I’d already done, and I decide to work on getting well. They didn’t believe me at first. They thought I was just going through the motions to get out.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Well, I just made a decision without all the drama and crying and pouring out my fears. I just set a goal—to get well. So, yes, two months fighting, four months starting to get well and then a lifetime of keeping to it.’
‘Is it a fight every day?’ He was curious.
‘Some days,’ Freya said. ‘James wants it cured, fixed, healed, and in many ways it is. I’ll never go back to how I was.’ Freya was sure of it. ‘I know that. I just need healthier ways of dealing with tension. My parents said I was attention-seeking...’
‘Were you?’
‘Not at first,’ Freya said. ‘I was actually trying to get away from attention. My parents’ divorce was everywhere, all their lovers were speaking out, and it was horrific. I know you think I’ll go to any lengths for publicity but I’m nowhere close to them. They spoke not just about the rows and the money but about their sex lives, and their lovers did too.’
He said nothing and she was so glad.
‘It was excruciating,’ Freya admitted. ‘I turned to food.’ She told him about the reports about her being only a little younger and a whole lot larger than her father’s latest girlfriend. ‘I was a teenager and there were pictures of my stomach and thighs everywhere. I lost some weight and I lost it quickly, but instead of stopping I carried on, and then maybe I did get some attention from my mother...’
Freya thought back. ‘Not for long, though. And so I’d go to clubs and drink and get into trouble and then sit at home and watch an interview my mother might be having about how hard it was to have a troubled teenager. And then I had my father, when I collapsed, on the one hand asking the press to respect the family’s privacy while on the other getting off with some nineteen-year-old, knowing the press would erupt.’ She still could not stand the memories. ‘Everyone knew my business, or thought they did,’ Freya said, ‘but I had a bigger secret and I was on a mission by then—to get below a hundred pounds.’
‘You met that goal?’
‘I knocked that goal into the ground and kept going,’ Freya sighed. ‘James was beside himself. I think he was the only one in my family with any sense at that time.’
‘You’re usually close to your brother?’
‘When we’re not arguing.’ Freya smiled.
They lay there for ages and then looked at the map. ‘I’m going to take the long way back,’ Zack said. ‘And go fast.’
‘I’ll take the short way and go slowly.’
They met back at their cars, all dirty and smelly and worn out from the bliss of a day away from it all.
‘Do you want to go and grab dinner?’ Zack offered.
‘No, I want to go home and shower and get changed,’ Freya said. ‘And then eat.’ She deliberately didn’t invite him this time but the very last place Freya wanted to be was back at the hotel.
She was tired of putting on the same clothes in the morning, tired of her hair smelling of the lemon ginger hotel shampoo.
It smelt fantastic on Zack, she just didn’t want it on her.
Freya liked her own things and if he didn’t want a part of them that was up to Zack.
‘Sounds good,’ Zack said. ‘I’ll see you there.’
And Freya did her very best as she got into her car, and drove off, not to look for a deeper meaning.
FREYA LOST ZACK on the freeway and she stopped off at a store to get something more suitable for a tall, muscled male who had been riding than anything she had in her fridge, so he was already outside her place when she arrived.
Red was leaving the building as she got out of her car. ‘Been riding?’ he asked with a cheerful smile.
‘Yes.’ Freya smiled back. ‘Red, this is Zack.’
‘Hi, Red.’
Zack watched as Freya and Red chatted for a couple of moments. ‘We’re all getting together next Friday,’ Red said. ‘Are you in?’
‘I’m in.’ Freya nodded. ‘I’ll see you then.’
They walked up the stairs to her apartment and Zack was surprised when Freya opened the door and a small dog wagged her tail from the sofa and Freya went over and made a huge fuss of her.
‘You have a dog?’
‘I do,’ Freya said. ‘Her name is Cleo and she’s a very old lady.’
It really was a home, Zack thought as he looked around. It was large, open-plan and very tidy, as he might have expected from Freya, but the dog he hadn’t expected.
‘Who lets her out when you stay with me?’
‘Red or another of the neighbours...we all help out. Cleo’s too old to go to a boarding kennel now.’
‘You all get on?’
‘We do,’ Freya said. ‘We try and get together once a month and have a barbecue or something.’
She had a life, a very, very nice life.
‘I’m going first,’ Freya said. ‘Help yourself to a drink.’
‘First?’
‘I want a shower.’
And Zack got the hint that she wanted to shower alone and if he wanted a beer he’d better start liking the American stuff.
He sat out on a large balcony that looked towards the hills that they’d ridden in and it was actually nice to sit out on a balcony that didn’t have one above and one below.
Freya rinsed off a whole day of riding and used her own shampoo and conditioner and soap.
She stepped out and, even with a steamy mirror, a very self-aware Freya frowned at her reflection.
She had spent way too much time examining her body but it was for different reasons that she examined it now.
Wiping her mirror with her towel, she saw the pink of her breasts and the swell of them.
She might be getting her occasional period, Freya thought, but then glanced at the packet of pills she had been taking since the second night in his hotel room.
And then she put it out of her mind.
It was nice to be able to open a drawer and pull on some yoga pants and a top rather than scrabble on the floor for last night’s
