Page 75 of Kiwi Gold
“Uh, Lachlan,” she said. “Ididtell you so. Though I seem to have changed my mind.”
“Oh.” I considered that. “Well, yeh. But that would make me even more of an arsehole if I let you pay, after I stomped all over your … your boundaries. Why would you be paying, exactly? Also, it’s a burger and possibly a beer. Not really worth all this negotiation, though I can’t wait to hear your rationale, of course. But you’re cold. Let’s go sit in the car.” She had her arms wrapped around her narrow ribcage, and I’d swear she was shivering, just under the skin. I’d have given her my jacket, but I didn’t have one. Once again, I wanted to do something romantic, and it wasn’t working out. Ineverwanted to be romantic, though I could fake it when it was required. Now, I actually wanted to, and it kept not happening, because she wouldn’t let me do the things I needed to.
Which wasn’t even kissing her. It was paying for a simple plate of food in a place that wasn’t actually the lowest common denominator. Carrying her if she needed it. Letting mehelpher. Why did she make that so hard? My sisters never seemed to have a problem with it.
“I need to say this first,” she said. “I need to say it now.”
“Right,” I said. “I’m bracing myself.”
“I think,” she said, “that we should renegotiate our agreement.”
“In what way?” I asked. “Also, I’ll point out that once again, we’re having this conversation next to the toilet block. Dating-school-wise, probably not your ideal location.” I was trying to be cool, you see. Trying to be detached. And not feeling that way. I’d stuffed up, somehow.
Somehow?I’d kissed her, after I’d said I wouldn’t.Yeh, boy,I told myself,that’s the definition.
“Two items,” she said. “First, what you said. I’d like to expand the dating school. I want to, uh …” She passed a hand over her wet hair, which was still neatly pinned. “Maybe … try some things. Some more things. But with an agreement about how far we’ll go.”
My entire body had gone still, and once again, my calm was failing me. “What’s the second item?”
She looked straight at me. “That my dad can’t know.”
* * *
Laila
He was right. The toilet block was the wrong place. The wind had risen, my wet hair was chilling me, and his was probably doing the same thing to him. Also, I wished he didn’t look so good. Collared shirt with buttons, dark jeans, dark-blonde hair cut short and neat and recently. Scruff of beard ditto, and he’d shaved perfectly below it, too, taking care. The rasp had felt alien, and so exciting, when he’d been kissing me, and I longed to know how it would feel if he were kissing my neck.
He’d chosen his clothes, had had his hair cut, had made an effort, and I’d come out wearing what I’d worn to work all day. I was also wearing not a speck of makeup, and my hair was so wet, it was dripping. Whether I bought the burgers or not, I was in a rubbish negotiating position. But how could I shout out what I needed to ask across the table, over a burger, in a crowded café?
He said, “I have two things to say as well.” Not exactly grabbing me and kissing me again, you’ll notice. Not exactly overcome by animal lust, the way …
Well, yeh. The way I was. I was still trembling inside from the heat of his mouth. From the urgency of histonguein my mouth, and the way he’d pulled me up tight, like he couldn’t bear to let me go. Like I was in a movie. Like this was something other than my life.
“I’m listening,” I said, though it wasn’t easy. My lips had gone tingly and numb in that way they do when you’re stressed.
“The first one is,” he said, “that I won’t say the second one until we’re in the car with the heat turned up.” When I opened my mouth to reply, he said, “And that’s non-negotiable.”
His body language as we walked there wasn’t exactly, “I can’t wait to lie down with you and kiss you until our legs are tangled up together and I can hardly breathe for wanting you.” It was more like, “I plan to drive home fast so I can see the back of you sooner.” But why?He’dkissedme.He’dwantedto kiss me. He’d held me by the nape of myneck.And he’d felt the power of it. I’d known that when he was holding me against the wall, after we’d run, and I certainly knew it now. It’s a hard thing to hide when a man has his hand on your lower back and is hauling you up against him, not to mention that you’re both in your togs.
That happened all the time to men, though. It wasn’t anything special. In the morning, or if they watched a sexy film, or … or any time. A physical reaction, that’s all.
His hand felt special,my treacherous brain tried to argue.His mouth felt special.
I didn’t have the expertise for this, so I got in the car instead. It held the warmth of the day and was out of the wind, so that was better. He climbed in without a word, but when he turned on the blower to high, I shivered hard.
He said, “Bloody hell,” reached across the seat, and held me, rubbing his hand up down my back, and I shivered some more, felt his chin resting against the top of my head and his body warming mine, and thought,It’s going to be all right. Surely it is. He’s a kind person. And if I don’t tell him how humiliated I feel, he won’t know.
When the car’s heater was doing the business, though, he let go of me, sat back, and said, “Right. Thing two.”
“Thing two,” I agreed.
“Thing two,” he said, “is no. Hell, no.”
“Oh.” I tried to feel casual, since that was the point. “Is it that I’m not a good kisser? I may as well ask,” I went on. “Nothing to lose, I guess.” I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from shivering again. “I’ve only kissed one man, and he wasn’t … we weren’t …” I looked out the window myself, now, and tried to remember the feeling of diving under the wave. The shock of it, and the surrender. There was power in choosing to dive like that, and strength in knowing you’d made the choice. If this wasn’t going to work out, and it clearly wasn’t, I’d … I’d find something else. Somebody else. Just because I hadn’t met anybody as good as Lachlan before, that didn’t mean he wasn’t out there, right? It didn’t feel true, but it probablywastrue.
Probably.
“I don’t like to be touched,” I made myself say, because if I didn’t have honesty, I had nothing. “Casually, I mean, by men. A handshake, and that’s all. It’s never felt right at all to do more, even though I’m not religious anymore, not really, but it feels right with you, so …”
