The Waitress

Grass skirts and lazy fans

It felt like Christmas all over again when Tom and Liam flew in just over a week later.

The trip to Australia had been different this time for Tom.

Last time he had been coming to the unknown, this time it felt strangely like coming home. He'd slept and read a lot on that first flight into Brisbane, but for this trip, he was too excited to do that much of either. Through the long flight, he watched movies, chatted to Liam and to some of the other people in the cabin and then finally he'd arrived in the darkness of a Brisbane Tuesday night.

It was late at night, one of the last flights in, but it was warm.

More than warm.

It was fucking hot.

Hot and steamy but welcoming and familiar now, like the hug of an old friend you hadn't seen in a while.

Despite the time, the airport was packed. Tom and Liam had landed back in prime holiday season. The Christmas period over, the family commitments over, now people wanting to head to warm tropical beaches and while away their summer holidays in a languid stupor of beach walks, swims, alcohol and sex (hardly surprising that half the Australian population seems to be born in September/October).

Half their luck.

It made for an over-crowded airport but it didn't matter to Tom, as anxious as he was in the plane, as excited as he was to be coming "home". He was here now and that was all that mattered and so life slowed – as it seemed to do here on the Coast. He wasn't bothered much – a pair of English backpackers asked for a selfie as the collected their baggage and that was about that.

He'd strode out to the car like he'd owned the place like he was an old hand.

Home.

But not quite.

The trip down the M1 was interminably long, longer than it had been on that first journey from Brisbane to the Gold Coast.

Traffic was bad, even at that time of night. He'd been warned about Queensland in January. Everyone in Australia was a Queenslander in January, well it felt like it. The whole population seemed like they were either on the Coast or trying their hardest to get there. This really was peak holiday time and everyone in Australia was in holiday mode. Which meant they were even more laidback than usual. Not that Tom noticed now he was in the car. The excitement rose again and all he wanted to do was get home.

Home.

Usually, Liam would have gone first and prepared the way but that didn't need to happen this time so he'd given him the full three weeks off and here they were like two excited schoolboys. Though by the time they arrived back in their Broadbeach unit – in the same building but not on the same floor due to the holiday demand – it was dark.

And late, close to Midnight before they settled into their smaller floor 20 room.

Too late for the café and anyway they had eaten on the plane so the urge to dump their bags and go down to the café wasn't strong. The urge to sleep was. But not until he'd texted. He'd promised.

"Arrived safely, see you in the morning!"

It was midnight in Broadbeach.

One am in Salt where Mells was. Across the border, across the timezone from the Sunshine State to the Premier State – New South Wales.

He wondered if she'd be up writing, in the back of his mind, after that Christmas bikini he wondered what she was wearing (hardly the thought he should be having but he was delirious from lack of sleep and draining heat).