Page 73 of Kiwi Gold
But maybe that made him the right one.
“Let’s walk along the shore a bit,” I said, breathless with cold, and possibly something else, “and let the waves catch us. I like that. Getting caught.”
He was silent a long moment, and I said, “What? You’re too cold to walk? I don’t believe it. Come on, Lachlan. Keep up.” I tried to laugh, even though my nether regions were surgically numb by now, and as for my nipples? They actually hurt.
“Are youtryingto do this?” he asked, dropping my hand and turning to me in the knee-high water, barely rocking as the next wave hit and caught me around the waist, delivering another body blow to my future sexual functionality. “The togs? The stretching? The sexy chat? Is it just a tease, then? I can’t tell anymore. Time for some of that honesty, unless this has all been some sort of game. If it has—you win, because I can’t do it anymore.”
“What? Me?” I stared at him, then did my best to keep up when he set off again, splashing his way out of the water and toward the spot where we’d left our things, walking too fast. My ankle gave a twinge, and I said, “Could we slow down a bit, please? Sorry. Foot.”
He said, “Yeh. Sorry,” then reached down for my towel and handed it to me. I squeezed my plait with it, working my way down its length, and he watched for a moment, then turned and looked out to sea. The way he did it felt like a slap across the face, or maybe just a reminder, and I wrung out the microfiber towel, then wrapped it around my waist, reached for two of the gigantic hair-holders I used, twisted my wet plait into a knot, and fastened it so my hair couldn’t freeze me more.
He said, “Can you walk, if we stay on the firm part and go slowly?” and I was confused again, but said, “Yes. Of course.”
We set off along the beach, still in silence except for that roar and swish, the call of a sea bird overhead, not holding hands. Only a few evening strollers were still out here, far ahead, nearly lost in the spray. Finally, Lachlan said, “Not sure how to go about this, so I’m just going to come straight out and say it. First—do you genuinely not realize that those togs are seriously sexy? Or call them what they are. Erotic.”
“This?It’s a shiny black tank! On me!” I was laughing. “I know that some men say that all a woman has to do is turn up, but seriously?This?”
“It looks like leather,” he said. “It has that … outline.”
“So? And what outline?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Around your breasts. Down your body. It looks like a black leather corset. Which is a fetish item. Put a few buckles on that, and you’re … Well, anyway, it does. That’s why they made it. Exactly why.”
I started to say, “No, it doesn’t,” but I couldn’t, because he said, “Trust me. It does.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “So maybe something hideous in navy blue, then. Or brown. I didn’t want to wear anything actually ugly anymore, though. I was going for the middle ground. I grew up in swim shorts and rashie shirts, and I’ve been trying to be less modest. I reckoned—I’m covered, and it’s black, so … and I’ve been wearing this for twoyears,and nobody’s ever said anything. With all those teenage girls on the beach in bikinis, this isn’t really much in comparison. So … seriously?”
“Seriously,” he said. “You look like a woman, not a teenage girl, and that hair … Togs are meant to be a bit sexy, though, unless you’re competing. Racing. Whatever. But you’re telling me nobody’s looked at you twice in that thing? Nobody’s come over for a chat?”
“I have twins. Of course people come over for a chat.”
“Men don’t. To chat about your twins? Yeh, right.”
“They do, though.”
He just gave me a look, and I said, “Lachlan. I’msmall.”
“You must know,” he said, starting to walk too fast again, “how that compels a man. And that you’re beautiful.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I said, “And what was the thing about stretching? I can’tstretch?And—ouch. Could you slow down, please?”
He stopped, breathed, and passed a hand over his face. “Look,” he said. “This isn’t working for me. Dating school.”
“Oh.” That was all I could think to say. I was shocked by the way my stomach dropped. “All right, then.” I wasn’t about to argue. How humiliating would that be? “You have the right to decide that. Obviously. So … do you still want to go for a burger or whatever, before we go home? I’ll admit, I’m hungry. As friends, obviously, and I’ll pay for myself, of course. But as itwasdating school, I need to ask …”
He looked at me. Not with the patience he normally showed me, but with all his frustration evident. “Of course I’m going to buy you dinner. I said I would. And what do you need to ask?”
I turned and started walking back, not looking at him. When he’d joined me, though, I said, “What did I do wrong?”
“I can’t—” he began, then stopped.
I said, “That was our agreement. Honesty. Openness. That we’d tell each other what we like, and that has to mean telling each other what we don’t like, too. So I … I …” I couldn’t say any more, because my throat was closing up. My foot was aching as if it didn’t have enough endurance for this, and I felt the same way. It had been too long a day, with too much emotion. My finances were still much too shaky, I needed to pay Oriana and Priya their wages tomorrow, and I’d lost out on five hundred dollars today—five hundred dollars Ineeded—by steering Paloma toward that household help instead of buying all the poses she’d wanted. And then there’d been the hour I’d spent chronicling some of the worst grief a human could feel. And how it had felt to watch Lachlan dancing with my girls last week, not to mention the way he’d looked at me when I’d come out of his shower that evening in my dressing gown, like he was going to invite me to put the girls to bed, then come back for a cup of tea. But he hadn’t.
I’d coped with all of it. I had. Until this. It was one blow too many, and I was going down.
He said, “Laila. Listen. Stop.”
I didn’t. If I stopped walking, I was going to cry. I got back to the spot where we’d dropped our bags and said, “Just tell me. You think I can’t take it? I can take it. I’ve taken so much worse. So, right, these togs have a different meaning than I thought, and the see-through dress was obviously the same. I’m giving all the wrong messages. Too sexy, when I’m not, and … But what else?”
