Thanks for the feedback TessaTessa.
Dylan's family Christmas was based on my childhood memories of our own family Christmas as done by my English-born grandmother. The Christmas meal enjoyed by the friends was inspired by our Christmas lunch a few months back.
Wednesday 31 December 2014
Kate and Pete were sitting together on Mandurah's eastern foreshore waiting for the New Year's Eve fireworks to begin. They'd had a late dinner at a pub in town and afterwards had decided to walk off their dinner before the fireworks started. As it got closer to midnight, they had found a nice spot to sit and settled down on their picnic blanket to wait for the display to begin.
It was just the two of them there tonight. Dylan had flown east just after Christmas to spend a month with his family at their home in Port Macquarie, where they'd moved since selling their farm in the Hunter Valley. It had been a while since he'd last seen all his family and he'd been looking forward to the visit. Nikki was spending the evening with her work mates – apparently it was a tradition for her section to get together to see in the new year. Andy and Lani were in Tasmania for New Year after their Christmas in Melbourne. Sally and Chloe had joined Kate and Pete for the 9 o'clock fireworks before heading off to spend the rest of the evening with Sally's parents. It was after Sally and Chloe had left, that Kate and Pete had gone to dinner.
Kate commented, "It was good to spend some time with Sally and Chloe. I hadn't realised that you'd kept in touch with them ever since Swain died. It's so cute that Chloe calls you Uncle Buffer."
"Well, I was at sea and couldn't be at his memorial service to see her in person, so I initially phoned Sally afterwards when I could. It wasn't regular or anything, just depended on when I had phone access, but it seemed right."
"You make me feel bad that I didn't make more of an effort then. But I'd like to think that we're becoming friends now."
"Yeah, I think you are." Pete pulled Kate to his side and gave her a hug.
The countdown to midnight began and the two joined in with the crowd around them counting "5-4-3-2-1. Happy New Year!" They turned to each other, and Kate went to kiss Pete. Kate breathed in Pete's aftershave – something woody smelling that suited him and smelt wonderful. Just as her lips were about to touch his cheek, he moved his head and their lips met. The kiss, which she had intended to be a brief peck, deepened. Pete's hands cupped Kate's face as his lips and tongue urged her mouth to open. Finally, they broke apart, each gasping for breath.
Once before Kate had been this close to Pete, years ago when they were hiding on a pearl lugger waiting in case pirates boarded. Kate had been briefly tempted then, but hadn't done anything – Navy fraternisation rules loomed large in her mind, let alone 2-Dad's rumour mongering at the time. Once again, she let her fingers touch his cheek and lips, just like she had done that time. Kate's green eyes looked at Pete's brown ones. This time though she didn't think about the consequences of her actions – she just smiled and nodded, before leaning in to kiss him again. Pete fell back onto the blanket, pulling Kate with him, so that she ended up lying on top of him, while they continued kissing.
"Get a room you two" jeered someone in the nearby crowd.
They broke the kiss and Pete looked at Kate and raised an eyebrow. Once again Kate smiled and nodded. The two stood up and together they folded the picnic blanket before making their way away from the foreshore. Knowing that there would be a shortage of parking spaces tonight, Sally and Chloe had given them a lift into town earlier, and Kate and Pete had always planned to walk home afterwards.
Pete's arm was across Kate's shoulders and her arm was around his waist. Every so often Pete kissed the top of her head, her neck or her shoulder. In her turn, Kate stopped occasionally in order to kiss Pete properly. It took much longer than normal to make the short walk home over the bridge and into the canal area where they lived.
Arriving home, Kate used her key to open the front door. After they walked in and Kate had locked the door behind them, Pete effortlessly lifted Kate into his arms and carried her to his bedroom. From her elevated position, Kate took advantage of their faces being close together in order to kiss Pete without having to stretch up on her toes, or for him to have to bend down to her height.
"Pete is that a night light?" asked Kate as they entered his room, and she caught sight of a blue globe sitting on a corner table, from where it softly lit the room.
"Going away present from my last ship in Sydney before I came west. They reckoned I'd been to most places in the world and thought it would be a reminder. Also, they thought giving me a night light was a bit of a laugh. I like having it on in the evening before I go to bed. It's got enough light to see by, without being bright, and I don't have to turn on the main lights."
"It's pretty, and I like the wooden base." Kate commented before turning her face back to Pete, kissing him, and asking, "Now where were we?"
Pete lowered Kate onto his bed. She sat at the foot of the bed, with her legs dangling over the end of the carved wooden bed frame. Kate leaned forward and started to unbutton Pete's shirt, pulling it out of his shorts as she did so. When she was done, Pete shrugged out of his shirt and kicked off his shoes, before pulling Kate's t-shirt free from the waistband of her skirt and pulling it over her head. Pete briefly knelt down to unbuckle and remove Kate's sandals, running his hands up her legs to her knees before standing up again.
Kate undid the button at the front of Pete's shorts, before pulling down the zipper of the fly. Then she took hold of the shorts at the waistband, and pulled them down, leaving Pete standing before her clad only in his cotton boxers. Kate admired his body with her eyes and then with her hands, running her hands over his flat, muscled stomach and chest, and up his arms, touching and admiring his tattoos. As she did this, Kate realised, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she'd always wanted to touch Pete like this. She didn't have any tattoos herself but had often looked at Pete's and wondered about the background to them. Of course, there had been that incident years ago when Spider, one of the junior sailors on Hammersley, thought it would be funny to make a change to Pete's instructions for his tattoo, to make it say 'XO' on a banner across a heart. Pete was able to get the tattoo changed to blank out those letters and had also exacted revenge on Spider for his joke. Kate smiled at the memory.
Pete pulled Kate to her feet and undid the knot at the waistband of her wraparound skirt, which then fell to the floor. He reached around Kate's back and unhooked her bra, gently brushing the shoulder straps down her arms before tossing the bra over his shoulder, making Kate giggle.
She stepped forward to embrace Pete, running her hands over his back and shoulders, before raising her head to kiss him again. Kate revelled in the feeling of flesh touching flesh. It had been so long since she had been embraced like this. Pete gently pushed Kate away from him, before kneeling in front of her once more, running his hands up her legs again, this time going all the way up to her waist and then back, taking her underpants with him as his hands went down her legs. Kate sat back on the bed and watched Pete remove his boxers before he climbed onto the bed and gathered her in his arms.
Later
"You know that we didn't actually see any of the midnight fireworks?" mused Kate as she lay in Pete's bed, idly running her hand over his naked chest.
"Well, we saw the early ones. If anyone asks, just talk about them. The midnight ones were probably much the same. Anyway, the view is much better here." Pete leaned over Kate and smiled before kissing her neck, and her shoulder, and …
