‘He’s the chief of staff, right? The manic smoker?’
That was Larry. ‘Yeah. He was talking about something he’s got cooking with Gaz Finaldi just the other day, so he’ll probably be up for it.’
‘Can you swing it so you can do the story? I mean you, personally? Otherwise I won’t see you for a week once I’m back from Hawaii.’
‘Me, personally? Uh, no, I don’t think so.’
‘I thought it would bring us full circle. You know, because we met when you were doing that story, and now, a year later …’
‘Yes, but a puff piece on the Ginger of the Month calendar shoot in Sydney is a little different from a football clinic in Woop Woop. And …’ Swallow. ‘And besides, kids are not my thing. They don’t take to me. You know that, Marcus.’
‘I know you say they don’t, but that’s all I know. In fact …’ He leaned a little away from me, as though to better examine my face. ‘Have I ever …? No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you with a child. Not even my niece and nephews. You’ve always got a reason to dodge them.’
‘Yes, because they don’t take to me.’ Which was basically unarguable.
‘Or maybe they’re just too messy,’ Marcus said, and laughed.
I was not, however in the mood at that point to laugh along about how repressed I could be, so fortunately the car chose that moment to pull up outside my apartment building. Which started a whole other train of thought.
‘Are you staying at my place tonight, Marcus?’ I asked.
‘I could,’ Marcus said, but he sounded doubtful. ‘I just have to check on one thing. It’s a call I’m expecting.’
‘You can take it here.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s a video call from Hawaii. You know I prefer to do those from my place, so let me just …’ Pulling out the phone again, frowning as he pulled up his schedule, shaking his head. ‘No, it’s not going to work. But let’s try for Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday,’ I parroted, and then, as he grimaced apologetically, ‘Yes, I know, you’ll try.’
Marcus hugged me, kissed me on the forehead, hugged me again, waved me to the door, watched until I got inside …
And that was it.
I walked slowly to the elevator, pushed the button, keeping it together, together, together. I let myself into my apartment, put my much admired sparkly pink bag on the dining table, took off my shoes, and poured myself a gin and tonic. I wanted to think back over the conversation we’d had in the back of the limo, to try to pinpoint what was bothering me about it. The conversation had been so typical, but I had a sense that there were things that were deliberately not said. And a few things that deliberately were said. About Nick. Nick and me.
And suddenly, I was back on the boat, with Nick.
The thing I want to give you isn’t an orgasm that’ll blow your mind – although I could.
You’re wanted here. More. By me.
It won’t be the twelfth of never, Chloe. I won’t wait that long.
I’d make them the best two weeks of your life.
And I threw my glass at the wall and screamed.
CHAPTER THREE
I was feeling vulnerable as I picked Drew up from work for the drive to Evie’s on Wednesday evening – so, of course, I was not only looking pretty damn perfect in my well cut dress and high heels, but I was at my most rigidly controlled, right down to the hint of amused boredom in my ice-blue eyes.
The question was, would my carefully expressed imperturbability throw Drew and Evie off the scent, or arouse their suspicions that something was up?
Drew and Evie generally let me get away with my I-am-so-cool-I-could-freeze-you-with-a-glance façade, because they knew it was the ‘me’ I wanted to be. But they also knew the me I didn’t want to be, the down, dark and dirty Chloe, the hidden Chloe. Keeping secrets from them was therefore fraught with danger. If I overdid the ice, they’d suspect something was up and would dig unmercifully until I’d spilled my problem into their communal lap.
And God help me if they discovered the problem was of a romantic nature (or, to bald-face it, something sexual). With Drew being the consummate sexual oversharer, and Evie having spent a month in Morocco being twisted into a sexual pretzel by her new fiancé (Drew’s movie star brother, Jackson J Stevens – but that’s another story), I knew they’d get all carpe diem on me, and urge me to cut Marcus loose and head into the wilds with a copy of the Kama Sutra tucked under my arm.
And to be clear: I did not want to do that. I liked my life the way it was. With Marcus in it. There was no need for undignified, uncomfortable sexual positions; all I needed was Marcus to be pepped up, as it were.
