“Ah, Bree.” That pointed look at her arms became a lazy inspection of the rest of her. She worked to keep the heat it caused from her face. “You went to a good school, right?”
“Yes.” Where was this going?
“And got top grades. Then went to Sydney or NSW uni, yeah?”
She nodded. That wasn’t so hard to guess. She was a success story cliché unless you knew everything about her. About how being cute and good and smart had bored her, then scared her into doing things differently.
“You did a double degree, commerce, law. And you were high distinctions all the way.”
She smiled. He might not be a good poker player but he was a good analyst. “Mostly. There was that one distinction, but I was robbed.”
He tapped his hand on the cushion space between them, three times. “You’re first job was in a professional office. You probably did work experience with an accountancy firm or another broker, and you walked into this job with a recommendation from someone well connected in the city.”
She nodded. He had the ‘for public consumption’ version of her story down pat. “Close enough, what’s your point?”
“I didn’t do any of those things. I had to quit school at sixteen. I finished it at night while I worked in a hardware store during the day. Then I got a low paying office job at a no name stockbroker and I did every dirty job they threw at me while I went to uni part-time and did odd jobs on the weekend. I got passes and credits. I talked myself into this job and my probationary period was six months. I’m betting yours was three.”
She gasped. She had no idea his background was so different, or that he’d done it the hard way. Her senses were flooded with admiration for him and his big, loud, intense ways.
“I’m a fake, Bree. And you’re the real deal. The only way I can belong in a world you were made for, trained for, is to work harder than anyone else and do better. So when you ask me why winning is so important, I’d say it’s because I’m a fish and even a fish out of water tries bloody hard to swim.”
10: Confession
Christ he needed another drink. But it was probably that second one that made him shove a knife in his chest, carve himself open and spill his guts all over Bree. She was looking at him as though he was a combined dose of Bali belly and leprosy, and continued contact with him would rot her gut first then make her limbs fall off, one by painful one.
He looked over his shoulder. “Where’s a jumpsuit when you need one.” Bree’s hand on his arm made his head snap back like a ringpull.
“You need a medal, that’s what you need.”
She gripped him firmly. She didn’t look like she was having a lend. “Yeah, right.” His bitterness burned his own ears. Fuck knows how she felt about his whinging.
“No, Ant. I mean it.”
He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I didn’t mean to make a big deal of it. I’m sorry. I caused a scene and ruined your victory dinner.” He looked around at the room full of people not having a fucking awkward moment like this. “I hauled you down here for a drink you don’t want. I crossed the line with that stupid comment about you being beautiful, then I whinged at you like a flaming five year old.”
“You forgot the fact you bet against me with your shithead mates.”
“You got the better end of the stick when we ignored each other.” He didn’t want to see revulsion in her eyes. He let go her hand and tried to get some waitress eye contact happening.
“Look at me, Ant.”
“Do you want another drink?” She’d barely sipped the last one.
She put both hands on his face, framing it, turning it so he had to look in her lovely eyes. “You have nothing to be ashamed about.”
“I’m not ashamed.” Never. There was nothing shameful about doing things the hard way. He was annoyed he’d reframed her achievements in the light of his disadvantages. As though what she’d done was less amazing. He tried to pull away, but she scooted closer. She was looking at him as if he was some goal she had to capture and hold.
“You don’t think I’m beautiful?”
“Shit, yeah. I think you’re gorgeous.” Since day one. She’d had those red shoes with the stripy heels on. And he’d known he wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her. Made it easy to paint her all kinds of wrong in his head.
“Are you going to ask me out properly?”
He peeled her hands away, but kept them in his and she didn’t shuffle back across the lounge. What was going on here? From the minute she’d taken his hand back at the restaurant, he’d been fantasising about getting closer to her. But that was a whole lot of bullshit, because she was way out of his pay grade and postcode, so there was no chance that was ever going to happen. Even if they weren’t work colleagues, and work colleagues weren’t totally out of bounds for a whole bunch of good reasons, least of all hysterics in the office when things inevitably went south because he screwed up. The best he could ever hope for from a classy chick like Bree was some hasty tasty drunken favour, never referred to again. So what the fuck was she asking him to ask her out properly for?
“I told the guys you were a colleague and it wasn’t right to involve you in this.” He could chew out his own tongue for every shitty thing he’d said to the boys about Bree. He did not need to subject her to their scrutiny and he’d do anything to stop it happening.
“Hang on. You bet if I won I’d get grovelling and a free feed and now you’re reneging.”
“It’s not like that.”
She shook his hands as if the answer could be rattled out of them. “What’s it like then?”
It was grubby and demeaning and he should never have made the bet in the first place. “You don’t want anything to do with it.”
“And miss seeing you humiliated, are you kidding?”
He looked down at their hands. “What’s going on here?”
She laughed, a green, fresh, musical sound, but when she spoke her voice was hot sweet toffee. “I don’t know, but I like it.”
“What are we going to do then?” His body was at war over this question. Only the tiniest part of his brain was holding out, processing what a bad idea pushing for more than just being with her like this was. The rest of him was already assessing what her skin would taste like and what she’d look like with her head thrown back and her eyes closed when she lost it under him.
