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2. Illawarra Flame Ch. 07-09

By: inspirixis1



CHAPTER SEVEN 

The woman that Tyler saw at the office every day was an imposter. She looked like Maya, she moved like Maya, she spoke like Maya, but she wasn't Maya. 

When she stopped by his cubicle to check in on him he tried to engage her, he smiled at her and answered all of her questions, but he was too chicken shit to ask her if there was something wrong. 

She was polite and respectful to him. She said all of the same things that she always had, she complemented him on his work, asked if there was anything that he needed, but there wasn't any warmth in her anymore. It was all purely academic. 

It upset him. Why he should care was beyond him, she was his boss, she was supposed to have some level of detachment when it came to her employees. He knew this, but it still upset him. 

He had been seeing a lot of this imposter, this pretend Maya. She wanted to put in a bid on a huge contract with a medical hardware company. She needed to know how long certain tasks would take, how many people they'd need working on it, what pitfalls or delays he might expect.

She also wanted him to help her hire someone to check and debug products before they were sent up to the head office, apparently there were a lot of products that were sent back because they were too buggy. Maya didn't actually know anything about computers, she wanted him to write the job description and help her to shortlist and interview the applicants. 

In the end they had ranked the applicants differently. Maya wanted to hire this guy Simon who was a bit of a weirdo, he was completely devoid of inspiration or creativity. Tyler wanted to hire a woman, Jessica, who was outstanding.

'But Jessica has ideas, she could be an amazing asset," he argued. 

'Does Simon have the technical proficiency to do the job?" She asked, ignoring his argument. 

Tyler sighed. 'Yes, he knows how to debug code, but that's just about all he's going to be able to do."

'Good, that's all I want him to do." 

'You're missing an amazing opportunity with Jessica," he warned her. 

Her crystal blue eyes bored into him from behind her desk. She had a neutral expression on her face, an expression that Tyler had gotten used to lately, it seemed like a life time ago that he'd made her laugh at Gracie's birthday party. 

He missed her, he realized. That day it had felt like something was starting. He remembered when he had said goodbye to her that night, how she had stepped closer to him when he'd walked down the steps so that his face would be level with hers. He remembered how much he had wanted to kiss her. 

'Thank you Tyler," she dismissed him. She looked away and started organizing her desk, putting away the applicant's files that they had been looking at. 

Tyler didn't move. He was watching her.

She looked up. 'Is there something else?"

'I feel like you're avoiding me," he said.

She turned her palms upwards in a gesture of non-comprehension. 'We're sitting in the same room together at my request, how could I be avoiding you?"

'No, I mean socially. I know you're friends with Emma but I never see you, you must go out of your way to avoid me."

She sighed, her hand came to her temple as if she had a headache, her composure was cracking. 'I do."

'Why?" He asked, 'Is that really necessary?"

She shot him a sharp look. 'Tyler, you made it pretty clear that you didn't want me around, what did you expect I would do?"

He shook his head. 'I meant that I wasn't trying to start something romantic, that doesn't mean that we can't be friends, does it?"

Her hand went from her temple to rub her eyes, she looked frustrated. She sighed again. 'You want to be friends?"

Tyler was starting to feel like a burden to her. 'I don't know, maybe."

Her hand dropped back down to her desk with a thud. Her eyes were piercing. 'Stop confusing me Tyler, tell me what you want." It came out like an order, he'd never seen her so close to the end of her fuse before.

He shouldn't have brought this up in her office, he felt like he was at a distinct disadvantage, but where else could he have talked to her? He never saw her anywhere else. 

He felt exasperated, why was this so difficult? 'I don't know Maya, I guess I want you to stop avoiding me. If we become friends fine, if not that's fine too." 

What was he supposed to say? He wanted to see her, to make her laugh, he wanted for her to like him. He needed to get to know the real Maya, this woman he worked with was only a shadow of the person he had glimpsed at Gracie's birthday party.

She nodded, suddenly accepting of his proposition. 'Okay fine, I'll stop avoiding you, but it changes nothing here at the office, you are still my subordinate."

He smiled, he wanted to make a joke about being her subordinate outside of the office too, but it would have been inappropriate, something told him that she wasn't in the mood for that sort of joke. 

'What?" She asked.

'Nothing, I just got what I wanted, that's all."

She gave him a weary smile. 'Something tells me that you usually do." 

The next Wednesday was the day that they left for San Diego. The entire office went and there was a really festive feeling in the air. Maya had set deadlines for the day before they left, everyone had been working really hard and now they were ready to let their hair down. It also didn't hurt that Maya had said that it was okay to bring family members along. 

It was so much better than those stupid team building camps that Phil had made them go on every year. Maya called them together for a meeting before they all checked into their rooms at the beachfront hotel. She stood on one of the big plush armchairs in the lobby of the hotel to address them. She was wearing low-slung chino trousers and a long sleeved white cotton button down shirt and her sunglasses were perched on her head, holding her hair back off her face. She managed to look like she was on summer vacation without actually showing a square inch of skin. 

'I'd like to thank everyone for all of the extra effort you've put into your work over the last few weeks. I set some very challenging deadlines and I've been impressed with how you've all stepped up to the plate in response. I hope you enjoy this vacation, because you deserve it."

She started clapping and everyone joined in with her. People were smiling and patting each other on the backs.

'There are two things that I'd like everyone to attend: First, a cocktail hour in the hotel bar tonight at 5 pm. Second, Donna has organized a barbeque lunch on the beach out the front of the hotel tomorrow at noon. I'd like everyone to be there between 11 and 1. Apart from that you are free to do whatever you like with your time."

It couldn't have been better, there was plenty of time to swim and go to the gym and plenty of time to see his brother and parents. He went to the cocktail hour but he didn't drink any alcohol, he wanted to go straight to weight training afterwards.

'Not drinking?" She asked.

'No, I don't usually drink and I've got to go to the gym tonight anyway."

She smiled at him. Her tanned skin seemed to glow in the afternoon light. 'So you won the Olympics huh?"

He smiled back. 'Well, I'm not sure that you can win the whole thing... I won a race at the Olympics, yes."

'In that funny frog stroke."

He laughed. 'Yes, the breaststroke. How did you know that?"

'I saw you on the TV," she admitted. 

He was surprised, Maya didn't seem like the sort of person who watched sports. 

'I guess the time you asked off next month is for a race?"

Before he could answer she interrupted him. 'Shit, you don't have to answer, legally I'm not supposed to ask you."

He smiled, 'It's okay, I don't have any secrets. The time in July is for a training camp, the time in August is for the world championships."

'Oh, well good luck."

He nodded. 'Thanks'

'I'd better circulate," she said before she walked off to charm someone else. 

He loved being in San Diego again, there was something about being home that was comforting. He rented a car and dropped by his parents place after the gym. They were the same as always, his mother fed him and they sat and talked and talked and talked. They didn't talk about Jacinta though, some things wouldn't change no matter how much you wished they would. 

The next day he slept in and then swam at the pool he'd raced age group in when he was a kid. He was back at the hotel in plenty of time for the beach barbeque that Donna had planned. 

It was a gorgeous day down on the beach, the bright hot sun caused the sand to shine brilliant white and the blue waves crashed heavily, enticingly. It was a rough surf day, maybe he would go for a swim in the ocean this afternoon. Not here though, somewhere else. 

He got a bottle of water from the cooler where the barbeque was being set up and sat in the sand beside Ian and his girlfriend. He didn't think he'd ever seen such a pair of dorks, they looked totally out of place on the beach, but they also looked like they was having a good time. Tyler made small talk with them as they watched some of their office mates play Frisbee. 

Maya was playing, she was actually pretty skillful. She leapt athletically to pluck the disk out of the air, the pale blue dress that she was wearing fluttering around her as she landed gracefully. It was still a modest outfit, she was wearing a white cardigan over it to cover her shoulders, but she looked stunning. Her brown hair was in a singe braid, strands of hair had fallen out and fell loosely around her face. 

She was standing close to the waves, the water was gushing around her ankles, but it didn't seem to bother her. He looked up and down the beach, noting the way the wash from the waves moved. She was standing at the cut of a rip. Shit, she really shouldn't be standing there. He had no idea if she was a strong swimmer, she had called breaststroke the frog stroke so she probably wasn't. She was from New York, she probably didn't even know what a rip current was. 

He stood up, 'Maya!' He called out to her, he wanted to motion for her to come in out of the water. 

She was watching the Frisbee, Graham had thrown it to her but it was wide on the ocean side. She took three steps further towards the waves and jumped to catch it.

'Maya, No!' He yelled. 

She looked up the beach at him right as the first wave hit her. It didn't look that big but she was in a rip and the current would be deceptively strong, she lost her footing as the next wave crashed down on her. 

'Fuck," he swore as he pulled his shirt off. He ran down the beach, all the time watching for where she was going to surface. 

'Graham, call the coast guard," he yelled. 

Graham was laughing, 'Whatever Tyler, she's just a bit wet." 

Tyler didn't even look at him, he was still scanning for Maya, his heart racing. She hadn't surfaced yet. 

'Call the fucking coast guard," he ordered angrily. 

He ran into the water, immediately feeling the strong constant tug of the rip around his legs. He saw her surface, all arms and hair, gasping for air. She was already a long way away from him, the current pulling her quickly out to sea. He was running in the turbulent water, the waves already crashing around his thighs and he dove, keeping his head above the water to watch her. Another wave broke onto her and she went under again. 

He swam like his life depended on it, ducking waves and scanning for her, changing directions and sprinting towards her when he spotted her. She was in a lot of danger, one bad hit and she would drown. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, he was unaware of his body his focus on her was so strong. He was getting closer to her. The current was really strong, they were moving quickly. 

They were out past where the waves were breaking now, he could concentrate better on her without having to duck beneath waves and she wasn't getting knocked around so badly. She was still having trouble keeping her head above the water, the chop was rough and she was trying to fight the current. 

He kept his eyes firmly fixed on her, she was only a few yards away now. He could see her face, the fear, the terror in her eyes, but she couldn't see him, she was too panicked. A white cap hit her and she went under again, he swam the last few strokes towards her and waited for her to resurface. 

Where the fuck was she? Fuck! He dove. The visibility was terrible, sediment clouded the water and made his eyes virtually useless. He let the current drag him along, looking around in vain, searching with his arms for her. Something brushed against his fingertips, he kicked his legs towards it. It was material, maybe her dress? He grabbed hold of it and pulled it towards him. 

