okay, if it's not," she says.
"I'm rotten at lying," he says. "You'd see through me in two seconds." He kisses her again and starts unbuttoning the cotton dress she wore to the beach. "Everything will be okay," he assures her.
"You're worth more to me than any amount of books on the shelf," she whispers.
He slides his hands through her open dress and lifts her up against him. She pulls her fingers slowly through his hair and, when he sinks to the edge of his bed, curls her legs around his waist, settling into his lap. He slips her dress over her shoulders and lets it drop to the floor, murmuring something soft against her collarbone, light fingertips against the pink skin on her shoulders.
When she pulls his shirt over his head, she presses a thumb against a freckle on his chest, and watches the skin fade from yellow back to rose again.
"I think you got it worse than I did," Ben says. He trails a light touch down her spine, causing her to arch towards him.
"It's not so bad at the moment," she assures him, though she can still feel the heat of the sun across her shoulders.
Ben starts mouthing soft kisses against her throat, hands spanning wide over her back until his fingers pull the strings of her bathing suit undone. Salt prickles on her skin and she can taste it on Ben's lips still, and somewhere in her chest and the back of her head the ocean is still swaying.
When Ben falls back against the unmade bed and his fingers press between her thighs, she leans her palms against his shoulders, trailing her fist down until it's clenched over his heart, his pulse beating in time with hers. Her hair, alight with the sun through the window, sweeps over his chest, and he winds his hand into it and kisses her when she finally lowers herself over him, breathing hard against his cheek, hips rolling slowly.
His knees are still draped over the edge of the bed, and the floor creaks under the heels of his feet as he pushes up against her, a soft noise dying at the back of his throat. She can feel the sun trapped under the surface of her skin, and he wakes it with every brush of his hands against her, her thighs aching as her knees dig into the mattress beside his hips.
He lifts himself, bracing his weight with one hand, curling his other arm around her waist to drag her down against him, thrusting slowly, eyes closed against the arch of her neck. She puts her arms around his shoulders and can't silence the hum in her throat, the way her breath gasps softly in and out. She whispers his name against his ear and feels him shudder, his fingers tightening against her hip. She tips her head forward against his shoulder and her hips rock against him, the heat deeper than her skin now.
She leans her brow against Ben's, but it hurts, her skin too tight, so she presses her lips there instead, breathing in the ocean scent from his hair, and she sighs against his temple when he rocks beneath her. Sweat is slick behind her knees and at the small of her back, and she can feel the heavy damp weight of Ben's breath against her throat, the wide print of his hand on her hip. When he strokes a slick thumb between her legs she shudders and tightens around him, eyes closed and head tipped back, red curls spilling down between her shoulders. Ben thrusts up against her again and makes that same soft noise, fingers digging into her flesh, his hands dragging her as close as he can get her until they both stop twitching, hearts hammering in their chests, the air loud and rushed with their breath.
Mallory lets herself fall, separating herself, smiling as the air rolls cool over her damp skin. Ben follows her and drapes a heavy arm over her waist, seeking her hand.
"Will you put that in the book?" he asks, breath hot between her shoulder blades, a laugh trembling soft in his throat.
Mallory laughs with him, the mattress dipping as she shifts back against him again. "Never publish the first draft," she says.
He presses a kiss against her spine, tongue gathering the trace of salt on her skin. "It's okay," he whispers. "There's time for a second."
Mallory dances a little under the shower spray until she gets the temperature right, needing cool water against her sunburn. She washes the sea and the sand out of her hair, washes Ben off her skin. When she walks into the kitchen, hair damp around her shoulders, Ben is sitting at the table reading through her notebook. She grins when she sees he's wearing his glasses, but even that is not quite enough to quell the butterflies in her stomach.
"Is it okay?" she asks.
He grins up at her, his fingers marking his spot on the page. "I like this guy," he says. "We've got a lot in common."
"Oh, fancy that," Mallory says, rolling her eyes. But she's breathless with relief. "So," she says hesitantly, "if I really started writing this properly, you'd be okay with it? If I showed it to people, and people read it?"
He tips back in his chair. "Mal," he says, "I read your book over and over when it came out. I tried to write to you and tell you how much I loved it, but I never felt like what I was saying was right. What I felt seemed a lot more than what I could really explain..." He shrugs and looks up at her sheepishly. "I'm no good with words."
"You're not bad," Mallory whispers.
He runs his hand back and forth over the pages in front of him, tracing the indentations her pen has made in the paper. "I hate that you blame your book for everything," he says. "I know it must be hard not to when things seemed to fall apart after it took off, but when Vanessa wrote to me and told me you didn't even want to pick up a pen again...
"That didn't seem like the Mallory Pike I remembered. And I just want you to know – and I know it might be too late now, and I know I should've told you this when you really needed it, but – that book, Mal, I looked everywhere for it. I bought so many copies of the damn thing I had to start giving them away to people. I gave one to Jane and I think that was the best publicity I could have given you."
Mallory laughs, her throat closing up a little. She steps around the table and Ben takes her hand.
"I liked being able to share you with people," Ben says softly. "America's a long way from here and you were always what I missed most about it. Having a little piece of you here with me was pretty great." He smiles at her and squeezes her hand. "Your book made my life a little bit better."
Mallory can feel a lump in her throat. She looks down at their hands for a moment and twists her bare foot against the slate floor. "Well," she whispers, "I guess it wasn't all bad, then."
"Nah." He kisses the back of her hand. "Not all bad."
She wipes her eyes and gives him a watery smile. "I think that's the most I've ever heard you talk," she says.
He laughs. "Well, chalk that up to the book too," he says. "It can do amazing things."
She touches his cheek softly, brushes her thumb against the edge of his mouth. "I guess it got me here," she says. "I'll always be thankful for that."
If you're going to stay in Australia and write and have a torrid love affair with Ben Hobart, the least you could do is insist Claire pays her rent on time.
P.S. Don't forget to send me the next chapter; I'm dying to see what happens next.