A New Life - 2. Chapter 2: Haze

A while later, jet lagged, hot and dehydrated, Blake found himself snoozing briefly when a loud rapping at the door startled him awake.

“Mate its Jill, open up!” came a demanding tone that brooked no nonsense.

Blake fumbled about for a bit, checking in the small bathroom mirror to make sure he was presentable. It took much less time than was normal for him, although he had prepared for this earlier.

He then hurried to answer the door, to meet his new boss. Technically they had met before, although, to date, only over the phone. Once for a quick telephone interview and then, a few times afterwards, to make other arrangements. She had sounded tough, but fair. Someone quite direct, who spoke her mind.

“You Blake?”

He was surprised by the short, petite blonde looking up at him. She sounded like such a hard arse over the phone. He had imagined someone more imposing. It was hard to believe such a loud and authoritative voice could come from someone so diminutive.

“Hi –“

“What the bloody hell are you wearing mate?” she cut him off pushing her way in and grabbing at the hem of his t-shirt. He could not tell if she was being funny or serious.

“Er ... clothes?” he tried, banking on funny.

“Duh!” she exclaimed “and what kinda clothes do you call these?”

“Umm ...” he fumbled for an answer, guessing that ‘a piece from Dolce & Gabana’s summer catalogue’ was not the right answer. What was wrong with it anyway? It was one of the few items of clothing that had passed his rigid self assessment criteria.

“That’s not gonna keep the sun off ya mate, you need something with a collar that covers right up to your hairline and has longer sleeves. And what’s with the holes all over it? You dress like a French tourist at a night club. First rule out ‘ere mate, keep the sun off ya.”

His first impression from the phone had been right, she was a hard arse. Also, a talker.

“I’ll just change then ...” he turned to look for something else, but she grabbed his elbow and spun him around with surprising strength, though he towered over her.

“I haven’t got time for you to play dress-ups mate, I gotta group of twelve people wanting to go out tomorrow with not even a day’s notice. You start from tomorra, so I gotta show ya round now.” She seemed in a bit of a panic, and he decided it was best not to argue before she had him in a panic too.

He quickly locked up and followed her towards the minibus with ‘Kulibari Bay Diving’ written across the sides. He was rushing and nearly bumped into her when she stopped abruptly and turned to face him.

“I’m Jill,” she said, almost grudgingly, offering her hand.

“Um ... Blake,” he replied, taking her hand. She had a firm handshake and intense brown eyes.

“I’m not normally this much of a cow, but I gave Matt and Vicky tomorra off and now we’ve gone from dead quiet to flat out,” she explained, before climbing into the van.

He hopped into the passenger seat and she was gunning the engine before he’d closed the door.

“That’s alright,” he said, “I was looking forward to starting.”

She eyed him briefly and he wondered whether that wasn’t the right thing to say. Too keen perhaps? However, it was less than a minute’s drive to the mall so there was little time for awkwardness. Presently, they were parked in front of a shop with signage matching that on the van and her polo shirt.

“Here we are,” she said, jumping out and slamming the door shut before scurrying off inside.

Blake had been diving in a lot of places all over Australia and also in Thailand, the Philippines, Vanutatu, Fiji and Bali. No matter where he went though, all dive shops looked more or less the same and this one was no different.

There was a small shop up front which sold masks, fins, snorkels and various swimming gear bearing the shop’s logo or the town’s name. A glass counter with the cash register and a booking diary opened on top also housed various bits and pieces underneath. From underwater torches and camera gear to diving knives and dive watches. There weren’t any wetsuits or BCs for sale on the racks of swimwear, but Blake figured that tourists wouldn’t want to buy those anyway. They were major purchases and too bulky to lug back home from way out here.

Out the back was a larger room, which had all the diving equipment for hire. Wetsuits, BCs, regulators, weight belts and some large empty plastic tubs. Near one of the corners was a stack of metal air cylinders and filling tubes.

