“I don’t have central locking,” I said as she opened the door. “It needs to be done the old-fashioned way.”
She climbed in beside me. “Well, this is rustic.”
“You mean it’s a steaming pile of shit.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
I chuckled. “But that’s what you mean.”
“It’s definitely not as nice as some of the other cars I’ve been driven in.”
“Been driven in . . . have you ever driven a car yourself?”
“No. I’d like to though.”
For a moment, I entertained the idea of teaching her to drive in my ute, but then I thought better of it. If she totalled the thing, I wouldn’t be able to afford to have it repaired. “Maybe near the end of our time together.”
“Please?” She batted her eyelashes, and I had to press my teeth together to stop myself from blurting out a yes.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.” She leaned across the seats and gave me a peck on the cheek.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and refused to acknowledge the action. With a deep breath to will away my growing erection, I put the car into reverse and pulled out of the space.
It took a little over twenty-five minutes to fight through the traffic to the shopping centre at Toombul. After circling a few times, I found a parking spot and pulled in.
“When we go in there, we’re only going to one shop. I expect you to find your clothes, shoes, and anything else you need there.”
“For less than three hundred dollars?”
“No.”
She gave what sounded like a relieved sigh.
“For less than one hundred,” I corrected. “After all, you still need to buy groceries and have some spare funds for the next couple of weeks.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s really not. I’ll show you.” I led her through the shopping centre until we stood in front of Kmart. “Here is your one-stop shop. After this, we’ll head to Coles for some food, and then we’ll go back home.”
“Okay. I can do this. Just so we’re clear, who helps you out in this place?”
“You help yourself.”
She blinked at me before smiling her thousand-kilowatt smile again. “Oh, I see!” she exclaimed suddenly. “It’s self-service. How . . . quaint.”
If I had been watching the scene from the outside, I probably would have been doubled over from laughing so hard. As it was, I bit my tongue to stop from saying something I’d regret later. It was hard to believe someone could reach adulthood with so little common sense. At first, I thought she was hamming it up a little for sympathy, but then I realised that she really was that clueless. It was two steps forward and one leap back when it came to introducing her to my life.
I grabbed a trolley from the rack in front of the store before following Soleil through the anti-theft security along the front of the store. Although I knew nothing about women’s fashion, I knew the layout well enough to guide Soleil in the right direction.
While she assessed all of the options, I drew my phone out of my pocket and opened up the calculator app.
“What are you doing?” Soleil asked.
“Calculating your purchases.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s really easy to fly past your budget if you’re not careful.”
She stared at me, her displeasure clear in the set of her eyes.
“Okay, so what do you need?” I asked, ignoring her expression.
“I guess if I start from the inside out, I’ll need some bras and panties.” Her hand closed around mine and then she led me to the lingerie department.
My dick sprung to attention as we passed a few lacy numbers and my mind offered images of her in them.
She moved back and forth along the shelves a few times, picking up bras and then replacing some of them while leaving others draped over her arm. “I think I’ll take these five.”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean ‘nope’?”
“I mean you can’t afford to buy five bras. That’s almost three-quarters of your budget gone just on one type of underwear. You still need to get a few more outfits and a more sensible pair of shoes. Get one of those two-packs of the T-shirt bras.”
“But they’re not as pretty as these ones.”
“Pretty doesn’t matter when you’re on a budget. It’s less than twenty for these two.”
“I’ve still got two weeks to go, I’ll need more than two bras.”
“You’ll have to wash them.”
“Well, of course, I was planning on washing them, but two will mean I have to do laundry every day.”
I gave her a look to suggest I had no sympathy for her. That was my life when I’d first moved out after all.
With a frown, she dumped all five of the pretty bras she’d had into the trolley. “I’m not skimping on my underwear. I’ll put it on the card.”
“We’re working to a budget.
“But I have this.” She grinned and held up her black credit card.
“Wasn’t the point of this whole thing to be normal?” I asked. “Normal people don’t have access to unlimited credit.”
“It’s not unlimited.” She pouted.
“It’s as good as,” I murmured. “Put it away because it’s no good here.”
She laughed. “Trust me this is as good as cash. It’s accepted everywhere.”
“Not if you want to be normal.”
“Just this once,” she pleaded with me. “I want to make sure everything is just right before we start for real. Plus, I can help you get set up properly so that you’ll be better for this experience too.”
“Of course you will.” I couldn’t hide the snark in my voice.
“What?”
I was frowning. “I’m just surprised that you’re giving up already.”
“I am not giving up. I need clothes, that’s all.”
“And what do you think I do when I need clothes?” I asked.
She frowned as if the concept was completely foreign. “I don’t know.”
“I wait until I can afford them. If I’m lucky, that’ll be the next pay day. If I’m not, I might go without for weeks. I once wore a pair of shoes with holes in the sole for three weeks because I couldn’t replace them.”
“It’s impossible to get enough outfits to get through two weeks with one hundred dollars. It’s not a fair challenge.”
