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“No! Yes, I mean no!” I scrubbed my face. “The bet was stupid because of, well, my last name. I’m here because … I wanted to meet someone.”
Ari snorted. “Were you expecting to find true love at a speed dating night at a country pub?”
“Maybe.” I avoided her eyes, looking around the room.Pfft … yes, I was.“I’m tired of casual hook ups. I travel a lot for work, only staying for a few weeks, a couple of months tops, in each place. And now, something more permanent has come up.”
Ari stared at me intently, and yeah, I noticed how her eyes lingered on my arms. “What do you do?” she asked, finally looking up.
“Contract shearing. Used to travelling all over following the work but …” I still found it hard to talk about, even though the paperwork went through two weeks ago. “I’ve just inherited my late grandfather’s farm. Had no idea he was leaving the place to me and my brother. My bro has no interest in farming, so I’m buying him out. Never in a million years thought I’d own a house or land, or both. Keen to get it running as a small sheep farm, amix of wool and meat. So I’m kinda a farmer, and sometimes a shearer. And now that I’m not on the road anymore, I’d like to meet someone special.”
Ari nodded, completely unfazed by my rambling. I was about to ask her what she did for a crust when she shook her head. “Less than five hundred people live in Ballydoon so statistics are against you finding someone here. Wait.” Her cherry-red lips formed a perfect O. “Oh my God, do youactuallybelieve in love?”
I burst out laughing. “That’s what you concluded from what I said?”
Ari snorted again. Somehow, it was cute how she did it.
I shrugged. “I just want to have a meaningful relationship, you know?”
She rolled her eyes. I was floundering. “You don’t believe in love?”
“I tried ‘love’.” Ari made quotation marks in the air, her voice dripping with disdain. “For two years, and it left me broke, unemployed, back at home, and—” She leant across the table. “Unsatisfied.”
I blinked slowly. “Heard the bar guy say you’d just broken up with someone.” I glanced towards the bar where—what was his name again? Ryan, that’s it—was wiping it down.Better remember Ryan’s name in two days’ time.“Guy called Wes Schumacher?”
“A month ago.” Ari shuddered.
A thought occurred to me. “Isn’t he on that show on TV?”
“Thousand Acres of Dust, yeah. Met him on the set. I’m a make-up artist.” She scowled. “Was a make-up artist.” She blinked, her eyes glassy, then blushed. “Caught him having sex with another woman. He was my first.” Ari blinked again and huffed out a laugh. “Sweet baby cheeses!If I was going to makeconfessions all night, I would have fronted up at the church instead of speed dating at the pub.”
I kept my face neutral. Ari wasn’t seething with rage or dealing with a broken heart. If anything, she looked embarrassed. Ashamed.
“I’m really sorry that happened,” I whispered. “Your ex did a real number on you, didn’t he?”
Ari blinked rapidly, like she was about to cry.Shit, Jet: first, you shoot down an offer of sex, and then you back it up by making her cry.
“I’m sorry. Can I get you napkins or something?”
She ignored me, swigging the rest of the wine, her glass making a dullthunkon our table. “Well, thank you for your pity, but I’ll just move on and ask someone else to have sex with me.”
A throat cleared. We both looked up to find Ryan holding my beer. He placed it in front of me and took off without a word.
Ari’s words hit me as I took a sip of the lager.
“Wait, you’re just going to ask some random stranger here tonight for sex?” I hissed.
“Yeah, why not? I just did with you.”
“Well, yes, but …” I leant forward. “How do you know if you can trust him?”
“Trust him to deliver on at least two orgasms?”
“No, I mean if he’s a creep!” I paused. “Wes never gave you two orgasms? Ever?”
What was wrong with this guy? Ari was pretty. Really pretty. How did this Wes guy not want to see how many times he could make her …
I shifted in my seat. Things were uncomfortable again in my jeans.
“I never experienced that with Wes.” She blushed. “My ex-workmates in Sydney used to talk about how their boyfriends or lovers gave them multiples. I used to wonder if others weremaking up their stories about multiple orgasms, but my sister confirmed she definitely does with her fiancé.”
