Three Words: A Novella Collection Page 15

  The next thing Lily knew, Rebecca was standing beside her, a devilish grin on her face and an expectant glint in her large blue eyes. She was holding a manila folder marked CATERING ~ which they both knew had nothing to do with catering because it was stuffed full of old photocopies and reject letters. Rebecca promptly dumped the file on the desk beside her friend before pulling the spare chair over from the corner. As if by remote, Lily pulled up the list of caterers she kept on file and handed Rebecca a pen. She assumed her most serious work-like face.

  “I’m supposed to be ringing the wax model guy, you know. You’re interrupting me.”

  “Ah, you’re the one interrupting me.”

  Rebecca held the pen as if poised to write. “Who gives a crap about gigantic Star Trek figures? Tell me more about the shoe man.”

  Lily looked around the office. Jordy was nowhere in sight but still it paid to keep up the ruse. She pointed to the computer screen.

  “This company does a spectacular hot food buffet if you’re after that sort of thing or if you want to go down the sweet route, I can recommend this lot. They make these fruit buns TO DIE FOR.”

  “Ah,” Rebecca whispered, “I see.”

  She pretended to scribble a phone number on a scrap of paper.

  “And their coffee is really strong and full-bodied, slightly sharp.”

  “Sounds irresistible.” Rebecca lowered her voice, as Jordy appeared two desks down. He’d stopped to give Marisa a piece of paper and was staring at them in suspicion. “Give me a movie star comparison. Quick.”

  “Um, um. I think Jake Gyllenhaal’s PR people might have used that one for the press day when he was in Sydney or was it Channing Tatum?”

  “What are you two up to?” Jordy had reached Lily’s cubicle.

  “Finalising catering details for the ‘meet and greet’, Jordy,” Rebecca replied, calm-as-you-please. “Which is more than I can say for you. I’m sure Magnus would love to hear that the only thing you’ve done since lunch is stalk the female employees. Don’t you have some work you could be doing?”

  Lily stifled a giggle.

  “I came by to ask Lily something but seeing as you’re busy I’ll stop by later,” he said, looking pointedly at Lily.

  “Look forward to it,” Lily grimaced.

  About as much as a bad bout of gastro.

  “What’s your plan, then?” Rebecca asked after Jordy had left.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Why don’t you go back to the shop and ‘collect your shoes.’ While you’re there you could ask him out. I still have a spare seat on our table tomorrow night.”

  Lily sat for a minute. Was she ready to jump back into the dating pool? Was it too soon after Travis? And what if this guy turned out to be a womaniser, only after one thing? Maybe he chatted up all the girls who went into the shop.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If I were you, I’d get thinking then. Some other girl could have snapped him up by now.”

  “He was cute and he didn’t have a ring on.” That was one of the things she’d noticed while his hand had been on her knee.

  “That’s a start.”

  Rebecca shuffled the useless papers in the CATERING file and flipped it closed. Wrapping it to her chest, she stood up. “And after you’ve done the deed, text me. I want a blow by blow.”

  “I’m going to collect a pair of shoes, not sleep with the guy.”

  “Hey! Good things can come of this. You didn’t hear Cinderella complaining about her shoe being returned.”

  Chapter 4

  Her desk tidy, the pile in the To Do tray a little thinner than earlier in the day and three reminders scheduled by way of sticky notes stuck to her desktop screen, Lily felt ready to leave for the day. Despite the fact that she’d spent most of the afternoon mulling over whether it was a good idea to go back to The Cobbler Shop or not ~ she didn’t want to appear to eager or desperate under the guise of retrieving her shoes ~ she’d managed a productive afternoon. She’d even locked down the last of the booth holders for the market day at the festival. In Sci-Fi terms, securing the Star Wars impersonators who did a full on light-sabre show had been the real coup though. She could imagine those Sci-Fi geeks wetting themselves at the prospect of seeing Luke Skywalker single-handedly taking on the storm troopers. In 3D. That wasn’t on a movie screen. It meant absolutely nothing to her but to them, it’d be gold.