“We should probably take it easy.” He wanted to lick her throat where her sweet voice came from.
“Is that a nice way of telling me whoa Nelly?”
She wet her lips. “Not necessarily.”
The remainder of the guts he hadn’t already spilled in her lap somersaulted. “Whoa Nelly. You mean, you’d consider...” he ran out of words. Not because there weren’t any left, but because there were too many that could be used to complete the sentence, and he couldn’t choose between the professional: ‘developing our relationship’, the benign, ‘letting me take you out’, or the new truth he suddenly knew was about to interrupt his romantically carefree life.
He wanted something more than a one night stand with this girl.
“Do you want to kiss me, Ant?”
He shook his head. The lie coming easy because the truth was foreign and dangerous. She freaking pouted, pushing that juicy bottom lip out. What was he supposed to say? His, “Fuck, yeah,” came out hollow and achy, like he’d chewed his tongue out.
She moved first. She leaned that extra bit forward, then stopped. He exhaled in surprise. Beer and God knows what other foul, half digested lamb chop smells must’ve been on his breath. She didn’t care. She licked her lips again. Shit, she was playing with him. Polite, reserved, cool, probably shy, private, Bree Robinson was playing with him. She put her hand on his cheek and ran her thumb over his bottom lip.
“Are you going to kiss me?” he choked out.
“I might.” He grunted as her other hand speared through his hair. “Do you want me to?”
“You would
, girl, if you were being nice.”
“Oh you don’t think I’m nice, Ant.” She breathed on him, heat and desire. “Tell me what you really think?”
Where was this coming from? This wasn’t Bree who wore conservative suits and tried to stay out of his way. This was some other girl, reckless and ruthless, who looked like Bree, but had made it her ambition to twist him in knots and leave him strung out and dying on the uncomfortable furniture of a trendy drinking spot for want of a freaking lip lock.
“You’re a tease and a bitch, and if you don’t follow through with that kiss things could get ugly.”
“Oh yeah. What are you going to do about it?”
He wasn’t going to trade quips. He palmed the back of her head and crashed his lips into hers. Shock made her body jerk and she resisted, stiffening, flattening her lips. He let go of her head, cursing himself for rushing this, ruining this, and she sighed, her mouth suddenly softening. Her hands came up to his shoulders, then twisted around his neck and she hauled herself closer to him. Now they were really kissing and she was a sweet drugging sensation on his lips and fresh starched cotton in his nose. She went from soft to liquid, her fingers dug into his neck and he pulled her the rest of the way into his body.
The only sound in the room was the whimper she made, need and want melded into a thrilling purr that made him search for her repeat button. He put his hand back to her head, tunnelled his fingers through strands of glossy gold and silk and shook the clip holding it free so her hair fell about her neck and shoulders. His other hand was low on her back, pressing the twist in her spine so their thighs were flush and her breast grazed his ribs. He fought the notion of climbing over her, pressing her back into the cushions so he’d have her trapped against him. He didn’t fight the one that made him drag her across his lap. She murmured a protest but it was easily silence by another mind swamping kiss.
The dress had no openings, no buttons, no zipper, though his hands sought access, shaping across her back, ribs, hips. Only the vaguest memory they were somewhere public and this was Bree kept him from running his hand under the hem and between her legs. All the while their conversation was wordless, tangled and wet, sucking and searching, probing and chasing, mining the possibilities for what they could do if that dress came off and they got horizontal.
She stopped him when he rolled a knuckle across her nipple. She pushed against his arms and he let her shift back, her hair wild, her eyes huge. They’d done about as much as they’d get away with without being thrown out and there was a whole weekend and clean sheets for this. A hard shove to his chest and he dropped his hands from her. “Let’s get out of here?”
She put her feet to the floor and stood, hands to her hair, trying to tame it. “No. No.” She looked panicked. He got it. They’d shifted from hate to passion with the suddenness of a freak wave and he felt the rip of it too, low in his gut, wide across his chest and deep in his senses. This was the kind of thing that happened to other blokes; had happened to Dan.
“No. No. We can’t. That, that. I shouldn’t have. No.”
He stood, reaching for her, but she stepped back and put the table between them. “No one here cares, Bree.”
She looked around, shaking her head. “This is wrong. We can’t. I can’t.” She had a hand over forehead, like she was holding onto her thoughts.
“We just did, baby.”
She dead eyed him. “I am not your baby.” It felt like a slap, sharp and hard and undeserved. “What the hell’s wrong?” He had to tuck his shirt in, it’s not like she hadn’t wanted to play.
She bent to pick up her hairclip and bag. She wouldn’t look at him. “This is not happening.”
He caught her arm. “Hey, talk to me. You have to talk to me. You can’t just walk out I’ll be in your face on Monday.” Was that it, was that what was freaking her out, the whole colleagues thing? “I get we have to keep this out of the office. I’m good with it.”
She put her hand down over his. “We have to keep this out of everywhere.”
“Are you saying this was a mistake?”
“Of course it is. You don’t even know me.”