Jill was pointing and speaking at a million miles an hour. He was doubtful that he would be able to remember anything she said. She raced about the shop spouting lists of ‘dos’ and ‘do nots’ so quickly that his head was spinning. He nodded vigorously and tried repeating whatever she had just said in the hope it would sink in.

About that time he happened to glance out the back door, when she motioned that way with her flailing arms, and his eyes immediately landed on ... wow. Jaw-dropping kind of wow.

He was shirtless, lounged back on a chair with his tanned legs resting on a plastic bucket and a baseball cap obscuring his face. He was slim and ripped with muscle in a wiry kind of way. The smooth skin of his torso was darkly tanned and covered in a light dusting of sun-bleached blond hair that thickened below the navel and disappeared into board shorts wrapped around a narrow waist.

Blake was mesmerised, having forgotten all about Jill. Normally, he would shy away from a guy who looked this good, but with his face covered and Jill’s attention elsewhere, Blake felt it was safe enough to stare for a few precious seconds at a time.

“... if the regulators are over here that means ... always make sure ... never fill the air tanks with too much pressure ...” her voice came in and out of his attention.

“Got it. Never fill air tanks,” he mumbled, eyes glancing to the boy out the back whenever he thought she wouldn’t notice him looking.

He had the sort of look the Sydney nightclub scene tried to emulate. That Blake tried to emulate too, if he was being honest with himself. But fake tans, diets, gyms and abdominal gadgets couldn’t get you what this guy had. He seemed to radiate a natural beauty and raw sex appeal that came from nothing more than an active job and healthy lifestyle, with plenty of sun.

At least that’s what Blake imagined. There certainly weren’t any gyms for hundreds of kilometres. He had checked.

He was startled then from his staring by a sudden shriek from Jill.

“Haze what the hell are ya doin?”

When he turned back, ‘Haze’ had lifted his cap up slightly to look at them. Blake felt his breath hitch and his heart in his throat. From what he could see the young man had a face to match his perfect physique. He must be younger than Blake by at least a few years. Maybe 22 or 23? Early twenties or there about.

“Chillin,” Haze responded simply to her question.

“The boat’s gonna be back soon and we have to clean the gear and get packed up,” she fretted.

He scowled at her and settled himself back down again, mumbling aloud “when it gets here ...”

“Get off your lazy arse and get over here,” she shouted, stomping over to him and kicking the bucket out from under his feet.

“Hey!” he protested, getting to his feet haphazardly.

Standing now and approaching them, Blake could see that Haze was shorter than himself. Probably just under six foot. Broad shoulders, nice lats. Must be from lots of swimming, Blake guessed.

Then Haze took off his cap to scratch at his head absently and Blake had to look away as he felt his face flush and his insides squirm. Haze had features that belonged on a model for surfing brands. Shaggy, mid-length light brown to blonde hair spilled out of the cap and fell across a set of gorgeous cool blue eyes. He was kind of scowling in way that still looked unbelievably sexy, revealing pearly white teeth.

“This is Blake,” Jill announced motioning towards him. “The guy I told you was joining us.”

Feeling in the spot light all of a sudden, Blake tried to make eye contact, but found Haze’s attention too intense. He ended up looking at his feet as they shook hands, feeling foolish, but too unsettled by the sensations running around inside of him to do much else.

“G’day,” Haze greeted, with the same thick Aussie accent that everyone here had. Except on him, Blake thought it sounded perfect. Sexy, masculine, friendly.

“H-Hi,” Blake stuttered. Then when nothing else was forthcoming he added, “Jill is ... um ... showing me the ropes.”

That sounded lame and he knew it. His voice sounded even more nervous than it usually did around good looking guys. He tried to glance up whenever he felt Haze wasn’t looking directly at him, but found himself struggling. Haze had the sort of face that was almost painful to look at.

“Jill can be a bitch,” Haze said in a matter of fact way. His voice and his face, while friendly, somehow lacked expression. As if he wasn’t really all there.