I raised one of my brows at her before deciding it wasn’t worth the argument. “Whatever. Get what you want.”
As soon as I’d given my permission for her to charge the clothes, I immediately regretted it as I was swept up in what could only be described as a shopping cyclone. It was nothing less than a whirlwind of purchases that displayed exactly how financially uninhibited her life usually was. She didn’t even check on the price of anything, just picked the items she wanted and placed them in the trolley.
By the time we arrived at the check-out, she had an Everest-sized pile of clothing. As well as that, she’d insisted on buying thicker towels, new sheet sets, three different types of drinkware, a sixteen piece four seat dinner set, and a new blanket.
As much as I hated her breaking the rules on the first shopping trip, I didn’t mind the idea of getting a better setup at home out of the deal.
Six hundred dollars, and a metre long receipt later, we headed back to the ute to load up her purchases. I had initially planned to get groceries before returning to the car, but it was impossible with how full she’d made the trolley.
Chapter 7
ANYONE WATCHING AS I loaded all the shit under the tonneau cover would probably think that Soleil and I were moving in together. My gaze found the side of her face. With her more natural make-up, and dressed in my shirt, I could see it. She looked almost normal.
“Soleil . . .” I trailed off, unable to speak the words. Taking things further, even as a temporary thing, would only complicate matters.
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“Yeah?” She brushed the end of her ponytail off her shoulder.
“I was thinking we should come up with a different name for you while we’re in public,” I said instead of the suggestion I’d wanted to make. “If you want to be incognito I mean. After all, if anyone is getting a little suspicious and they hear me call you Soleil, it’s pretty much going to seal the deal, isn’t it?”
She moved closer to me, actually helping me load the bags into the tray. “I guess. Well, Soleil means sun. So maybe you can call me Summer?”
“Summer. I like it.”
Her gaze met mine and held it for a few seconds before dropping to the bags in front of us. “So, you were saying we need to get some food?”
I turned my body to face hers. “I just wanted to say . . .” I swallowed down the need to kiss her—to claim her lips and find out what they tasted like. “Well, thank you for picking me to be the one to do this with. It’s actually been a little eye-opening for me too.”
“How so?” She moved closer to me and laid her hand over mine.
“I didn’t know anyone with money could be so . . . nice.”
She swallowed with an audible gulp, and I wondered whether I could possibly be having the same effect on her. “How does having money affect how nice someone is?”
“I guess it doesn’t have to. Just in my experience, it does.”
“Yeah?” She was so close that it would’ve taken nothing to close the distance between us and kiss her. My cock rose to the challenge, reaching out to bridge the gap between us. “What is your experience?”
Her words were an ice water bucket over my head, instantly switching off my libido. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. We need to keep moving before the shops shut.”
I focused on re-fastening the tonneau cover so that her purchases were covered.
“Ty . . .” She trailed off and took a deep breath. “Never mind.”
We headed back into the shopping centre, this time with groceries on the brain.
“Now this time, I insist that we do this properly,” I said. “We need to buy enough food for a week, and this is all we have to do it with.” I held up two fifty dollar notes I’d taken from her purse when we were discussing the budget.
“Okay.”
“And this is the list of things we definitely need. Anything that isn’t on this list is a luxury, and we can only get it if we have any spare funds. Okay?”
She nodded and grinned at me.
We spent the rest of the shopping “adventure,” as she called it, with her dancing down the aisles and picking up random items to inspect. She was fascinated by the tinned spaghetti and two-minute noodles; apparently she’d never seen anything like them before. I didn’t feel the need to tell her that those items were staples in my diet, together with baked beans, cheap mince, and sausages. Basically, anything that would keep me alive for the minimum cost went into my trolley.
“Why does everyone look so sad?” Soleil asked as we loaded the groceries from the trolley onto the conveyor belt at the check-out.
“Because no one really wants to be here.”
She furrowed her brow. “But it’s so much fun.”
As I grabbed the few meagre bags and loaded them back into the trolley before handing over the two fifties to the cashier, I couldn’t help but wonder if Soleil would still think it was “so much fun” when we were eating our third meal of two-minute noodles mixed with mince and frozen veggies. Or when there was no food left at the end of the week.
We loaded up the groceries and headed back to my apartment. When I pulled into the underground carpark, I regretted letting her go crazy with her card. It was one thing to be able to afford an apartment full of new goodies. It was another entirely to have to carry them up four flights of stairs.
“Let’s take the cold stuff first.”
For the next ten minutes, we trudged up and down the stairs multiple times to carry first the groceries and then the household items she’d purchased.
“I’d be inclined to wash all of that before you wear any of it,” I advised. “You don’t know what any of it has been treated with on its way to Australia.”
“Okay. I just have one question.”
I anticipated her question before she could ask it. “Follow me, and I’ll show you how to use the washing machine. She’s a temperamental beast at times.”