Fortunately, on the drive to Evie’s Drew was so preoccupied with telling me about Jack’s latest phone call to him, he didn’t focus on me at all. Jack had threatened Drew with a slow and painful death should he let any photographers, any media, any anyone, come within cooee of his precious Evie before he got home. Having endured similar calls, I was quick to sympathise by sharing that my most recent telephone conversation with Jack had included an extra special grilling in the vein of ‘you bastard journalists’. Jack was determined to believe I had a level of control over my colleagues that I simply did not have.
It was kind of hilarious, but only up to a point. Although we were willing to cut Jack some slack, given he’d almost lost Evie once because of media intrusion in their lives, if Jack didn’t get over it ASAP, we were going to have to kill him to save our own sanity.
A view with which Evie told us she wholeheartedly agreed, when we relayed our phone call experiences to her upon arrival, over a hastily poured glass of wine.
‘And it’s been even worse for me,’ Evie said, and told us about her nightmarish trip from Morocco to Australia, which bore all the hallmarks of a military black op, such was the precision with which Jack had planned it: Flown by private plane, whisked through airports by meeters and greeters vetted in advance by Jack, hustled in and out of vehicles with darkened windows. Even the security guys at the apartment complex had been ‘programmed’ to shield her from undue attention.
‘Not funny!’ Evie said, as Drew and I hooted with laughter. ‘I thought for a while there I was going to get an armed escort to go to the bathroom!’ She simultaneously sighed and rolled her eyes – a typical Evie manoeuvre. ‘What am I going to do with him?’
‘Wear it,’ Drew said, when he’d recovered his breath. ‘He’ll get a grip sooner or later. Either that or, yes, we will really need to kill him.’
I waved my wine glass for a refill. ‘But I swear if I get one more instruction as your “media adviser”, Evie, I’m going to take a short cut and stab you with an ice pick before he gets here.’
‘I don’t think we have an ice pick,’ Evie said. ‘Mind you, I’ve only been in the kitchen long enough to put together the risotto and a salad.’
‘Risotto?’ Drew asked, in failing accents.
‘Yes. We’re having it for dinner.’
Drew shuddered. ‘Chloe, don’t wait. Go search the kitchen. Jack must have an ice pick. Even a sharp knife will do. Nobody will blame you.’
‘You’re such a bastard,’ Evie said, but she was laughing as she headed for the kitchen.
Drew shot me his infamous wild-eye as she returned a few minutes later and deposited our bowls in front of us.
One spoonful in, Drew laid his spoon carefully on the table. ‘I have two words for you, Evie,’ he said.
‘They’d better not be “Arborio rice”,’ she warned. ‘Because those were the two words you gave me last time I made risotto, so that’s what I used.’
Drew looked at her, at his bowl, back to Evie. ‘You used Arborio rice and it still turned out like that?’
‘Suck it up, Drew,’ I said, slipping easily into my usual role of peacemaker. ‘And pour me some more wine.’
‘Yeah, you just about could suck it up, with a damn straw,’ Drew grumbled, but duly tipped a hefty portion of red into my glass. ‘Well,
if I’m going to get that down my throat, I’m going to need some conversational distraction. And I’ll take mine with a serve of hot guy. So come on, Chloe, tell us about Sunday’s harbour cruise.’
‘What harbour cruise?’ Evie asked.
‘Marcus’s end-of-season party, on the big man’s boat,’ I said. ‘Marcus got the team medal this year.’
‘Yes, yes, and last year,’ Drew said impatiently, and picked up his spoon to scoop up some rice. ‘But get on to the testosterone part.’
‘Oh, there was testosterone, all right,’ I said, and realised the tone wasn’t as lightly humorous as I’d intended when they both paused, spoons halfway to their mouths.
‘Spill,’ Drew said, as his spoon landed back on the table. ‘What went wrong – not that I can see how anything could have gone wrong on a luxury cruiser on a perfect spring evening with oodles of hunky guys and, I’ll wager, no gluggy risotto.’
‘Hey.’ That was Evie.
‘Shut up, Evie.’ That was Drew.
‘WAGs.’ And that was me, plucking a random subject out of the air. It was a believable decoy; I regularly bemoaned the state of feminism as it pertained to the women who threw themselves at sportsmen. ‘WAGs and groupies.’