It was heavy, he groped with his other hand looking for something to grab onto. His lungs were screaming at him, he needed air, but he needed to find her more. Finally his hand found something solid and closed around it. He kicked towards the surface, his head felt like it was going to explode from the lack of oxygen. 

He broke the surface and gasped for air, his lungs expanding rapidly. He pulled whatever part of Maya he had up to the surface. It was her arm, he quickly figured out where her head was and grabbed her hair, bringing her face out of the water. She was still conscious, thank god, he had always suspected that rough water resuscitation was a farce that search and rescue had you learn so that you wouldn't abandon a corpse. 

She was gasping and coughing, kicking and flailing her arms, completely panicked. 

'Maya, calm down," he told her. 

He was holding her across her chest from behind, supporting her so that her head was well out of the water. 

His voice only seemed to frighten her more, she tried to turn around to see him, to break free from his grasp. Her elbow connected swiftly with his nose, he felt it crack and his sinuses flood with blood. 

'Fuck!' He yelled straight into her ear, 'Maya stop!' 

She seemed to respond better to the direct order. She stopped struggling against him. She was still coughing and spluttering and gasping for air but she was still now. 

'It's okay, I've got you, I'm not going to let go of you," he tried to reassure her. 

'Tyler?" She asked through heaving coughs.

'Yes, it's me, just trust me okay?"

'Okay." She was still coughing, trying to clear her lungs, but she seemed to be calming down. 

The current was slowing, they were near to the rip's terminus. He thought about trying to swim her across it but it would probably freak her out even more. Besides, it felt like they were slowing down, if he just stayed put the coast guard would be able to find them more easily. 

'Just relax, I'm going to put you in the supine position so that you can breathe better," he told her. 

He loosened his grip on her and used his knee to guide her pelvis towards the surface as he let her head slip lower towards the water. Her dress ballooned out around her legs like a jellyfish. He let her head rest in the space where his neck joined his right shoulder while he hooked his right arm under her armpit and grasped onto her shoulder. Now he had good control of her, a free arm and he could tread water. 

He could support her in this position for hours if he needed to, not that he was expecting to have to. Hopefully Graham had wizened up and called the coast guard right away, if that was the case they should be here pretty soon. He looked back towards the shore, it had been a long rip, they were probably a half a mile out to sea. 

'What happened?" She was crying, her breath came in gasps and hiccups.

'You got caught in a rip current," he told her. 

'I thought I was going to drown," she sobbed. 

She would have drowned, Tyler knew it with certainty. He had worked these beaches for years when he was younger, people drown in rip currents all the time and the surf was pretty rough today. 

'Shh, don't cry Maya, everything is alright now. Graham called the coastguard, they'll be here soon and then we'll go back to the beach."

'You're bleeding!' Blood was flowing out of Tyler's nose, it wasn't gushing so he wasn't that worried about it, but it was stressing Maya out. 

'What about sharks? Tyler we're going to get eaten." She tried to move but he increased the pressure of his grip on her shoulder to let her know that he was in control. She submitted to him, but not happily, she was upset. 

'Calm down, there are no sharks around here," he lied. 'Besides they're not interested in your bony ass anyway."

'How do you know?" She asked. She was still edging on hysteria, her hiccups wracked her chest violently. 

'Because I used to patrol these waters, I used to lifeguard here when I was younger."

Maya was still upset, he didn't know what to say to make her calm down. It really wasn't a big deal anymore, all they had to do was float and wait for the coastguard. 

'Hey, it really is going to be okay now, I wouldn't lie to you about that. Do I look like I'm worried or upset?"

She twisted her head to try and look at him, he loosened his grip to allow her to move. He looked into her eyes, they were exactly the same shade of blue as the ocean behind her. 

'You have blood all over you, but you don't look worried," she said. 

He made a nodding motion that wasn't really a nod because she was so close to him. 

'Why don't you just pretend that we are in the pool at the hotel?" He asked.

'Why would you be holding me like this in the hotel pool?" She asked as she laid her head back down on his shoulder.

'Hmm, maybe this is my hotel pool fantasy, not yours," he said in a sly voice. 'So lets see, if we were in the hotel pool your first thought, obviously, would be how handsome I am and you would say something like," he put on his highest pitch girliest voice, 'Oh Tyler, I never realized how good-looking you are."

He got it, she laughed. 

'Maya, I think you had better tell me what your hotel pool conversation looks like because mine is going down hill rapidly, in fact I think mine is going to start requiring props pretty soon... Yes, for sure, mine calls for a broom, a bobbing head statue of Bill Clinton, a roast beef sandwich and an entire bottle of baby oil, so if you don't want to know just how perverted my mind is you had better start talking..."

She was looking up at the sky, laughing through her tears. 

'I don't know Tyler, what would I talk to you about?" Her breathing was finally settling down. 

'Tell me about Nicholas, what about when he was born?" He asked hoping to dredge up a good memory from her. 

'Oh god, it was awful. It was exactly a month since Hamid, his father, had died."

'Oh shit, I'm sorry Maya, I didn't know." Crap, he wanted her to be thinking about nice things, not reliving bad memories. 

He felt her head move on his shoulder as if she was trying to shake it.

'It's alright, it's been three years, I can talk about it now. 

'I was so scared. Here I was giving birth to my first child and I felt so alone. I wasn't alone, my mom and sister were there, and Hamid's family too, but I felt totally alone. When I held him for the first time I didn't feel overwhelming love I felt blank, numb, like I had no idea where to start. 

'Hamid's parents wanted me to move in with them, so they could help with Nicholas. I was too weak to resist them. They did everything, I didn't even breastfeed him, I'll probably feel guilty about that for the rest of my life. In retrospect living with them was probably the best thing for Nicholas at the time, I was in no state to take care of an infant.

'I felt like a failure. It took me a long time to go outside again, probably eight months or longer. When I finally did I didn't feel better, I felt worse. I remember it was the Fall, I had a favorite bench that I would sit on in the park down the road. I watched the leaves turn on a big maple from that bench, every day there would be fewer and fewer leaves. It was the most depressing thing I had ever seen, after a while I didn't even cry I just sat and watched. 


2. Illawarra Flame Ch. 07-09



'Then one day I got mugged. I was walking to my bench to look at the tree and some guy tore past me and snatched my purse. It didn't matter, I didn't have anything important in there, but it ticked me off. I chased after him. I don't know what I thought I'd do if I caught him. 

'That was the beginning of my recovery. It felt so good to do something, even if it was chasing a petty thief. I started working out again and then I started thinking about going back to work. Hamid's parents were against the idea, they thought I should stay at home and look after Nicholas, but whenever I tried to do anything they would rush in and correct me, tell me that I was doing it wrong and snatch him away from me. 

'I got the position with CommuTec in the New York office and I took it. I couldn't stand being in the house anymore. I thought that if I was away during the day they might let me have Nicholas during the evenings, but I was wrong. 

'He was eighteen months old and he thought his grandparents were his mother and father, so I moved out. I had a big argument with Hamid's parents, they wanted Nicholas to stay with them, they were more stable, they knew him better. It was true, but what could I do? He is my son. I took him with me. 

'Even so, they insisted that they would look after him during the day. Day care is not safe, they told me, he'll get sick. So I let them take him while I was at work. It was better, at least Nicholas was starting to realize who I was, but their influence on him was... detrimental. 

'Nicholas is their only living male descendant, he is the only son of their only son which makes him particularly precious in their eyes. I don't know if it is a cultural thing or if it's because he carries their name or what, but they treated him like royalty. They catered to his every whim. There was nothing that was too much trouble when it came to Nicholas. 

'As his personality developed and he started talking I realized that they were endowing him with a sense of entitlement. He was such a little shit, he'd throw these massive tantrums any time I didn't give him exactly what he wanted. It went on for months. 

'Finally I couldn't take it any longer, I asked for a transfer at work. There was nothing available so I started looking for a new position elsewhere. When the offers started to come in I forced CommuTec's hand, they did some 'reshuffling' and offered me the post in Denver.

'I felt so guilty. I still feel guilty. If it weren't for Hari and Priya I have no idea how I would have coped in that first year after Nicholas was born, god knows what would have become of us, but they were turning him into a prick Tyler, I had to do it. 

She was looking for reassurance. 'I know Maya, you did the right thing. I think it was very brave of you." Tyler was struck by her resilience, her tenacity. Maya was a remarkable woman, that's for sure. It was just one more thing to add on to the list of things to admire about her. 

'I don't know," she said. 'I have no idea how to look after him, I'm really just grasping at straws. Being a single parent is so much harder than I had ever imagined. Sometimes I feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I'm so tired and he's always pushing me, trying to find out when I'll snap. 

'Emma has been an absolute godsend. It's not that she knows better than I do, it's just good to be able to talk to someone about it, you know?"

'Uh-huh."

'He is slowly getting better, the tantrums aren't so frequent or so bad. Now I just tell him that he has to do what I say or else he doesn't get to see you."

Tyler was surprised, but honored at the same time. He knew that Nicholas was fond of him but he didn't realize that he valued their time together so much.

'He just adores you Tyler. Every morning he asks me if it is Wednesday yet, I can't wait until he figures out the days of the week so he can keep track on his own. All I hear about at home is Tyler says this, or Tyler did that...' 

'He's a good kid Maya, you're doing a good job with him," Tyler said, and he meant it too. 

They were silent for a while. They bobbed up and down through the chop of the water, occasionally water would wash up to Maya's face and she'd close her eyes, but she seemed calm. 

In a perverse way Tyler was glad that the reason her ex-husband wasn't around was because he was dead. He didn't know what that said about him as a person, probably it meant that he was a selfish asshole who was looking to make a move on a broken woman. 

He'd never been this close to her before. Her head was nestled in against his neck and from where he was treading water he had a view of her body laid out in front of him. He was trying not to look. She'd lost her cardigan in the surf and the pale dress she was wearing was almost completely transparent in the water. She was cold. She had big nipples that stood out atop round pert breasts, the fabric of her dress clung to her and accentuated her shapeliness. 

Tyler had never really been a breast guy. Sure he liked tits, he was a man after all, but he had always preferred the package deal, to him the breasts were there to complement the rest of the body. Maya's breasts, however, might just end all of that, they were exceptionally beautiful, perfectly proportioned. He couldn't stop himself from stealing glances at them. It was totally inappropriate of him but his eyes just couldn't get enough of them, as soon as he looked away he was anticipating seeing them again. 

