This Girl

Chapter 47: If you were a steak you'd be done well

"WHAT?" Alex yells, leaping across the couch and grabbing my phone. He looks through it then glares at me. "Dude, not cool."

I shrug. "Sorry."

He sighs dramatically and helps me off the couch when Mum and Dad tell us we're leaving. 

***

First, we drop Wombat off at Bubbles' house, who's going to babysit him. Then we make our way to the airport, where we scan in our luggage and bags and walk through security. We finally get seated on the plane. We're all in first class, and Alex and I have our own little cabin thing again. We buckle up and the plane takes off. Once we're settled, Alex clicks the button so that we're sitting on the same, large seat and I slide over to him. He puts his arm around my shoulders and I rest my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes. 

The rest of the trip passes quickly because I sleep for over half of it. When I wake up, he's on his phone playing Candy Crush. 

"What level are you up to?" I ask. 

"Five thousand," he grins. 

"Damn, you win," I say, sitting up straighter. 

"Damn straight, I win," he says, shoving his phone into his pocket. I laugh. "Can't catch up to me. You were out for eight hours straight, you know."

"Really? I thought it was only, like five," I check the time. He's right. One hour to go. "Let's watch a movie."

"Which one?" he asks. I pull star wars out of the seat's drawer and smile at him. He groans as I put it in. "Really?"

"We never finished," I reason. He pulls me back into him and I wrap my arms around his waist, leaning against his shoulder. I drift off to sleep again.

***

It took a whole lot of driving to finally reach the boat area. Random people drive up in cars. We've hired three. Two are four-wheel drives, the other - which Alex and I are in - is a ute. People get out of their cars with their flip flops in their hands and walk along the sand, leaning against their cars and speaking with strong Australian accents. 

We drive onto a large boat full of other cars and it ships us across the ocean to the island. It is steamy hot. I feel like asking Alex to close his eyes so I can get changed into something cooler, but I don't. I just sweat my butt off. 

When we get there, Alex and I hop out of the car, walking over to the parents. We get halfway there before our feet start burning on the sand and we sprint to the other cars, hopping onto the sides of them to avoid the sand. I put my shoes on the ground and step into them. 

"Ok, you two," Jackson says. "Listen up. You just follow us. You can't call us, so stay right behind our cars."

Alex nods and we head back to the ute. 

"Well, that was fun," I say, slipping back into the car after Alex.

"Yeah," he says, rubbing his feet. "That stuff burns." 

A teenage girl walking past us stops and leans in the middle. Her blonde hair falls in strands over her shoulders. She's wearing denim shorts, a scrunchie, some flip flops and a singlet. "This isn't America," she says in her Australian accent. "Get used to it, guys. We use thongs. Go to Ripcurl. No Gucci here. Buy some."

The girl walks back to her friends, dancing to the music they're playing out of their ue boom. 

"Well," is all Alex says before driving off. I laugh, tie up my hair, putting on my sunglasses and wind down the window.