Chapter Twenty-Two
When I get to the bar, Sadie is finishing her first cocktail and has a second in front of her, as well as one for me. She kisses me on each cheek—which still feels so sophisticated—and leans back on her stool to admire me as I shed my coat and unwrap my scarf. “You clean up nice.”
I want to say “Really?” and point out all the flaws in my outfit: The fabric pulls tight against my stomach, the hemline is an inch shorter than it seemed in the store, the aforementioned pit stains are still blooming, and I’m sure my face remains bright red after my encounter with Lachlan.
But then I think of what he would say if he were here, so I just take the compliment.
“Thanks, Agrippina. We chose a good one. But I am nervous as hell.”
She pushes the cocktail toward me. “Drink up, then. And mind mine while I nip to the loo, yeah?”
She slips into the crowd and I sip my drink, relishing the mental calm that comes over me at the first taste of gin. I pull my phone out of my clutch to pass time until Sadie returns and see that Lachlan has messaged me. My heart skips a beat, whether from anxiety or excitement, I can’t tell.
If you’re not going to let me wingman you, you have to text me updates. I’m dying over here
I smile, as if he could see it, and type back:
Shouldn’t you be focused on kissing babies and glad-handing charity types?
It’s just a bunch of middle age ladies drinking sherry and getting handsy
So you can finally fulfill your potential and become a gigolo?
Can’t have you be the only one in the house getting laid
This makes me laugh and blush in equal measures.
What would you do if you were here to wing me?
probably just spend the night rabbiting at you
…what is rabbiting? Is that a sex thing?
His only response is the laugh-cry emoji three times.
I’m serious! You can’t drop slang like that and leave me out here defenseless.
It just means chatting. Babbling on and on. Rabbiting
thank god
But if it WERE a sex thing, what would it be? Lots of hopping? Much gymnastics?
I laugh at his question, then bite my lip as I respond:
Gentle stroking of long, twitching, furry (?!) things
Such prolific rogering that the Australian government has to introduce biological warfare to counter it?
I’m sorry, what?
There’s a long pause, then he sends a link to the Wikipedia page for something called the Myxoma virus, which the Australian government used in the 1950s to drastically reduce the native rabbit population.
Hey Lachlan, know what’s a great way to get me fired up for meeting a potential sex partner? Making me read about the Australian rabbit annihilation.
What can i say, i want you to come home
So we can discuss the Great Peruvian Capybara Slaughter?
good name for a band
As I’m typing out a response, Sadie returns to our table and nods at my phone.
“Stop texting Ramsay.” She rolls her eyes when I blush.
“You always smile like that when you’re texting him.
” With the lightning-fast reflexes of the gladiators she so adores, she snatches my phone.
I hear her nails clack on the screen as she types out a message, completely ignoring my cries of protest. She sends it, then stashes the phone in her purse.
“What did you say?”
“That you’re not going to get laid if you spend the whole night talking to him.”
I want to tell her I wish she hadn’t done that.
I want to say that I don’t even know if I want to be here and that I only came because Josh made me.
But I can’t afford to dismiss any new friends, not when the bench is so shallow.
And she’s probably right; this is a good thing for me to do. I’ve got to move on.
—
The night is not actually that bad, as far as these things go.
The British sense of humor is so much sharper than I’m used to that everything feels ten times funnier.
I spend thirty minutes talking to a guy named Nick who does something with insurance.
He tries several times to explain what, exactly, that something is, but my ears fill with a ringing noise on every attempt.
But he has kind eyes and a wicked laugh, and at the end of the night we exchange numbers.
It feels good, like an important first step, and even though I know Nick is not The One, I would happily get a drink with him again.
Okay, maybe happily is too strong a word, but still. It’s progress.
I down my last drink sometime after midnight, and though the gin in my system thinks it’s a good idea, the rest of me successfully turns down Sadie’s suggestion of moving to a nearby club.
She kisses me goodbye and leaves with a small entourage of men hanging on her every word, and I head back home.
Up at the penthouse, I turn my key in the lock as quietly as possible and push open the door, trying not to make too much noise.
But as I shut it behind me, I hear the gentle breathing of Lachlan, asleep on the couch in his tux, bathed in blue light from the muted television that’s frozen on the home screen of a video game.
I check my phone: It’s nearly one in the morning and he has a game tomorrow afternoon. I could leave him there and just sneak off to bed. But if he wakes up with a weird crick in his neck—or worse, a cramp in his legs—I’m going to feel personally responsible.
I bend over him and put my hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. “Lachlan, wake up.”
His eyes flutter open and I can see the disorientation on his face.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. “You have a match tomorrow.”
He rubs his eyes like a little kid. “I guess I fell asleep playing FIFA. How was your night? Did you pull?” He hauls himself up on the sofa and pats the spot next to him. “Tell me all about it. Did you meet someone?”
“Lachlan, it’s one in the morning. You have to go to bed. I’ll tell you about him tomorrow after the game.”
His eyes widen. “Him? So you did meet someone?”
“No, I meant ‘it.’ Tell you about it. Tomorrow, I promise.”
“Ah, come on. Don’t worry about the match—it’s a late kickoff anyway.”
“Don’t worry about the match? Excuse me, who are you and what have you done with Lachlan Ramsay?” I touch his forehead like I’m checking for a fever.
“It’s me, I was just sitting up waiting for you. You didn’t call, you didn’t write, you didn’t send me any Wikipedia articles about your favorite animal population control methods…”
“I am not going to be responsible for our star midfielder passing out halfway through the match because his flatmate rabbited at him until the small hours. Not to get all legalese on you, but I’m pretty sure my contract says that if you’re endangering the club’s chances, I can tranquilize you and drag you to bed myself. ”
“You can, can you?” He raises his eyebrows.
“Incorrigible. Come on.” I grab him by the wrists and attempt to yank him upright, but he’s closing in on two hundred pounds of solid muscle and I haven’t lifted a weight since ninth-grade gym class.
“Okay, okay.” He twists his wrists around so that he’s the one gripping me.
He pulls himself up, and the force of it makes me stumble a bit toward him.
We’re standing so close to each other now, the blue light dancing over both our faces, and he hasn’t released my wrists.
Once again, all I can think about is how near he is.
The gap between our bodies is so small, so infinitely closable.
So treacherous, really, given how much I’ve had to drink and how much I wanted to touch him earlier tonight, how much I’m starting to realize I want to touch him all the time.
The light is casting a strange vibe over the whole thing, like we’re two lovers in some French arthouse movie.
And now, in his casually disheveled state, he’s even more Clooneyesque.
I have to say something smart before I do something stupid. “I can’t believe you stayed up playing video games like a little boy.”
He laughs, and I can see it in the vibrations of his throat, his chest, feel it in the fingers still gently curled around my wrists.
“Absolutely rumbled, Stripes. And now it’s bedtime.
But first…” He turns my wrist over in his hands and with swift, gentle fingers, unclasps the bracelet.
He curls it in my open palm and bends toward me and I freeze, except for my heart, which is beating so wildly I’m sure he can see it pound through my skin.
His stubble rasps against my face as he presses his lips to my cheek—something he’s never done before. “Good night.”
The voice that answers back is claggy and pitiful, and I would laugh if I weren’t still mostly paralyzed. “Yeah, good night, mate. See you tomorrow.”
He walks toward the bedrooms, but as the darkness of the hallway envelops him, he turns around. “Hey, Abby: Whoever he is, he’s really, really lucky.”
Before I can say anything in response, he’s gone.