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“You look gorgeous.”
She’d almost worn jeans, but settled on a rose coloured dress with a fitted bodice and a swirly, girly skirt. She’d once felt self-conscious about how it looked, tight to her form, flirty. But it fitted looser now and the way he looked at her she could’ve been in a designer red carpet dress, and dripping diamonds. Her heart was beating so loud in her ears it was a wonder they weren’t all deafened by it.
“Ah, hi.” Etta waved a hand, a cartoonish gesture along with the eye-roll. They were totally sprung. “Remember us.”
Reece laughed and draped his suit coat carefully over the hall table. “Mia, this is Etta and Flip. You met them one day at the beach.”
“I played with you on the climbing gym, remember,” said Flip.
“What’s your other name?” said Mia.
“It’s Pippa, but she won’t answer you,” said Etta.
“Do you have another name?” Mia said to Etta.
Etta shrugged. “People call me Ett.”
“Do you?” Mia said to Reece.
There was a shift in the air between Reece and the girls. He said, “You’re dead if you say a word, Flipper.”
“What else to they call you, Reece?” Audrey said. She loved the way his face had coloured, the way he looked from Etta to Flip with an expression of resolve mixed with resignation.
“I call him—”
Etta put her hand over Flip’s mouth, cutting whatever she said into a blur of mumble, which Mia thought was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. She was almost on the floor with giggles.
Reece started straight in on instructions for dinner, for entertainment, for snacks, for Mia’s bedtime. He told Etta when they’d be home, to call if she needed anything and not to let Mia boss them around too much.
Then he picked up his coat and held a bunch of roses so red they were almost black out to her. She took them, her smile so big she was probably blinking mascara stripes onto her cheeks.
“Ett, there’s a vase on top of the fridge,” he said. He would’ve put it there especially.
Audrey handed the roses to Etta and took the hand Reece held out. She bent to kiss Mia, then wiped the lipstick she left on her cheek off with her thumb. She let Reece usher her out of the door. Let him close and lock it behind him. They took his car and this time there was no anger in him as he took the wheel.
She watched him drive. “You are so handsome in that suit I almost wet myself when I saw you.”
He cough laughed with a quick turn of his head to look at her.
“I never imagined you owned a suit.”
“Weddings. I can count the times I’ve worn it. Sky got it made for me, some family friend who’s a tailor in Vietnam. Are you sure it looks okay?
“If you want to skip the night out, drive directly to a daggy motel with wash-faded linen, a saggy bed, a mouldy plastic shower curtain, and TV without reception, I would not complain.”
He laughed again and it had the same nervous quality he had about the suit, and it all came together, the flowers, the mystery of where they were going. He had a plan. He was trying to blow her away with this date and he’d already done that by the way he’d looked at her when he arrived. She had to turn her face away for a mom
ent or there’d be further mascara ruination.
He took her to a quiet, expensive little bar in the city where he drank a beer and she had champagne as lights on the harbour twinkled. He held her hand and told her how much he liked her dress. Then he pulled his stool closer to hers and while he dragged his big thumb softly over the back of her hand, he asked what she was wearing underneath it.
“Tell me every detail, baby.” His voice dropped so deep she pressed her legs together to hold onto the way it made her feel. Like her body was made of molten gold, slippery, shiny, valuable and searing hot.
She flowed into him. He leant down so her mouth was close to his ear. She whispered, “Nothing,” and his whole body jerked, the arm she rested on turning to forged steel.
He squeezed her hand so hard she yelped then he brought it to his lips to kiss it better. “If that’s true, how hungry are you?”
It wasn’t strictly true, but it’d been worth it to see the lust flare in his eyes, to know she could impact him too.
