“I’ll do that,” she said. “Go have a good time. Don’t hurry home.”
Daisy
The way he’d looked at me. The way he’d kissed me.
I was a full-grown woman. I felt like that, and also like the teenager I’d never been. He held my hand on the way along the track, seeming to know that I was a bit tippy in my highest sandals, and when he held the door to the Mustang for me, I slid in, let him shut the door again, and didn’t feel one bit like an imposter.
He climbed in on his side, racked the seat all the way back, and headed up the track. He hit the button for the newly automated gate, and it swung open and then closed behind us. I didn’t have to ask if the place was secure now. I knew he’d made it that way. I settled back a little more, stuck one foot out in front of me and tucked the other one under, angled a bit more toward him, and said, “You worked hard today.”
“I did,” he said. “It was worth it.”
I said, “Oh?”
He glanced across at me, then stopped at the intersection, turned onto the main road, and said, “If it lets you go out with me, and relax while you do it? Well, yeh. I’d call that worth it.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “I can’t quite decide. I thought it would be casual, but you look too good for casual.”
He smiled, just a little. He still had that scar beside his eye, and I wanted to run my finger along the white line. I wanted to kiss it, there where his pulse beat. He said, “I’m wearing jeans, Daisy.”
“Mm,” I said. “You are. Maybe I like you in jeans, or maybe it’s the white shirt I like.”
He took a breath, took a curve, and said, “I’m trying to cool down right now. So you know.”
When he pulled up to the restaurant ten minutes later, though, tucked into the inner ring of the Octagon, I said, “This can’t be it.”
“What can’t be it?” he said.
“Bacchus,” I said, then realized. “Oh. We’re going to one of the other places. The Vault, or something. Sorry. It’s fine. Anywhere’s fine.”
He didn’t say anything, just climbed out of the car and handed the key to the Bacchus Wine Bar’s valet, saying something to him. I didn’t hear it, because I was busy climbing out myself. I said, scrambling around to the pavement, “Gray. I’m not dressed for this place. You said trousers. Bacchus isn’t trousers!”
He put his arm around me, his hand resting on my hip, and said, “Do you trust me?”
There went my heart. And my breath. I said, “Yes.”
“Then trust me now,” he said, and opened the door for me so I could step in under his arm.
He was more than a head taller than me. He was so much bigger and stronger than me. And for once, that thrilled me as much as it scared me.
“Hi,” he told the fella who came out to meet us. “Takeaway order for Tamatoa.”
“Oh,” I said. “You could’ve just said.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he said. Then he collected his bags, and we reversed the whole process. The hand on the door. Me under his arm, and, yes, if there was ever a sexy position, that was it. The valet again, who’d barely had time to drive the car around the Octagon. The car door held for me again. And finally, driving away. Driving north.
I said, “If I ask where we’re going, will I spoil the surprise?”
“Yes,” he said. “I worked hard. Act pleased.”
I laughed, and when he wound his way up the hill and pulled into a carpark at the Botanic Garden ten minutes later, I wasn’t even surprised. Even after he took a couple more bags out of the boot, and a little chilly bin.
I said, “You’re going to have to abandon your principles and let me carry something.”
“Just this once,” he said, and I smiled and took the Bacchus food. Once again, too many bags of it.
“This way,” he told me, and in a few minutes, I knew where we were headed. The Rhododendron Dell. The bushes were in full, glorious flower, avenues of them overhanging grassy walkways, and I followed Gray all the way to the end. To the lawn overlooking the city, the harbour, and the green sleeping-dragon shape of the Otago Peninsula beyond, and on the other side of us, the glossy green of rhododendron