My mouth curled into a smile as a Nine Inch Nails song burst onto the radio. It always reminded me of my home town and the carefree teenage days wasted there. Today was an apt day for that song to play I thought. The music abruptly cut away to the clang of my cell ringing through the car stereo.
“I hope you haven’t forgotten about Emily?” my sister exclaimed in an accusatory tone.
“Hey sis. Nope. I am on way to the airport now, I should be there in under thirty minutes”
“Great, thanks for helping Emily out bro. Shit, I have to go, you better look after her!”
I was on my way to the airport to fetch my sister's best friend from school, Emily Bloom. She had just finished college and was about to set off on a world tour for a year. She needed to get some admin done in the city before she left and I offered to give her a place to crash for a few nights.
I moved to the city a year ago for work and was sharing a house with some guys who had moved up for the same reason. Pete was out of town for the week on a work assignment and we had a room free for Emily.
I love the airport. It has no prejudices. There are people from all over the world of different shapes and sizes all trying their best to move through without incident. While waiting for Emily to come through the gate I kept myself busy watching folks pass by and trying to guess where they were from and where they were going next.
I was dragged out of my daydream by a redhead in combat boots, tight low cut jeans and a tank top stepping through the arrival gate. Until that point, I was not aware that the combination could look that feminine. The whole room seemed to shudder as she stepped through the doors. And then it hit me. Holy shit. That is Emily Bloom.
A couple of years had passed by since I last saw her and it seems I had missed a lot. She was always a beautiful girl but now she was something else; a force of her own.
Her face lit up when she spotted me in the crowd. I jumped up awkwardly to help with her ridiculously overpacked camping pack.
“Hey you! Good to see you John, you look great. Thanks so much for helping me out like this, I owe you one!” she said as she pulled me into a tight hug.
I found myself mesmerized by her blue eyes and the movement of her perfect lips as we caught up on the way home. I was smitten, as I am sure most men are in her presence.
We arrived home and I helped her with her bags to her room.
“I was thinking we would order in tonight. It is a school night after all. I will take you out on the town tomorrow I promise. That sound ok?”
“That’s perfect. I’m beat from all the travelling and a chilled evening sounds great. I’m going to jump in the shower and freshen up.”
I placed an order for a couple of pizzas and tuned in some music through the media centre. Tom, my other housemate, would be in for the evening so I ordered for all of us. Tom was a quiet type who mostly kept to himself. We had become friends over the couple of months we had been living together but there was still a cloud of mystery around him and his past.
About twenty minutes later the door burst open and a couple of pizza boxes walked through the door. It was Tom. He had bumped into the pizza guy on his way and connected the dots.
“Hey Tom. Thanks for bringing those in. Remember I told you about Emily? Well, she is here for the weekend so I figured we would order in tonight,” I explained
I watched Tom’s hit the floor. “It’s just pizza mate” I thought to myself. I looked over my shoulder and Tom’s expression suddenly made more sense.
Emily came bouncing into the room. She was wearing nothing but an oversized T-Shirt with her hair up in a bun on top of her head. Her perfectly pale legs grew out from under the shirt and ended in petite little feet which were red and blotchy from the hot shower.
I looked back at Tom and gave a shrug in reply to the “why didn’t you tell me that’s what she looks like?” expression on his face.
We all hopped onto the couch to get stuck into the grub. We laughed and joked over pizza, wine and music while we chatted and caught up.
Nearly three hours had passed when I realised that we had been through nearly three bottles of wine and the sun had disappeared long ago. I felt decidedly buzzed. In a short break in the conversation, I watched Emily's mouth morph into a manic grin as she noticed the deck of cards lying on the table.
“Lets… play a game,” she said in a playful tone.
“Do you two know how to play blackjack? If not I will show you. But we need to make it interesting… strip blackjack!” she commanded.
Tom and I looked over at each other with the exact same question on our minds. “You realise that you are only wearing a t-shirt and we are fully clothed right?” When I looked back she had already dealt a hand. Tom and I made the collective unspoken decision and went with it.
“I think we need more wine,” she advised and hopped off the couch to get it. She floated over to the fridge to fetch it. Tom and I watched her like sunflowers following the sun. As she leant over to get the wine the T-Shirt rode up revealing the full length of her thighs. It stopped just shy of her perfect butt. It was so good it almost hurt.
“What...?” she shrugged as she approached the couch and I realised that we had both been staring like teenagers in a strip club.
I cleared my throat and picked up my hand of cards.