He wanted to touch her. Of course he wasn't going to, it would be an enormous breach of trust, she was completely powerless, totally at his mercy right now. But the thought of touching her sent waves of anticipation all over his body. His skin was tingling, his lips were burning with the desire to kiss her, his cock was stiff against his board shorts. 

'Tyler?"

'Yeah?"

'Thank you for coming to get me."

'No worries Maya, I'm trained to do this, don't even think about it."

The skirt of her dress billowed around her legs, every now and then he'd catch a glimpse of a long slender thigh. 

'Look." She pointed up at the sky where the rescue helicopter had come into view. 

Shit, they'd sent a Black Hawk. He had been holding out hope that they might have sent a boat. Of course they'd sent a helicopter. He lifted his free arm out of the water and started waving it over his head. 

'Okay Maya, this is going to feel scary but it's safe. They're going to send a rescue swimmer down in a harness for you. When he gets here you're going to thread your arms through part of the harness and they're going to lift you up into the helicopter. All you have to do is hold onto the rescue swimmer's legs okay?"

'Okay." Her voice was small and frightened. 

The pilot had spotted them, it wouldn't have been difficult, all he'd have to do was follow the rip, which would have been visible from the air. 

'You're coming up too, right?" She asked. 

He didn't want to, he would have preferred to swim back to shore himself, but he knew that there was no way that they would let him. Once the coastguard was involved the number one priority was safety, there was no way they'd leave him down there. 

'Yeah, they'll do a second drop for me." 

The helicopter came over head, the noise was deafening and the wind from the rotor blades beat down on them, suppressing the swell of the water. They lowered the rescue swimmer, his helmet and goggles obscured his face so that Tyler couldn't tell if he knew him or not. 

When the swimmer got to them Tyler used hand signals to tell him that he should take Maya first, the helicopter was hovering above them and there was no point in trying to yell. The swimmer nodded. Tyler helped to get the harness over Maya's arms. She looked frightened. 

The operator winched them up into the air. Maya did as he had told her and held onto the swimmers legs as he wrapped them around her to keep her secure. It looked obscene but it was the safest way to do it. He watched as she was extracted, her dress clinging to her body, her bare claves and feet dangling. 

They dropped the rescue swimmer again for him and he was winched up into the helicopter. The familiar pitch and roll, the smell of diesel exhaust and the roar of the rotors immediately sent waves of nausea through his body. As soon as he was on board he grabbed a headset and a harness. They already had Maya strapped into one of the canvas seats with her own headset on. 

'It's fucking Casper Steve!' He heard through the earpiece. 

'No way, is that you Tyler? I thought that dude looked like an albino. What the fuck are you doing here?"

Tyler leant over and released the swimmer's goggles from his helmet. It was Ducky. 

'Fuck. On the one day that I actually need help they send Ducky," he said. He was joking, he was happy, he hadn't seen these guys in years. 

There was laughter. 'Whatever dude, I got your girlfriend out didn't I?" 

Tyler looked over to where Maya was strapped into the seat, she was shivering and hugging her arms around her chest, watching him. Her dress was plastered to her body and totally transparent. 

'Dude, get her a fucking blanket, she's practically naked."

Ducky's laughter came through the headset, he wasn't a bad person but he was part of a culture that had an unconventional appreciation of women. 

'Asshole," Tyler muttered as he leant down and unfastened a blanket from under the seat. He squatted down in front of Maya. He could feel the sweat on his palms and the sickness swell in his stomach, a wave of heat passed over his forehead, he didn't have much time before he was going to hurl. 

He moved her arms out of the way and undid her harness. He looked at her face instead of her tits, which were standing out in front of him begging to be looked at. 

'Lean forward," he told her. 

She complied, her face was just inches away from his, her grey blue eyes searching his for reassurance, her lips quivering from the cold. Her hair fell messily, sticking to the side of her face and accentuating the angle of her cheek bones. He wrapped the prickly wool blanket around her back, all of the time concentrating on keeping his eyes on her face. He pushed her gently upright by the shoulders and crossed the blanket over in front of her. He took the harness and put it back over her shoulders, but he didn't have time to do it up. He felt the bile rising, he had about three seconds before he was going to vomit. 

He sprang to his feet and crossed the floor towards the door. He held on to the rail as he puked out the side of the helicopter. 

There was raucous laughter in his ears. Why did guys always think this was so funny?

'Ahh, this is priceless. Hopper you're missing a great show back here," Steve was talking to the pilot, 'Casper just lost his lunch out the side."

Tyler sank to his knees as he vomited again. Once it was out he felt a bit better. He turned around and sat on the floor, still holding onto the railing. He brought his knees up to his chest and wiped his face with the hem of his shorts. 

'Fuck Casper, are you going to hose that shit off?" Ducky asked, still laughing.

'Fuck no, that's your job," he replied. 

'What happened to your face?" Steve asked.

'She hit me." 

'That sounds about right, Tyler letting a woman push him around. Not much has changed huh?" 

Tyler looked out the door, they were coming into the helipad. 

'Whatever Steve," he said shaking his head. He knew Maya could hear the whole conversation, things were getting a bit too personal.

Once they were at the hospital he lost track of her. She was whisked away for god only knows what and he needed his nose treated. He didn't want to loose track of her, he wanted to stay with her to hold her hand and make sure she was alright, but that wasn't an option. 

Maya felt like a complete dickhead. How had she been so stupid to get knocked over in the surf and then swept out to sea? She was really embarrassed. At least she didn't have to face the employees until tomorrow afternoon when they were all going back to the airport. 

The hospital had been a waste of time. They had checked her lungs and taken her temperature and released her when they decided that there was nothing wrong with her. Now she just had to figure out how to get back to the hotel, a non-trivial task seeing that she didn't have shoes or a wallet and her dress was totally transparent. 

She walked through the reception area of the hospital and out the front doors, clutching the blanket that Tyler had given her in the helicopter around her. 

'Maya?"

She turned to find a tall man with dark hair and tanned skin following her. She didn't know him but he looked vaguely familiar. 

'Yes?" She said.

He held his hand out. 'I'm Joshua Gray, Tyler's brother."

Of course, that's whom he looked like. He was younger and had a darker complexion but the resemblance was there. 'Hello," she said as she shook his hand. She had to struggle to keep the blanket from falling off her and revealing her as-good-as-naked body to him. 

'He's getting his nose set but he told me to give you money for a cab," he held up a wad of cash, 'and these," he handed her the cash, a pile of clothes and pair of flip-flops. 

She was thankful and relieved. 

'I'd take you back myself but I don't know how long they're going to be with Ty, you know how hospitals are," he said apologetically. 

'Oh no, of course not, I wouldn't expect you to do that. Thank you. I was wondering how I was going to get home. This is very generous of you." 

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Thank Ty, not me." She felt his hand on her back through the blanket. He steered her back into the hospital and pointed to the bathrooms.

She looked up at him, there was something about this guy that made her feel comfortable, like she already knew him. 

'Thanks," she said. 

He smiled and gave her a single nod before walking away. 

She changed into the clothes that he'd brought her. They were women's clothes, a pair of grey track pants and a long sleeved red shirt that fit her surprisingly well and said 'Trojans' down the arm in yellow letters. 

She plodded out of the hospital in the flip-flops that were way too big for her, hailed a cab and went back to the hotel. 

Once she got back in her room she ran herself a bath, sat in it and cried. God what an idiot she was. She'd broken Tyler's nose. It was the end of June, he was supposed to have his world championship race at the beginning of August. She didn't know how long it took to heal a broken nose, hell she didn't even know if he was going to be able to get on the plane tomorrow. 

Her phone rang. She got out of the bath, pulled herself together and answered it. It was Donna. 

'Oh thank god you're alright Maya!' She said, 'We've all been really worried. Is Tyler okay too? He's not answering his phone."

Maya hesitated, they were all going to find out eventually anyway. 'Kind of... I broke his nose."

Donna gasped, 'Oh my god! Why?"

'I didn't mean to! It was an accident," she said. 

'Oh." she sounded disappointed, as if some juicy piece of office gossip had just evaporated in her chubby hands. 

That thought snapped Maya back to her senses, she remembered who she was talking to. 

'Thank you for your concern Donna but I really just want to rest now. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

'Okay," she said. 

'Oh, Donna," Maya remembered the lunch that Donna had gone to such trouble to organize, 'how was the barbeque?"

'It was good. Everyone was really worried at first, we couldn't see you so we didn't know if you were alright or not, but then the coastguard came and we saw you go up into the helicopter. Everyone was cheering and then Graham got really drunk and tried to hit on Louisa."

Maya was smiling, Donna was such a little gossiper. 'Good, I'm glad it went well, you did a really good job organizing it."

'Thanks," she said brightly. 'I'll see you tomorrow."

Maya hung up and slumped down into the bed. She was tired. She didn't know why, it's not like she had done any of the work today, she'd just let Tyler hold her up. 

She closed her eyes and was asleep immediately. When she opened them again hours later she knew that she had been dreaming about Tyler. She didn't remember the dream but the feeling was lingering, the feeling of excitement, of wanting, of being wanted. She snuggled into the blankets trying to hold onto the feeling, imagining that he was there with her, but it was too late, she was awake.

It didn't take long for her to feel guilty. She knew that it was irrational, Hamid was dead, he'd been dead for years, she was allowed to be interested in other men. The guilt wasn't strong enough to stop her from wanting Tyler. 

Maybe it was because he was all Nicholas ever talked about these days, maybe it was because he had saved her life, maybe it was just because he was a good man. She didn't exactly know why but something was pulling her towards him. She wanted to go to his room. She wanted him to hold her. Anything else scared her at this point, but she would love for Tyler to hold her. 

She had a good excuse, she needed to apologize for breaking his nose and give him his clothes and money back. She got up and got dressed. She wished that she'd packed some more casual clothes, something that didn't make her look like a school teacher. She did own such other clothes but this was a work trip, she had only brought clothes that were work appropriate. Oh well, it's not like he didn't get an eyeful earlier today, she thought.

Shit, could she really do this? Could she really pursue someone she worked with? Someone who was under her command? She could get sued for sexual harassment. She could lose her job, her career could be sucked down the drain. 

