you did, Dorian. They don’t have to work very hard at it, do they? A girl in every bar, from what I hear.”
Chelsea’s heart was in the right place, I reminded myself once again. I said, “Well, we’re living in his house, which you could call some effort.”
“Still,” Chelsea said. “Or maybe that’s it. He moves you in, and hey presto, he’s done. Temporary girlfriend, sorted.”
Iris, who’d been taking the meat off a couple of roasted chickens, now banged a plate down hard and said, “Because he can’t pull any other way. Gray Tamatoa. Yeh, right.”
I breathed in and out through my nose under the pretense of doing some stretches and said, “The candlelight and flowers could be overkill, first date and all.” I did my best to disguise the lurch in my stomach that idea gave me. Sitting over dinner in some dimly lit, terrifyingly expensive place, offered food I didn’t understand, expected to look mysteriously glamorous and make sultry conversation. I didn’t have sultry conversation. I had breaking-your-penis conversation. Then driving home and knowing that, whatever he’d said, Gray expected sex to happen.
Probably best not to hyperventilate in the middle of the party. Also, after one more minute of this line of chat, Iris was going to be calculating whether you could slap a pregnant woman. And then Gray’s mother would hear, after which all bets were off. I didn’t think the yurt was big enough to hold all this drama, so I said, “See you later. Off to run. Can’t wait to taste that risotto!” in a nauseatingly cheerful, Nurse-Nancy tone, and bolted.
41
Beat of a Heart
Gray
I was standing in front of the house when Daisy came jogging up. Or, rather, when she came running up. She said, “Let’s go,” and headed out. Straight up the drive, running like she was on fire. Or, maybe, running like a woman who loved to run. Except that wasn’t how she looked.
Sometimes, physical activity was the way you burned off stress, and the faster you went, the faster you burned. We were all the way to the beach, and I’d let Xena off her leash, during which time Daisy jogged a circle around me, anxious to get going again, before I said, “I took five minutes to change, and all this happened?”
“What?” she said, and took off again as if she couldn’t wait another minute.
I caught up and said, “This. Who said something, and what did they say? Tell me.”
She waved a hand and kept going. “Oh, nothing. Except that—where to start. Oh, here’s a good one. You’re probably not too bright, but we must concede you’re good-looking. Though we’re surprised by that, especially that you haven’t put on more flesh since your playing days. So you’re not fat, but you’ve got a broken nose, which is unfortunate. We’re also not too sure about your use of the proper homonym.”
“Homonym?” I asked.
“Don’t say it with a question mark,” she said. “Horrors. You know: ‘their baguettes are here,’ versus, ‘they’re going to get baguettes,’ with an apostrophe, versus, ‘the baguettes are over there.’ And so forth. What do I care about your use of apostrophes? What does it say about your intelligence? Nothing, that’s what.”
“I appreciate the encouraging words,” I said, “but I reckon I’m not too illiterate. I can usually sound out the big words if I say them aloud.”
She smiled, which was good, and I said, “Nah, no worries. Nothing I haven’t heard before. So who was this? Let me guess. Got to be Dorian or Chelsea, and Dorian’s too mild. Chelsea, though …”
“Jack Russell,” Daisy informed me. Her speed had slackened a wee bit, which was good.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Jack Russell terrier,” she said. “Can’t be a pit bull, because she’s not big enough.”
I laughed. “Yeh, I can see that. Never tell me Iris didn’t leap to my defense. Or my mum. I’m wounded.”
“I left before blood was spilled,” Daisy said. “But Iris had access to sharp knives, so it’s possible. Your mum wasn’t within earshot, but then, surely even Chelsea wouldn’t have said it if she had been. Not in front of your mother.”
“Not too bad, though, I guess,” I said. “I’m good-looking but dim. Could be worse.”
“It is worse,” she said. “You’re also moving me in so you’ll have a temporary girlfriend on the premises, easy-peasy. Which means, come to think of it, that she must think I’m cute enough to make that worthwhile, so that’s flattering, I guess. I’m getting no candlelight and no wine and no