  It was just as she was reaching under her desk to get her handbag that her office phone rang. She contemplated not answering it. The workday was over and it had taken all afternoon to psych herself into going back to the shop. If she stopped to answer the phone she’d lose her momentum. The phone kept on ringing.

  Lily watched it for a couple more rings. Bugger. If she didn’t answer it she’d feel guilty until tomorrow. Or spend the night wracking her brain wondering who it was.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Lily Appleby?”

  The voice, deep and husky, sounded vaguely familiar. Suddenly, Lily was more alert than she’d been in months. “Yeeessss.”

  “This is Damon Sullivan, ah, from The Cobbler Shop?” He sounded rather uncertain about whether he worked there or not. “It’s about your shoes, the red ones.”

  He’d found her shoes. And he was ringing her to let her know. How genuinely nice. “Did you find them?”

  “No.”

  If she hadn’t been so pumped by that fact that he was calling her, Lily would have felt like a deflated air mattress right about then. “But you have to find them. They’re my lucky shoes.”

  “Your lucky shoes,” he repeated with slow articulation. “I’m curious, what exactly does a pair of shoes have to do to be given the dubious honour of being termed ‘lucky’?”

  “Long story but suffice to say I can’t live without them.”

  “As I said before, I don’t mind listening to your stories. I think I’d quite like it. Which brings me to the reason for my call.”

  Lily waited. He wasn’t going to… no… he couldn’t be.

  “I was wondering if you’d like to catch up for a drink. If you’re not busy.”

  “What? Like now?” Lily was dumbstruck. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to have a drink with him, more that she was so shocked at that fact he was calling her. God, where the bloody hell was that verbal-diarrhoea filled voice ~ the smooth conversationalist tone she used with the clients ~ when she needed it?

  “I know it’s short notice but seeing as how we seem to have misplaced your shoes it’s the least I can do to repay you.”

  “Okay. That sounds nice. Thank you.”

  “You’re not busy, then?”

  “Not unless you call a date with my T.V. busy.”

  “I like a girl who doesn’t feel the need to deny the fact that she stays at home watching mindless trash on the box instead of having a social life.”

  “Come Dine With Me Australia is not mindless trash,” Lily retorted, laughing. “It’s far superior to Pawn Stars.”

  “God forbid, I should keep you from that gem. I suppose you watch those wedding shows too, do you?”

  Lily didn’t have the courage to tell him she’d given them up cold turkey after Travis had gone. She’d sound completely pathetic. “Where shall we meet?”

  “Come by the shop. I know a place not far from here.”

  Heart pounding like the drum machine on a Robbie Williams song, Lily laid the phone back in the cradle. She was going on a date. With Damon, the hot cobbler guy. Even in their completely-off-the-radar absent state those red pumps were definitely lucky. Definitely.

  *****

  Fifteen minutes later, Lily and Damon were perched opposite each other at a bar table in a one-room bar down the lane from his shop. After establishing that he was not some weirdo and had in fact got her phone number off the docket for the repairs to her shoes, they’d been overtaken by a moment of mutual awkwardness, the kind where you want to be with someone but because you don’t know them, have no i
dea what to say when that moment comes.

  It had been a masterful effort, requiring supreme balance and simultaneous tip-toe walking, for Lily to arrive at the bar in one piece. Hundred-year-old cobblestones were not engineered to be walked on whilst wearing shoes that high with heels that thin. She’d almost rolled her ankle and on one occasion had had to grab Damon’s arm for support. Well, sort of. She probably could have gone it alone but if you had a wall of finely toned male flesh beside you it seemed a sin not to take advantage of it, right? And it’d only been the merest brush. Just enough to confirm the fact that she seriously wanted to see what was underneath his shirt.

  “Drink?” Damon asked, leaning forward on his stool. “Even though I‘m not sure you’ll be able to walk back along that alley if I let you have alcohol.”

  “Vodka tonic. And I’ll be perfectly capable if I remove my shoes. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Too bad. I was kinda looking forward to carrying you.”

