TWENTY-ONE
DARCY
“I’m spending the afternoon with the girls,” Nana informs me the following Wednesday while she and I move around the kitchen clearing up. “You’re welcome to join us if you like. Martha is bringing the ingredients for slippery nipples. And Carla is bringing supplies for our craft project.”
“Cocktails and crafts?” I can’t not smile over this.
“Mostly cocktails, but we give the craft thing a good go. We’re continuing our crochet project this week.”
“Cocktails and crochet? Sounds interesting. I have to take Abigail to get her school uniform sorted, but if I’m back in time, I’ll be happy to join in.” Unsurprisingly, I’m not expecting this outing with Abigail to go well. She reacted as expected to the news about going to school in Bayside, with a total screaming meltdown. In fact, she broadcast her hatred of me and this place all over social media, and the entire township of Bayside probably heard about it too. She didn’t agree quietly.
“Oh, yes. You’ll need a drink or two after that. And a good giggle. Just wait until you see the little pouches we’re making. We have plans to set up a stall at the Bayside Hospital fete that’s happening at the end of March. So we’re gathering stock for our product line now.” She lifts her brow and gets all coy.
“What exactly are you making?” My eyes narrow on their own.
“We’ll see how long it takes you to figure it out.” She smirks then looks to the hallway as Archer emerges, ready for another day at holiday club. It’s been great for him because he’s already met a couple of kids who will be going to his new school. He’s been so easy-going during this big shift in lifestyle and location.
“How do you make your nipples slippery, Nana?” he asks, his brow knitted as he ponders such a thing. “Do you use butter?”
“A slippery nipple is a drink for grown-ups,” I explain.
“Oh, like wine.”
“Yeah, like wine.”
“Did you know that wine with a picture of an animal on the label is called critter wine?” he asks, and I’m suddenly imagining him in a tweed suit, sitting by a fire with a cat in his lap. The mental image makes me smile.
“Where’d you learn that?”
“I dunno.” He licks his lips, spins around and finishes it with a ninja kick. “Are we going soon?” he asks Nana.
“As soon as you have your shoes on,” she says.
Archer runs into the hall, then a loud bang and raised voices startle us from outside.
“Get back here, Niall,” Leo booms.
Nana and I look at each other with raised eyebrows.
“That doesn’t sound good,” I say. Poor Leo. He’s trying so hard to have a relationship with his son, and his son wants none of it. I often see him at the beach, hanging out with all the other teenagers who don’t like being around their parents over the holidays. Abigail included. At least she’s making friends, I tell myself when I watch her from the deck. Seems she’s willing to smile and laugh with anyone. As long as they aren’t me.
Looking out the glass door, we spot Leo’s son walking down the footpath, his middle finger held high in the air. Leo follows him out, but seems to think better of giving chase, his tense shoulders slumping before turns back to the building. He catches my gaze through the glass, and I shrug before giving him a sympathetic smile. He does the same in return before he shakes his head and seems to do a full body sigh. I feel so bad for him. I want to hug him. But that’s not what friends do.
Maybe it should be…
“That boy’s mother has a lot to answer for,” Nana mutters, shaking her head.
“So I hear.” Since my accidental sleepover at Leo’s place last week, we’ve had a few conversations through the privacy screen between the decks. It’s been like a confessional where we talk out our frustrations over belligerent teenagers. I’ve discovered that his ex is a real piece of work. Kind of makes me glad Kevin is out of the picture. Life is hard enough without a tug of war over the children. “I don’t understand what ruining your child’s relationship with their father is supposed to accomplish.”
“It’s about control, I think. She wants Leo suffering. The lies she’s told.” She shakes her head and titches. “If the courts were any good, they would have seen right through her.”