“And you have no interest in letting me get there.” It wasn’t a question. He could see by looking at her. The Bree who’d teased him, come on to him, then followed him into that flashflood of lust was gone. The cold bitch was back. He’d gotten it all so fucking wrong. “Fine. Whatever. Let me put you in a taxi.”
She nodded to that and he escorted her back to the street where he got lucky whistling up a passing cab. He walked the couple of blocks to where the Alfa was parked, paid the ransom money to get her under the boom gate and back on the street and peeled the top down for the ride out of the city. At least his old girl was faithful. He drove to the beach, parked her under a street light and walked a couple of blocks back to Son of a Beach Bar. The plan was to get smashed, walk home and come back for the car in the morning after a surf. The plan was to forget Bree bitch Robinson existed, hook up to some equal opportunity with a random who wouldn’t mind positive discrimination in Ant’s favour. As plans go it was foolproof, battle tested, honed and perfected over years, so the outcome was predictable. What was shocking, bone jarringly awful, was how it made him feel.
Empty.
11: Suicide Zone
Bree eyed the penalty box. It was only a bench seat positioned at the side of the track, but it was where roller girls who’d pulled something illegal got sent for a minute. Perhaps if she looked at it hard enough she could avoid going there during the bout, because her mood could best be described as savage. She felt like pushing, punching, elbowing, head-butting. She felt like ignoring safe contact zones and doing some damage.
Last night with Ant had been out of bounds, off the track, and she only had herself to blame. She’d acted like fresh meat who didn’t know her arse from her elbow in a jam. She knew better. She’d known players like Ant all her adult life. They were heart crushers. They were sanity wreckers. They were a plague of bad skin and hideous weight swings. They were the stain of regret that never quite washed off. They were a good reason to skate alone, because they’d whip you into a brick wall soon as a better option showed up, or you challenged their notion of the world.
She did not need a man like Ant in her life. A colleague. A competitor. A stickyfoot. He made Tom, with his demands and his assumptions, look like a safe option, a reasonable person.
But she’d wanted him. She’d wanted his big sticky paws all over her. And now she wanted some violence with a capital Vee.
She arrived at the track way too early, but she’d been so restless there’d been no point sitting around at home. She sat in the stands and watched an intake of newbies in a fresh meat tryout. They were running an obstacle course relay around thick ropes, chairs, scuffed witches hats and tatty boxes. Each participant had to use a variety of skills from sidestepping and tip toeing to jumping and manoeuvring at speed. If she’d have been in the mood there were plenty of laughs as skaters who thought they knew a thing or two found their expectations and skills levels challenged and discovered how much harder being a roller girl was than it looked.
The league needed all of these girls for their fees and all of their friends and family to fill the stadium. And it needed sponsors for teams and for bouts. Knowing that only made Bree feel guilty on top of cranky. She’d promised to help find a new sponsor for the Tricks, but had done nothing about it. Partly because she didn’t know how long she could keep up the double life of weekday financial market analyst and weekend derby doll without coming unstuck, but mostly because she had no idea where to start to find the money they needed to keep competing.
The newbies moved on to learning how to take the knee and fall small, keeping their hands in close to their bodies so not to get run over and getting to their feet quickly without using their hands to avoid causing a bigger stack. Bree knew these skills like she knew how to blink and swallow, but not last night. She’d fallen big last night in an ugly way, e
motions all over the place, by losing herself completely in Ant’s honesty and unexpected chivalry, and then forgetting what mattered in his rough kisses and heavy hands. She shouldn’t have liked what he did so much. He’d used his size to move her around like she was a puppet. He’d used his confidence to appeal to her. And she’d let him. She could’ve stopped him at any time, she knew how to hit to hurt, but his sudden interest had thrilled her, made her blood pump fast and her senses fly off into the sunshine. She’d wanted that exasperating man’s hands on her body and his tongue in her mouth. And she’d wanted more. She’d wanted clothes off and lips on, and a lost weekend of sensation and experimentation where she could be her whole self finally without judgement.
But that wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how, not freaking likely. And much as she wanted to blame Ant for starting something she couldn’t finish, she knew that wasn’t fair. She was the one who’d jumped the starter’s whistle. But the jam between them had to be a onetime only thing, a bout best forgotten, because to continue to play was a fast, flat track to career headache and certain heartache.
Bree flinched as a cherry popper took a particularly teeth rattling spill, her face showing how much it hurt, but the skater got to her feet and kept moving. That’s what she had to do. Push her confusion, anger and embarrassment about how G-man affected her aside and keep moving. And what Kitty needed to do was get out on the track, show the other side who was boss and forget about being Bree, a girl who’d lost her head over a man who trained in smashing hearts.
·
The trackside commentator announced the break between bouts and Ant was surprised to realise he’d zoned out for the last hour. Roller derby wasn’t the kind of event you could easily ignore. It was loud and colourful, fast and full of spills. Take your eyes off the track for a second and you might miss half a team being sent to the penalty box or a skater landing in the suicide zone where spectators sat at the edge of the track. He had no idea if the Hurley Burley’s beat the Admin Anarchists, but judging by the noise their cheer squad, in short baby doll dresses and tiny 1950s style playsuits were making, they must have.
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