She thought about it, there was nothing to say that Tyler was even interested in her. He'd sent her so many mixed signals, confused her so much. At first she'd thought he was interested, she could have sworn that he was flirting with her at Gracie's party, but when he had told her outright that he wasn't trying to start anything she had guessed that maybe she was just so out of practice that she was misreading him. But then he had seemed so upset when she had stayed out of his way, he'd gone so far as to bring it up with her directly, and in the water and the helicopter today he had treated her so tenderly, he had taken care of her. 

Oh well, she was just going to have to show up and see what would happen. She didn't bother to put shoes on, she'd never been a big fan of footwear. She padded down the hallway to his room and knocked on the door. 

After a moment he opened the door. He had a piece of white medical plaster over the ridge of his nose, which was a little bit swollen and purplish.

She bit down on her lower lip, suddenly nervous. 

'Maya, how are you feeling?" He asked. 

'I'm okay, are you? I'm sorry I broke your nose," she said a bit too quickly. 

He shook his head, 'It's my own fault, you were panicked, I should have been more careful."

'Are you going to be able to swim?" She asked.

'Yeah, it's not a bad break, don't worry about it," he replied nonchalantly. 

'Here," she held up the cash and pile of clothes for him, 'thanks, I don't know how I would have gotten back otherwise."

'Hi Maya." A sing-song male voice came from inside the room. 

She looked at Tyler questioningly. He opened the door further and stood back for her to come inside. Out on the little balcony that overlooked the beach Tyler's brother was leaning back in a chair, his feet resting on the railing. He was twisting his head around to see her. 

'Hi Joshua," she replied. 

'Josh," he corrected her. 'Beer?" He asked holding up a bottle.

'Umm," she looked at Tyler for some sort of cue, he raised his eyebrows as if to re-ask the question. 




2. Illawarra Flame Ch. 07-09



'Come on, I know you want to," said Josh as he screwed the cap off and held the condensation laden bottle out to her. 

'Thanks," she said as she crossed the room to the balcony.

There was a furniture set out on the balcony, Tyler threw the clothes on the bed, handed the cash to Josh and pulled a third chair around and motioned for Maya to sit. He sat down in the chair beside his brother and propped his bare feet up on the balcony railing. 

He had a bag of ice that he held onto his nose. Every now and then a trickle of water would run down his face and drip off his stubbly jaw onto his shorts. 

He had a sharp jaw line, in fact Tyler's whole face was sharp and angular, it was as if god had made a quick sketch with just a few lines and called it good. The effect was very masculine, the effect affected her greatly. 

'We were just talking about you," Josh said.

Maya looked at him, surprised. Josh was grinning broadly, but it didn't have the same effect as Tyler's smile, he didn't have all of the joy in the world contained in his face the way his brother did. 

'Really?" She asked.

She didn't miss the warning look that Tyler shot to Josh. 'We were just wondering how you were," Tyler said. 

'I'm fine, you are the one I was worried about Tyler," she said. 

'Oh yeah it's a tragedy, there goes your male modeling career Ty," joked Josh. 

Tyler swiped him over the head, 'At least I'm in the male category Jo-Jo."

They were both looking out over the ocean. Maya noticed that Tyler was drinking beer too. 

'Josh wants to quit school," Tyler said. 

She didn't know how to respond, it seemed like too much personal information for him to be sharing with her. 'Well that seems inadvisable," she said. 

Tyler didn't look at her but she could see the smile creep over his face. 

'Fuck Ty, you don't know what it's like, I'm probably going to fail anyway."

'Teaspoon of concrete Jay," Tyler said.

'What?"

'Harden the fuck up dude! Everyone thinks they're going to fail at some point."

There was pause in the conversation, they were both still looking at the ocean, Josh looked decidedly unhappy. 

'Failing is not so bad," Maya said as she followed the men's lead and propped her feet up on the railing. 

'Huh?" Josh turned to look at her.

'I've failed at a lot of things and I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal."

'Like what? What have you failed at?" There was an edge to his voice, like a challenge. 

'I failed a bunch of classes in business school. It made me feel like shit for a while but in the end it didn't really matter, I still got a job... I still get to boss your brother around," she smiled at Josh as she drank from her beer bottle. 

'You failed classes?" Tyler asked her, disbelief in his voice. 

'Sure I did, it was all a load of rubbish anyway." 

Josh was laughing. 'Do you think this one would make it on to mom and dad's list of approved role models?"

'I had thought so, but she seems to have some surprises up her sleeves," said Tyler with a grin. 

They were silent again. After a while she glanced over to see if Josh still looked upset, he didn't but he wasn't looking out over the ocean anymore, he was staring at her feet. She couldn't blame him, they were ugly feet. 

She watched as his eyes scanned up her legs and over her body, not in a sleazy way, in a thoughtful way. His eyes came to rest on her face. He was staring at her and she stared back. Tyler was unaware of what was going on, he was still holding the ice on his nose and looking out over the ocean. 

Josh knew. A big smile slowly took over his face, he knew and he wasn't going to keep it to himself. 

'You're Maya Galloway," he said, awe and delight in his voice. 

Shit, here we go. 

'Who's Maya Galloway?" Tyler asked. 

'She is."

Tyler put the ice down and looked at her. 'Am I supposed to know who that is?" 

'No...' Maya didn't really know how to explain, it wasn't that big of a deal it was just kind of awkward. 

'I swear your brain is like a sieve Ty." Josh cut her off. 'Remember that Christmas that we went to the ballet and Cinta and Kelly got in a fight because Kelly said that she could learn how to dance like the lead if she wanted to and Cinta told her she was full of shit? And then you agreed with Cinta and Kelly walked out on you? Do you remember what Kelly said as she was storming out?"

'No."

'She said, 'Tyler, if you think she's so special why don't you go and fuck Maya Galloway?'"

Maya was shocked, she knew that her dancing had made her the subject of some fantasies, but it had been a long time since anyone had recognized her, and certainly not in the circles that she mixed these days. The idea that Tyler might have fantasized about fucking her rocked her to the core.

Tyler shook his head, 'How do you remember this shit Jay?" 

'Because that was gold to me Ty, you know I hated that cunt. You should have dumped her back then."

'No, I mean how do you remember Maya? We saw her once from a distance and, what? Four? Five? Years later you meet her and you recognize her?"

'Cinta has a poster of her in her room, you know how much she loved that dancing shit. You might have recognized her too if you ever went in there." 

There was poison in that last comment. Tyler bowed his head and examined the beer bottle in his hand. 

Maya kept her mouth shut. She didn't know who Cinta was or why Tyler should be visiting her bedroom. 

The silence was finally interrupted by a phone ringing. Josh fished a cell phone out of his pocket and answered it. 

'Hi... Yeah, we're ready...Okay... You'll never guess what happened today, Maya Galloway broke Ty's nose... You know, the dancer...' There was unadulterated joy in Josh's voice.

'Fuck." Tyler snatched the phone away from his brother and started talking into it. 'Hi mom... Nothing, it was an accident, I'll explain later okay?... Okay, we'll be down in a minute."

Tyler snapped the phone shut and threw it at Josh. 'We've got to go," he said. He stood up and drained the rest of his beer into the potted plant in the corner of the balcony and then tore open the ice bag and poured the ice in there too. Josh stood too but he drained the rest of his beer into his mouth. 

Maya took her cue and got up. She didn't know what to do with her beer so she took it with her as she walked out of the room. 

'Have a good night," she said to them as she opened the door to leave. 

'Don't worry, I'm going to," Josh said with a smile. 

Tyler was following her. He stepped into the hallway with her but left his foot in the door to keep it from locking on him. 

'Sorry about that," he said. 

'That's okay."

'What are you doing tomorrow? There's something that I want to show you."

Maya's heart skipped a beat. 'Nothing. No plans."

'Okay, ten o'clock. It shouldn't take longer than an hour."

She nodded, 'Ten o'clock, see you then."

'Yeah, if I'm still in one piece," he said. He was smiling at her, god how she loved that smile. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day when Tyler was driving her wherever they were going Maya asked him about the coastguard guys in the helicopter. It turned out that Tyler had spent a large part of his childhood and years as a young man patrolling the beaches of San Diego as a lifeguard, and that many of his friends had gone on to join the coastguard. 

'I could never do it, partly because I get motion sickness so bad. I'm useless in the air and even on boats I usually throw up."

'Oh, that's why you were throwing up, I thought the sight of me had made you sick," she tried to make a joke.

Tyler took his eyes from the road for a second and glanced at her, a wry grin on his face. 'I think we both know that's not the case Maya." 

Maya couldn't help but smile. She still wasn't sure if he was interested in her or not, but he pretty much just told her that he thought she was good looking. 

The sunlight streaming in through the windshield threw the panes of his face in to vivid relief, there was shadow under his cheekbones. His freckles were so obvious on his pale skin that she could probably count them if she stared at him long enough. 

They were up on a hill in a well-established suburb. The houses were all different and the trees were mature. Tyler stopped in front of a pretty non-descript house. It was built into the side of the hill so that the front door was at the street level, but there was a second level underneath. 

'Where are we?" She asked.

'My parents' house," he replied. 

He got out of the car and she followed him down a side path and through a gate. He led her down the side of the house to the back yard. 

'This is where I grew up."

She was surprised and honored that he was letting her see such an important slice of his life. 

The grassy back yard sloped gently away to a fence, beyond which the land abruptly fell away. There was a view of suburbs below them and a tiny slice of the ocean in the distance. On the right hand side of the yard there was a tall tree the likes of which she had never seen before. 

She stopped to look at it. It was stunning. It had a tall straight trunk from which slim branches grew upwards towards the sky. It didn't have any leaves, but out of the ends of the branches profuse sprays of small blood red flowers bloomed violent and beautiful against the blue sky. A carpet of fallen flowers stained the ground red around the base of the trunk. It gave the distinct impression that the tree was bleeding. 

'That's Jacinta's tree."

Maya looked at Tyler, he was sitting on top of a big rock looking at the tree, his feet well off the ground. 'Jacinta?" She asked.

'Mmm, Cinta, my sister."

Maya thought back to the conversation last night. Cinta was the person who had a poster of her, the person whose room Josh thought Tyler should be visiting. She walked over to the rock and leaned against it, beside Tyler's legs. She looked up at the tree, waiting to hear what Tyler had to say about it, or about his sister. 

