Page 33 of Kiwi Gold
It’s going to end, though. Every time.
Somehow, I didn’t care. It was last night again, running down the aisle of the theater with her, pushing the heavy black curtain aside, plunging into adventure. It was dancing with her, and feeling her reserve melting away at last, bit by bit, in my arms. It was the thrill of the chase, maybe, and it was intoxicating as champagne, golden fizz and all.
I followed her up the stairs to her flat as she juggled the kids’ extra clothes, her purse, and a packet of food that Honor, Gray’s mum, had pressed on her. It was easy to want to take care of Laila, maybe because she seemed so surprised when you tried.
So, no. I didn’t tell myself that this was stupid, and I was setting myself up for nothing but frustration. I took her keys from her when she was juggling those obligations, since Yasmin was whispering, “Mummy. I need to wee,” and I knew how that went. I got the door open, the dog frisked around the girls with some more sharp, excited barking, the three of them tumbled inside with more of the skittering monkey-feet, Yasmin ran into the back of the flat, past a sort of a reception area surrounded by freestanding screens, and Laila stayed on the steps and turned that wary face to me.
Golden eyes, pointed chin, honey-colored skin, coil of shining dark hair, all composure and reserve and banked fires. She’d been knocking me out all afternoon, and she was still doing it.
I handed the keys back to her and asked, “How does Friday night sound? Can you get a babysitter?”
She blinked at me. Her lashes were long and dark, like her hair, an extravagant frame for her eyes, and her brows were dark and winged. “I think so. Oriana, or Priya. Do you …” She hesitated. “What do we … do?”
“We do what you like,” I said. “What did you do on your first dates with your husband?” He’d been hanging over her all afternoon as surely as if he were still here, and I reckoned it was better to get that out in the open. Taboo subjects were only taboo as long as you didn’t talk about them.
She said, “We were still at school. I went and watched him, mostly.”
“Watched him climb, you mean.” Seriously? That was the bloke’s idea of a fun time out with his girlfriend? What a wanker.
“Yes,” she said. “He was very focused. Afterwards, we’d have something to eat sometimes. In a café,” she hurried to explain. “With a group. We were still at school, and I had the …”
“The no-sex thing.” I wanted to know what that was all about, but now wasn’t the time.
She flushed. Not red, like other women. A darker honey, that was all. “Yes. So I know how to do cafés, I guess. Or …” She was so clearly searching her limited constellation of experiences. “A film?” she asked dubiously. “We did that sometimes, when there was something about climbing.”
“Yeh, nah,” I said. “Not exactly getting-to-know-you time, unless you’re having a pash in the back row, and that isn’t happening. You wouldn’t normally do a film once you were out of your teens in any case, not without dinner first. Not too romantic. Do you enjoy films about climbing, though?”
“Well, no,” she said. “Since you ask. I don’t enjoy anything about climbing.” Then she shut her mouth as if she’d said too much, and shivered. The wind had come up, or maybe that wasn’t the wind.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll think of something. Dating school rule number one. He should be thinking of what you’ll enjoy. Trying to please you.” That was the only semi-neutral thing I could manage. I wanted to pull the bloke out of that avalanche and kill him myself.
“It’s meant to be equal, though,” she said. “I mean, in New Zealand. In the … west.”
“So was it equal?” I asked, setting the rest of it aside for later.In the west.
Her pointed chin went up, and I thought,Good on ya. You think you haven’t learned anything, and I’d say you’re wrong.“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
“You did it his way,” I said. “We’ll go for evening the scales, then. I’ll try to please you, and you can let me know if I did it.”
“How?” she asked. “Do I tell you? Or what?”
“Normally,” I said, apparently throwing caution to the wind, “I’d see if you were looking happy, and if you wanted me to kiss you at the end of the evening. That would give me a clue. Now, for example. When we’re standing outside your door, and you’re looking up at me with those eyes.”
“Oh,” she said, and blinked them. “Uh …”
I had to smile, didn’t I? “Nah. No worries. I’ll tell you what. You can go on and tell me. It’s dating school. I’m telling you my expectations, and you’re telling me yours. Which means honesty, I reckon. I tell you what I like about you, and you tell me what you like about me. In the car, maybe. Parked outside, when we’re back home again. In the dark, where it’s easy to say it.”
She swallowed, and I saw it. A movement of that slim throat, that was all. She was wearing a thin gold chain under the collar of the shirt. I could just see it at the edge of the buttoned neck, now that I was standing close, over her, and I wanted to see more of it. She said, “I can say it now.”
For some reason, my heart was beating like it was trying to get out of my chest. I was falling into her eyes, into the excitement and tension that was all but vibrating through her, into the idea of delicate collarbones that I hadn’t even seen yet and possibly never would. “Yeh?” I said.
“I liked that you were all right taking my car today,” she said. “I liked you sitting with me at lunch and talking to me. I liked you helping the girls learn to play cricket. And I liked …” She hesitated, and I waited. More of that beating heart. More of that dark honey, creeping up into her cheeks. “I liked dancing with you last night,” she said. “I liked that you wanted to … teach me.”
All right. There was nothing noble about this. This was a shot of pure lust, straight to the groin.
She said no, mate. She told you that she’s going to keep saying no, too.I said, “I liked teaching you.” My hand came up to her cheek again, the same way it had last night, sitting by the back door in the dusty passage. A brush of fingertips along her jaw, and then my thumb tracing it, because that line was so sweet. “I liked your courage,” I told her, “and your strength.”
“I wasn’t strong.” She was barely getting the words out, because my thumb was still there, and her heart was beating hard now, too. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it.
