“I would be cool if it happened again too,” I said.
“So, we’re both cool?” he asked.
I leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. “We’re cool.”
And then he looked at me seriously. “I thought you said that all the guys you were attracted to turned out to be bad for you.”
I smiled at him. “Maybe you are? Bad for me.”
“Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m the exception to the rule,” he said playfully.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see,” I said.
CHAPTERSEVENTY-ONE
Poppy
We arrived at my place after driving back from the hotel. He parked his car and we sat there in silence, staring at each other and smiling.
“Well, thanks for that,” I said teasingly.
“For what exactly?” He leaned in.
“Mmm, well, probably for that thing that happened in the hotel room. I mean, I don’t know,” I said.
“Thing?” he asked. “Justonething. Not three? Or was it four?”
I smiled at him. “But who’s counting, hey?”
“I am,” he said with a low chuckle.
I laughed. I felt giddy. Like a teenage girl with a crush . . .no, more. This was more than a crush. And then a stab. I still hadn’t told him the full truth. He’d just had sex with Doris Granger, not me. This was so complicated now, but I had to say it. I knew that.
“What?” he asked, obviously sensing the change in my mood.
I shook my head. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Things,” I said. “Things that haven’t been said out loud.”
“Yeah, I know all about those kinds of things,” he said.
But I was sure he didn’t know what I was talking about. In fact, I wondered what he would think of me when he knew exactly who I was? We climbed out of the car together for the umpteenth time. It had all started in this car really. We walked up the dark staircase together and when we got to my door, we stopped and looked at each other. And that’s when it happened, again.
His eyes drifted down to my lips, and mine to his. He came closer, our faces only centimeters away from each other. Perhaps we would be turning back “on” again, after all. My knees felt like they were getting somewhat weak and shaky, and I leaned back against the door as his lips came closer to me. I braced myself for their impact, as the anticipation bubbled inside me. Like a soda can that had been shaken, someone was pulling back the tab and all the liquid was about to fly out and . . .
“What the . . .?” I turned around and stared at my door as my back pushed it open. “I . . . I locked it.” I reached towards it.
“Wait!” He grabbed my hand and pushed me behind him protectively.
Fuck! I knew that big shiny lock on the outside of my door had been a mistake—it just made it look like I had stuff in my apartment worth stealing. Someone had broken in! It would have been easy. I reckoned that 90 per cent of the population here knew how to pick locks, and worse.
“Stay behind me,” he said, as he pushed the door open and flicked on the lights. He stuck his head inside and looked around. “It’s all clear.”
I pushed my way inside and gasped. In a single moment, my heart shattered. I looked around. The apartment had been totally ransacked. I didn’t care about any of the drawers that had been tipped out, or the mattress that was turned over, all I cared about were the plants. Broken stems, cracked pottery and soil lay strewn across the floor.
“My mother’s plants!” Tears welled up in my eyes and I ran into the room. I tried to pick them up and salvage the broken ones. I wanted to scream when I saw that one of the succulents had been stepped on. Smashed into the ground, bleeding green all over the floor.