‘But weren’t you there as one of those?’ Evie asked.
Drew winced, reading to perfection my sharp inhale. ‘Now you’ve done it, Evie,’ he said.
‘Evangeline Parker!’ I huffed. ‘I am not – not – a groupie.’
‘Well, obviously, I meant WAG,’ Evie said.
Not that I was listening. ‘That’s like me calling you a fangirl just because you’re engaged to Jack. And don’t pretend that a few months ago being called that wouldn’t have sent you into an apoplexy.’
‘Okaaaay,’ she said, looking wary. ‘But I had a phobia. Whereas you …? Well, I honestly didn’t think you minded the whole celebrity circus thing.’
‘I didn’t. I don’t. I mean –’ I doodled my spoon through my rice. ‘It’s just …’
‘Just …?’ Evie prompted.
‘Just nothing. Only …’
‘Only …?’ Drew asked.
‘It felt different. I felt different. From the others, I mean.’
Evie was frowning. ‘Different as in …?
I shrugged, restless. ‘As in … different.’
They waited expectantly. Clearly, I was on the hook.
‘As in one of them was getting her butt squeezed by her boyfriend,’ I offered. ‘Can you believe that? In public?’
Drew and Evie exchanged raised-eyebrow looks.
‘And anyway,’ I went on, ‘why is it that wives and girlfriends of sportsmen get stuck with that silly acronym? WAGS! Why isn’t there an equivalent for guys who are boyfriends and husbands of sportswomen?’
‘It’s obvious,’ Dew said. ‘It’s all about the letters. I mean, how is BAHs going to work? It’s not.. Or, in reverse, HABs? Nope. Maybe I could invent one. What about – Ouch! Hey, no throwing spoons.’
‘Drew, I am a woman teetering on the edge,’ I warned him. ‘I will throw the bloody bowl, with contents, at you in a minute.’
‘Aim it at his head,’ Evie suggested. ‘Less mess for me to clean up if it lands on that massive dome of his.’ She reached for the wine bottle. ‘Or I could just pour you some more wine, instead. Will that help?’
‘Yes,’ I said, mollified, as she calmly topped up our glasses. ‘And sorry about the spoon.’
Evie dismissed my apology with a forget it wave of her hand. ‘It’s nice to have an occasional reminder that you’ve got a temper in there somewhere.’ Pause. And then, carefully, ‘So, Chloe, how about you teeter over the edge for once and tell us what the real WAG/groupie issue is?’
‘I’m just … just not the kind of person to …’
‘To …?’ she prompted.
I did a little hair toss. ‘Look, I just don’t get my butt squeezed in public.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Okaaaay.’
‘And I … I’m not the kind of person to let someone I don’t even know – no, two people I don’t even know, two groupies! – slide their hands around my biceps, oohing and aahing like bimbo-ic morons.’
Drew nodded approvingly. ‘Bimbo-ic? Nice! So who did the biceps grope and are they sleeping with the fishes in Sydney Harbour?’
‘If that “sleeping with the fishes” thing was supposed to be a mafia impression, it sucked,’ I said.
Drew was unfazed. ‘All right then, if you want to delay the inevitable – because you know you’re going to tell us in the end – I’ll find another way to express that. And you will note that just by saying that, I have already given you twenty extra seconds to formulate a response. So, are those girls’ eyes still in their heads, or did you scratch them out?’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘Not that I wouldn’t do a little bit of sliding my own hands around Marcus’s bulging biceps, if he ever had the decency to offer me the tiniest encouragement!’
‘Nobody touched Marcus’s biceps,’ I mumbled, and took a quick gulp of wine, ‘Not … his.’
Evie was watching me carefully. ‘If it wasn’t Marcus’s biceps getting felt up, why do you care?’
‘I don’t. Care, I mean.’
The two of them looked at each other.
‘Okaaaaay.’ Evie – sounding far too grown up and pontificatory for a twenty-two year old.
I tried again. ‘It was nobody important, and it didn’t upset me. It’s just …’ I waved an ineffectual hand. ‘Symptomatic. Of everything that’s wrong with football players. They earn too much, too young. They’re idolised. They’re surrounded by adoring women who never say no to them.’ I could feel the roar and rush of blood in my ears. Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh. It was going to come out. I knew it as I tossed back my wine, as I slammed the glass on the table, as my mouth opened without permission. And there it was: ‘And that’s probably why they’re lousy lovers. Because they don’t even have to try to get laid!’
