“Have a nice dinner everyone. I have a pub crawl to get to,” I say as I pick up my bag and stand up. “I’ll see you at home later,” I tell Keats in the most suggestive way I could muster before I turn on my heel and leave the stuffy get together behind me.
Chapter 14
Two weeks later, a persistent thought is still on a loop in my brain. I kissed Keats McAllister. I still can’t wipe the grin off my face as I hop on the bus to head home. I should feel bad for embarrassing him at work. And I did. For about a week. But now, all I can think about is the good that came out of that horrible experience.
So what if the kiss wasn’t a proper lip lock? I’ve experienced the real thing even though he barely had time to kiss me back. Actually, I’m starting to wonder if I’d imagined his reciprocation.
I touch my lips. What a way to leave a party. What was I thinking? Still, it was so satisfying seeing the look on Wilsborough’s face like she was going to choke on her caviar. And Keats’ lips, partly open against my own. His breath on my mouth. His aftershave…
The street outside suddenly registers in my brain. I quickly jab the bell just before my bus misses my stop. The driver brakes suddenly, making us all whip forward and back in our seats. I scramble to get up and exit the vehicle, still floating on cloud nine, totally unfazed by the odd glare from fellow passengers who now probably have whiplash.
Twenty metres from my apartment building, I recognise the black sportscar parked in front, bathed in the warm glow of the streetlight. It’s only six o’clock but the winter sun set an hour ago. Under the same light, I spot the black Audi’s. owner leaning against it in a suit, legs crossed at the ankles just above his expensive leather shoes. He’s on his phone texting with a smile on his face like he’s flirting with or sexting someone.
I almost wonder if he’s here for me, but the only people who live in my rundown building are a smelly recluse who’s apparently been renting the room downstairs since the eighties, and an extended Sri Lankan family upstairs who is kind enough to give me some of their leftover food whenever they have one of their big parties. The dishes are unfortunately often vegetarian, but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.
My steps slow as I near Keats. The last time I saw him, I’d humiliated him in front of his boss, his boss’ elitist wife and the other big wigs at his company. He’d also begged me to cock-block his mother, but she’d had a date practically every night in the last two weeks that he was away, thanks to my Miz Peggy dating app.
God, he’s a good-looking bastard. I bet he’s distracting as hell to work with. I should’ve changed out of my heels to walk home so I can run from him. Maybe if I duck into the supermarket before he sees me, he’ll be gone by the time I get out.
Keats looks up as soon as I take a step towards the supermarket.
“Hay-gen, hey there,” he says, walking up to me. He slips his latest model iPhone into the inner pocket of his grey designer suit jacket.
“Hi.” I look at his eyes to stop mine from fixating on his lips.
Silence. Seconds tick by slowly so I ask him about his trip—better than apologising for my behaviour at the dinner party.
“I just got back. I’m still getting over the jetlag.”
More silence. This is getting even more awkward. Is he waiting for me to say sorry for our lip lock? No way. Not unless he apologises for not standing up for me to Ms Wilsborough.
“So, what brings you here?” The Band Aid approach—I’ve never had much training in subtlety.
“Oh.” I’ve taken him by surprise with my bluntness. It seems the great Keats McAllister was expecting some preamble. “Well, I, uh, thought we could discuss the wedding.”
I’m relieved he doesn’t bring up the kiss, but also strangely disappointed. “You mean, the one you’re trying to sabotage?”
“I like to think we’re both doing that.” He flashes me his grin that crinkles his nose.
I love that grin.
I hate that grin.
“You up for dinner?” He asks me so casually that I don’t get the vibe at all that he’s asking me out.
“Sure.”
“All right, let’s grab something from the supermarket and talk while we make it.”
He starts walking to my local grocery store and it takes me a few seconds of staring at his sexy retreating form before my feet and brain catch up to the fact he’s with me again.
“You know, until recently, I thought you had more of a life than constantly inviting yourself to dinner at my place,” I say when I catch up to him at the stack of baskets near the entrance.
