Danny Boy

I packed Chubby into the car and spent the weekend down the beach house, down the Great Ocean Road. It was warm but wet. It rained and it was humid, a bit humid, more humid than I am used to it being. Cooler than it had been earlier in the month, which I liked. It was fresh and new and alive, or it felt that way, at least.

Some of the neighbours were down, some of the parents, some of the kids. The summer was starting, most of the families are down when it is hot and they are on holidays. More traditional than availability, more habit than wellbeing. Amanda and her early morning dips, with some of the other women. Rick being one of the guys with a stubby in his hand on any one of the decks on any given night.

Danny was there. 19 year old Danny the next door neighbours son. I've known him for quite a while, watched him grown up, we've had the house down there for years, as has his family. Strawberry blond, buff, one of the guys, a surfer boy. He’d been surfing since his early teens.

Dano the guys called him.

Despite being one of the boys, he's always had those blue eyes, eyes that follow me, find me, burn even, if momentarily. He's still got them; across the room, across the dinner table, across the road. He breaks the connection with a laugh, a smile, that nobody else sees. I smile back. He blushes. Blushes? He's straight, but yet he smiles. Smiles back at me, when he catches me catching him gazing across the room. Yet he's straight.

I don't mean to take any notice of him, but those burning gaze’s kind of draw me in.

I called him blue-eyes once and he told me not to, even if he looked shyly pleased about it.

He's got something else now too, a hot body. He's bulked up. He’s got a beefy butt in his boardies that’s what I noticed. He's become quite the man. He's turned into a gym-head, apparently. It shows. You can see.

He's had his hair buzz cut. It makes him look more of a man.

We all had to bunk up, there were too many people for bedrooms. He was quick to say he'd share my room. "I'll share with Josho." Shrug. More of a question than a statement, but there you go.

"Sure Dan, no problem." I tried to keep it cool, low key, not make it sound anything out of the ordinary. Just the boys sharing a room.

His house was empty, it was all shut up. His parents weren't down, they were overseas. He said he didn't want to sleep in there on his own and his mum didn’t want parties when she wasn’t around, so she'd closed it.

He’d come down to surf, he was going to open his house, if he had to. You can always find a house to bunk in, their mums were our mums, they all looked after each other’s kids, if need be. Everyone is family down there now, all the houses have belonged to all the families for so long. One big happy family amongst the tea trees.

"You don't mind?" His forehead creased and he looked adorable.

I laughed gently, exhaled through my nose. Caught his gaze. He blushed. "No... I don't mind." I couldn't help but add. "Quite the opposite." You know, to test the water, say something out loud, rather than have it all said in silent, lingering stares. “Daniel might be down tomorrow.”

He smiled knowingly, well that's how I interpreted it. He didn't look questioningly, confused, or anything. Just agreement, kind of smiled.