A Quiet Kind of Thunder(53)

‘Have you said “I love you” yet?’

‘Oh God, no!’ I shake my head, horrified. ‘It’s way too early.’

Tem shrugs. ‘Feelings are feelings. They don’t care about things like timing. Hey, you’ll tell me when you do have sex, right? Like, immediately. Roll off the bed and text me.’

I laugh. ‘I can’t promise it will be immediately. But yes. Obviously.’ I make a face at her. ‘So long as you promise not to preach.’

She puts a solemn hand to her chest and bows her head. ‘I do so swear.’

Like I said earlier, Tem likes boys. She likes flirting and kissing and falling in love. But sex, she insists, is not an option until marriage. Most people don’t believe her when she says this – ‘People still do that?’ is a common response – but the mix of Christian commitment and Tem stubbornness is potent. So though she’s ahead of me in experience – she’s certainly done other things – one day I’ll overtake her. When I want to, I will, and the only thing that will stop me is if I don’t want to. That’s a kind of power, I think.

When Tem looks up again, she’s beaming. She reaches over to hug me, squeezing my head between her arms. ‘Ohhhh, Steffi!’ she crows. ‘You’re all grown up!’

‘Get off!’

My head is squashed right between her boobs.

‘Talking about sex with a boy. Having nipple touches!’

‘Get off, September!’ When she doesn’t release me, I try a different tack. ‘How’s Karam?’

It works. She releases me with a happy, Karam-induced sigh. ‘He’s great,’ she says. ‘As usual. It’s the march this weekend. You know, the one I told you about a while back?’

I nod. ‘You’re still going?’

‘Oh yeah. Karam’s running it and I’m like his second in command. We’ve been spending a lot of time after college making plans.’

‘Is that a euphemism?’

She scrunches her nose at me. ‘You’re a euphemism.’ Which means yes. ‘It’s great to spend so much time with him . . .’

I wait, but she doesn’t pick up the sentence, so I prompt, ‘But?’

There’s a pause, then she shakes her head. ‘No but. It’s great to spend so much time with him. We have such a laugh, Stef. And I know he likes me.’

‘Do you think you’ll get together properly?’

‘I don’t think we need labels,’ she says airily. ‘We just have fun together. Every time I see him, it’s like . . .’ She hesitates, her eyes darting up to the ceiling. ‘Like lightning. That bolt of lightning that people talk about. That’s how I know it’s real. I felt it the very first time I saw him, and it was like my heart was going, Yep, that’s him. Zing!’

‘Lightning?’ I echo, thinking of Rhys. The first time I saw him, I didn’t think anything beyond, There is a person I don’t know, probably with a hint of I hope I don’t have to speak to him. And, even now, seeing him doesn’t induce a jolt of electricity. Touching him and kissing him does a lot of the time – is that the same? Is that what she means?

‘Yeah, didn’t you get that with Rhys?’ She looks at me expectantly. ‘Like . . .’ She illustrates her thoughts by making a fist with her right hand and swinging it dramatically towards her heart. ‘Zing!’

I could lie, but this is Tem. What would be the point? ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘It’s more like . . .’ I try frantically to find an analogy that sounds as good as lightning. ‘Like thunder!’ I say, a little too triumphantly.

Tem blinks. ‘Loud and scary?’

‘Well, no.’ I frown. Too late to backtrack, go with it, Steffi. ‘It’s the bit after the jolt. You know how you feel thunder? Like that low rumbling, deep in your stomach and your chest? So I get the little jolts, like when we’re kissing, but then for a while after, while I’m with him, I get that happy, lasting kind of feeling. Like thunder.’ I’m warming to my theme. ‘With lightning, you’re never really sure if that’s what it was; it’s just a flash. Thunder, you know. You feel it.’

Tem is quiet, her expression bordering on sulky. ‘Well. I feel the lightning with Karam.’

‘Great,’ I say robustly. ‘And I feel the thunder.’

We look at each other, and I can tell she’s waiting for me to relent in the face of her disagreement, but I don’t. I wrinkle my nose and cross my eyes until she laughs and shrugs.

‘OK, fine,’ she says. ‘You can have your quiet thunder. I’ll keep the exciting lightning.’

I roll my eyes, smiling. ‘You do that.’





The following weekend, Rhys and I go Christmas shopping together. It’s mostly for his benefit rather than mine – I’m the super-organized kind of anxious person, meaning I’d bought all the presents I needed online at the beginning of December. I’d got Rhys a remote-controlled robotic raptor.

But Rhys, being of boykind, hasn’t got any of his presents yet. He hasn’t even got a list.

The best thing to do is start with your family members, I say. We’re in the queue at Starbucks, which extends all the way through the shop, planning the day. Well, I’m planning the day. Rhys is trying to decide whether to go for the Christmas spice blend coffee or a vanilla latte. Hey. I give him a poke. Concentrate. Shall we start with your mum?