“Mom gets anxious if she’s alone in the house overnight, and Byron’s at Gatton—I can’t not come home, or return too late. Kind of kills my social life, as you can imagine. Why don’t you have plans on a Friday night?”
’Cause I’m pathetic. “Cause when you’re sober, everyone else at clubs seems stupid.”
That grin again. “Well, when you’re not looking to hook up, it’s the same. Ever since I started Operation Get Isabella Back, I figured it’d be cheating on her if I went out cruising for chicks with my buddies at work—those assholes are always out on the prowl, and when you’ve given up other women cold turkey and you’re not getting any…”
I stop walking, wondering whether I heard him right. “You’re not having sex?”
A mother pushing around a trolley with a two year old in the seat frowns at me. Especially after her little girl shouts, “Have sex!”
Keats grabs my hand and pulls me towards him. “Sorry, she has Tourette’s,” he says with an apologetic smile to the offended mother. He leads me away towards the relatively empty fresh produce section. “Keep it down, Hay-gen. I’d like to hold on to the last vestiges of my manhood, if only by reputation. I’m already so whipped, I haven’t had a sex drought this long since Year 10.”
I shake my head trying to comprehend another myth about him that’s been blown out of the water. “You’re telling me, you haven’t had sex since you started going out with Isabella last August?” My eyes dip down to his crotch before I realise what I’m doing.
“Hey, hey, eyes up here,” Keats says, waving his hands in front of him as if shooing a wayward chicken. “It hasn’t been as long as that…although it feels like it. You and I only started this plan in April.”
A scoff escapes my lips, not that I would’ve stopped this particular one. “Two months? You’re whinging about two months?” I walk away to choose an orange. It’s about the only fruit I don’t mind eating.
“Almost three,” he defends. “Why? How long has it been for you?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“I told you mine.”
I shake my head.
“I thought you had Booty Call Neil on speed dial?”
I hit him on the arm. “I do not have B—Neil on speed dial.” I almost said Baby Daddy Neil, though Keats probably thinks I was about to use his nickname for my pretend friend with benefit.
Keats just laughs off my protest—annoying bastard.
“You got lettuce?” he asks me.
I shake my head.
He lifts one head then another in the palm of his hand, repeating the process about five times before he settles on the second lettuce he tried. “The heavier they are, the more layers they have.”
I nod. I’ve learnt from the McAllisters that fruit and vegetables need to be weighed. It seems that with almost every individual piece of produce, the heavier it is for its size, the better.
“How about avocado?”
“Just assume I have nothing in my fridge as usual. What are you making?”
“Tacos. I feel like Tex-Mex tonight. Is that cool with you?”
“As long as you’re the one cooking, I’m fantastic,” I say before I remember what Isabella told me about Keats and their first date.
Surely, this isn’t the fabled Taco Test?
***
I can’t think of anything sexier than what I’m staring at right n
ow—Keats in his suit pants and fitted business shirt, his tie off, wearing my frilly apron while he slaves away over my hot stove as he cooks dinner for me. I could get used to this.
“For a player, you’re very domesticated, you know that?”
“I used to have my own place, remember? Here, try this.” He turns around and extends the wooden spoon to me. I look at it for a second before I lean forward just a little and touch my lips to the meat sauce, licking my lips as I pull away. “Too spicy?”
“Is it normal for my tongue to feel numb?”
He raises a brow at me—have I offended him by not gushing over his culinary skills?
“It’ll even itself out when you mix it with the other stuffing. That lettuce looks a little too big. You want the pieces to fit in the shell.”
I look at the strips he got me to cut. There’s a lot more to chopping up than I thought. Why couldn’t I just grate everything like I did to the carrots and cheese? “You weren’t this fussy during Home Ec. class.”
