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Alice grinned into the darkness and elbowed him. Elbowing had always been admissible contact.
Silence. “I owe you a flirt,” Aaron said.
“Hmm, payment for services rendered.” She felt herself blushing in the dark.
Another silence.
“So how do you want to do this thing?”
She flipped her bag over and over in her lap. “You did quite a good job with—um—my neck.”
Aaron gave a snort. “Yeah, and you responded with a panic attack.”
“I guess that would have the potential to scare a guy off.” The tension crackled between them and their arms were so close she almost expected to see sparks fly off into the night sky.
“Besides,” she said, almost gruffly to avoid the possibility of self-combustion, “that neck-stroking thing would, strictly speaking, be described asyouflirting withme, whereas I thought the deal wasIget to practise onyou.”
“Okay, go on then.”
“What, now? Here?”
“Why not? It’s as good a time and place as any.”
“It’s way too public.”
“All right, we’ll go down on the beach.”
Aaron got to his feet. “Up you get,” he ordered.
She did and wobbled, her leg muscles the consistency of half-set jelly, partly residue from the panic attack and partly… Amazing how excitement and fear could make your body feel almost the same.
She let him loop her arm in his and they walked down the steps onto the sand. Finally, in a pool of light cast from the beach volleyball floodlights, Aaron turned to face her, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet. He really was behaving very oddly.
“I had a great time tonight, thank you.”
She looked at him, perplexed. “You did?”
He grinned, from under his fringe. “We’reflirting, Al. Pretend I’m a guy you’ve just been out on a date with. I’m keen. You’ve got to give me a bit more than that.”
“Like what?”
“‘So did I’ would be a start. Reciprocate a bit.”
“Okay. So did I.”
“Not so wooden, put more emotion into it.”
Alice flapped her bag at him. “Can’t we just get the lines right and practise the emotions later?”
“God, you’re hopeless.”
“What sort of advice is that?” Alice protested. “I mean, if Thorpie had that level of encouragement from his coach, he wouldn’t even have made it to his school swimming carnival, let alone the Olympics.”
“Okay, okay. Try again. I’ll be nice.”
Alice shuffled her feet. There was sand in her shoes but she wasn’t going to spoil the moment by taking them off. She cleared her throat and held her bag against her stomach.
Aaron pushed her hand gently down to her side. “Don’t guard your body. That definitely saysnot interested.”
