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I lean back and smile at her. “To my favourite place.”

26

KALI

“Canwe stop and appreciate that your favourite place is watching people run and jump off a cliff?”

Anthony leans back on the picnic blanket with a dazzling smile, his eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses. “It’s not like they’re plunging to their deaths.”

“But theycould.”

Anthony drove for almost an hour, the two of us spending most of the car journey talking about his job and my studio and bickering about each other’s music choices. When we weren’t doing that, I was busy trying to control my breathing anytime Anthony looked at me. Which was a lot.

We eventually arrived at a western-facing clearing at the top of Tamborine Mountain, where several small groups of people were sitting having picnics or taking photos of the view. The most exciting part, however, was the handful of people running and jumping off into the wind, gliding around off the cliff face and defying all laws of logic.

Anthony retrieved a picnic blanket and a basket packed with goodies from his backseat, and set us up wordlessly on the grass, facing out to the cliff drop. I’d be lying if I didn’t swoon at the thoughtfulness of it.

“Why haven’t you jumped yet?” I ask, stuffing a grape into my mouth. “Too busy being a little pussy ass bitch?”

Anthony barks out a laugh and I grin at him, peeking down to see if he’s still squeezing a stress ball in his hand.

He is.

He’s been doing that since we sat down, and it makes me wonder if he’s nervous.

“Every time I visited from Sydney, I’d come up here and watch them for hours. Never felt the urge to sign-up for it. I enjoy the peace of watching.”

I get what he means. They’re almost hypnotic, the way they run and leap with grace, directing their gliders through invisible waves. It’s soothing to the soul, watching the way they dip up and down, the smiles on their faces evident each time they come back in.

“Don’t know if hang gliding would suit your bad boy persona,” I muse. “I mean, it’s pretty ballsy, but most of these guys are wearing spandex. Not sure that’s your style.”

Anthony removes his sunglasses and I sigh at the sight of his blue eyes, squinting at me with curiosity. “What’s my style?”

“Black, white, grey. Tattoos. You’ll take any excuse to get your shirt off.”

Anthony chortles. “Anything else?”

I shrug. “You know. Bad boy stuff. Smoking on occasion, boxing, fights, pr-”

I catch myself before I say the next word, but the quirk of Anthony’s eyebrow signals he knows what I was going to say.

“Prison?” he offers.

“I didn’t mean-”

Anthony chuckles and sits up, stealing a grape out of my hand. “What do you want to know, Red?”

“What did you do to end up in prison?”

Anthony sits up straighter, gazing out at the horizon. “I got done for drug possession.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-five. Looking back, I’m surprised I wasn’t in there sooner, or for longer.”

“What’s it like?”

Anthony stares straight ahead. “I had it pretty easy. I was at the bottom end of C Class and went to a farm jail, meaning I got to work. If I had to sit around playing cards and making chitchat, I would’ve died of boredom.”