Silence. Complete and utter, for a long, long moment.
And then, ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, rolling a WTF? eye at Drew.
‘Who exactly is a lousy lover?’ Drew asked with impressive sangfroid.
I went back to rice doodling, using my only remaining piece of cutlery, a dessertspoon. ‘I hope this spoon is not an indication that you’ve made chocolate mousse, Evie.’
‘And I hope that remark is not an indication that you’re trying to change the subject,’ Evie said calmly. And oh my God, it felt like we’d switched roles. Evie was now the cool one with all the answers, and I was the clueless one needing to be soothed.
I opened my mouth, closed it. Doodled.
Drew stood and straightened to his full height – and he was tall and lean and strong, so even though he was no over-muscled league player, it was an imposing sight when he did that. ‘Chloe. Evie. Living room. Now. Chloe! Stop pretending to be interested in that inedible risotto. I’m going to mix my famous martinis. If that doesn’t open your mouth nice and wide, I’m calling the dentist.’
Which was how I found myself perched on the very edge of the couch in Jack and Evie’s sunken living room – which, incidentally, looks like something out of Home Beautiful magazine.
‘I’ve always loved this couch,’ I offered, my hand wafting through the air as though tracing the curve of Jack’s ten-seater circular couch. Another hand waft encompassed the ebony coffee table. ‘That, too.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me, Chloe?’ Drew said. ‘Enough with the game show hostess impersonation. Just get it out, for the love of God! We’re not the enemy, you know.’
The jig was up. I knew it. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll just … get it out, then.’ I sucked down a huge swig of martini and put the glass on the coffee table. One deep breath. ‘It’s quite simple, guys. My love life is dead.’ And finding I needed another glugging slurp of alcohol the moment the words came out of my mouth, I swiped the glass back up off the table and took care of it.
‘Define “dead”,’ Evie sai
d, sipping cautiously.
‘The I-haven’t-had-sex-in-three-months kind of dead. Is that dead enough for you?’ Me, sipping incautiously.
‘Oh,’ said Evie.
‘Oh,’ said Drew.
‘Oh,’ said I.
‘Is that …?’ Evie hesitated, taking another sip, then clearing her throat. ‘Is that bad? I mean, necessarily?’
I gaped at her. All right, Evie had gone an entire year without sex before she hooked up with Jack, but she was weird like that. The don’t-touch-me-unless-you’re-donating-to-a-worthy-cause kind of weird. But really? ‘Gee, Evie, I don’t know,’ I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘How many times do you and Jack have sex?’
She frowned as she thought about that. And then, ‘Per night?’ she asked.
Was she serious? Oh my God, yes, she was! ‘Oh that’s just fabulous,’ I said, and threw the rest of the martini down my throat in one go. I held the glass out for Drew to refill. ‘I’m talking per quarter and you’re talking per night?’
‘Hey, Jack and I are new to this,’ Evie said, but she giggled, way too pleased with herself.
‘Nobody’s that new,’ I said. ‘And certainly not Jack. Just look at the guy! I mean, just … just look at him!’ Pause, as I thought about that. Because Marcus had the ‘look’ too. Which had to mean that hot looks didn’t necessarily translate into hot times in bed. But maybe there were other elements at play …?
‘Unless Jack’s on Viagra …?’ I suggested, and I confess to being slightly hopeful.
Evie choked on her martini and almost coughed up a lung. ‘Viagra?’ she got out, and started laughing. ‘Jesus God no. I’m exhausted enough without any chemical assistance.’
Puh-leease. ‘Okay, that’s just cruel!’
Drew waved a stop-it-immediately hand – not interested in his brother’s sex life, unsurprisingly. He downed half of his martini and that obviously gave him the fortitude to continue, because his next words were, ‘Let’s talk size.’
Evie looked confused. ‘You mean Jack?’ she asked.
That girl was cute as a button, but sometimes you just wanted to strangle her.
Escaping Mr Right Page 3