'It's called an Illawarra Flame Tree, my dad planted it when Jacinta was born. I was six and Josh was three, I was so jealous, how come she got a tree and I didn't? 

'It was impossible to be mad a Cinta though, she was such a beautiful kid. Beautiful on the inside, you know? She took so many falls for me, I blamed so much shit on her and when mom or dad would ask her she would just nod her head. 

'One Easter I figured out where Josh had hid his Easter Eggs and I ate them all, every single one, when he went crying to mom blaming me I told her that Jacinta had done it. I was there when mom asked her if it was true. I remember I was standing behind mom and Cinta looked at me, she was too young to understand what was going on but I nodded at her and she nodded at mom. I'm sure mom must have known, but she never said anything. 

He was silent for a while. There was a warm breeze that rustled the flowers and caused a few of them to flutter to the ground. 

'It's been a year since she had her accident."

Maya closed her eyes, she had known that this was coming but nothing can really prepare you to hear these sorts of stories. 

'She was seventeen and she went to a house party. I don't know if there were drugs involved, I suspect there probably were, she was balancing on top of a fence and she fell and hit her head on the concrete sidewalk. She's been in a coma ever since."

Maya's heart broke for him. Life was so unfair. She laid her head down on his thigh, facing towards the tree. 

Tyler stroked her hair away from her face, her skin tingled where his fingers brushed against her. 

'I came home for a while. I sat here every day and watched her tree bloom, willing her to wake up. You reminded me of it yesterday when you told me about the maple you watched in the park. I think this tree is the most gruesomely beautiful thing on the face of the planet when it blooms. 

'Finally, after a few weeks, Sam came and got me. He took me back home to Colorado, back to training. He's a good friend."

Tyler was silent for a while, he was still stroking her hair. 

'What's her prognosis like?" She asked.

'I don't know. Nobody knows really. She has a traumatic brain injury that she may or may not wake up from. If she does wake up she might eventually go back to normal or she might not. 

'The uncertainty of it is what makes it so hard. Nobody knows if they should be waiting by her bedside or getting on with their own lives. I went back to Colorado with Sam because he asked me to, not because I wanted to, but once I was there I realized that what's going to happen is going to happen whether I'm here or not. 

'It's harder for Josh because he still lives here in San Diego, he's convinced himself that she knows when we're in the room with her. I don't believe it, it's kind of like whether or not you believe in god, it's blind faith, I've never been good at that. So Josh spends a tonne of time with her, and it takes a huge emotional toll. He's a smart guy but he's let his schoolwork slip, he's only got one year left, I don't want him to quit. 

Shit, Tyler really had a lot on his plate. She wanted to comfort him, to make it better, but she didn't know how. 

'She's up in the house?" She asked.

'Yeah, my parents wanted her here rather than at the hospital. They go in and sit with her at night. Josh visits her all the time, but I haven't seen her since Christmas."

'You don't want to or you're scared to?"

He didn't reply right away which gave her the answer to the question. It had been six months, seeing her had turned into something much bigger than just being in the same room as her.

Maya lifted her head off his thigh and turned to face him. 'Can I meet her?" She asked. He looked basically the same but she could see the pain behind those beautiful hazel green eyes. 

'Meet her? She just lies there Maya, there's not much to meet."

'Okay, can I see her then?"

'Are you sure you want to? It's not very pleasant." He was hesitant.

'Yeah, I want to see which poster she has of me."

He smiled. 'I kind of do too." He jumped down off the rock. 'Come on."

He took a ring of keys out of his pocket and opened the back sliding glass door. She followed him into the house, it was cozy without being cluttered. Simple furniture, bookshelves filled to overflowing, an upright piano. Framed photographs hung on the walls, the smiles of children dressed in outdated fashions beamed off the walls. She wanted to stop and look at them, to see what Tyler looked like as a child, but he was already moving away. 

He led her down a hallway and stopped at the last door on the right. He hesitated there, he didn't seem to want to go in. 

Maya's heart was beating in her throat as she took his hand in hers. It seemed like a very bold move. He looked down at her. 

'I've never been so nervous to meet an unconscious person before," she said with a nervous smile. 

He smiled back at her and squeezed her hand. 

He opened the door. The smell of antiseptic hit her first. It smelled like a hospital in there. 

The lights were off. The only illumination came from the windows that extended from half way up the far wall to the ceiling, through which a garden of ferns and lilies was visible.

In the middle of the room was a hospital bed, a fragile teenage girl asleep atop it. In the soft light she looked ghostly, other-worldly. She had wavy dark brown hair that was cut short around her delicate face and the fairest porcelain white skin Maya had ever seen. Her dark eyebrows and eyelashes, and pink lips were dramatic against the white of her skin.

Her body was thin and crumpled. Tubes ran all over the bed. One went up her nose, others disappeared beneath the sheets. 

She walked over to the bed, Tyler a half a step behind her, still grasping on to her hand. 

'Tyler, she's beautiful," Maya whispered.

'You don't have to whisper, you wont wake her," Tyler said in a normal voice. He released her hand and turned around so that his back was to his sister. He was looking at the wall behind her. 'It is you," he said as he took a step away from the bed, towards the poster.

Maya turned her head to look at the poster. She had been embellishing before when she said that she wanted to see which one Jacinta had, there was only one that Josh could have recognized her from, and it was a huge coincidence that Jacinta had it. Maya had been famous within a very select circle of elite ballet enthusiasts, ballet just wasn't something that the average person knew anything about. Frankly she had been surprised when Josh recognized her, although looking at the poster it made sense, the photograph actually centered on her face. She sighed as she took in the impossible angles of her once young and supple body. 'I was fit once," she said. 

'And flexible," Tyler added, 'how on earth did you contort your body to do that?"

'Training. A shit load of training." She said it in a flat voice. 

One side of his mouth turned up in what turned out to be more of a grimace than a smile. 'I know the feeling," he said. 

'Did she dance?"

'When she was younger, she stopped a few years ago."

'Do you think she'd want me to sign it?"

'Yeah, probably." He looked around for a pen and found a sharpie in a drawer full of gauze and other topical dressings. 

She signed it with just her autograph, she didn't want to go too over the top. 

Tyler put the pen back where he'd found it, turned back to the bed and looked down at Jacinta. Her arms were on top of the sheets, he reached out and picked up her right hand and held it between his two enormous hands. 

'Josh says that he can feel her responding to him when he talks to her." 

Maya kept quiet, she didn't know what to say. 

'Cinta, this is Maya," he said. He reached out for her hand and placed it under his sister's. He folded his hands around hers and Jacinta's. 

Jacinta's hand was warm and limp. It felt like she was asleep, like how Nicholas felt when she carried him after he'd fallen asleep in his car seat. 

They stood like that for a long time, it seemed that Tyler was waiting for something. Finally he released them and turned to her. 'What do you think?"

'What do you mean?" She asked.

'Do you think she was responding to us?"

Maya sighed and shook her head. She hadn't felt anything other than a warm limp hand. 

Tyler collapsed into the armchair that was positioned beside the bed, his hand over his eyes. 

'Tyler...' She felt that she had disappointed him. She stood in front of him and reached out to touch his shoulder, but before she made contact he pulled her into a hug. He was sitting and so his head rested on her belly, his enormous shoulders curled around her hips and his long arms extended up her back, holding her tightly to him. She let her hands sink into his hair, relishing the softness of his loose curls. 

She let him hold on to her like that for a while before she made the decision. She gently nudged him to release her, he complied, but instead of stepping away she sat in his lap and took his head in her hands. She leaned in and kissed him. She couldn't remember ever being so bold in her life, but she wanted to be closer to him, she wanted to feel him in a way she'd never known. 

He flinched in surprise when their lips met. Maya's eyes flew open and she pulled back, thinking that she had made a mistake. Tyler's hand quickly came to the back of her head and held her steady as he replaced his lips on hers. When she relaxed his hand slipped down to the back of her neck and found its way underneath her hair. His grasp was so big that his hand almost completely encircled her neck, he caressed her in such a gentle and sensuous way that it gave her a pain in her chest, a good pain. 

It was a long quiet kiss. No sloppy tongue, no pushiness or neediness, just his lips moving against hers and his hand stroking her neck. It was perfect. He started smiling before he pulled back from her, she felt his lips spreading and thinning. 




2. Illawarra Flame Ch. 07-09



'What are you smiling about?" She asked. 

'I just kissed the most beautiful woman in the world, you'd be smiling too if you were me."

She couldn't help but smile back at him, he was such a goof ball. 

There was a noise above them, someone unlocking a door. Tyler looked at his watch.

'That's probably the physical therapist," he said. 'Come on, let me buy you lunch."

He called out as they moved through the house so as not to scare the physical therapist. 

'Tyler? Is that you?" It was a woman's voice. 

Tyler froze momentarily. 'Shit, it's my mom," he whispered to her. He bit down on his lower lip as if considering what to do. 

'Sashenka?" It came from the woman's voice upstairs.

'Yeah mom, it's me." His shoulders relaxed in acceptance and he walked towards the stairs. She followed timidly behind him. 

'What are you doing here?" She asked when he got to the top of the stairs, she was still out of Maya's view.

'What? I'm not welcome in your home anymore?" He deflected the question.

Maya got to the top of the stairs, there was a dining room and kitchen that opened onto a balcony from which there was a view of Jacinta's tree and the ocean beyond. Tyler's mom was in the kitchen putting groceries away, easily reaching the top shelf to store something. She had tanned skin, like Josh's. She paused when she saw Maya. 

'Mom, this is Maya. Maya this is my mom," Tyler said as they entered the kitchen.

She smiled widely at Maya, the sort of smile that you might reserve for old friends. 'Of course, hello Maya," she said as she continued to shelve the groceries. She didn't offer her hand to shake. 

'Hi, it's nice to meet you Mrs. Gray," Maya responded.

'Oh please, call me Nadia," she said with a wave of her hand. She had an informality about her that made Maya instantly comfortable. 

'Shouldn't you be at work?" Tyler asked. 

'Didn't I tell you? I don't work on Fridays anymore... furloughs."

'Oh, no you didn't tell me."

'Mmm, best thing that ever happened to me."

'Mom!' Tyler exclaimed, an expression of mock insult on his face. When she looked up he pointed to himself expectantly. 'Hello? First born son in the room!'

'Ha! You think you should be the best thing that ever happened to me? Sorry darling, your father might come close to being as good as my Fridays off but nobody surpasses them." She looked at Maya and winked. 