“Are you talking about all those allegations she made about him in that TV Soap magazine? I didn’t think any of that went to court.” Tash had accused Leo of financial and psychological abuse in an interview not long after their divorce. There wasn’t a shred of evidence and Leo was open and cooperative when those accusations sparked a brief follow-up by police. The matter was dropped as soon it was raised, and Leo refused to be interviewed over the matter or say a bad word about his ex-wife, going on record to say he has always provided a more than comfortable life for her and was ‘deeply hurt their relationship has come to this’. Two months later, an article came out accusing Leo of cheating and fathering a love-child with ‘an unnamed fan’. More unsubstantiated lies.
“He told you about those?”
I nod. “And I saw them online. I didn’t read them until recently, but the picture she painted doesn’t sound like the Leo we know.” The thing that struck me most about them was the timing. It was as if they were designed to keep her name in the spotlight until her celebrity was at a level she could leverage. When she landed a role in Neighbours, her complaints about Leo stopped. Funny that.
“Not at all. That Tash is the kind of woman who gives the rest of us a bad name.”
“I hope I never meet her.”
“Oh, you will. Just keep an eye out for the flying monkeys, they’ll herald her arrival.”
“She’s that bad?”
Nana pats me on the arm. “My dear, she’s worse.” I really don’t want to meet her. I’m not even dating Leo and I’m scared. God, what would she do to me if I was? A cold chill runs down my spine at the thought.
I may have to start hiding behind telegraph poles again.
TWENTY-TWO
DARCY
“I have about a thousand different balls of wool and all those metal thingies in different sizes,” Carla says, pulling items out of a large knitting basket. She’s all beige again, and I wonder if she owns any other coloured clothes.
Nana’s always had eclectic taste in friends. During my lifetime, I’ve seen many faces come and go. Only Betsy seems to stay. I once asked Nana why the members of her group changed, and she said it was because they got too boring for her.
“I was worried that maybe they died,” I said to that.
“Oh yes, some did. Dead is probably as boring as a person can get, you know.”
“What about Betsy? She’s the only one I see time and time again.”
“Well, for one, she wouldn’t go away even if I wanted her to, and second, she’s always got a good story to tell. So, she stays.”
These cocktails and craft afternoons, I’m told, happen once a fortnight. From what Nana tells me, the women all live in the building, and they take turns hosting. Today, it’s Nana’s turn, which means she provides the nibbles, but the other ladies bring the drinks and craft supplies.
It’s been a gaggle of giggles from the moment the first guest arrived. These women are all aged between seventy and ninety, and they’re so full of energy that they’re making me feel old. I’m exhausted just watching them. Granted, I was exhausted the moment I walked in the door. We had to get Abigail’s uniform on back order and she went into meltdown mode, saying it was a sign from the gods that moving here was a terrible idea. She even suggested going to live with my mother so she could continue going to her regular school. I’m not sure if she realises that option would actually be a punishment and not a reward.
“Catch it,” Helen yells, as a ball of wool goes skimming across the table and onto the floor. I scoop it up before it rolls past my foot.
“Good work.” Carla beams as I place it with the others. “Now, I think we need some music in here.”
/> The apartment seems to explode with activity, and no one really has any real idea what they’re doing. Martha and Betsy are lining shot glasses along the edge of the kitchen counter, trying to get the layering right on their Slippery Nipples. Every time one of the drinks doesn’t work out, they down it and start again. By my count, they’ve each had four shots. And since there’s Sambuca in those things, they’re both teetering a little and splashing more liquid on the bench than they’re getting in the glasses. There’s a lot of ‘whoops’ and ‘oh well’ followed by laughter coming from them.
At the table, Helen and Nana are holding pages of a pattern at arm’s length as they squint at the dark writing and discuss which balls of wool they’ll need to use. Carla stands at the television with the remote in her hand, trying to find a decent music compilation on YouTube.
“Want some help?” I offer, holding my hand out for the remote. She hands it to me and scratches just behind her ear, pulling some of her beige hair free from its tortoise shell clip.
“It’s so much easier when you can cast it from your iPad,” she says.
