Back at the house, Izzy excused herself as soon as they all walked in. She headed to the outside shower with Attila, choosing to ignore Dom's earlier offer to bathe him. She wanted to freshen herself up before dinner and get the beach sand off her legs. She took longer than usual to pick out her clothes, a black tank top and cream linen shorts, and consequently, didn't have time to dry her hair.
When she got back, everyone was in the kitchen. Dom handed her a glass of Riesling. Izzy accepted, her eyes not quite meeting his.
As they moved outside for dinner, Izzy noticed Bec had made a real effort to make their last night special. She'd dragged the heavy dining table outside onto the balcony and set it up with a view over the treetops and towards Mount Warning. There were purple flowers in the middle of a white lace tablecloth, and candles in frosted jars scattered on the tabletop and along the balcony railings. It was difficult not to see the whole ambiance as romantic. Especially since Cole and Tal, who were sitting opposite each other, were blushing like the new couple they so obviously were.
With Bec at the head of the table, Izzy's place was opposite Dom's. She suddenly found herself excruciatingly shy. Twisting her hair between her fingers, she tried not to look directly at Dom. Lucky for her, Bec liked to talk a lot, she had Dom's natural confidence and charisma and played the part of the host with ease. If anyone noticed that Izzy was quiet, it would have been Dom, but he didn't say anything.
After dinner, they sat on the porch drinking coffee and eating ricotta cannoli, with Bec at the center of their circle. Izzy forced herself to join in the conversation. She didn't want to appear rude, but she felt a strange vibe between her and Dom that she was careful not to let others pick up on, particularly not Tal. She'd managed to avoid eye contact with him all evening. At the earliest moment, she excused herself to go to her room on the pretext that they had a long drive the next day. Attila hopped off Dom's lap and trotted after her to bed.
To Izzy's dismay, Tal also stood up and excused herself, following her to the room.
'Are you okay, Iz?' Tal asked with kindness in her voice. She took a seat uninvited on the end of the bed.
Izzy didn't want to make a fuss. She just needed to put some distance between her and Dom and the gravitational pull that she was feeling towards him. Now that there were walls between them, she doubted what she thought might have happened that afternoon. She felt stupid for thinking Dom may have felt something for her. It now seemed as though she'd made it up in her head. She cast her mind back to the moment on the beach when he'd dusted her legs.
Would a friend do that? It had felt so intimate.
Tal was peering at her. The last thing Izzy wanted was her suspecting something was up.
'I'm fine, love,' she reassured her friend. 'Just a little tired.'
'Are you sure? Tal asked, 'You haven't heard something from home. Your mum's, okay?'
'It's nothing like that. I'm okay. Please, Tal, go back to the others...' Izzy implored. 'I don't want them worrying. Just say I'm exhausted from the sun or something. That's all. Please? I'll see you when you come to bed, alright?'
Tal seemed reluctant, but she left the room and Izzy ducked to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she got back, Atilla had already fallen asleep on the sofa under the window. Izzy undressed and pulled her pajamas on, then she lay back on the bed and switched her bedside light off. Alone in the dark, she counselled herself that they would be going home tomorrow anyway and there was nothing to be done about Dom. To have a crush on her best friend's boyfriend was beyond stupid. Besides, she thought it unlikely she would see him much before Em returned from Japan anyway. He'd go home to Armidale, and she'd spend the rest of the holidays with her family in Sydney. Distance was a good thing. All the same, she couldn't shake the feeling that Dom had tried to instigate something with her or the fact that despite herself, she'd almost willed it to happen.
Izzy could hear the others outside on the balcony, a faint and distant sound of voices, she tried to sleep but tossed and turned. Though the room was warm and the air thick with humidity, she pulled her doona close to her chest. Dom was out of bounds in the real world, but alone in the dark Izzy's fantasies were all her own and she couldn't get him out of her head. The feeling of his fingers on her legs lingered in her mind and she let her own hands drift slowly across the smooth skin on her thighs, reimagining his touch. Soon she was in another world, a place of her own imagination and Dom was there with her, as real as he'd been to her that day. She glided her palms up her thighs and across her stomach, before gently slipping one hand beneath her panty line. The image of Dom's tanned and muscular body by the pool that day filled her mind and made her damp between her legs. She imagined herself with him; he called her, and she stood up from the sun lounge and went to dangle her legs over the edge of the pool; her eyes fixed on his.
All thoughts of the others in the house receded into the darkness. In Izzy's mind, Dom swam towards her seated alone on the edge of the pool. He gazed up at her with that intense look he sometimes got and watched as she unclipped her top; then he pushed her knees apart. She arched her back and embraced her fingers bringing her body to feel all that her mind imagined. She squeezed her eyes shut, her breath quickened, her body tenses and before she knew it, her toes were curling in rapture.
A couple of minutes later, the sound of laughter floated back into the room, a vague reminder she wasn't alone in the house. Izzy was so tired, she barely noticed. She tossed her covers from skin cool with sweat, turned onto her stomach, and stretched out luxuriously across the bed. Within minutes, she'd drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep and didn't notice Tal's return to the room some hours later.