When You Know

6 - The Freddie to her Anne. The Eddie to her Jane. The Darcy to her Lizzie.

"Hey, Jet," I said, once we were seated down on the couches, getting comfortable with a magazine in each of our hands—a skateboarding one in mine and a surfing one in Jet's. "Can I ask you a question?"

Jet chuckled at me. "I can't guarantee I'll know the answer, but go ahead. Shoot."

"What did you mean before, about that INXS song? It's my mum's favourite," I said. It was one of my favourites, too; but I didn't want to say that in case he hated it and really was making fun of it.

"Just a little in-joke, little dude. Every time it comes on the radio at work Ruben turns it up and gets all dreamy eyed because it makes him think of Sadie. I'm not kidding—every, single, time," he laughed. "It's a great song, and I really like it, but I was just shit-stirring Ruben. And look, it worked—they're talking to each other finally."

I guess we had spent a lot of time just talking about us kids . . .

I looked back in their direction to see Mum and Ruben seated closer together than they were thirty seconds ago, Ruben's arm around the back of Mum's chair and the two of them talking together in joyous whispers and very poorly hidden grins.

"So, you made a joke and pretended you wanted to come over here, so that they could talk on their own?" I asked. Jet is so clever.

"Isn't that what you want?" I think that's what I wanted, but this was all so new and I didn't really know what to feel. As if reading my mind, Jet said, "Don't be afraid, Madden. Just look at them. They actually seem like the real deal. He's the best person I know, and I know how much he still loves her."

"What if it doesn't work out and she's sad again?" That was the thing I was most worried about, even without Ruben and Jet being in the picture.

"You've got to have a little faith, little dude. No two people who look at each other that way are destined not to be together eventually." I looked back at them and smiled, understanding what he meant, even if I didn't actually know much about relationships yet. You could just tell by looking at them sitting there smiling and giggling at each other that they were meant to just love each other. Jet added, "Let's just hang out here for a while and give them some time to get to know each other again. I'll go buy us some drinks. Hot chocolate?"

"Thanks, Jet."

He came back with our drinks a few minutes later and we sat around the couch going through all the skateboarding and surfing magazines. I looked at the surfing ones and Jet talked about how Ruben had bought him his own surfboard when he turned sixteen and taught him how to surf. He said Ruben first had to teach him how to swim properly because his parents never really helped him learn how when he was little.

I told him about how Ruben had taught Mum to surf, too, and that they first kissed after he helped her to stand up for the first time. Jet thought that was a really romantic story and said that surfing was the best fun he had ever had and remembered perfectly how it felt to stand up on your first ever wave. I said that I'd love to give it a try and he said he would teach me and let me borrow his bright pink surfboard when I come to visit them because they live very close to the beach.

I, in turn, said he could borrow my skateboard and teach him to skate if he wanted, and was happy to see that he was as excited by this idea as I was about him teaching me to surf. I'm sure he was a lot better than I was going to be, but I looked forward to just being able to hang out with him more. He said there was a skate park near their house by the beach too, so we could maybe even do both in the same day. I was insanely jealous that Jet had access to both a skate park and the beach a five minute walk from their house, even if he didn't skate like I did.

Jet and I were having such a good time talking about things that we just forgot to look back at the adults on the table in the corner. Which is why when they came over to us while deep in conversation about footy and what position we each played and arguing about who the best player was, we were caught by surprise.