The Dating Game

by Avril Tremayne

  ‘No!’ the concierge cried. ‘Please, wait.’

  But Sarah was already heading for the exit, and only half-turned to smile and wave an artfully careless hand. ‘I’ve been waiting long enough,’ she muttered under her breath, as she refocused on the exit … on the … on … oh …

  David! She stared. Stared harder through the glass. Was it really him or was that a mirage she’d conjured up?

  Sarah looked behind her where the elevators were, from whence David should have emerged (if he was going to emerge) and then back. But that was definitely him, preparing to swipe his pass key. He was as effortlessly cool as always, in finely checked brown pants, a crisply ironed white shirt and brown suede shoes.

  But he was looking … intense. Scarily intense.

  He barely waited for the doors to slide open before bursting in and steaming towards her. So … had he not been in the apartment after all? Or was there a secret exit/entrance somewhere? Not that she could figure out why he’d use a secret exit/entrance. Or why the concierge would lie to her about where he was.

  And then he stopped in front of her, and her thoughts scattered.

  ***

  She smelled of Jasmin Noir—the perfume David knew she classified as her sexiest. Good sign. His heart was pounding, his blood rushing, his hands reaching because he couldn’t stop them, didn’t want to stop, had to touch, had to. A spilt second, that was all it took for her to be in his arms. Another, and his mouth was on hers.

  God, how he’d missed this, missed her. He never wanted to stop. He wanted more, needed more. Hands cupping her bottom, lifting her, grinding against her. She whimpered, he groaned.

  A different sound … Ignore. It came again. No! He didn’t want to hear. A cough. Another. Once more—loud. And at last it filtered through to David’s fuddled brain. John, the concierge.

  David tore his mouth away. Jesus, had he really been about to skewer Sarah in the lobby in front of John? Yes, yes he had.

  Mauling her in the fucking lobby. This was not how he’d planned it. And if John dared to cough again, or so much as squeak, he was going to vault over the top of the concierge desk and smash his face in.

  Sarah’s tremulous smile as she gazed up at him was more than his temper could take at that point. Which was the justification he gave himself for snarling at her: ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  Her eyes went wide with shock—and then she lifted her fist and punched him in the shoulder. ‘That’s the first thing you can think of to say to me?’ she demanded, in a voice that shook.

  David’s response was to grab her punching arm and start dragging her out of the building. He paused to fling a ‘Thanks for your help,’ over his shoulder at John—who had the good sense to pretend to be doing something other than goggling at them.

  He’d left the car parked illegally on the street, motor running, and that was his justification for dragging Sarah around to the passenger side like she was a sack of potatoes (hey, it was faster than arguing). He yanked open the door. ‘In,’ he ordered.

  One look at his face, and Sarah got in.

  ***

  Sarah was shaking. Anger, lust, fear, hope. This wasn’t how she’d envisaged their first meeting. It was more primal than romantic. More wild than sentimental. More caveman than sophisticate. Not that she had a problem with being kissed until she throbbed—God, no. But why was David driving away from the building instead of racing her up to his apartment and into bed? And what he’d said! What the fuck are you doing here? What the … the fuck did he think she was doing? Inspecting retail property? Borrowing a cup of sugar? Having an affair with John or whatever the hell his name was?

  Well, she’d be damned if she was going to be the first to break the tense silence.

  Damned!

  She smoothed the trench coat over her lap, noting that her hands were atremble. She looked out the passenger window, then through the windscreen, then at David, back to the window. Ran her hands over her lap again. Contemplated stripping to her underwear then and there, which would force David to say something. Decided the car was too small.

  And gave up, because she could not take it and she just had to speak. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Don’t talk, Sarah.’

  ‘I think you know I’m going to have to talk.’

  Silence. He just drove, looking straight ahead.

  ‘So then,’ she said slowly, ‘if the whole where-are-we-going thing is too hard to answer, how about I ask something easier? Like, why didn’t you answer any of my thousands of phone calls and text messages?’

  ‘It wasn’t thousands.’

  ‘Oh, so you got them, did you? Nice to know!’

  ‘Yes, I got them, all right? Every single one. I didn’t block you.’

  ‘I blocked you because … because … Because, that’s why.’

  ‘That makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘As much sense as not answering my calls, or responding to my texts.’

  ‘Jesus, Sarah, can we just … just wait.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting. And now I’m done waiting.’

  ‘If you’d just waited fifteen more minutes!’ One hand let go of the steering wheel, then slapped down hard on it. ‘Fifteen lousy fucking minutes.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’ll see when we get where we’re going.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to see, with you looking like a thundercloud and banging steering wheels.’

  ‘Shut up, Sarah,’ he said, and put his foot down, staring through the windscreen as though trying to conjure the Northern Lights.

  ‘Anyway, I know where we’re going,’ Sarah said five minutes later, as they drove onto Sydney Harbour Bridge and her heart sank. She looked up at the arches overhead. She’d always thought of the Bridge as a barrier—protecting her life, sorting those she wanted in it, from those she wanted to keep at a distance. But for the first time ever, she hated it. It was keeping her in her own world, and she didn’t want to be there any more. She wanted to be with David in the storm.

