Chapter Thirteen
Lilavati
I’m being bombarded with voicemails.
Lili, it’s your mother. I hope Ant had a nice time on Sunday night. He seems like a very nice boy.
Ugh. There it is. A nice boy. He’s not a boy. And he’s not nice. Well, at least not the kind of nice my family would recognise. And although I’m happy to go along with the facade she’s putting up, I’m not buying it.
Lili, it’s Mum again. I forgot to say Warren thought he was very intelligent. He’s quite handsome. And very tall.
Warren thinking anyone other than him is intelligent is implausible. Much less him saying so. Clearly, there’s an agenda. Jokes on them, though.
Lili, I was just wondering where in Tasmania his parents moved to. Warren and I were planning a trip to the wineries in April. Perhaps we could meet them?
Hard no to that.
I’ve been talking to Grandie. She’d like to meet Ant before we leave for Hawaii. Do you think you can arrange that?
The last one has my blood running cold. No good can come of Grandie and Ant meeting before the wedding week.
It would go one of two ways. She’d smell a rat and realise what we’re up to, or he’d say it’s not worth the trouble and pull out of the arrangement.
Either way, I’d be left exposed to the groom’s brother and a week of plotting, harassing and general badgering.
Not to mention guilting over why I faked it in the first place.
Lucky for me, it’s a crazy day at work, and by the time I get home, it’s way too late to call her.
Phone calls after eight thirty at night create a flurry of consternation in the Gordon household.
If they prove to be anything other than an emergency—which are defined as death or hospitalisation—Warren gives the caller, aka me, one of his talks about lack of consideration.
It’s odd that nobody who knew my mother before she married Warren ever describes her as being nervy or anxious.
She was the woman who took herself off on a tour of Europe with two friends—one of whom stayed in Italy and married a chef—worked in London, then came home pregnant and kept the baby.
Not the actions of a meek, mild woman whose environment needs to be ‘managed’.
When I get home on Tuesday night, I shoot off a quick email explaining I was in surgery until late and I’ll call her when I can. Hopefully, that will at least slow down the rate of voicemails.
Then I run myself a bath, adding a heaped dose of the geranium and lavender bath salts that never fail to relax me and ease the ache in my legs after a nearly twelve-hour shift spent mostly on my feet.
I light a candle, climb into the swirling water with a glass of wine, and think about what’s happened in the past few days.
I can’t believe I melted down all over Ant like that today.
He barely knows me, yet he handled it with such compassion and kindness and, ultimately, humour.
Which was exactly what I needed. I should be disturbed that he’s slipping under defences it’s taken me a long time to construct.
I should strengthen the perimeter, but I can’t deny it feels pretty good to have someone actually hear me. See me.
Then there’s my parents.
There’s no way they’re happy about me being with Ant. So it looks like they’re going to try and kill the relationship with kindness. Which won’t work, since it’s not a real relationship. And after the wedding, it will be over. But it does make for less overt tension, which I’m grateful for.
Although it also highlights a gaping plot hole. As soon as we break up, Mum and Grandie will be back to their matchmaking.
How long can I string this out? It’s not like I see either of them on a weekly basis. I could probably let them go on thinking we’re still dating for a few months at least.
Well, except for Grandie’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration in November.
And then there’ll be Christmas—although I could probably pull a shift and get out of that one.
Argh. Then there’ll probably be a gender reveal and christening or baby naming or something for my cousin Sarah.
She just announced she’s pregnant, with so much fuss you’d think she’s the only woman to ever procreate.
She’s due in February or March, I think.
Family events stretch out before me like a road littered with landmines.
It wouldn’t be fair to ask Ant to continue the charade indefinitely. Turning up at family functions on demand? It’s too much to expect. And what if he meets someone? Just because he’s not right for me doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a catch for someone else.
I have to acknowledge, if only to myself, that it’s a shame he isn’t right for me. I’ve discovered there’s a lot to admire about Ant Stevens.
He’s handsome. Intelligent. Kind. And has a good, albeit annoying, sense of humour.
But he’s also happy to drift through life making coffee and sanding surfboards, which I suspect would frustrate me. I need someone with drive and ambition to match mine.
And, although he’s hinted at there being more between us than the faking, who’s to say that flirting isn’t just more of his teasing?
Because, really, what would a guy like Ant see in me? I’m short-tempered, sharp-tongued and more than a little demanding.
