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butterflies in my stomach swarm in a giant eddy,
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    COME BACK TO ME
    rising up my throat and almost making me burst into
    hysterical laughter.
    Kit draws back the bolt on the gate, easing it as quietly
    as he can but it still squeaks loudly enough that we both
    pause, cringing. Next door’s dog starts barking and Kit
    grabs my hand and starts jogging towards the sidewalk
    and a white van parked up about twenty metres away.
    When I see what’s behind the van I come to a sudden
    halt, digging my heels in.
    Kit looks back at me over his shoulder. ‘What’s up?’ he
    asks.
    I stare at the bike parked behind the van, mentally
    slapping myself. Of course he came on his bike. He goes
    everywhere on that thing. But he can’t actually be expect-
    ing me to ride on it too, can he?
    ‘You don’t want to ride the bike?’ he asks, reading my
    mind. ‘Is that it?’
    I shrug at him. ‘Um, it’s just . . . ’ All I can think of is
    my dad lecturing me about never riding a motorbike and
    warning me that if he caught me doing so he would
    ground me for the rest of eternity and use my college
    fund to buy me road safety classes.
    ‘I promise I’ll go slowly.’ Kit takes both my hands and
    pulls me towards him, and my heels, despite being glued
    to the sidewalk, somehow come unstuck. ‘I’ll look after
    you,’ he says softly. ‘Don’t worry.’
    The thing with Kit is that he has these eyes which are
    so blue and so clear they’re basically hypnotic. When he
    stares right at you, it’s like you’re a butterfly pinned to a
    board. There’s no escape. All you can do is submit, which
    Didi would probably claim is all about my deep-seated
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    Mila Gray
    compulsion to please and to avoid conflict, brought about
    by years of having to accommodate my dad’s moods.
    Didi’s father is a psychologist, so she has a deep-seated
    compulsion to analyse everyone she comes into contact
    with. But secretly I think she’s on to something. I just
    don’t have the courage to actually confront this truth and
    deal with it. One day. Just not today.
    Kit unlocks the seat of the bike and hands me some-
    thing. I shake it out. It’s an old leather jacket, soft as
    butter and lined with worn suede. I slide my arms
    through the sleeves, shivering not with cold but because
    it feels like being enveloped by warm arms – Kit’s warm
    arms, to be precise. The jacket smells of him – and of
    motorbike – and I want to burrow down deep inside of it
    like an animal going into hibernation.
    Kit comes and stands in front of me to zip it up. He
    pauses when he’s done, puts his hands on the collar and
    draws it up under my chin. I hold my breath, expecting
    him to kiss me again, because it looks like that’s what he’s
    thinking about as his eyes dance around my lips, but at
    the last minute he decides not to. He reaches instead for
    something else from inside the bike and passes it to me.
    It’s a helmet. Holding it in my hands, I stare at it like a
    strange and magical relic I can’t guess the use of.
    ‘You going to put it on or not?’ Kit asks.
    ‘What about you?’ I ask, noticing he doesn’t have
    another one.
    ‘I’ve got a hard head,’ he says, rapping his hand
    against his skull.
    ‘That explains a few things,’ I mutter, undoing the
    strap of the helmet.
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    ‘You need a hand?’ Kit asks as he watches me wrestle
    the helmet on. My cheeks are going red because I know I
    must look like a total idiot standing in my bare feet wear-
    ing skimpy cotton shorts, a leather jacket five sizes too big
    for me and an oversized motorcycle helmet. As if on cue,
    Kit grins at me. ‘Looking hot,’ he says, his gaze sweeping
    all the way up my body.
    I narrow my eyes at him but the visor is down and I
    don’t think he can see my scowl. He hops forwards