Heat

Wake up call

I wake in the morning wrapped around Tom, the other man in my life "Mr Cool" my air-conditioner, is working at full pelt as the sun sneaks in through my/our bedroom window. It's weird how fast this room has become "ours". His clothes are here now and everything else he brought with him and "his" room is back to being the spare room. I should feel uneasy, I should feel invaded but instead I just feel comfortable (and that scares me enough anyway).

We had a late night last night – it was close to 1pm by the time we got home and past 2pm before we got to sleep if you know what I mean. I feel so relaxed just curled here. It was amazing to finally feel like my family were taking me seriously, I'm not one of the kids now. I don't think it's just that I'm "part of a couple" either, I've felt it happening gradually since I came home. Sure I'll always be the kid sister but I've shouldered my fair share of responsibilities, getting our parents to appointments, babysitting kids, going to school art nights and helping on the farm since I came home. And opinions of me have shifted. I suppose it's helped that my life isn't here and I could just jump in and help where needed – my life isn't really anywhere –it's been locked up on canvases and tucked away in suitcases for the past few years.

I got a glimpse of something last night – something I liked a lot.

Was it in the way we all sat around the table joking and laughing? Or Dad, Derek, Tom and I drunkenly reciting poetry in the wee small hours, or mum and Tom sharing secrets in the kitchen and then surprising me with a brand new clock for that space I've had above the oven in my kitchen (Tom gave mum the money in the mysterious envelope before she left for Melbourne along with instructions on what I wanted – gleaned from a conversation I don't even remember having on the first day we met). Or was it just that, for the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere and it was somewhere I never quite thought I did. Not the Tweed – I'm not sure I'll ever really belong here properly, no I belong in this family. I make sense in the scheme of all things Thompson and that was a huge surprise because as much as I love them, I never quite felt like, beyond my dad, I really belonged to them. Sure we have a shared history but it surprised me how much I'm like them and that I actually like them. That I enjoyed hanging out with them all – once again I was seeing the world through Tom's eyes – a fresh perspective. Sure they are all still cringe-worthy but they are my cringe-worthy human beings. And in a way it was all down to the man spread out next to me, slowly taking over my bed and claiming my heart (speaking of cringe-worthy – add – turning me into a romantic sap).

I roll over to look at him – all long and angular and classically handsome. Sure he is beautiful but there's more to him that than, it's hard to put my finger on, he's beautiful inside and out. But he's also stubborn and artistic and single-minded and I don't know, something I can't put my finger on.

He looks so peaceful, his long eye lashes flutter hiding those brilliant green/blue eyes, his chiselled features highlighted by the rays of light coming in through the high window of my room. His face, boyish in sleep, not giving away the havoc he has created in my brain, in my life. He looks harmless like this and yet when he's awake he's anything but.

I climb out of bed quietly, letting him sleep – we have a busy day planned, catching up with his mate Craig and his wife and young family at Currumbin Bird Sanctuary in a few hours. I quietly slide on my singlet top and boylegs and paint in the dawn light. I love the smell of paint in the morning and my artistic juices are flowing. There is something relaxing and invigorating about working on a canvas in my room while my lover sleeps. I turn the canvas so I can see him sideways and dip my brush in the paint.

This is a new painting and I don't really have preliminaries to go from. It's flowing from nowhere – colourful and more classical then I've been painting previously. I'm totally engrossed in creating. It's a scene from Shakespeare – from Much Ado – a garden, two figures – one tall and blonde with the cheekbones of a god and a fiery red-head.