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“Oh, no thank you, it’s okay. I’d have packed thermals if I’d have known it’d be like this in the middle of summer.”
“You won’t need thermals when you get outside.”
“Good to know.”
“Please, take my jacket. You’re shivering.”
“That’s very gallant of you, but I’m fine.”
“I’m not cold.”
She gave him that big-eyed look, one eyebrow raised. This time it said either ‘you’re kidding me’ or ‘you’re an idiot’.
“I’m not cold. Look if I get cold, I’ll, er, I’ll flap my arms, do push-ups.”
That eyebrow stayed raised. His left thumb itched to trace over it, to understand what it meant. He wasn’t supposed to feel like that. He studied her face; those pale green eyes were twin danger signs. Okay, that look definitely said ‘you’re an idiot’. Might as well conform to expectations.
He dropped to the floor and slammed through quick push-ups, counting them out loud. At five, he almost abandoned ship, but she started laughing. Not at him, hard or brittle, but with him, soft and generous.
“Okay, you win. I’ll take your jacket.”
He did two more for the sheer show of it, then tossed her his jacket, and busied himself zipping his carry-on. What the fuck was that about? He wasn’t just warm now, he was burning up. One pretty face had reduced him to a teenage macho blockhead in about fifteen minutes, what were the next five hours going to be like?
Five hours with nothing to do except listen to her pepper him with questions and appraise him
with those ethereal eyes. Last time he’d spent five obligation free hours with a beautiful woman was...? Yeah, that’s about right. Not in living memory. He’d need to keep his inner dickhead under control to make it manageable.
While he fiddled with his carry-on, she’d worn his jacket over her shoulders. But now she was skipping respectful of other people’s property, and launching straight into practical. She was on her feet shoving her arms into the sleeves. She was curvy in all the right places, in blue jeans and a soft, pale blue, short-sleeved t-shirt. Not one of those women afraid to eat. Not that it mattered. What she looked like was irrelevant. But he’d always been a sucker for a naturally pretty face, and a good laugh. Not that it mattered, but that body didn’t disappoint. Now she had the scarf wound around her neck and the jacket zipped, the cuffs turned back. It hung down to her mid thigh—looked ridiculous. Made him feel like laughing, but not at her.
She clocked him watching her. “Thank you. Maybe we can take it in turns,” she said.
“What, you can do push-ups?”
She laughed, notes of music. “I’m more of a yoga girl, but sure, if I have to, I’ll have a go.”
“Yoga. Been practising long?”
“New to it. It’s good for my brain.”
“I guess you work in a stressful environment.”
“Yes. It can be stressful, deadline driven, but I love it. Is stress a big deal for an exporter?”
“It can be.”
“How do you cope?”
Pete would say, not well. That he was an uptight, way too buttoned down, blowhard with an increasingly limited comfort zone, way too much filthy water on his chest, and a short fuse. Fuck Pete. Pete’d think he’d popped a brain cell if he’d seen the push-ups.
Bo would have a quote. It’d be one of those ones he was never sure was real or made up to suit the moment.
The door opened, saving him from further introspection. Dinner. Smelled good. Dentist boy brought it in on a trolley: soup, rice, a chicken dish, vegetables, tea. No banquet but it would do.
He asked about the air-con while she set out plates and poured tea into cups. No deal. It was controlled somewhere else, and meant for a large space. This room was a wasteland where sensible temperature control came to die. Crap. He’d have packed thermals too.
When he sat she said, “Truth or dare?”
“It’s tongzi—young chicken. Safe to eat. Though the English translation is, ‘this chicken has no sexual experience’.”