None of which seem to have fazed him so far. In fact, he seems amused by it more than anything else. Which just goes to show how unsuited we are. Because that is a response I don’t understand.
Friday is a rare quiet day, which is a double miracle, because it’s also my friend Mei’s birthday. We’ve organised to catch up for drinks at a wine bar in Crows Nest, and for once I’m not late.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” Mei does a double take and checks the vintage watch on her wrist when she arrives and finds me taking a first sip of wine at the table I snagged for us.
“Haha. I’m not always late.” That’s an outright lie, and she calls me on it with a lift of her eyebrows and a roll of her eyes. “Alright, maybe I am. But I do try.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Saving lives trumps wine with your best friend. I know my place.”
“At least you know if you’re ever dying, you’ll get first priority.” I stand and hug her.
Mei and I have been friends since high school.
We both have dark hair and brown eyes, but that’s where the similarity ends.
If I could only use one word to describe Mei, it would be lush.
She has a lush figure and full, lush lips.
But she also has a lush personality. She’s warm and giving and full of humour.
She’s beautiful, inside and out, and I remind myself regularly not to take her friendship for granted.
Lucky for me, she understands how tough my job is and is patient with the crumbs of friendship I throw her way.
We order bar food and settle in to catch up.
“Isn’t Emily’s wedding coming up soon?” Mei manages to make Emily’s name sound like a curse word.
“Yes. Oh, I have news about that.”
By the time I’ve finished telling her my fake dating story, Mei is grinning from ear to ear.
“You know the drill, Lils. Fake dating. Destination wedding. Only one bed. You are totally coming home with a boyfriend,” she says with glee.
“I totally am not,” I respond in kind. “He is so not my type. I need someone with ambition, a career.”
“Do you, though? There’s an argument to be made that two driven people in a relationship is a recipe for disconnection and divorce. And the last thing you need is more stress.”
“Divorce? We’re fake dating!” As usual, Mei has taken things to a whole other level.
“Nobody’s saying you have to marry the guy. But if he’s as hot as you say, why not have yourself a sneaky link? It might be a good distraction.”
“What the hell is a sneaky link?” I ask, although I can guess.
“A secret hookup. Friends with bennies that nobody knows about. It would do you good. Because Christ knows you could do with your cobwebs getting cleaned out.”
“Ew.” I top up our wines with the last of what’s in the bottle.
But a little voice in my head—or maybe it’s between my legs—asks what the problem would be if I did have sex with Ant.
A week of sun, surf, cocktails and orgasms doesn’t sound like a bad deal as a trade-off for having to attend what will undoubtedly be the most over-the-top wedding of the century.
“Just think about it, Lils. You haven’t dated in how long?” Mei pops a loaded fry in her mouth and sends a flirty smile over my shoulder. Of course, when I turn around, there’s a guy in a very smart suit smiling back at her.
“For fuck’s sake. You attract them like bees to honey.” Which is true. Not that any of them last very long. Mei is a serial monogamist on fast rotation. “I’ll get us another bottle.”
By the time I come back from the bar, the guy from across the room is perched on the arm of the spare chair at the table, leaning in to Mei, pressing a business card into her hand.
“I look forward to hearing from you,” he says, and saunters back to the business-suited crowd he’s with in the back of the room.
Mei slips the card into the pocket of her jacket.
“Are you going to call him?” I ask, topping up her glass.
“Maybe. It might be a nice birthday present to myself.”
I wish I had her confidence. Then maybe I wouldn’t have had to find a fake date for the wedding.
I wish I wasn’t an overthinker. Because the whole way home, and half the night, my conversation with Mei, and Ant’s behaviour, runs on a loop in my head.
Is there merit in Mei’s suggestion that two driven people together is not a good combination? She’s right about me needing the cobwebs blown. But is Ant the person to do it?
Short answer to that, I suspect, is yes. If we’re talking from a purely physical perspective. The man has know-how written all over him.
But what is Ant really feeling about the fake dating?
He didn’t kiss me when he had the perfect chance.
My body language was practically begging for it.
If he were a player, wouldn’t he have made a move?
Which makes me think he’s not interested.
But then he was so supportive at dinner, and incredibly sweet after my disastrous day in surgery.
Was that just kindness? And around and around.
I don’t know the rules of these games. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.
Finally, as light starts to tiptoe through the gaps in my blinds, I realise I’m about to have eight days in Hawaii to work it out. And against all the odds, I’m looking forward to it.