I smile. “I love how good at technology you all are.”
“Well, you either learn it or you get left behind, don’t you? And there’s so much great stuff on that Internet. I really like having the video going with my music.”
“There sure is.” I find a compilation of show tunes pulled from movies like Singing in the Rain and How to Marry a Millionaire, and since Carla approves, it goes on the big screen.
“Oh, looks like we’re ready to go,” Nana cheers, grabbing bowls of nuts and vegetables and some hummus she whipped up before her friends arrived.
Martha and Betsy carry over trays laden with prepared Slippery Nipples, wobbling a little as they set them between us.
“Every time you mess up and have to unloop a row, you have to take a drink,” Betsy says, pointing a crooked finger at the pattern where some woman is making a rooster-shaped mitten-looking thing. It seems fairly easy, but after a few shots, it’ll be impossible.
All I can think is that I can’t pick Archer up from holiday club swaying on my feet. “What if we don’t drink?”
“Then you have to drink two.” Carla cackles, picking one up and drinking it before anyone has started. I can see myself having to carry her upstairs to her apartment before long.
“A couple won’t hurt,” Nana tells me with a wink as she hands me a shot glass. “Bottoms up.”
I hold the glass near my mouth, the strong scent of aniseed hitting me in the nose. Taking a deep breath, I knock the shot back and groan as it burns away at my throat. The ladies all cheer for me, and I’m starting to feel like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Soon we’ll be running around the table to switch seats.
We’re halfway through our first rooster (I’m proud to say I haven’t needed to drink yet, unlike Betsy and Martha) when there’s a knock at the front door.
“Come in,” Nana yells, not bothering to get up and check who it is.
“What if it’s a serial killer?” I ask, shocked she’d let anyone in unknown.
All the women burst out laughing as if I just said the funniest thing.
“Honey,” Martha slurs. “Anyone knocking on that door is already in the building. It’s probably Helen’s husband looking for food or something. Man can’t feed himself.”
“Whoa, craft club is in session,” Leo says, his voice booming over the din. He nods hello to everyone and gives me a secret smile, one that’s much more intimate than the one he gives everyone else. When the other ladies turn my way, I focus on the neck of my rooster as I crochet the final round and connect the whole thing up in preparation for making the beak and waddles. That’s when I see it. “Why am I crocheting a dick glove?”
The women practically fall off their seats, roaring with laughter.
“Still working on your willy warmers, I see.” Leo holds back his laugh but not his smile.
“Willy warmers?” I look around the room. “That’s what they’re called? Why are we even making these?”
Nana is trying to answer but she’s laughing too hard to form words, so Leo explains. “They’re going to sell them at the hospital fete as coin purses. They want to watch the reactions as people realise what they are, and I guess laugh at the people who unwittingly buy them.”
I look from Leo to Nana. “I finally understand where Archer gets his out-there sense of humour from.” I can’t believe I never put that one together before now. No wonder he and Nana get along famously.
The women somehow manage to laugh more, their cackles becoming wheezes as Nana turns her hand from side to side, finally taking a breath so she can speak. “He got his humour from you, dear girl. You just forgot how to have fun as you got older.”
“I can still have fun.” My face twists up as I go back to making my ‘cock’.
“How many shots have you had, lovely?” Betsy asks, pushing the thick frame of her glasses up her nose.
“She’s been very careful with her crotchet,” Helen points out, her eyes widening.
“Well, someone has to stay sober,” I argue. “I can’t pick Archer up drunk, and I don’t even know where Abigail got to. She just said she was meeting friends when we got back. I feel that I need to be ready for anything where she’s concerned.”
“Abigail’s at the beach with Niall,” Leo’s says, hands in his pockets as he rocks on the balls of his feet. I can’t help but notice the way his tan forearms bulge with muscle and sinew. He’s so…manly. And I know I sound like I just stepped out of the fifties putting it like that, but it’s just the best way to describe him.
