Page 2 of Begin Again Again

The corner of his mouth kicked. “I’ll remember it.”

Beth was about to tell him she didn’t believe him—and maybe mention the brain improvement course she’d taken and the inability of humans to retain more than six digits in their short-term memory—when she heard a low rumble. A blue car pulled up behind her, the driver glaring at the two of them.

The guy straightened, though his gaze remained on her. “Number?”

“0,4,1,1,7,8,8,2,5,0,” she recited. “Are you sure you’ve…?”

“Got it.”

“I mean, I don’t believe you.”

He didn’t smile, but something in his face shifted and Beth could tell he liked what she’d said.

“Kiwi?” he asked.

“Auckland. How do you—”

The blue car beeped, startling both of them.

“Sorry!” Beth yelled, waving in her rear-view mirror.

The guy—what was his name?—turned, folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah?” he asked the guy in the blue car.

“She needs to move,” yelled the driver.

“No, she doesn’t. Go around.”

The blue car swung wildly, accelerating past Beth as a barrage of expletives emanated out of the driver’s window.

“Dickhead,” The Guy said without a trace of malice. He bent toward her. “Your number’s 0411788250?”

Beth tried and failed to think of anything funny to say. “Yup.”

“Right.” He patted her car roof. “See you later, then.”

He strolled away without a backward glance, his ass round and muscular shifting in his tight tradesman pants.

Beth shook her head. He was so, so far out of her fucking league.

Fantasies raced through her mind like Netflix previews as she headed home. The guy—why hadn’t she asked his fucking name?—on top of her. Behind her. Her nails digging into his biceps. His hand around her throat.You like that? You want more?

“Do you think sexually harassing someone is a sign of COVID?” Beth called as she hung her tote bag in Lara’s hallway. Lara was a woman who appreciated a good opening line.

True to form, there was apad, pad, swooshas her friend slid across the floorboards into the hall. “What the fuck happened?”

“I just—”

Angus wailed from the kitchen, also true to form. Lara rolled her eyes. “Come on, I made us coffee.”

She told Lara about The Guy as she bounced eight-month-old Angus on her knee. His cherubic face grinned throughout her tale, which Beth interpreted as an endorsement of her behaviour.

“That’s fucked,” Lara said when she was done. “So, you don’t know his name?”

“Nope.”

“That’s kind of impressive. That and you sexually harassed a man in the street in broad daylight. Feminism for the win?”

Beth toggled Angus up and down, making him giggle. “Yeah, I don’t think we can put that in the ‘female success stories’ pile.”

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