“Screw you Haze,” Jill cursed, but Blake got the feeling she was joking. Their behaviour was ‘rough and tumble’ like, but too familiar to be serious. They were friends. He could tell.

“She does seem to have a lot for me to remember,” Blake said, uncomfortably shifting about and fumbling for something to say. “Doesn’t like my clothes either,” he added, thinking himself funny for about half a second until realising that he had just invited Haze to look him over. Despite Blake’s best efforts he was now blushing as well as awkward as hell.

Blake remembered his therapy and tried to focus his mind on positive thoughts. At home he had maintained a rigorous gym, exercise and diet routine and so he could see that he was bigger and more muscular than Haze. That was a plus, surely? Taller too, not that he did anything to deserve that. But Haze was simply on another level altogether and Blake felt a deep internal cringe of shame just being near the guy.

“Bit impractical dude,” came Haze’s blunt assessment after a moment, and Blake felt himself wither inside even more. He couldn’t tell if Haze meant it in a bad way or not though, the guy was difficult to read.

But Blake probably would’ve taken whatever Haze had said as bad. That’s what he usually did with whatever people would say. Turn it into something bad about himself.

Just then, the radio in the back of the shop crackled into life, and although Blake couldn’t make out what it said, he was grateful as their attention shifted over to it and away from him.

“I’ll get ‘em,” Haze said simply, pulling back his hair to put his cap back on before walking over to the radio to speak.

“The boat radios in when they get near the jetty and we go get them from the jetty,” Jill told him, and Blake knew that by ‘we’ she meant ‘him’, at least in the future anyway.

Haze whistled to Jill and she fished around in her pockets before tossing him the keys. He caught them and padded barefoot back towards the shop front, giving Blake a nice view of his pert butt on the way out.

“Haze is quiet, but a good bloke,” Jill said after he left, “he’s lived here as long as anyone and has been working at this place longer than me.”

Blake finally managed to wrestle his attention away from the now empty doorway. His anxiety was ebbing and he released a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He turned to again focus as she took him back inside to show him something else.

After another twenty minutes or so the previously quiet and empty dive shop was bustling with the chatter of excited tourists back from their day’s diving or snorkelling on the reef. The reef was the town’s main attraction. Many tourists seemed to be speaking a language other than English, but Blake found he didn’t need to understand their words to know what they were saying.

Did you see that shark or that turtle? Wasn’t that amazing? Such a beautiful day!

Everyone seemed so happy. This was the kind of environment he imagined working in.

At the CBD law firm where he used to work, Blake billed by time. Six minute intervals, ten ‘units’ to the hour. Clients, even the nice ones, would generally only speak to him when something important was going on. Important usually meant ‘bad’ or at the very least ‘highly stressful’. No one rang him in a particularly good mood or just to say ‘hello’. That’s not why you ring your lawyer.

In his new life as a divemaster, things would be different. He imagined that the customers, being on holiday, would be pleasant and happy to speak to him for sheer enjoyment. To go diving was a treat and they would be excited and cheerful. No doubt there would be some whingers, but most people would be enjoying the time he spent with them and that would wear off on him in a good way he was sure of it.

He could see the way they crowded around a pretty, sunburnt and darkly freckled young woman wearing the shop’s polo shirt and matching cap as she wrote on a whiteboard the details of the day’s dive. The more dutiful tourists would be writing up this information in their log books, but most were content to relax and just chat. Relaying what they saw to their friends and groaning if they heard about something they had missed.

Aside from the freckled girl, there was a darker guy with curly brown hair and a short, trimmed goatee. He was speaking to an older couple towards the back, Italian by the sounds of it or maybe Spanish. They were showing him something on their camera.

Jill was at the counter speaking with a customer about booking again tomorrow.

With all the commotion and activity, Blake decided that he should be doing something. He asked Jill when he had her attention momentarily and she told him to ‘go help Haze’.

