Liar Liar
Page 48
‘Ah, so that’s the reason for tonight’s planned calorie deficit?’
‘Well, a trip to pound town is better than any gym session,’ I reply through a slightly tipsy giggle. Did I mention I’d helped myself to the minibar earlier? A girl can be determined and nervous, it seems.
‘And more fun,’ she responds. ‘What I find hard to believe is you didn’t bang one of those cute French dudes while you were living there.’
‘Yeah? Well, maybe I’m paying for it now.’
‘I’m sure there were cuties in Thailand.’
My nose wrinkles immediately. ‘Did you not hear me say how awful those backpacker hostels are? Nothing dampens a girl’s libido like a potential lover whispering, do you want to come back to my room. I’ve got the bottom bunk.’ Emma begins to snigger manically. ‘Besides, most of the guys I’ve met over the past few months were barely shaving. And a lot of them were barely bathing.’
‘Eww. While I’m a fan of a little stubble, not bathing would be a hard limit for me.’
‘I meant they weren’t shaving because they were babies, mostly doing the gap year thing. Come to think of it, they mostly smelled like teenagers, too. Honestly, I felt like an old grandma.’
‘And you don’t want a boy toy tonight, hence the swanky-ass hotel.’
‘Yep.’
‘And you think you’ll find a hot guy—’
‘In a suit,’ I qualify from my wish list.
‘For a one-night stand.’ He pauses. ‘That so doesn’t sound like you.’
‘Maybe that’s the whole point.’ The whole point of travelling. ‘And somewhere like the Harbour Park Regency isn’t likely to be full of unwashed twenty-year-olds with scraggly facial hair and dreadlocks. Not at four hundred bucks a night.’ A whistle sounds down the line. ‘I’m expecting a different kind of clientele. Suits, square jaws, and hundred-dollar haircuts. A Chris Hemsworth lookalike would be awesome, or even a Liam, and if he has an Aussie accent, all the better.’
‘Well, I suppose it is your birthday,’ she asserts, amused.
‘Exactly. And I’m gonna treat myself. I’m tired of men-boys in dusty boots and grimy T-shirts.’
‘So how are you going to land this Aussie stud? Just walk up to him and ask if he’d like to didgeridoo you?’
I groan as though I’m in physical pain from the pun. ‘No, I’m just going to sit in a nice hotel bar with a nice glass of wine and wait for some nice company to sit next to me, then we’ll have a very nice conversation before—’
‘You leave for your room to have very nasty sex. It sounds like you’ve got it all planned,’ she adds, still sounding amused.
‘Sure have!’
Yet the truthful answer is no, not at all. Up until a year ago, I’d lived a very predictable life. I had a good job teaching third grade in my Midwestern hometown, and I was dating a nice man. A very nice man—a man I’d had birthday sex with three times! That’s not to say we had sex three times on one birthday. Because wouldn’t that have been something. No. We’d been dating for over three years. Three birthdays, sex on each one. And maybe it wasn’t awesome birthday sex, but it was nice enough. I’d begun to see the path of my life mapped out before me, and those prospects were just frightening. I suppose Todd, my then boyfriend, must’ve been feeling the same because when I sat him down one Friday evening to talk with him about it, he was a lot less upset than I’d initially feared. A lot less upset. I’d worried it might come down to following my heart or breaking his, but it didn’t. Truthfully, I think he might’ve been relieved. So the following Monday, I’d resigned from my job, effective the end of the school year, and condensed my life to the size of a backpack.
‘Well, my friend, here’s to you unwrapping one fine birthday gift tonight and the lightest, tastiest macarons you’ve ever tasted to look forward to tomorrow.’
‘La vie est faite de petit bonheurs,’ I say with a sigh that doesn’t mask my terrible French accent. Oh, and would you look at that—the elevator. I must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere because I feel like I’ve walked the whole floor looking for it.
‘You do know what that means,’ Emma chides.
‘Come on, my French isn’t that bad. Life is made for small pleasures,’ I add in translation, though not for her benefit. Emma’s French is much better than mine, even if I did spend the first four months of my adventures working in Paris.
‘Your accent has improved, even if your sentiments are a little off.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hitching my shoulder, I trap my phone between it and my ear as I press the call button before proceeding to search through my purse for my lipstick. Peach, not harlot red, if you’re interested.
‘Surely the birthday girl deserves grande bonheurs, not petit.’
‘Grand b—Oh. I get it,’ I reply, pulling the gold tube from my purse. ‘A dick joke—a French dick joke.’
‘Is it?’
‘Bonheur,’ I repeat, murdering the pronunciation again, ‘does sound like boner.’
It totally does. If you don’t believe me, ask Google Translate
‘That’s not quite what I meant.’