Maya smiled, Nadia was teasing him. 

'Nice mom, no wonder I have self confidence issues."

Nadia laughed. 'Tyler, your self confidence issue is that you have too much of it, not too little."

Maya laughed, she was starting to like this woman, she could see that there was no coddling in this house. 

'Did you offer Maya something to eat or drink?" She asked him. 

'No, I was going to take her to Pedro's," he said with a grin.

'You're not," she said in disbelief. 

'Best tacos in San Dog," Tyler was delighting in his mother's discomfort. Maya couldn't tell if he was joking or not. 

'Tyler," she said seriously, 'you are not taking her to Pedro's. I forbid it."

'Why not, it'll harden her up," he said, his eyes sparkling. 

Nadia gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes. 'God help you Maya."

'Why, what's wrong with Pedro's?" She asked.

'It's infested! The health department had to shut it down last year!' Nadia said dramatically.

Maya looked to Tyler. 'Nah, it's fine. They reopened didn't they?" He winked at her to let her in on the joke. It seemed that this family was big on teasing each other. 

'Honestly Tyler, sometimes I don't know who's son you are."

'Nonsense mom, you know you love me. We'd better go, I haven't packed yet."

'Okay, take care," Nadia said as she crossed the kitchen to hug Tyler. 'You're not really taking her to Pedro's are you?"

'Why? You want me to bring something back for you?" He asked.

Nadia shook her head as if to scold him, but she was smiling. 'Don't eat anything that he recommends," she advised as she opened her arms to hug Maya. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, of course she should hug Tyler's mother goodbye. 

He didn't take her to Pedro's but they did eat tacos from a little hole in the wall restaurant, and they were delicious. On the car ride back to the hotel he asked who was looking after Nicholas. 

'Urgh, Hamid's parents are there," she said. 'I'm thankful. I didn't want to bring him here and my mom and dad work so they couldn't help, I'm just not looking forward to seeing them when I get back."

'Stay at my place," he said. 

'What?" Did she hear right? Did he just ask her to stay at his place?

'Just for tonight. Call them and tell them that your flight was cancelled and you have to stay here another night, and then come and stay at my place."

'Wow, your mom was right about that self confidence issue," she said, bemused by his proposition. 

He smiled. 'Come on Maya, we need to talk, when else are we going to get a chance?"

He was right, she did want to talk to him, to figure out what he was thinking. She needed to make sure they were both clear on what was happening. Hari and Priya were staying through until Tuesday, she wouldn't have a chance to see him alone again outside of work for a while and there was no way that she would talk to him about personal issues at work. 

'Okay," she said, starting to come around to the idea.

CHAPTER NINE

It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now that she was sitting in Tyler's truck moving towards his house Maya was second guessing herself. She wasn't ready for this. Yes, she wanted to talk to him, but staying the night was a whole different kettle of fish. Every mile brought them closer to his place. Every mile she felt more nervous. 

'What's the matter?" He asked. 

'Nothing," she said.

'Come on Maya, I can see that you're anxious, what are you worrying about?"

She was silent for a second. She should just say it. 'I don't want to have sex with you."

Tyler glanced at her and started smiling. 'Now or ever?" He asked. 

'Not now, maybe not ever. I don't know."

'But if you don't know that means there's still a chance for the future?" He was grinning at her widely. 

She started laughing. 'I guess there might be a chance at some point in the future."

'Yesss!' Tyler pumped his arm as if he was a ten bowler who had just rolled a strike. 

She leaned her head back into the headrest and shook it, he was like a big kid. 

'Hey relax, I wasn't planning on trying to seduce you, I just want to hang out. You can sleep in the guest room if you like. Besides, we couldn't have sex tonight even if we wanted to."

'Why?"

'I don't think I have any condoms that aren't past their expiry date." 

'Really?" She had assumed that women would be beating down the door to get into bed with Tyler. 

He glanced at her again, taking his eyes from the road for a second. 'Maya, what sort of a person do you think I am? You think I bring women home on a regular basis?"

'I don't know, you were pretty quick to invite me home."

'Okay, first, that's totally different. Second, like I said, I wasn't planning on trying to have sex with you."

'Why is it different?" She asked.

'Because, you're Maya," he said as if that explained everything. 

'Yes, I know who I am but why does that make me different from anyone else you might bring home?"

'Maya, think about it. You've met almost my entire family, you're friends with my best friend's wife, I look after your kid, you're my boss... it's not like I can fuck you and then just forget about it. Not that I would do that to anyone anyway."

He pulled into a driveway, this must be his townhouse. It was cold and dark outside, Maya hugged her arms around herself while Tyler pulled their bags out of the bed of the truck and led her up the path to the front door. 

Cassie was waiting on the other side of the door, sitting patiently just inside, her tail wagging like a maniac. 

'Cassiopeia!' Tyler called her to him. She whined and wagged and danced and licked Tyler excitedly, and then she came to see Maya. She nuzzled her little head up into her hands and whined and shook her butt. Maya laughed, she'd never gotten such a reception before, nobody had ever been this excited to see her. 

'See, I told you she's a good dog," Tyler said as he smiled at her. 

'She hasn't been here the whole time has she?"

'No, Sam must have dropped her off."

She entered the house behind Tyler. He turned on lights as he led her through to the kitchen. It was clean but lived in, modest but nice. 

'See?" He pulled a post-it note off the refrigerator and handed it to her. 

It said, 'T. She's already had dinner. S." in small messy letters. 

'How is it that Sam is so neat but his handwriting is so messy?" She asked. 

'Dunno, probably a different part of the brain," he replied. He was looking through the fridge. 'Are you hungry?" He asked. 

'No." They'd eaten at the airport. 'He's really into post-it notes huh?"

'God, Sam is the king of post-it notes. I swear he must own stock in 3M or something."

Tyler started chuckling. 'Look at this," he handed her a second post-it note from out of the fridge. 

In big shaky handwriting it said, 'T 'heart' G' 

'Gracie made me banana bread and wrote me a post-it note, how cute is that? Anyone who says she's not Emma and Sam's kid has smoked too much crack." 

Tyler pulled a big bowl full of fruit out of the fridge. 'Come on," he motioned for her to follow him back to the living room. He sat on the couch and put the bowl of fruit on the coffee table. Maya sat at the other end of the couch. He started eating a nectarine. 

'So," he said, 'the way I see it you owe me a lot of information."

'What do you mean?" She asked. 

'Well, you got to meet my family and see where I grew up, I don't know anything about your past. I want to know." 

'Okay, ask away," she said. And ask he did. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to know how many kids were in her elementary school, about the cat she'd had as a child, if she'd ever snitched on her sister, how many different countries she'd been to, if she'd ever been camping, what her favorite city to visit was... His questions went on and on and on, but she didn't feel interrogated, quite the opposite. He was warm and funny and affectionate. He seemed to have a genuine interest in learning about her, in hearing what she had to say. They talked all night. It was two in the morning before she even looked at her watch. 

'No wonder I'm tired, it's really late," she said.

'Come to bed?" He asked.

There wasn't even a question in her mind of whether or not she should say no and stay in the guest room. She trusted Tyler. She nodded her head. 

He picked up their bags and led her up the stairs to his bedroom. They brushed their teeth beside each other in his en suite bathroom, he looked at her in the mirror and smiled through the toothpaste foam. 

She lay with her head on the place where his pectoral met his shoulder and draped a leg over his midsection, letting her hand rest on his breastplate. He put his arms around her but didn't try to kiss her. She had never just lain with anyone like this. With Hamid it had always been sex or nothing. She had been missing out, she realized. 

When she shifted to get more comfortable her leg brushed against his erection.

'Just ignore that," he told her. 

Even though her panties were drenched in her desire and her pussy was aching from wanting him so much, she did ignore it, she thought better than to push things at this point. 

'Good night Maya," he whispered, and then he softly kissed her on the head. 

'Good night Tyler," she whispered back. She kissed him once on his hairless chest.

It was still dark when he woke her up. He was sitting on the bed stroking her hair off her face and whispering her name. 

She opened her eyes and tried to focus. She knew where she was immediately, she was in Tyler's bed. He was trying to tell her something. 

'What time is it?" She asked

'It's almost five, I've got to go to swimming." He said.

'Oh, okay."

'I'll be back around nine, will you still be here?"

'Um, I don't know."

'Please?"

'Okay."

He leant down and kissed her on the lips. It was more than a goodbye peck, he lingered for a moment before he pulled away. And then he left. She heard Cassie trot after him, her nails clicking on the hardwood floor, then a click of a door and all was still. She snuggled back down into the blankets, Tyler's blankets. She breathed in deeply, smelling him, remembering him, and then she slept again. 

When she woke for the second time the sun was up and the room was bright. She looked around. It was seven thirty, still plenty of time before Tyler would come home. She wanted to snoop. Not bad snooping, she wasn't going to try and hack his computer or read his mail, she just wanted to see how he lived. 

She got up and took a shower. He had left towels out for her. How did he have the presence of mind to think of that at five o'clock in the morning? 

Once she was dressed she wandered around his townhouse. The master bedroom, where they'd slept, was pretty plain. He didn't have any decorations on the walls, there was no TV in there, just a chest of drawers, the enormous bed and a nightstand. She peeked in the nightstand drawers, nothing of interest really. There were a couple of books and a bunch of over the counter painkillers. The books were all travel guides, China, London, Saint Petersburg, Sydney. 

She opened his wardrobe and was surprised to see that there were no suits in there. Tyler wore a suit every day, not always the jacket but the pants, shirt and tie for sure. Where were they all? The closet in his room was full of casual clothes. 

The guest room was similarly plain, and devoid of suits. It was all a bit disappointing until she found his office. The office was where it was at. This was obviously where he spent his time when he was home. It was actually bigger than the guest room, with a futon, a stereo and TV with an X-Box and a half a dozen different controllers. There was a massive desk with no fewer than three computers on it and cables all over the place. 

He had a CD tower. It was ironic. Tyler worked in the information technology industry and he still had a tower full of outdated technology. She looked over the titles and was surprised to find that it was mostly classical music, not only that they were the right renditions. He didn't own flashy mainstream recordings of bland performances, he owned the good stuff, the real art. There were a few operas and symphony performances but he seemed to prefer chamber orchestras and concertos. And he liked Chopin. How many guys in their twenties like Chopin? 