  By the time David pulled into her street, she was miserable. Defeated. ‘If you didn’t want to see me,’ she said dully, ‘all you had to say was “Go home where you belong, Sarah” and I could have caught a taxi.’

  A laugh burst out of him. ‘As if you would have gone home! You would have stuck like the burr up my arse that you are. And in any case, I did want to see you. And where you belong is with … Well, you’ll see.’

  He pulled in behind a car that was parked in front of her mother’s house.

  ‘You did want to see me?’ she asked.

  ‘I did. I do.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hope shimmering, she looked at him … and found him unbuckling his seatbelt. Okay, that wasn’t right. ‘Why aren’t you driving all the way around to the flat?’

  David’s response was to get out and come around to open her door.

  ‘Did you see that car?’ he asked, and jerked his head at the car he’d parked behind.

  ‘It’s hard to miss a nice bright chartreuse.’

  ‘Your favourite colour.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So … you like it? The car?’

  ‘The chartreuse one? Yes, I guess,’ she said hesitantly. And then, because he seemed to expect her to say more, added, ‘It’s a BMW, like yours.’

  ‘You said …’ He cleared his throat. ‘You said you liked my BMW, and that’s the car you’d choose for yourself, only in a colour that wasn’t white.’

  ‘And I do, but … Hang on, are you saying this is yours? But …’ Looking from one car to the other—they were identical, except for the colour. ‘Why do you need two cars?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So you’re selling one? Well, I guess you must be. So you’re selling the white one? Well, of course you are—that’s the older one, right? Sti
ll, I wouldn’t have picked you for a chartreuse car.’

  ‘It’s yours, Sarah. I bought it for you.’

  ‘But I don’t drive.’

  ‘It’s the colour you were wearing that first— Huh? You don’t—?’

  ‘Drive,’ she said faintly, stricken, as what he’d done for her, what he’d said, coalesced a moment too late.

  He’d gone very still. ‘You don’t know how to drive or you don’t want to drive?’

  ‘I—I— Um …’

  ‘Both,’ he said. ‘I see. Oh, well. Oh. Well.’ He smiled, but the dimples didn’t actually indent. ‘Forget the car, and … and come with me into the house.’

  ‘The house? Why? It’s been sold. I thought you knew that. There’s nothing in there any more. All the furniture’s in storage, except for the stuff in my flat, and that’s going this week.’

  But David kept walking towards the verandah, so she followed.

  As she watched, bemused, he peered left and right along the verandah. ‘There was supposed to be … Ah, fuck!’ He went to the front door, plucked something out of the join between the door and the doorjamb, and then sighed heavily.

  ‘What is it?’ Sarah asked, walking over to him.

  ‘Nothing. Something that was supposed to be delivered here wasn’t. Or at least it was but nobody was here to accept it.’

  ‘Was it something important?’

  David didn’t answer. He simply dug his hand into his pants pocket, withdrawing a key. A key … to the house?

  ‘David, what’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Why do you have a key to the house? Why were you having something delivered here? Adam said the new owner was hoping to meet me here and … Oh! Oh!’ Because it all came suddenly together. ‘Oh my God. Oh. My. God. Tell me you didn’t buy this house.’

  He put the key in the lock. ‘I bought this house.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Okay, so she didn’t want the car, despite the custom paint job.

  And okay, the sunflowers—a veritable fucking field of them—hadn’t been delivered because the chump who was supposed to take delivery was chasing Sarah Quinn over the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

  But she had to be happy about the house.

  A little bit of her world, returned to her, to compensate her for what he couldn’t give her.

  He stepped inside, expecting her to follow him. When she didn’t he turned back to find her on the threshold looking shell-shocked. He frowned. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  ‘What is this, David? The car? The house? What? Why? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m sure you know I saw Adam at the Langman launch. He said something … asked me … He asked me why I was so focused on what I couldn’t give you, when I could focus on what I could. And these things, I can give you.’

  ‘A house is a “thing”?’

  ‘Adam said …’ he began, then hesitated as she sucked in a breath as though breathing actually hurt her. ‘He said you were homeless.’

  ‘Oh God.’ She covered her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God. He knew you were buying this house?’

  ‘Of course he did.’

  ‘And he let you?’

  ‘I wanted to do it, Sarah. For you.’

  ‘That night, when he said I was homeless, it wasn’t supposed to be taken literally.’

  ‘So you’re … not homeless?’

  ‘Only temporarily.’

  ‘Hang on. You knew what Adam was going to say to me that night?’

  Her hands dropped, and she looked at him. ‘Oh, David, of course I did.’

  ‘But he said … He said you’d told him not to talk to me, so how could you—’

  ‘I did tell him that—but Erica overruled me.’

  It took him a moment to process that. ‘Excuse me if I don’t appreciate the fine print of that.’ He shook his head, as though to clear it. ‘So what you’re telling me is I’ve been team-played by you, Adam, Erica and Lane.’

  ‘I had to do something! I … We … We thought … Oh, God.’

  ‘And on the basis of what you all thought amongst yourselves, I’ve bought you a house you apparently don’t want.’