  Lily felt a rush of warmth envelope her. Was he flirting? It had been so long since she’d been toyed with like that she’d almost forgotten the rush it caused. Watching as he shouldered his way through the Thursday night crowd to the bar, she tried to recall the last time. Even at the inception of her relationship with Travis she’d never felt a heady rush like this. And she’d thought him to be the one.

  Over at the bar, Lily could see Damon’s wide shoulders, standing out in the crowd like a beacon in that pink shirt. He’d found someone he knew and was chatting while he waited for their drinks. He was even handsomer in profile than front on, if that was possible. Lily had never considered profiles to be hot before but the plane of his jaw, the angle of his cheek. If she could just touch it. Good God, she was turning into some sort of drooly pervert. Next she’d be asking to sniff his underwear of something.

  A tumbler filled with iced liquid, a straw and lemon slice appeared in front of her as she considered this idea.

  “For the lady,” Damon said.

  “Thanks.” Lily took a sip. Woah, that was strong. A couple more of these and he would be carrying her.

  “Penny for them?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s on your mind? You were off in a daze just then.”

  Flames of embarrassment lit Lily’s cheeks. She couldn’t tell him she was daydreaming about kissing him, could she? Nooooo. Definitely not. “You know. Just stuff. Boring stuff.”

  “Didn’t look boring. You were grinning like you’d just been told you’d won lotto.”

  “I wish.”

  It’d be easier to explain than ‘I want to get into your pants’.

  Damon took a chug of his beer. He smacked his deliciously pink lips together and Lily suddenly realised that she’d never noticed a man’s lips before either. Not Travis’s. Nobody’s. Like a mute, she stared across the space at him, her eyes glued to his mouth. Her heart thumped in her chest, her knees quivered under the table. She felt like she had on the one and only occasion she’d been conned into taking Ecstasy. Instantly loved-up. It was weird. Especially seeing that she was as sober as a judge.

  “You okay, Lily?” Damon was looking at her, a curious expression on his face.

  “Fine. Yeah. Great. Thanks,” she smiled.

  “So, tell me about these foibles of yours.”

  Lily spluttered into her drink, only barely containing herself long enough to stop it from ending up all over him, “Did you just say ‘foibles’?”

  The last time she’d heard that had been when her Grandad Alf had been alive and it’d been a word from the dark ages then. Where had this guy come from?

  “I did. It was either that or ‘phobias’ and as far as I know you only have one of those. Foibles could describe your fear as well as the ‘lucky shoe’ thing.”

  “Spiders are my only phobia. I found myself the recipient of a spider-covered doona when I awoke one morning at the tender age of ten. According to my dad, who tried to dispose of them without scaring the bejesus out of me, they’d come in to avoid the heat.”

  “And they were on your bed? While you were in it?”

  “All twenty three of them. I screamed blue murder.”

  “No wonder they scare the crap out of you. I didn’t picture you as being one of those girlie types who did the spider thing for attention.”

  There was that warm feeling again. Lily took a glug of her vodka. She was going to have to be careful or she might find herself falling for this guy.

  “What about you Damon? Any secret fears?” She raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Not as such. I’m not overly keen on broad beans, though. They taste like dog turds.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I don’t like clowns much, either. Steven King did a real job on me. Couldn’t sleep with the light off for a week, much to my former girlfriend’s dismay.”

  “If it’s any consolation I thought that movie was scary, too.”

  “I haven’t even seen the movie,” Damon confessed. “I was so freaked after I read the book, I refused. My mates reckoned I’d gone soft.”

  Lily watched his face. He was so genuine and quite vulnerable now that he was talking about his fears. It was nice. Unusual for a man, but nice. And somehow refreshing. Plus he read books. Most of the guys she knew, even the professional ones, wouldn’t be seen dead with a ‘book’ in their hands. It’d be as traumatic as Leonardo Di Caprio driving a non-electric car.

  “So we won’t be going to Ashton’s Circus anytime soon?”

  “No way.”

  “Horror movie marathon?”