There was a guitar case in the corner and there were photos taped to the walls. Photos printed straight from one of his computers, some on photo paper, some on regular white stock paper. She surveyed them. 

There was a young Gracie sitting in her high chair with cake all over her face, there were Josh and Tyler in those stupid paper crowns that you get out of Christmas crackers, there were Sam and Tyler soaking wet with an arm around each other and a swimming pool in the background, there were Zach and Sam sitting beside a camp fire, there was an old one of Jacinta putting white zinc oxide on Emma's nose at the beach, both of them laughing, and then there was Nicholas at the park, his little arm extended petting Cassie, his face turned towards the camera with a big smile. 

Nicholas had made it onto Tyler's photo wall. She stood and stared at it. Nicholas meant something to Tyler. 

Touching as this revelation was, it did not quell her desire to find his business suits. She looked in the closet expecting to find them there, but there were none. There were those weird swimming tights that she had seen him in on the TV hanging in there and there were piles of manuals and boxes filled with swimming trophies. She had a bit of a look through the trophies thinking that she might find his Olympic gold medal, but it wasn't in there. At least, it wasn't in the box that she looked in, there were others that also appeared to be full of trophies and medals. He probably had that one in a safe or something anyway.

Where were his damn business suits?

She went downstairs to continue her snooping in another room. First was the dining room, which was actually just an extension of the lounge room they'd been sitting in last night. There were framed photographs in here. Not that many of them, but enough to keep her interested. 

There was one of Sam and Emma's wedding, she'd seen a photo like it at their house, this one was just slightly different. They must have been married in Colorado, it looked like they were up in the mountains, there were big pine trees and craggy peaks behind them. In the photo at Emma and Sam's house the three off them were looking at the camera smiling, in Tyler's photo Emma had her head back laughing while Sam and Tyler smiled at her. It was a beautiful photograph, it captured a moment of real joy. 

There was a photo of Zach sitting in a kayak, his paddle held up above his head, happiness beaming from his young face. 

In a carved wooden frame there was a picture of Grace sitting on Sam's lap at a picnic table, piggy tails in her hair and a fork in her hand. Sam was looking down at her and she had a huge grin on her face, not a posed smile, a big grin.

The other photos were of his family. She examined the one of Jacinta carefully, she looked like she was about fifteen or sixteen years old. It was taken on the back deck of his parents' house, she recognized the little slice of ocean in the distance. In the photo she was looking up and smiling in a sly way, she looked mischievous. The photo gave the impression that she was colluding with the photographer. 

She was beautiful. There was no doubt about it, the girl was gorgeous. She had the fairest peaches and cream skin and the darkest brown hair. She had a delicate look about her, her cheek bones were prominent and she had a smile that a supermodel would be jealous of. 

Maya sighed. What a horrible waste. 

She walked through the lounge room, but she had been there last night, she felt sure she would have noticed a closet full of suits in there. The only place left to look was the laundry, and they weren't in there either. 

'What the fuck?" She said out loud. Then she thought of it. There was another place, the garage. It was a long shot, but she was so intrigued that she gave it a try. 

There they were, hanging in a large double door armoire. It was unusual in two ways. First, why did he store business suits in his garage? Second, when she looked more closely she realized that they were packaged in a specific way. Each hanger had a pair of pants, socks, underwear and an undershirt, business shirt and a matching tie, some had suit coats some did not. It was odd. 

She looked around the rest of the garage. Toys. He had a kayak suspended from the ceiling, a mountain bike, a surf board (where did he think he was going to use that around here?) and a ping pong table that was folded up and rolled to the side. 

She went back into the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea, looking through drawers and cupboards to find what she needed. The refrigerator was remarkably well stocked for a person who had just been out of town for three days. Everything looked fresh. 

True to his promise he had put the coloring in 'art work' that Grace and Nicholas had made for him on the day of Gracie's birthday party on his fridge. 

'It's bold Nicholas, I like it, it makes a statement," he'd said of Nicholas' page, which was mostly red scribbles. Maya admired the messy squiggly N that Tyler had shown Nicholas how to write. 





2. Illawarra Flame Ch. 07-09



'You have to sign it for me, otherwise it wont be worth anything, the art dealers wont accept it," he had said. 'Look; up, down, up' he had demonstrated how to draw a N. Nicholas wrote Ns on everything now, he was quite the expert at his 'signature'.

She was leaning against the counter waiting for the kettle to boil when she heard the front door unlock and Tyler and Cassie come into the house. He was wheeling a road bike, he still had the helmet on his head and the shoes on his feet clicked against the floor. Cassie was panting heavily, she collapsed in the middle of the floor and looked up at Maya with a big doggy smile.

'You're still here," he said, smiling at her. 'You must not have found my stash of blow up dolls."

She smiled back at him. 'Nope, although I did look."

'Of course you did." 

'Why are your suits in the garage?" She just had to ask, it was bugging her beyond belief. 

He started laughing. 'You really did check things out didn't you?" 

She shrugged her shoulders.

'It's easier that way, I just grab one on my way out the door in the mornings."

'And you dress at the swimming pool?"

'Uh-huh."

'They're packaged that way for ease too?"

'Yeah, that way I don't have to think about it." He undid his helmet and wheeled his bike through the kitchen and back into the garage. 

It made sense, she had to give him that. When he came back into the kitchen she asked, 'So do you stay up on Sunday nights packaging suits or something?"

'No, I have domestic help."

She couldn't believe it, Tyler made shitty money, how could he afford that? 'You have a maid?"

'Ah, more like a matron, I'd say. Maria does my laundry, my shopping, cooks for me... And she packages the suits."

'That's why your fridge is so well stocked?"

'Yeah, she comes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

'Tyler, how can you afford that?"

He hesitated for a second. 'Come sit down, there's something I should tell you," he was serious all of a sudden. 

What could it be? She sat down in the breakfast nook and he squatted in front of her. 

'You see... Ah, this is hard," he ran his fingers through his dark wet hair and looked out the window for a second. His eyes came back to her.

'What is it?" She asked.

'Well... I'm a male stripper."

What? Was he serious? He certainly had the body for it. She didn't know what to say, she was flabbergasted. 

'The tips are really good... and sometimes I get contract work away from the club..."

She looked at him. He couldn't be serious could he? He looked dead serious. 

Suddenly he burst out laughing. 

'You asshole Tyler!' She said as she whacked him in the arm, but she felt herself smiling, she wasn't angry. 'I knew you were lying."

'Careful Maya, I'm going to start taking photos of these injuries you've been inflicting upon me."

He was squatting between her legs and smiling at her. His hair was stuck down on his head from where his helmet had been. 

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. 

'Okay, I'll tell you the truth. I have a lot of sponsors. I'm wealthy from swimming and I figure, I can spend my time away from the pool looking after myself, which I hate, or I can spend my time at work, which gives me something to think about, and something to do after I retire from swimming. So, I hired Marie, and she takes care of it all for me."

'You're wealthy?"

'Yes."

'You don't need to work?"

'No."

'But you do anyway."

'Yes."

Maya understood. Hamid had left her a lot of money, she could retire right now if she wanted to, but she didn't want to, she wanted to have a career. She wished that her career could take up less of her time, but that's just the way it had to be. 

On the stove the kettle started whistling. 

'You're making tea?" He asked.

She nodded. 

'Will you make me a cup too, I'm going to go rinse off."

When he came back into the kitchen a few minutes later he was in fresh clothes and he smelled like soap. 

She handed him his cup of tea. 'That was quick."

'No point in dawdling when there's a beautiful woman in my kitchen," he said. 'You turned the teapot right?" He asked. 'I don't want to be jinxed with bad luck tea." He gave her a teasing smile over the top of his cup. 

'Nope, I poured yours first and then I turned it so I would get double good luck," she said.

'Bitch," he muttered, ' if anything bad happens to me today I'm blaming you."

He made her breakfast. Fruit and yoghurt and the banana bread that Gracie, and presumably Sam, had made for him. Then he ate five boiled eggs on toast, then he drank two pints of milk, then he ate the rest of the banana bread, then he ate more fruit. Tyler consumed an inordinate amount of food. 

'Can you stay a bit longer?" He asked.

'What time do you think would be reasonable to get home if we had flown this morning?"

'Oh, I heard that all flights out of San Diego are grounded indefinitely," he said, grinning at her wickedly. 

She liked the way he was thinking but she shook her head. 'I was thinking around noon."

'One o'clock?"

She smiled, 'Okay, one o'clock."

'Good, three hours to snuggle with you. I didn't get enough Maya time last night, you talked too much."

'I talked too much! Whose fault is that Mr. seven hundred and three questions?"

'Oh, and there's another seven hundred and three where they came from, I'm not finished with you yet Ms. Chandrasekhar," he said with a mischievous glint in his eye. 

The use of Hamid's name made her feel uncomfortable. It was her name too, she had legally changed her name, but it didn't feel like her name. 

He led her to the couch and plopped down on it, sitting sideways so that his legs were extended, his arms spread out to receive her. She sat between his legs and leaned into him sideways, enjoying the cocoon that his arms made around her. 

'Do you think I should change my name back?" She asked him.

Tyler didn't answer right away. 'I think you should do whatever you want to do," he said. 

'It's kind of nice to have the same name as Nicholas."

'So keep it." 

'It's not very feminist of me though, is it?"

Her head was resting on his chest and she felt the vibrations of his laughter. 'I guess that depends on what sort of feminist you want to be."

'What do you mean?"

'Aren't there, like, a dozen different types of feminism?"

'I don't know." Maya didn't really know what feminism was, she just had this nebulous idea that changing her name in the first place, and now keeping Hamid's name, was somehow contrary to her standing as an individual. 

'There are, I took a class in it in college." 

She looked up at him. 'You took a class in feminism?"

'Sure I did, I thought it would help me to pick up chicks," he said with a playful smile. 

'Did it?"

'I'm kidding, I already had a girlfriend when I took it."

'Oh, Kelly?" Maya remembered the name from the discussion with Josh. 

'Mmm."

'What was she like?" 

'Well... it turned out that she was somewhat of a cunt." 

Maya couldn't help but smile, it was probably inappropriate, but the way he had phrased it was funny to her. 

'I dated her for five years, then I asked her to marry me, she said yes and three weeks later I found out she was fucking someone else."

It wasn't funny anymore. 'Oh Tyler, that's awful."

