Inspiration or ideas- quotes from- Friends (TV show) Garfield Comic and Susanna Kearsley*novel The Winter Sea.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Did you bring your laptop with you so you can write?" Fang asks. I'm staying with him for the last couple of nights. Lana's away visiting her, and Melanie's, brother Nickolas- whom Fang is named after.

Ella's at home with dad. She liked the idea of the two spending time together. I wonder how that will go.

"Hm. I don't think you would have let me come if I hadn't?" I reply. Fang had been pretty insistent that I bring it. Reminding me a couple times to do so, like this morning on the phone when we talked.

*"You can laugh now, but you'll thank me when your struck by sudden inspiration in the middle of the night, and need to work."

"You think I'm going to be struck by sudden inspiration, do you?"

He flashed a fairly wicked smile and said, "I mean to do my best."

Page devider

I wake up to see Fang watching me with a peculiar smile on his face. We're lying facing each other, Fang with his arm across my waist.

"What?" I mumble. Closing my eyes again.

"You have freckles." He says. I feel his fingers against my nose.

I open my eyes.

"I like them." He adds. I smile despite myself. I lean forward and lightly brush my nose against his. He moves his mouth to mine and kisses me.

"Fang?" I say turning over onto my side to look at him. He's lying on his stomach. His arms tucked up under his head.

"Hmm." He mumbles keeping his eyes closed.

"Lana- your mum, has she said anything to you about-"

He lifts his head up a pained expression on his face. "She's so sorry Max. really she is. She was court between telling you and keeping your mums wish. Sometimes people keep things from the people they love to protect them. There are grey lines when it comes to love, not everything is black and white, right and wrong."

I sigh rolling back onto my back. "Why does everything have to be so difficult? Everybody makes life harder with those kinds of things. Life can be black and white, right and wrong if we make it be... I'm making no sense."

"Yes you are. I know what you mean. But-" Fang grins sitting up and leaning over me. "Life is like a hot bath, it's nice at first, but the longer you're in it, the more wrinkles you get. Quoting Garfield."

I laugh, rolling my eyes. "How sad. But a mighty good quote at that."

Page Devider

I smile at Fang. "I have something to show you." I stand up and walk over to Fangs desk and pull a book out of my bag shaking the book so a half of a photo falls out into my hand. I put the book back down and take the photo over to Fang. He's sitting up in the bed. I climb onto the bed and into his lap, so I'm facing him, my legs wrapped around his waist, my feet folded over themselves at his back. Both his hands move to my waist.

I hold the photo so he can see it. It's the half photograph of him that Nudge had given me when we were little. She had made us get married in my backyard. She had ripped a photo of Fang and I in half and given us each a side. My half had Fang in it. Fang had the half with me in it.

Fang looked shocked for a moment. "You still have that?" He asks in astonishment.

I shuffle a bit feeling self-conscious. He probably lost his half years ago. He probably never took it home from my house on that day when we were six. I move back a bit from his face, but he puts his hand to the back of my neck and brings me towards him again bringing his lips to mine.

Page devider

"Gazzy your turn. Angle had a imaginary friend when she was four. What was its name?" Ella asks.

"Winky-Woo." He says quickly.

"And it's Profession?"

"Um, um, dentist." He yells jumping around a bit, at answering it correctly.

We're having a friendship quiz. Boys verses girls. Don't ask me how we got into it. It started with friendly banter turned competitiveness.

Nudge, Angel and I are sitting on the couch opposite Fang, Iggy and Gazzy. Ella- as the game host- is standing in-between the couches.

"Correct. Nudge. Lana and Melanie speak of the incident involving Fang and bird poo. Please explain?"

"Oh." Nudge leans forward grinning. "When Fang was nine he was walking home from school when a liquidly substance dropped onto his arm from out of know where, instead of, like any normal person, wiping it off he licked it." We all laugh. Fang shakes his head.

"I'll never live that down. Will I?"

"No." Nudge and I say in union, and laugh.

"Back to the boys. Fang's turn." Ella says. "Fang what subject did Max fail in her VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) Exams?"

"Easy Maths."

"Right. Angel. Gazzy broke a bone. When? How?

"When he was eight. Fell out of a tree, when he saw a spider." She answers.

"A really big spider!" Gazzy pipes in with a small cough.

"Iggy. Who kicked their teacher in the leg for, and I quote, 'being a sexiest pig'?"

"Max. And it was Mr Holmes the PE teacher."

"Extra points if you can remember what he had said to receive the kick."

"He said he'd give her a thirty second head start in a race against Fang."

"I didn't need it." I say remembering that day. I got detention for a month.

Page Devider

"I'll give you a massage." Fang says. I'm lying on my stomach. I feel him move around, his weight on the bed shifting, and then the covers are pulled away from me, and tucked around my hips so my lower half stays warm.

He leans over me his legs on either side of me supporting his weight as he sits on my bottom. I smile into my pillow.

He runs his warm hands across me back. Starting at me lower back and moving them up over my shoulders.

"Dot. Dot." He says. Poking his finger into my shoulder blades.

"Line. Line." He runs his finger down my spine, once up, then down again.

"Spider crawling up your spine." Then moves his fingers as if he's playing the piano on my back. It tickles and I suppress a laugh.

"Cool breeze." I feel his breath against my neck.

"Tight squeeze." He squeezes my shoulders."

Hope you liked this. Thanks for reading. Did you like how I set this chapter out. Please fell free to give your opinion.