He shook his head. ‘Nah. I wanted to be a train driver. What about you?’
‘A vet. And a check-out chick. Your turn.’
Mo took the next card. ‘What’s the best date you’ve ever been on?’
With you, today, at Bianchi’s.Except it hadn’t been a date, had it? Especially now she knew Lorena was on the scene. ‘Hmm.’ Netta rifled through her memory. ‘There was one, years ago. It was summer and I’d just moved into my apartment in St Kilda. I’d met this guy at one of the bars on Fitzroy Street. He asked for my number and the next night we went to the Espy for drinks and then afterwards we walked down to the end of St Kilda Pier and saw phosphorescence in the water. We wrote our names in the wet sand and they glowed. It was pretty magical.’
‘And did it get serious?’
‘Oh, no.’ Netta rocked back and let out a half laugh. ‘He turned out to be a not-so-closeted cokehead. It got messy very quickly. But the date was nice. Okay, your turn. What’s the best dateyou’veever been on?’
Mo’s brow furrowed in a way that made Netta’s stupid heart bounce. This thing—this all-consuming, gut-melting, brain-fading sensation—was always going to happen. Her man ban might stop her from acting on it, but it had no power to stop the effect he had on her body, or the way he seemed to be living rent-free in her head now, intertwined with every single one of her thoughts, his voice in constant conversation with her inner monologue.
‘To be honest, I haven’t really been on many dates,’ he said. ‘And the ones I have been on have been pretty shit. Definitely no glowing sand, although probably more than a few cokeheads, I’d say.’
‘Surely you’ve had a good date at least once.’
Mo held her gaze. ‘You’re right, I have. Quite recently, actually. But I don’t think she thought it was a date, so it probably doesn’t count.’
‘Alright, my turn.’ Netta slid the next card from the top of the pile. ‘Ooh, this is juicier. What’s your biggest regret?’
‘That’s easy,’ said Mo. ‘Agreeing to sing a Mariah Carey song at the Christmas Eve Gala.’
Netta tipped her head to the side and raked the card along her knuckles. ‘Come on. Gimme a real one.’
Mo’s face darkened, his eyes suddenly stormy under downcast lashes. ‘I have lots,’ he said tightly. ‘But the biggest one … it’s not something I talk about.’
His obvious discomfort was a presence in the room, urging Netta to move on. ‘You already know mine.’
A smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. ‘Driving a 1971 VW Beetle?’
Okay, so he was fine again. ‘Ha, ha,’ Netta said drily. ‘I’d drive it across Australia and back again—even if I had to push it for half the way—if it would erase the Mitch fiasco. That’smybiggest regret. I doubt anything will ever top it, to be honest.’
Mo’s eyes softened. He unfolded a leg and gently nudged her knee with his foot. ‘It really wasn’t your fault. I hope karma shrinks his balls.’
Netta burst into laughter, her hand instinctively landing on her knee where he’d touched her, trying to contain the feeling. ‘Alright. Your turn to ask a question.’
Mo took a card. ‘What’s the thing you want most in life?’
Netta smiled and bit her lower lip. He was with Lorena Long; she had nothing to lose by telling him the truth. She took a deep breath and let the words gather in her mouth, ready for release. ‘I want a baby,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking about … I’m thinking about using the money you’re paying me to go to the gala with you to help pay for fertility treatments so I can have a chance at doing it on my own. I don’t know how much it’ll cost, but what you’ve offered will give me a good start.’
Mo rocked back a little, his eyes different, like he was seeing her for the first time with a new haircut. ‘You’d be a great mum.’
‘It was never my intention to go it alone.’ A lump grew in Netta’s throat. ‘We tried for months, me and Pete.’
‘Pete’s the guy you broke up with before you came here?’
‘Yeah. But it just never happened. And then I found out that he’d never really wanted a baby in the first place and that he was having a weird thing with a woman from his office, so …’ She looked up to find Mo staring at her intently.
‘Pete sounds like he might need a bit of karmic ball shrinking too, if you ask me.’
Netta attempted a smile, but she was all out. ‘It was good for a while, I think. I don’t know. My relationships never seem to work.’ She shrugged lightly, as though it was no big deal. As though it wasn’t thebiggestdeal and she wasn’t blisteringly aware that she was about to turn forty alone and would probablystayalone forever. ‘I must be defective.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Mo. ‘Maybe it’s just your taste in men that’s defective.’
‘There’s no maybe about that, mate,’ she said, keen to swivel the spotlight around. ‘What about you? What’s the thingyouwant most?’
Mo took a deep breath and an even deeper swig of beer. ‘Freedom.’
