typed on the compad. ‘Just one more use for our secret weapon.’
It’s a clever idea I guess, but after coming back early from our ten-year attempt, I’m not so sure about Mason’s latest idea. Messing up in front of a smartcar would be ugly in the extreme.
But I don’t say any of that. I place a hand on his knee. ‘Mason, this is great, thanks.’ Here’s hoping we don’t need to use it.
Once the park closes, we venture out from the cave to practise sharp returns. It’s a still evening, cool without being cold. The colours have faded to grey.
We’ve already planned how it’s going to work so I’m sort of ready. We’re walking along the path when, a few paces away from me, Mason claps without warning.
I pin-drop into the tunnel, savouring the calm of being inside infinity. No ripples in time down here. Thirteen, fourteen, fif-
With a rush I’m back, my heart beating and skin tingling. I needed that.
‘Great,’ Mason calls. ‘Fifteen bang on.’
But I knew that already. Now that I’ve done it with real focus, I can see that short jumps are way different territory from the longer ones, maybe because there’s no stress about leaving anyone behind. Fifteen seconds is such a familiar span of time, short enough to hold onto when I’m in the tunnel.
The night air feels cool against my skin, somehow soothing. It’s too dark to see much, but he can see my outline, I’m pretty sure. I don’t bother to reach for my shirt, it’ll only drop again the next time I skip. Besides, there’s no-one else in the park.
‘Your turn?’ I call.
When Mason nods I wait a few seconds, and then clap my hands. In the dim light his outline becomes empty space and shadows.
I check his progress on the compad stopwatch. After thirty seconds, he’s back, his shape silhouetted against the light from a three-quarter moon.
‘Okay?’ he pants.
‘Thirty seconds,’ I say with my eyebrows raised. ‘No problem.’ Maybe Mason’s onto something after all. This might just work.
We keep practising deep into the evening, partly for the thrill of the return, disappearing in a flash then popping back, clear and sharp. It’s a relief to focus on something we can control, a buzz to keep training and growing in confidence.
We’re good at this, both of us. And I even begin to think that I might just use this trick if I ever need to. It’s not a risk if you know what you’re doing.
We stay a distance apart, both aware that we’re naked, aware of each other. Every now and then I glimpse his bare skin in the moonlight, the smooth curves of his chest muscles, outlines of thighs. Somehow I sense that he’s noticed me the same way, but not even once does it feel like we’re checking each other out. It’s more than that. Like we’re sharing something. Respect, perhaps. And trust.
Close to midnight we stop practising. By now we’ve made it down to the canal, gradually wandering the length and width of the park as we’ve been time skipping. Our clothes are still back where we first jumped, so we gather a few items and, for now, leave the rest. For tonight we have a place all our own.
Mason flops onto a patch of polyturf overlooking the canal and settles back on his elbows. He’s wearing jean shorts and nothing else. I’m in a T-shirt that reaches mid-thigh.
Our short time snaps have kept us bright, glowing, somehow satisfied, even though we’ve had nothing to eat since the porridge. I lie down next to Mason and he sinks back so that he’s lying flat next to me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, staring into pinpricks of light against a night sky.
I get a flash of the last time we were together like this, alone on the roof of his house during a blackout, watching lightning break across the city skyline. Thinking about that night feels like listening to the first notes of my favourite song. It’s the night we connected on so many levels that I lost sense of the rest of the world.
But that was also before he found out I
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