flash dinner, though. Nothing but a run on the beach. You’re not putting in enough effort.”
I laughed out loud, and then I kept laughing. A dog-walker looked around and smiled. Of course, he was a young bloke, and he was mostly smiling at Daisy, who was looking particularly fetching. Honey-colored skin, flashing dark eyes, that lush mouth, and tiny clothes? I knew why he was looking. I stopped laughing and shot him my own look, and he turned around again. I told Daisy, “An easy-peasy girlfriend? The mind boggles. Is there any possible way for you to be a harder girlfriend? Let’s count up, shall we? I’ve jumped into a freezing river for you. At night. I’ve let you drive my ute, which was possibly the scariest part of the whole exercise, because you’ve got a lead foot. I’ve adopted a dog. I’ve come near as anything to having my dangly bits fried on an electric fence. I’ve threatened grievous bodily harm. I’ve climbed through an awkward window, possibly the dumbest act of my life, just to try to impress you. What have I left out?”
She said, “Got the road rash of a lifetime? Moved me and my sisters into your house? Lent me your gorgeous car?”
“Nah. That was the easy part, moving you in. She may be right about that. And as for the road rash—if you can’t bear to lose some layers of skin, you’re in the wrong sport.”
Daisy
We were running back again thirty minutes later—Gray’s dinner was going to be extremely late—when he said, “So. You have a night off tomorrow.”
My heart picked up the pace, just like that. “Yeh,” I said. “After five o’clock or so, I’m free. Of course, I’ll be working tonight, Friday night, to pay for it. Students do the dumbest things on Friday night. You climbed through a high window once. No telling what they’ll do, summer coming and all. Nudie swimming in a rip tide, with the water eleven degrees. Mountain biking from the roof onto the front steps. And then there’s the drinking.”
He waited through the entire nervous, rambling speech, then said, “Can I take you out, then? On a proper date? Not that this morning wasn’t special, but …”
“Yeh,” I said, “with the broken penises and all. I don’t have date conversation, I’ve decided.”
“I’m attempting to wipe that from the memory banks,” he said. “Chelsea could be right, though. Candlelight and wine. Romance.”
“We’re running on the beach,” I pointed out. “The sky’s turning pink, and the light’s turning gold. How is that not romance?”
He didn’t stop running, but he was quiet for a minute before he said, “Is there some reason you don’t want to go out to dinner with me?”
“Geez, you’re direct,” I said.
“Yeh,” he said. “I am. Fortunately, so are you. So what’s the trouble?”
“Oh, just …” I said. “That I was reminded today that I don’t always measure up. Your mum helped Frankie at the lawyer’s, you know. She didn’t want me. Frankie.” Saying it still hurt. “She’s not sure she even wants to … stay with me. So you could be disappointed. Expectation-wise. I don’t seem to have … even the skills I thought I did.”
Silence for a minute, and he said, “Taking those in order. Frankie’s a bit like you, don’t you think?”
“What, married to the same man? Trauma? Lashing out inappropriately?”
“No,” he said. “I mean trying with everything she has to start over, maybe going too hard out of the blocks. Trying to establish her independence when she’s never had any. Also being afraid she’ll never live up to your example.”
“I don’t want her to live up to it, though,” I said. “Or I do, but I want them to go further than me. I just want their lives to be better. Shouldn’t that be obvious? Shouldn’t they know?”
“Maybe not,” he said. “Not if she’s not sure what it means if she accepts that much help. Who does that remind me of? Oh, yeh. You again. And what do you mean, you want them to go further than you? What do you want to do that you haven’t done? Besides the baby, because you mentioned a baby.”
“Oh, you know,” I said. “Things.” I’d mentioned a baby? What all had I said to him? I knew what. I’d said I didn’t want sex and did want a baby. How to attract a man. Not.
He asked, “What things?”
I hadn’t told anybody this. I’d told myself I wouldn’t, not until I was on the road. I