“I wasn’t exactly there to cook.” He turns the heat down on my stove, then bends down on his haunches to turn off my previously unused oven. He peers at the tacos that have been cooking for the last ten minutes. I blatantly ogle his butt while he has his back to me. “That should be enough time. I like to leave them in a little longer than what it says on the packet—makes the shells crispier.”
“Let me guess, you were in Home Ec. because of a girl?” I return my eyes to his when he turns around.
“Lucy Kent.”
Of course. Why aren’t I surprised that he was after the prettiest girl at Bridgewater High? Lucy was “the whole package”, as he likes to call it—gorgeous, smart and personable—even in our teens. Suffice it to say, all the girls were jealous of her.
“Richard Dean and I kinda both had a thing for her. Anyway, I went out with her first.” He grins, not realising the little comment about his past triumph twisted a knife in my gut. He uses a folded tea towel to grab the tray out of the oven. “Everything I know about cooking, I owe my mom, and Aunty Lorenda.” He grabs a bowl from the shelf below the microwave for the meat filling, and extracts a flat serving dish for the taco shells from the cupboard above the sink.
I get the feeling he knows my kitchen better than I do.
“How are the salad and cheese doing?”
His question startles me—I was busily checking out his butt again. He really is beautiful. More so now that I know other sides to him that I never imagined in my teenage fantasies.
“Chopped up, and grated, chef.”
He turns around with a corner of his mouth quirked at my teasing. “Great. Everything’s ready then. Let’s eat?” He takes the bowl and tray to my little two-seater table while I bring over the platter of salad vegetables, and bowl of grated cheese. I’ve already set two plates and serving spoons on the table.
He goes back to the bench for the silver sachet of salsa, grabbing a small bowl to pour it in on the way to the table.
“There. Took twenty minutes to prepare,” he says with a proud grin that reminds me of his mother’s when she’s teaching me to cook. Have I become the McAllisters’ pet public service project? Teach poorly-raised woman how to cook. “Using the taco kit is a bit of a cheat but I don’t believe in making everything from scratch if you don’t need to.”
“Thank God for that,” I say, and we share a smile.
Keats sits on the only other chair at my table. He grabs himself a shell and a spoon, then begins filling in the taco. I surreptitiously copy what he’s doing—tacos haven’t been part of my eating repertoire. Even the taco kit variety was too much to contemplate for my father.
“So, what did you want to talk about with the wedding?” I study my taco, wondering how I could eat it without the whole thing collapsing like a sticky house of cards. I think I’ve overfilled mine. I learnt from Isabella that Keats only dates women who can eat a taco with grace and poise. Is he going to judge me if I eat messily? But this isn’t a date…and he didn’t seem to care that Isabella eats like the Cookie Monster.
“Is it still going ahead?” he asks before angling his head to the side to bite one end of the shell. I fixate on his teeth and the movement of his jaws as he chews with his mouth closed.
“Yes. Isabella’s still arriving on Friday next week, and the engagement party’s still on the following day.”
“Damn.” He takes another bite, reminding me I am yet to start on my dinner.
I bring the taco to my mouth, bite one end just like Keats did, and the whole thing implodes on me through a crack that splits it horizontally in the middle. My lap is saved by my cleavage which catches the filling.
“Shit!” I just failed the Taco Test. My cheeks burn even hotter than the newly cooked meat searing through my blouse. I swipe the mess off my chest, sending bits of mince across the table at my eating companion.
Keats quickly stands up, knocking over his chair backwards as he inspects whether anything has touched his designer work clothes. I spot a salsa-covered bit of grated carrot sticking to his neck but with the movement of his pulse, it slowly slides down beneath the collar of his expensive shirt.
“I’m so sorry!” I can’t help the chuckle that escapes after my apology. The look of horror on his face when he saw the salsa sauce on the front of his pinstriped shirt was just too comical—he’s being so prissy. And I laugh at the most inappropriate times.
