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He’d never been so disturbed by the idea of kissing someone in his life. Kissing was something he excelled at. He’d been doing it with great alacrity since he was fourteen, which had soon led to first base, then… second base. Aaron almost groaned, remembering his discussion with Alice on exactly that subject. It used to be so easy talking to Alice about his girlfriend issues, particularly when they went pear-shaped. She’d always been really creative at helping him come up with exit strategies. And when he was single again… Well, they’d just go back to the status quo. Nights spent on Alice’s couch. Alice returning his car keys the next day and squirrelling him a bacon sandwich. Aaron tiptoeing out—making sure he didn’t step on the floorboard in the passage that squeaked, before he got sprung by Rowena or Polly.
Alice was comfortable, homey, safe.
So how come, these past two weeks, being with Alice—hell, eventhinkingabout Alice—felt anything but safe?
“Did I touch a raw nerve?” Oliver’s voice cut through his thoughts.
Aaron’s spine snapped straight. “No, why?”
Oliver smirked. “Thought for a moment there Mr Commitment Shy had the smitten look about him.”
Aaron gulped down the rest of his gin and tonic and slammed the empty glass onto Dad’s teak desk.
“Gran’s here,” he said, and stalked out of the room.
* * *
Polly getting ready to paint her nails was like Napoleon preparing for Waterloo. An exercise in strategy. Various metal devices that looked remarkably like implements of torture were laid out on the bathroom vanity, followed by the biggest tray of nail lacquers Alice had seen outside of the nail parlour in their local shopping mall. She’d never been in there, but every time she walked past, the interior with its rows of brightly lit workstations reminded her more of a nineteenth century sweat shop than a place you’d go to get pampered.
Alice stifled a shudder; she had trouble getting her head around all this beautifying stuff. Even the hairdresser’s was an ordeal she put off until absolutely essential.
Polly, naturally, had no such problems. She’d done a course in acrylic nails, paid for with her earnings from the Book Genie when she was seventeen. Then she’d tossed up between being a beautician and a social worker, but in the end Polly’s vocation clearly stretched to bigger things than putting flower transfers and glitter on people’s extremities. Polly was born to help people out of the knots they’d managed to tie themselves into.
“What’s the plan, then?” Polly asked as she rifled through bottles of colour. “Quick, before we get started—Granite Sapphire or Purple Haze?”
Alice wrinkled her nose. Since it was going on toes only, due to it being a Wednesday and Polly only ever painting her fingernails at weekends, she guessed either would be fine. It was winter anyway, it wasn’t like they’d be on show, but Polly said it made her happy looking at her pretty toes in the bath.
“Purple Haze. I don’t know what Granite Sapphires look like.”
Polly smirked. “Think dark grey and deep blue mixed together.”
“Sort of sludgy clay then.”
Polly eye-rolled and grabbed the bottle of Purple Haze and shook it. “So, like I said, what’s the plan?”
“I don’t have one,” Alice replied glumly. “I’m just waiting to hear from him.”
“That’s the typical passive stance women take early in relationships. Checking their phone every five minutes and hoping and praying he’ll call.”
“I am not hoping and praying. Well, not praying. Maybe hoping. A bit.”
“Did you know,” said Polly, unscrewing Purple Haze with a firm twist and tapping a glob of the colour into the pot, “that hoping and praying is a recipe for depression.”
Alice frowned. “How so?”
“It removes all your sense of empowerment, like giving over your destiny to a higher being instead of believing in your own capabilities. That makes you feel helpless, and feeling helpless can make you depressed.”
Alice pondered this. As a kid she’d watchedAladdintoo many times to count, and every night for months had closed her eyes tight and wished Aladdin would swoop through her window and whisk her away on his magic carpet. Oh, and yes, she could never go past a wishing well, even now, without throwing in a coin and making a wish.
But she’d never got depressed. Just anxious.
Her frown deepened. “Can being a dreamer lead to depression?”
Polly shrugged. “Depends what you do with your dreams, I guess. If you go after them, definitely not. Now let’s recap. You think Aaron is avoiding you since the almost kiss on the beach?”
“I might have read that completely wrong. It might not have even been close to a kiss.”
“From your description of his body language: lingering eye contact, voice deepening, stepping closer… it sounds promising. You weren’t aware of anything nudging into you, were you?”