Leading her into the bathroom, I showed her which cupboard housed the tiny washing machine. “It’s only a little three-kilogram machine, so it might take a few loads to get through it all.” I ran her through the process of setting up a wash. “You’ll have to do it in cold water too. I’ve never set up the hot water because it costs too much money.”
For the better part of the afternoon, she set up multiple washes with surprisingly little complaint. At least until she’d filled both strings on my tiny indoor clothes line.
“Where am I supposed to put the rest of these? Don’t you have something I can use to dry them?”
“You can hang some over the chairs at the dining table.”
I grabbed some of her clothes and hung them everywhere I could find a place throughout the apartment. The whole place smelled of damp material with a faint trace of washing powder.
I’d barely finished hanging them all up when there was a knock on the door.
“That’ll be Bekah.”
“I’ve just got to get dressed,” Soleil called back.
After acknowledging Soleil, I crossed the room to let Bekah in.
“I’ve got the goodies!” Bekah held a carton of beer in front of her face with a frozen pizza balanced on top.
“Have I told you I love you?” I grabbed the carton from her and carried it to the bench near the fridge.
“Not in the last ten min—” She cut off as she followed me into the apartment. “What’s going on here? Did you hold up a Kmart or something?”
“We went shopping.”
Bekah stood beside me in the kitchenette. She whispered when she added, “And what purchased the entire store before deciding to sacrifice it all to the clothing gods?”
I chuckled as I glanced around at the space. “We’re washing them all before she wears them.”
“You’re both washing, or you’re doing it all for her?”
“She’s actually done most of it. I just helped find surfaces to hang everything from.”
“If you say so. I can see that the whole seeing how the other half lives plan is going real well.”
“Yeah. It’s easy to live any life when you’ve got a credit card to fall back on, isn’t it? What’s the plan for tonight now that we’ve got an extra?”
“A movie and then some games, maybe?”
“Sounds good. Toss me a beer.”
I threw her a can before putting two onto the bench for Soleil and me. Then I loaded the rest into the fridge.
“Wanna put the pizza on?” I asked Bekah.
After she’d agreed, I headed down the hall to the bathroom to find Soleil. When she wasn’t there, I knocked on my bedroom door. “You ready?”
She pulled open the door, and I had to catch my breath. With her hair down, loose and long over her shoulders, a simple tank top and a pair of gym shorts, she was twice as beautiful as she had been caked in make-up and designer wear. Her legs looked longer in the shorts that barely covered her hips. She was so unassuming. Her appearance suggested she could actually belong in my world.
“Wow.” I uttered the sound without thought, and then immediately wanted to reel it back in as she grinned up at me. To cover my stupid slip, I held out the can I had for her. “Beer?”
“I don’t usually—”
“Uh-uh, you’re living my life now, and my life we drink beer because it’s cheap but able to get you fucked up enough to have some fun.” I tucked my can in the crook of my elbow and opened hers for her. “Trust me.”
“I have no choice but to trust you. I’m in your house, after all. So far you haven’t let me down.”
I dropped my eyes as she complimented me.
She gave me a wicked smile before taking a swig of the beer. She swallowed it down with a grimace. “What is this godawful stuff?”
“It’s what us common folk drink. You get used to the taste after a while. It goes great with pizza. Of course, frozen pizza isn’t nearly the same as takeout, but it’s a tenth of the price and beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Are you trying to say there won’t be any caviar and champagne at tonight’s soiree?” It was clear in her playful tone that she was teasing.
“The best I can offer you is beer and chocolate peanuts.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Lead the way, my Lord.” She curled her hand around my elbow.
“My Lord? I could get used to that title.” I led her out of the bedroom as I spoke.
“My Lord my arse,” Bekah said. “The only things you should be calling him are Cliffy or maybe fuckface if he’s being an arsehole. He’ll get a big head otherwise.”
“Why Cliffy?” Soleil asked.
“Because he always leaves the ladies hanging.”
I flipped the bird at Bekah. “Bekah’s just jealous because she’s never been able to get in my pants.”
“You wish.” Bekah laughed before tossing a chocolate covered peanut at me. I leapt forward and caught it in my mouth.
“So if it’s not because you leave the girls hanging, why are you called Cliffy?”
“Inchcliff—Cliffy. It’s what everyone called me through high school, and it’s kinda stuck since.” I scrubbed the back of my neck. “But you can still call me Ty, if you like.” I didn’t want to admit that I actually liked the way she pronounced it, or that I preferred it when girls I’d dated called me that. Cliffy was for friends and teammates, Ty was much more intimate. Much nicer to hear falling from lips in the middle of a screw.
Bekah gave me a bitch brow that clearly indicated she’d noticed my attention. I raised one brow in return, silently telling her to go fuck herself if she was even thinking about saying anything.
“So tonight is about beer and movies.”
“Common pastimes for us commoners,” Bekah said.
“And what is the agenda for tomorrow?” Soleil asked.
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