“This isn’t funny.” His left hand deftly undoes the top two buttons on his dress shirt. After, he tackles the rest of his top with two hands. He pulls the hem loose from his pants letting the shirt fall and gape at the front to reveal the taut centre of his swimmer’s physique. He then turns his arm, inner wrist up, to start working on his cuff links. First one, then the other. This all happens in less than fifteen seconds, but it plays in slow motion to me.
Pwroar!
Walking over to my kitchen sink, Keats completely pulls off his business shirt. His skin is pale, like he spends too much time in the office to get a tan, but his body is firm and lightly muscled with a tattoo on his right pec of the lion from the British Coat of Arms wearing a cowboy hat instead of a crown.
I watch his reflection on the window pane above the sink while he runs water over the salsa stain. As he scrubs the material of his shirt together, the ink lion dances on his chest. It’s hypnotic, a trance I barely have enough sense to break. I grab a spare plastic bag from my pantry for his wet shirt. A smile plays on my lips the whole time, and belatedly, I remember that my own clothes are in a far worst state.
I take a tea towel off the oven door and wet one edge of the cloth. I rub the sauce off the exposed parts of my chest. I look up to get under my neck, and find Keats watching me. He quickly lowers his eyes back down to his business shirt, the scrubbing intensifying to the point the material’s in danger of ripping.
Man, he must really be sex-starved.
“I better get changed,” I say when I realise nothing short of a shower and change of clothes would fix my appearance. I walk down the hall to my room, a smile on my face at the idea that Keats was maybe checking me out. I quickly step in the shower, slather as much of my fruity body wash on, and fit myself into a fuchsia, vee-neck knit dress with three-quarter sleeves and a hemline that is just above my knees. I take the tie off my hair and let the strands play on my shoulders, imagining myself rocking my do like Venus in the Half-Shell—all I need are the angels hovering nearby.
Keats is just finishing up cleaning my table and floor with paper towels when I reach my kitchen. Shirtless, his lightly muscled back is beautiful to watch.
He lifts his gaze to me as I near. “You look nice.” He appears stunned like he doesn’t expect to find me attractive. “You know, if you don’t like my cooking, there’s no need to start a food fight,” he quips as he stands up.
“You call that a food fight?” I grab a sprinkle of grated carrots, and slowly advance towards him.
“Jess, don’t—”
I let the
pieces fly. At least one bit of carrot lands in his mouth, another in his fashionably cropped hair.
“I’m not biting—”
The rain of lettuce interrupts his protest.
Keats narrows his eyes at me as if gauging how serious I am—I’ve picked up the small bowl of salsa. We’re still for a few moments like gunslingers from an old cowboy movie. The breeze through my open window sends a dust mote tumbling along the floor between us. Once it has past, I take the final step towards him with my weapon of choice. Keats blocks me by grabbing my wrist and we wrestle with the salsa, laughing as the container of sauce precariously comes close to spilling over one of us and then the other.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish, Hay-gen,” Keats says through gritted teeth as the tomato mixture hovers ever so close to spilling over my hair.
In a last ditch effort, I reach up and dip my free hand into the mixture. I scoop out a dollop and slap it against his firm chest with a squelch. Keats immediately frees my hand when he looks down at the hand-shaped stain half-covering his sexy tattoo. While he’s distracted, I give his cheek two small pats with my saucy hand, saying, “Very true, Keats,” then jump out of the way before he can retaliate.
“I hope you enjoyed that, Hay-gen,” he says, blue eyes intense, the salsa on his cheek making him look like Braveheart’s red cousin, “because you’re dead.”
He grabs the bowl of meat sauce in one hand, scooping out a glob with his other hand. “Shit, that’s hot,” he says, returning the filling into the bowl, shaking and blowing on his fingers. He stops mid-blow when he sees me laughing, instead lunging at me with an outstretched hand.
I squeal, running to the other side of the square table, but Keats just follows me until I’m cornered against the kitchen wall. I look down, grab some vegetables and throw them at him. His eyes narrow but don’t leave me as he approaches with unhurried, purposeful steps like a big cat stalking his prey.
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