  “I think that’s been and gone, but no. Not unless I have you there to hold my hand.”

  That was sweet. Though she prayed he hadn’t thought she was angling for a repeat date. ‘Cause she wasn’t.

  “I’d be useless if the movie had spiders in it.”

  “Yeah. Guess we’ll have to be drinking buddies, then. Refill?”

  Lily looked at her glass. That had disappeared awfully quickly. It was as if talking to Damon had made the hours disappear or something. They’d gone from being awkward to comfortable in a matter of minutes. Like the oldest of friends.

  Lily was amazed. She’d never shared banter like this with Travis. He’d always been so serious about everything. Humour was something you went to see at a pre-arranged comedy night, not something you engaged in. And come to think of it, it had taken ages after they started going out before she’d felt this comfortable. If she were any more comfortable she’d be slipping into her yoga pants and piling her hair on top of her head like she did in the privacy of her own home.

  She hopped down from her stool, keen to let the comparisons end there.

  “My shout,” she said, “Same again?”

  Damon held out his empty schooner. “Twist my arm.”

  Four drinks and three Blow Jobs later ~ as in the shot variety not the pornographic sex act ~ Lily and Damon were still at their table. The late afternoon had morphed into Thursday evening and the work crowd had disappeared, being replaced by the take-me-home-and-do-me and skinny jeans crowd. Boys were eyeing off girls over the necks of their beers and girls were laughing and flicking their hair a little too obviously.

  With the crowd thickening, Damon had moved from opposite Lily to sitting on a ninety-degree angle. At least, that’s what Lily thought the angle was. Her head was beginning to feel the effects of those shooters. Alcohol on an empty stomach could do that. So could the pressure of Damon’s knee touching hers. Every now and then she’d feel it and just as she’d be about to smile he’d look at her awkwardly and move it away. He felt it to. She knew he did.

  “I think I’m a bit pissed,” Damon remarked.

  So the graze of his hand over her forearm when they’d talked about their childhoods had been an accident? She’d misread the flirty comments? Oh God, she wanted him to like her. She really wanted him to like her. Even more than she wanted Jordy to accidently eat gluten after he’d informed her he was in
tolerant. It wasn’t that she wanted Jordy to be sick, just a little uncomfortable so he’d stay off work for a day or so.

  “I’m legless,” she replied, with a titter to prove it. “I only ate half my lunch.”

  “Is that a hint?”

  “What for?”

  She was so drunk she had no idea what they’d even been talking about.

  “Dinner.”

  “Oh no, shit no. Of course, not. If I wanted to have dinner with you I’d just say so.”

  “That’s nice to know.”

  Now she’d offended him. He thought she didn’t like him.

  “Please, I… I didn’t mean it like ‘I wouldn’t want to have dinner with you’ ... in the future. I’d love to. But I was merely saying I wasn’t fishing. You know, for this to continue into dinner. I was stating a fact.”

  “The fact being you had no lunch, which in turn made you legless and that’s why you’re raving like a woman who forgot to take her medication?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not that you wouldn’t grab a takeaway with me?”

  “Right.”

  “Glad we got that sorted.” He drained his drink.

  “I’m a straight down the line type of girl, Damon. I want what I want. I say what I mean. It’s like… it’s like going to that stupid dance tomorrow night. I don’t want to go, I told Rebecca that and she wouldn’t listen. Not that I can’t understand why she did it ~ she thought she was being supportive, back on the horse and all that, but I think she misplaced her memory of how it feels. And it wasn’t because I don’t have a boyfriend. I simply can’t stand the thought of all those sicky-make-me-throw-up couples, that’s all!”

  Damon was squinting at her in confusion. “What the hell are you GOING on about?”

  “The Valentine’s Ball. Why? What were you talking about?”

  “Stopping by the chip shop on the way home to get a bit of grease to soak up this alcohol. I wasn’t asking you to marry me. I’m fanging for some food, that’s all.”

  Lily bit her lip.

  Oooppps. Now she’d done it.

  “Oh.”

  “So, do you want to?”