Just hearing his name lead Blake to fret, anxiously. However, he reasoned that they both worked here now, so he was going to have to get used to seeing him.

He made his way through the throng of people and on reaching the front of the shop he saw Haze further away, backing the minibus around the corner of the building. He followed and watched as Haze carefully reversed so that the large trailer now attached to the back of the bus stopped a short way from the back entrance to the shop.

He was a bit disappointed to see Haze wearing a shirt now. Or maybe he was grateful for it? He wasn’t sure. It was the same uniform everyone else seemed to be wearing. A white and blue polo with the shop’s logo on the front and back. Haze looked fantastic even in the uniform. Blake just hoped he wouldn’t look too dreadful in it.

“Can I help?” he asked timidly, again struggling to maintain eye contact when Haze looked up.

“Yeah,” Haze said simply.

The guy wasn’t much of a talker it seemed. He was also not the sort to give away what he was thinking or feeling. Not unfriendly, just not very wordy or expressive. A closed book.

Blake often babbled constantly when alone with someone, particularly if he was nervous, but Haze didn’t really give him much of a chance to start up a conversation.

“Take these,” he said after climbing onto the back of the trailer and lifting some of the metal air cylinders. They were heavy, but empty of air, Blake could manage one in each hand. Haze could anyway and Blake wasn’t going to stand for carrying any less than him.

He followed Haze through the back door and put the empty tanks where he did, making sure to keep them separate from the full tanks, just as Jill had instructed earlier. They worked at a steady pace for the next ten minutes or so and Blake took every opportunity to stare at his co-worker. At least, whenever he thought he could get away with it unnoticed. The guy was fast becoming all he could think about.

After a while the freckled girl came by and interrupted them.

“Hi, you must be Blake huh? Soooo good to finally meet you,” she chirped dragging out the vowel. “I’m Natalie but everyone calls me Nats. Do you go by Blake or do you have a shorter nick?” she asked, finally giving him a chance to speak. She was the opposite of Haze. Her expression was alive and animated as she babbled.

“Just Blake will do fine,” he said smiling.

Growing up his parents had called him Blakey, but hearing that now would just make him cringe.

She was a pretty girl and happy to share with him her whole life’s story then and there. She grew up in Perth, but worked in Broome at a resort since leaving high school before coming here 2 years ago. She had two brothers back home, loved turtles ... and on and on she went.

“Ya gonna help?” Haze interrupted shifting a large plastic tub full of dripping wetsuits to the edge of the trailer. His biceps strained under the weight of the tub. Blake couldn’t help but notice that, along with every other movement he made.

“I was just saying hey to the new guy Haze, sheez” she sighed in a loud and theatrical manner.

“Well he’s in the middle’a helping me,” he responded, the longest stretch of words Blake had heard him say so far. He still sounded detached though, not angry. He didn’t seem the type to get visibly angry.

Blake took one side of the tub and Haze took the other after jumping down from the trailer. They carried it in together. Face to face, Blake found himself nervous to discover. Haze was biting at his curled tongue and grunting with effort. Even the way he did that was unbearably sexy, Blake thought. His insides were squirming again.

Nats climbed onto the back of the trailer and handed things down to them. They moved much faster after that, especially when the other guy arrived to help. He introduced himself as ‘Carlos’, with a thick Spanish accent. He was a good looking young man too, but Blake was too distracted by Haze to notice him much.

They unpacked the trailer, rinsed out the wetsuits and BCs and then hung them up to dry at the back of the shop. Working together they were soon done and Blake found himself being dragged aside by Jill who had other things to go through. Such as getting him a few of the dive shop’s polo shirt uniform and a matching cap.

By the time he was done with Jill everyone had left and it was time to shut up shop. Blake was half thankful and half devastated that Haze had disappeared. Leaving without saying goodbye.

He was pleased that Nats had invited him out to the pub that night though.

Maybe he would see Haze there. There was only one pub.