Chapter 19
I have three weeks until the ballet performance, and I should be spending every spare second I have practicing for it … but Tristan invited me home with him for his families traditional early Christmas dinner. I just couldn’t say no.
‘So why do you guys have it early?’ I ask around the strawberry lace dangling from my lips, my feet kicked up on the dashboard of Tristan’s car.
‘My mother will tell you tonight.’ He lips part into a smile both silly and playful - the kind of carefree smile you can only have when you’re already thousands of miles away from discovery.
I raise my brows. ‘Cryptic. Is this the part of the movie where you tell me you’re really the leader of a cult and I’m going to be you’re traditional early Christmas sacrifice?’
Tristan gapes at me.
‘What?’ I slurp up the strawberry lace.
‘Where do you come up with these sorts of things?’
I roll my eyes, tapping my head. ‘This brain may look innocent but it’s harbouring a lifetime of true crime podcasts and horror movies.’
He shakes his head. ‘I know you hate school and anything to do with it, but with your mind you could come up with some suburb stories.’ I send him a long look. ‘Okay, okay, no going teacher on you I promise.’
Smiling, I turn up the radio, moving my feet to the beat. ‘Does your mum um … know about our … situation?’
He shakes his head. ‘I told her you were my girlfriend but nothing else.’
A slither of guilt shatters the green in his eyes. Guilt for who I wonder? Guilt at lying to his mother of guilt at having to lie about me?
‘What should I tell her if she asks how we met?’
‘I think the truth is possibly the best course of action. Then there’s no messy lies to keep track of, we just have to leave out the professor part.’
I nod along to the beat. Tristan’s features are now overcast, frustration rolling from him like thunder.
Lightening the mood, I grin, perking up in my seat. ‘Wanna play a game?’ I jiggle my brows at him until he folds, all his negativity disappearing in the breeze of my words.
‘Should I be worried?’
‘About a game? Not at all.’ I say chewing on another strawberry lace. ‘Now how about … oh I know! Two truths and a lie. It’s the perfect car game.’
He gives me a sidelong glance, looking doubtful. ‘So how does the game work exactly? What do we do with these two truths and a lie?’
Swinging my feet off the dash, I fold them under me. ‘Okay, so. I give you a topic and you have to say three sentences, two will be true and one will be a lie. To win the game you have to figure out which is the lie.’
‘Sounds simple enough.’
’Very simple.’ I nod and then grin sweetly up at him, eyelashes fluttering. ‘You want to raise the odds?’
He narrows his eyes, clearly sceptical. ‘In what way?’
I tug my shirt up, ‘For every answer you get right, I’ll take off an item of your choice.’ His eyes turn molten. ‘And anytime I win, I get to touch—‘ I gesture towards him. ‘Wherever I want.’
He licks his lips. ‘I’m liking the sound of this more and more.’
‘Confident aren’t we?’
He grins but says simply. ‘Ladies first then. First dates.’
’You want to know my dirtiest dating secrets?’
He nods. ‘Even the ones which end in murder and kidnapping.’
‘Well let’s get to it then, we have a lot to get through.’
He smiles and the sight sends me falling, my stomach plummeting to new depths as his dimples pop out. God this man.
I think for a second, my tongue in my cheek. Aha, I know exactly how to catch him off guard. ‘Okay so, on my first date with Jeremy Taylor I accidentally threw his grandma’s ashes in the sea, there was also this other time where I stole some jewellery, again accidentally, which ended up belonging to my date’s mother and lastly, I was asked out on a date by my cousin because, and I quote, ‘You look bangable’.’
Tristan is looking at me as if I have two heads, so I add. ‘I’m really good at this game.’
He shakes his head. ‘Jesus where do I even start?’
I relax into my seat, waiting for his answer.
‘Okay, I think I’ve got it.’ I sit silent, waiting. ’The jewellery one. That’s the lie.’
I look at him, open mouthed, shocked. ’How?’
A slow smile spreads across my face. ‘The other two were too specific, you didn’t specify a name or even what type of jewellery it was. It made me have a hunch.’
‘Dammit.’
‘Shorts off.’
‘Yes sir.’ I say suddenly feeling a whole lot more than just shock. Peeling off my shorts, the material clinging to my clammy skin, I throw them into the back and stretch out like a cat.
’Spread them.’ His voice is low. Dangerously low. It’s the sort of low that could command an army with a breathless whisper.
I do as he says immediately, parting my legs until one touches the door and the other touches the gear stick.
His hand grips my thigh, the straight and narrow road we’re on accommodating our rendezvous. I move my hips lower, trying to get his hand to touch that sweet, warm spot between my thighs but he squeezes, a warning between clenched fingers.
He clicks his tongue. ‘Naughty.’ Flashing me a smile, he settles in his seat - relaxed like a cat who just got the cream. ‘My turn now.’
I lick my lips, drawing his attention to them. ‘Most embarrassing moments.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘I wet the bed when I was seven and blamed it on my friends dog. I got so drunk when I was in high school that I stumbled into the wrong house and ended up sleeping on the couch of my new neighbours who thought I was a burglar. I stole a cat accidentally because I thought it was my sisters.’
‘Wow you really do hate cats.’
He shrugs. ‘They all look the same to me.’
‘Poor kitties.’ He squeezes my thigh, a playful warning. ‘Okay fine, the bed wetting one is the lie.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I’ll never give away my secrets.’ I say sending him a look.
Rolling his eyes, he flashes his indicator, turning onto a long dirt track, empty save for the single person walking along it, thumb held out in that pleading way that hitchhikers do.
‘Hey look.’ I say. ‘A hitchhiker.’
But Tristan is too busy focusing on that blur of a person who’s features slowly materialise as we drive closer.
‘Oh fuck.’
‘What?!’
‘Get your pants back on. Now!’
I scramble for my shorts, pulling them up until they’re mostly on just in time for Tristan to pull beside a girl who looks eerily familiar.
He rolls down his window. ‘What are you doing Isabel?’
The girl rolls her eyes. ‘Nice to see you too big bro.’
And that’s when I remember, the photo in his office – the younger girl. This must be Tristan’s sister Isabel.
And we almost just got caught with our pants down.