'It was at the time, but now I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She did me a favor, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I'd married her."

'What do you mean?"

'We weren't right for each other. In retrospect her infidelity was the least of our problems." 

'And you asked her to marry you?"

'Well obviously I didn't realize it at the time. We had been together for so long and she was really pushing for it, it just seemed like the thing to do. I don't know. I was young and stupid.

He paused for a moment, lost in his thoughts. Maya turned over to face him and squeezed her arms around his torso. She laid her head back down on his chest. 

'We were living with Sam and Emma and I was so jealous of them, they were so in love with each other. I wanted what they had. I guess I did know there was something wrong, there were so many ways that she would manipulate me to get what she wanted. She used sex as a weapon... She knew my weaknesses and she exploited them."

'Why did you stay with her for so long?"

'I guess I was used to it, it was the only relationship I'd ever been in." 

'Has there been anyone since?" 

'Only you." 

She looked up at him. 'Me?"

He smiled. 'Yes, you... Maya the uncertain feminist."

She couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. He wanted to have a relationship with her, and he'd just told her that in a way that she was beginning to recognize as being uniquely Tyler. 

'How about you? What was it like with Hamid?" He probed her gently.

She didn't really know how to answer that. 'Not like this," she said. 

'Mmm...' He wasn't going to let her off that easily, he was looking down at her steadily, waiting to hear what she had to say.

She laid her head back on his chest. 'He was... strong willed. He was the director of the ballet company that I danced for. We had been dating for almost two years when I fell pregnant with Nicholas." More like fucking on and off for two years, she thought. 

'I was twenty-two, I didn't want to have a baby, I wasn't ready to give up my dancing career. Don't get me wrong, I love Nicholas and now I'm glad that I decided to keep him but it was difficult at the time. Hamid convinced me and then he asked me to marry him."

Hamid was such a charmer, upper class all the way, a wealthy older man, a director. He promised her so much. It was so romantic that he would be in love with the hard working female lead from meager beginnings. She was so swept up in him.

She remembered their first time, her first time, it had been in her dressing room after a rehearsal. He had walked in there as if he'd owned the place, thrown her against the vanity table and fucked her. It had been so exciting, she had been lusting after him for weeks, but she hadn't climaxed. She'd never climaxed during sex. It was something that had bothered her for a while until she'd googled it and found out that only about thirty percent of women actually reached climax during sex. She guessed that she was just part of the unlucky seventy percent. 

'He had always been so accommodating to me when we were dating, he went out of his way to make things nice for me, but that changed when we were married. All of a sudden he wasn't interested in what I had to say, he wanted me to be quiet, when I spoke he acted as if I were a pebble in his shoe. It wasn't until we were married that it occurred to me that when I was dancing it was his job to make me happy. Once I had quit dancing he had no motivation... I don't think he loved me." 

She was crying. She had never said these things out loud before. Tyler was rubbing her back soothingly. 

'I loved him in the ways that I could, and I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with him. When he died it was tragic. I had given up my career because he had convinced me to keep his child and now he wasn't even around to help raise him. It was like a triple whammy, I had a screaming baby, no husband and my body was shot, I knew I would never dance again."

Tyler was quiet. He continued to rub her back as she calmed down and stopped crying. His patience was remarkable, this was the second time in three days that he had comforted her like this. 

'Maya, I have something for you but I have to get up to get it," he said. 

'Okay." She sat up and let him move. He leaned over to her and kissed her softly before he got up, his hand on her cheek, brushing tears away with his thumb. 

He went to the wooden cabinet in the corner of the room and opened it up. She hadn't realized that it was a stereo. He pushed some buttons and turned some knobs, picked up an iPod and came back to the couch. He spent a moment shuffling through songs, looking for the right one and then he put the iPod on the floor and pulled her back into his embrace. She leaned into him, waiting for his gift. 

It was sublime; angelic and mournful. She had heard the piece before, it was the third movement of Henryk Gorecki's symphony number three, but she had never heard this soprano. She was breathtakingly beautiful, her voice soared with emotion. It was so powerful. 

'Who is she?" she whispered.

'Elizabeth Hynes."

She knew that the piece was literally about a mother lamenting the death of her child but the tonality, the timbre of it, the soprano's profound sorrow captured her feelings precisely. 

She couldn't compare loosing her career to loosing a child, that grief would be unimaginable, but the sentiment was the same. She had lost her ability to dance, the most important thing about who she was. It was selfish and shallow perhaps, but it was grief nonetheless. And Tyler had known. He had seen it in her and he had understood. 

It was at that moment that Maya knew that she was in love with Tyler Gray. It was preposterous, she knew. She had only known him for a few months and she had spent the vast majority of that time trying to avoid him, and yet she felt that she knew his heart. 

He was a good man. She'd never met anyone like him before, someone who cared about a child who wasn't related to him, a man who had opened his heart to her and shown her the parts of his life that hurt, someone who understood the drive for perfection and appreciated the beauty in the world.

When the piece was over he told her that he had seen the performance with his family. 'My dad is a cellist, he was part of the orchestra."

'Do you play?" She asked.

He shook his head. 'I can play the guitar and the piano a bit but I'm not talented. Josh can play anything you put in front of him, but Cinta is the one with the talent, she plays... played the piano. Here, listen...' 

He reached down and picked up the iPod. He rested his elbows on her back as he looked over her head to shuffle to the song he was looking for. 

It was Mendelssohn, Scherzo in E minor, played with a cheekiness and freedom that made her laugh. Jacinta took liberties that most pianists would shit their pants over, but she made it work. She was a virtuoso. 

Tyler was smiling at her. 'Now you've met Cinta," he said. 

'She's funny," Maya said, still smiling. 

'Yeah. You want to hear Josh?"

'Uh-huh."

The music that came through the stereo was like nothing she had ever heard before. It sounded almost like a flamenco guitar, but it was lighter, the pitch and tuning were different, it sounded fresh. It wasn't classical music either, she had never heard the song before, there was a flute and some weird percussion instrument that she couldn't quite put her finger on, it was airy. The whole thing was funky. Funky in a cool way. 

'What is he playing?" She asked.

'Ukulele and flute."

'What is the percussion?"

'That's the flute."

'Really? It sounds so... I don't know, I can't even explain it."

'Yeah, Josh is really creative. He wrote that and recorded it in two sittings."

'Is that what he's in school for?"

'No, he's doing architecture. He might be able to make it as a composer but it's really hard and there's no money in it. I don't mean the money is lousy, I mean there is literally no money in it. Architecture suits him though, he'll be awesome at it if he can make it through this next year."

'Do you have any recordings of you?" She asked.

'Nothing serious, just stuff accompanying Josh and Cinta. We used to mess around when we were together for the holidays."

'Play me something?" She asked.

'Hmm... lets see...'

It started with a guitar picking something that she didn't recognize, a piano joined with supporting chords and then a flute entered with an unusual rendition of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', the tune floated effortlessly, the piano and guitar now simply supporting it. Then suddenly, somehow seamlessly, it morphed into 'O Fortuna'. There was laughter, Tyler's laughter. 

Jacinta was going nuts on the piano while the flute accentuated, articulated the melody. Somehow she evaporated into the background and the Flute took over. By now Maya knew that Josh was playing the flute, he was doing that weird percussion thing and playing the theme to the pink panther, but it was faster, funkier, Tyler's accompaniment on the guitar was simple, intuitive, the piano trickled in the background. Tyler missed a key change. 

'Shit," she heard over the recording.

There was the laughter of a girl. 'Keep up fat boy," she said.

'I'm not fat, I'm just big boned," said Tyler's voice. 

Maya laughed along with Jacinta's recorded voice. She looked up at Tyler, he was smiling at her in a contented way. 

'Prove it." That must have been Josh's voice. 

The guitar took the lead. He was playing Chopin's Funeral March, but it wasn't played in the intended tempo, it was still dramatic but it was faster, it was joyful in the way it was accentuated by the piano and something else, she couldn't figure out what it was. It wasn't a clarinet but it was similar, yet sharper. 

'What's that?" She asked.

'A plastic recorder." 

'You're kidding?"

'Nope. I told you he was good."

Maya shook her head. There was some serious talent in Tyler's family. 

The recording ended with laughter and the whole thing falling apart. 

'See, I told you I don't have talent. I can mostly keep up but that's about it."

She smiled at him. He was being too hard on himself, it wasn't the talent that mattered, it was him. They loved him the way he was and Maya loved him the way he was. 'I liked your funeral march, that was cute. Chopin would have had a heart attack, but it was cute."

He smiled back at her, his eyes locked on to hers, shining an olive green in the diffuse light. She felt his cock pressing against her belly through his pants, his hands were still resting on her back. He was turned on, but he wasn't making any demands. 

'Let me drive?" She flipped over so that her back was leaning into his chest and held her hand out for the iPod. He gave it to her and wrapped his arms around her, letting his hands rest on her belly. It made Maya's pussy ache to have his hands so close to her intimate parts while he was clearly aroused, but he didn't try to touch her in that way.

She scrolled through the artists. She recognized a lot of it but there was a lot that was new to her. He walked her through it, showing her the highlights. His big hands curled around hers and helped her to select the right songs. He had a lot of classical but he was also into unusual music, the sort of stuff you would have difficulty assigning a genre to, music that was nuanced and creative. Music that took talent.

It was one o'clock way too soon. She called a cab. She didn't want to have to explain Tyler to Hamid's parents. 

He kissed her goodbye. A kiss that left her tingling and wanting more. He used his tongue and it gave her an ache in her chest, like that feeling you get when you're trying not to cry, the feeling you get when you're just about to be completely consumed by emotion.

'When can I see you again?" He asked while she was still in his arms.

'Not until after Hamid's parents are gone, they leave on Tuesday."

He looked disappointed. 'So I guess I'll see you at work on Monday?"

She nodded. Outside the cabbie laid on his horn.

He leaned down and kissed her again quickly. 'Don't forget me okay?" He asked.

She smiled. 'I don't think that's even a remote possibility."

*** Note for the readers: A four minute excerpt of Gorecki's Symphony No. 3, movement 3, sung by Elizabeth Hynes is available free on itunes. Go to the itunes store and search for Elizabeth Hynes, it is in the USC Thornton album. There is also a very nice recording of Olga Steeb playing Mendelssohn's Scherzo for piano in E minor in the same album. Enjoy! ***