Clearing my throat, I drag my eyes away from his forearms. Although I’m suddenly plagued with the memory of how those forearm muscles flexed when he was gripping my hips as I rode him.
Focus, Darcy. Focus.
I pick up the ball of wool I’m working with and start winding up the slack. “Abigail is with Niall? Alone?”
“No. A bunch of other kids are hanging out, swimming, windsurfing and making as much noise as possible. The usual thing.” That makes me feel a hell of a lot better. If Leo had been given more input in how Niall was raised, I’m sure he’d be an awesome kid. But as things stand, I’m not sure I want him and Abigail becoming friendly. From what Nana has said, and things Leo’s mentioned about his ex, the kid has been given the blunt end of the stick. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I want to protect my daughter more. There’s a bit of an age difference there, and I don’t think Abby needs his kind of belligerent influence.
“You saw them just now?”
“Yep. I saw them on my way back from the workshop then I came straight in here. So, five minutes ago.”
“You have a workshop?” I ask, frowning. When I meet Leo’s eyes, my stomach flips. I have to say it feels near impossible living this close to a man you’re attracted to while feeling unable to act upon it. It’s been messing with my dreams. In a good, but frustrating way. I had a dream just last night, where I was taking a shower and he happened to join me, and well, I’m sure you can guess what happened next…
“It’s where I work. Don’t really have space for building furniture in my apartment. Don’t think the neighbours would appreciate the power tools, either.”
“You can show me your power tools any day, young man,” Helen says with a wink.
Leo grins.
“Oh God, of course you have a workshop,” I say. “You’re a carpenter.”
“That, I am.” He’s got this amused twinkle in his eye and all I want to do is slap my hand against my face. I’m so busy thinking about getting the man naked that I can’t even hold a decent conversation. I must be ovulating or something. This is bad. I can barely look at him without heating up. And of course, Helen had to go and mention his power tools.
“I think most of us want to see your tools, Leo,” Nana says, making things even worse.
“I want to know where this workshop is,” Betsy adds. “If we
could visit to watch him work, we might make this cocktails and carpentry instead. You work shirtless, don’t you, Leo?”
He tilts his head adorably to the side and chuckles. “Fully clothed, Betsy. Gotta watch for splinters, you know.”
She pouts. “How disappointing.”
Helen mutters something about sucking the splinters out for him and I close my eyes then cover them with my hand. This isn’t happening.
“Oh God. Please stop,” I say to them all. Of course, they just laugh.
“On that note, I better get to work,” Leo says, taking the chance to get out before they start waving money at him.
I open my eyes to watch him walk away, because, well, he’s got a great arse and he’s wearing jeans. And I’m a bit of a perv.
“Oh, and Darce?” he says, stopping suddenly and turning around.
My eyes flick up to his face. “Hmm?” Did he catch me?
“If you need it, I don’t mind checking in on the kids at the beach and grabbing Archer for you. He’s at the community centre doing holiday club, right?”
“He is. But you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no trouble. I have the frame for the bed to bring in, but I should have it installed before he’s ready.”
“That is such a kind offer, but I couldn’t…” I shake my head a little. I’m terrible at accepting help from people. I always feel like I owe them.
“For crying out loud, child,” Helen says. “Let the man do something nice for you so you can have a few drinks and some fun. What’s it hurt?”
I bite my lip and glance at Nana who’s lifting her brow and nudging her head to the side in the most obvious go on look I’ve ever seen. “OK,” I say on a resigned sigh. “As long as it really isn’t a problem.”
Leo laughs. “It really isn’t a problem.”
I pick up a shot glass and hold it to my lips. “In that case, thank you.” Tipping my head back, I down the shot. Leo watches me with amused eyes while the other ladies chant, “One of us. One of us.” I roll my eyes and laugh. Leo winks and my entire stomach does a backflip.
Love is a Beach: a romantic comedy Page 14