‘So you’re not saying I should be looking for a grand bonheur—a big boner?’ I taunt, my French accent ridiculously theatrical now as I push my purse under my arm again.
‘Well, it might not be the worst idea you’ve ever had,’ she replies, laughing. ‘Go big or go home, right?’
‘And I’m not going home anytime soon. The elevator has just arrived,’ I add as the doors begin to slide almost silently open.
‘In the morning. I want—’
‘Yeah, yeah. You want a boner debrief—’ My words come to an immediate halt as I step into the elevator, poised to use the mirrored walls to apply my lipstick when my gaze finds more than just my own reflected back.
Hemsworth who?
A man stands behind me, ticking off just about everything I’d list on my birthday sex wish list. That is, if I’d thought to make one. Tall and dirty blond—much less common than tall and dark—and strikingly good looking. A black suit jacket coats his broad shoulders, a white button-down snug against the flat planes of his stomach. I drag my eyes up from the vicinity of his belt before they’re tempted to stray farther south because I do not need to investigate his bonheurs status.
I’m a little unnerved as my reflected gaze draws level with his because he’s still looking at me, his amused eyes now holding mine. Amused yes, but also shrewd. And a little unnerving. The colour, maybe. Because his eyes are the blue of a dark sky or the deep ocean. Places you could be launched into without the prospect of a return. No, I decide. It’s not the colour that’s unsettling. It’s not how good looking he is that’s making my heart beat out of my chest. It’s the way he’s looking at me.
As though he’d swallow me whole.
In the few short days I’ve been in Sydney, I’ve become aware that the place is full of beautiful men. I can also say that though my elevator companion is clearly gorgeous, he’s just a little too ruggedly masculine for that tag. He has the kind of stubble that only serves to highlight the angles of his jawline and the sharpness of his cheekbones, but for all his masculine features and cool eyes, he has the kind of lips that totally should be on a woman.
Preferably me.
Let me qualify this: He has a mouth that was made for wearing lipstick.
Also preferably mine.
Applied by my lips, not the tube.
I might even suggest it, test the waters with a little flirting—it is my birthday, and I have already hit the (mini) bar—but for the conversation I find myself mentally playing back. How long had he been behind me? Long enough to have heard me talk about bonheurs—boners? Or worse still, my plans for the evening. My plans for birthday sex. Could he have been behind me this whole time?
No. Surely, I would’ve heard him.
The doors slide closed as I turn away from the mirror, almost swinging on my heel as I drop my lipstick into my purse. There’
s no way I’m putting it on in front of him. With him watching. Not unless I want to look like I’d given the job to a bunch of kindergarteners.
‘Are you still there?’ Emma’s disembodied whisper brings my attention back to the phone in my hand. I bring it quickly to my ear again.
‘I-I’m in the elevator. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, okay?’
‘You’d better,’ returns my friend. ‘And to think that while I’m child wrangling later today, you’ll be on your back getting—’
‘Okay, good talk!’ I drop my phone into my purse, hoping he didn’t hear any of that or any of the other stuff. I would’ve known if someone had been standing behind me, wouldn’t I?
‘Which floor?’ my elevator companion asks, his voice deep and clear. And he seems mildly entertained. Crap.
‘T-to the one with a bar?’
‘Which one?’ Urgh. Of course, there’s more than one.
‘Ground?’ I hate how this comes out as a question, but there’s bound to be a bar on the ground floor, isn’t there? Jeez, this isn’t going to work. How can I expect to embody the role of sexual birthday goddess if I can’t even tell the pretty man what floor I want to be on? ‘Ground,’ I repeat, this time with a confident nod.
The stranger turns to the panel of buttons, his profile hinting at the suggestion of a deepening smile. But what the hell. Awkward interaction over. We’re just two strangers in an elevator. He knows nothing about me, and I know nothing about him. Our interaction will be over quicker than you can say—
‘Ground floor it is.’ Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself. ‘I reckon that must be where the boners from pound town are found.’
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Also by Donna Alam
The following are all standalone titles written in relating worlds. You never know where your favourite character might pop up!
London Lovers
To Have and Hate
(Not) The One
The Stand Out
The Phillips Brothers -Aussie Blokes!
In Like Flynn
Down Under
Rafferty’s Rules
Great Scots
Easy
Hard
Hardly Easy Boxed Set
Hot Scots
One Hot Scot
One Wicked Scot
One Dirty Scot
Single Daddy Scot
Hot Scots Box Set
Surprise Package
Brit Boys
Solider Boy
Playing His Games
Gentleman Player
About the Author
Donna Writes dirty stories, according to her family. She hopes you find them funny, too. When not bashing away at her keyboard, she can usually be found hiding from her responsibilities with a good book in her hand and a dog that looks like a mop at her feet. She likes her humour and wine dry, her mojitos sweet, and her language salty.
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