Page 62 of Just Come Over
She made a face. “IknewI should have worn the red one. It’s better, no matter what Hayden says.”
Now, he was the one laughing. “Nah. You look beautiful. I can’t help it if I like red best, just like all those other blokes who answered the question. We’re programmed, that’s all.”
The waiter came back, eventually, with the lamb and the Pinot Noir. “The music was Palestrina,” he said. “Whoever that is. AndOsculetur me,whatever that is when it’s at home.Song of Solomon,is the CD. Try this, though. and tell me what you think.”
He waited, and Zora took a sip. Rhys couldn’t let her drink alone, so he took his own sip. He didn’t know about “silky,” but the wine was rich, all right, asking you to dive down into its ruby depths, take your time, and explore. Possibly for hours.
“Gorgeous,” Zora said with a sigh. “Thanks.” He looked at her red mouth, thought about slipping off one of those shoes and holding her foot in his hand, and burned. The waiter left, and she looked at Rhys and said, “I’m loving this. Thank you.”
“So many courses to go,” he said. “Who knows what they are? Are you still up for being surprised?”
“Right now,” she said, “I’m up for everything. I’m meant to be asking you serious questions about life and love and kids and...” She waved her wine glass. “Life choices. I don’t want to. I want to enjoy myself. That’s why I’mreallywearing this dress instead of the red one, if I’m honest. You can’t see my waist in it.”
He knew he was smiling more than he ever let himself, and he couldn’t help it. Maybe he was a little drunk, too, but it wasn’t on the wine. “I’ve seen your waist,” he said. “Your waist is fine. So is the rest of you.”
“I’m also not wearing a control garment,” she said. “I asked Hayden, and he said no. Besides, I don’t have one.”
Now, he was laughing. “What the hell is a control garment? Do I want to know?”
“Makes my bum look smaller.” She lifted her glass to him, took another sip, and smiled, absolutely deliciously. “But—flared skirt, and you can’t see my bum anyway, because I’m sitting on it. Also, as I mentioned, I don’t own a control garment, so you would’ve been out of luck in any case. Not because I don’t need it, but because I don’t go on dates, except with the plastic surgeon. He didn’t get a control garment, either. Sad. That was rebellion, probably. I wanted him to look at my problem areas, and I wanted to say, ‘Sez you, mate,’ when he did.” She sighed. “I have a rebellion issue. Always have had. My secret side, that is. Not so secret, I guess, because there’s my life and all, proving the point. And I know this isn’t a date. It’s practice, that’s all.”
He’d just thought it was practice for her. What had that been, an hour or two ago? He said, “It’s not practice. And you don’t need to make your bum look smaller.”
“My mum says I do.” She took another sip of wine. “Which is sad, don’t you think? My mum thinks I’m a nasty, nasty girl.”
She was floating along, except that wasn’t the right word. Floating was something you did on clouds, and she wasn’t on a cloud. She was in the bath, the warm water pouring over her, stretching out luxuriously and letting it come. Or, possibly, drowning in Rhys’s eyes, which, if they’d ever been hard or cold, weren’t that way now.
He was looking at her across the piano, that was what it was. She felt it. Sheknewit. The cool touch of the wine on her tongue, the layers of it, the rich taste in her mouth... she knew it. She said, “Kiss me. That’s what the song means.”
He blinked those dark-lashed, green-gold eyes. Slowly. “Pardon?”
“It’s Latin. Song of Solomon.”
“Ah. ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is sweeter than wine.’” When she must have looked gobsmacked, he said, “I looked it up. No excuses, eh. You said it was sexy, so I looked it up. I know another part as well. ‘Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair, thou hast doves’ eyes.’”
She shuddered. She couldn’t help it. He saw, and she knew he recognized it for what it was: a hot rush that had gone straight down her body and settled in her core. The buzz had become a hum, insistent and too warm. A smoke alarm was going off, somewhere in the back of her mind, and she wasn’t listening. She wanted to burn.
His eyes got hotter, and he lost the smile. “My beloved is mine,” she said, letting the words fall out and lie there, exposed, “and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” She tried to smile herself, but wasn’t sure it was working. “That one got me thinking, when I was fourteen or so. Rebellious even in church, eh.”
“There’s so much more to you,” he said, “than a mum.”
Her hand was on his, somehow. “And there’s so much more to you than rugby. Could be most people never look deeper.”
He looked down at his plate like he wasn’t seeing it, then up at her again. “Right,” he said, then sat up, pulled out his phone, and texted something, and she thought,What?He put the phone away and began working his way through the lamb, and she thought,All righty, then. That’s told me.She tried not to look at the breadth of his shoulders in the open suit coat, at the way his blue shirt lay over his deep chest, and failed.
She’d had too much to drink. She might have embarrassed herself forever with him. The smoke alarm was louder now, more insistent.
Then don’t ask me out, boy,she thought,and tell me I should’ve worn the red dress,and drank a little more wine.This is me, and if you don’t like it? That’s not my problem.
Another drunken thought. But her own.
Five minutes later, the waiter took away the lamb and the glasses, and Rhys asked her, “How much do you want the sweet courses?”
“Uh... pardon?”
“I probably shouldn’t eat them,” he said.
“Oh, no,” the waiter protested. “They’re lovely, truly. Pressed strawberries, buffalo milk, and lime, and a figgy pudding like you’ve never tasted in yourlife.”
