Ill Conceived Plans

Calculated Misses

Dane stretched his long legs out on the coffee table and kicked back on the lounge.

Home.

God, he'd missed it.

Even more than usual.

Usually, he had Fox to keep him up-to-date with the happenings in the family, the acting world, and the real world. She kept him grounded, otherwise he'd always feared slipping completely into character and being lost.

Over the year's he'd jokingly called her "Fox News" mind you she'd called him "Will you shut up" on a lot of occasions. He liked her sense of humour and her straight-talking, she kept him in line.

Not this time.

He'd not rung her but what surprised him was that she hadn't rung him. Their friendship was as important to her as so to him wasn't it?

Dane had expected Sarah to offer some form of communication to ring or text him, to tell him he'd been an arse, to stop being so damned emotional and pull himself together. Just like when he'd been too timid to kiss her or dance with her at 16 or she had suggested they pop their cherries together and then gone down on him despite being scared. 

Oh god, he could actually still feel her lips from that first time, he'd called on that memory in lonely hotel rooms from time to time. But now he had a new memory, he could still feel her much more womanly body now even if it was three months later, even if he had had another woman in his bed since. 

If he closed his eyes he could still feel her, hear her - Jesus christ.

He had to pull himself together or he'd have a hard on even before he got to have dinner at George's.

She'd be there.

She always was and then she'd give him a good telling off and they'd be mates again, best friends. It's just he'd expected it before now been surprised she hadn't skyped him just to tear strips off him.

She hadn't.

And then he'd disappeared, no Dane, just Paul the lighthouse keeper on a lonely New Zealand beach. He was still using the Australian accent at times; the inflections were still coming through. He'd disappeared entirely and he'd had no contact with the world outside the cast and crew.

Of course, he had Sabine, but it wasn't the same and she'd only stayed for half the shoot. She had her own work. He hadn't heard from her for six weeks nor had he wanted to. 

Actually, that's what he liked that most about her, her independence. 

They were together kind of but they didn't need to be in each other's pockets.

He liked strong independent women, he'd have to in this family from his mother through to his niece Ruby, they were born like that.

He leant forward and grabbed his phone, it was sitting on the coffee table between his untouched cup of tea and the picture of him and the gang in Spain the year he went up to Cambridge, before Edward had died, before acting took over his life, before Sarah had become Doctor Huntington, the eminent historian, and television star, before he'd sat in his room in New Zealand and wanked watching a documentary on Shakespeare. They were young and innocent and full of plans for the future back then, and by god, they'd got there, both of them. If you looked really carefully you could just see his hand touching hers maybe that's why he kept this picture close, looked at it when he could, they weren't sleeping together by then but they were still there for each other.

But obviously not now.

She'd moved on.

He put the picture back down.