  ‘The whole purpose of me being homeless wasn’t for you to buy me a house. I have money, David. Lots of it. I can buy my own house, any time I want. I … have money.’

  ‘You have …? Are you telling me you’re rich?’

  ‘Sort of. An inheritance, shared with Adam. We don’t talk about it, but … but yes.’

  ‘So you don’t need anything I can give you. Not the car. Not the house.’

  ‘Not “things”. I don’t need things. The purpose of me being homeless was for me to live with you, David! As in with you. Not alone on the other side of Sydney from you in a house on my own.’

  ‘Yes, but it was always my intention to—’

  ‘I wanted to live with you because I love you. And I really thought you loved me. Even when you didn’t call me back, when you ignored my texts, I hoped you loved me. I thought you loved me. It almost killed me to block you, you know? But I kept thinking, if you tried to reach me and couldn’t, maybe you’d come and see me. Because that’s what people do when they can’t get through to the person they love. They go a little crazy and they can’t exist until they see for themselves that the person they love is okay.’

  ‘Sarah, just listen. It took me a little longer than I planned, but I—’

  ‘That’s what I did today, when I finally got sick of waiting. Because I had to see you. Had to. But instead of coming to see me, you bought me a car and a house. Without even asking me if I wanted them!’ She dug into her bag for her phone, thrust it at him. ‘Check the call log, the sent text messages. Add them up. Why was it so hard to respond when you had to know I was going out of my mind trying to find a way to get to you?’

  David tore the phone out of her hand, and without looking at it, threw it over his shoulder where it smashed against the wall and clattered to the floor.

  As Sarah stared open-mouthed at the shattered phone, he dug into the inside pocket of his jacket for the new Samsung Galaxy he’d bought for her. ‘Here,’ he said, holding it out. ‘I bought you a new one.’

  But she refused to take it. ‘I don’t want another thing.’

  ‘Take it, damn you. Take it, even though you can buy yourself a diamond-encrusted one! Take it, because everything I wanted to say to you and show you is recorded there. Texts, phone calls, the paintings, all there. Telling you how much I love you, how much I missed you, that I was sorry, that I wanted you with me, that I’d do anything to have you.’

  ‘Then what stopped you from telling me?’ she cried, taking the phone but shoving it into her bag without even glancing at it. ‘Not a phone I didn’t even have, but me?’

  ‘You know what stopped me. You know. I was—’

  ‘Saving me. White Knight style. When I didn’t want to be saved. I just wanted you!’

  ‘No! Not that. At least … not just that.’ Deep, shaky breath. ‘I was scared, Sarah.’

  ‘So was I! Scared I’d have to live the rest of my life without you. And you let me be scared while you went off on a shopping spree. And now … what? A car, a house, a new phone. What if I say that’s not enough? What next?’

  Oh God, what was left? She didn’t need his money. She didn’t need anything he could buy her. There was only one thing left. Himself. What would make her want him? What terms could he offer to make himself acceptable? His barren self. Barren. Rebel’s word. Rebel’s deal. It was all he had left. And for Sarah, he would make himself do it.

  ‘I have a deal in mind that might work,’ he said, and hated the flat, resigned desperation of his voice.

  ‘A deal? What does it involve? A Lear Jet? A yacht? A private island? A pair of solid gold knickers?’

  ‘It’s simpler than that.’ Breath. ‘It’s the same deal Rebel put to me nine years ago.’

  ‘I don’t … un
derstand. At least …’ She went white. ‘No. No!’

  ‘Why not, Sarah? You, with me, in this house where you were happy once. If all goes well …?’ Shrug. ‘Then all goes well.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  He licked his lips. God, this was hard. ‘If it doesn’t, then I’ll be whatever you want me to be for as long as you like, and you can find someone else to give you the rest.’

  ‘Stud and sperm donor,’ she said, her voice cracking.

  His throat felt like it was having a paroxysm, because he had an urgent need to swallow, swallow, swallow—and yet he couldn’t seem to actually do it. All he could do was nod. And wait for her answer.

  ‘And why would you agree to this when you wouldn’t agree to it the first time around?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I love you.’

  ‘You loved her, too.’

  ‘Not like … this. Not like this.’

  ‘You’ll get over it, over me. That’s what you told me.’

  ‘I won’t get over you, Sarah.’ David realized he was rubbing his hand over his aching heart, and couldn’t seem to stop it, even though he knew he must look like a lovesick desperado. Well hell, he was a lovesick desperado—so what? ‘Nine years I was waiting. Lost and lonely, and I didn’t even know it. And then I saw you and there was something about you that I knew I needed. Something that brought me to life and made me want to paint, made me need to paint.’

  ‘Oh David, there has to be more than the painting.’

  ‘There is more, you are more, you always were, Sarah. Always. My heart knew it. My heart chose you before I knew what was happening, telling me that what I needed you for wasn’t the painting, but for me. And now … Now, without you, my heart is dying. It hurts so much I can barely breathe. I don’t think I want to breathe, without you.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ she said, dashing furiously at her eyes. ‘Don’t tear my soul out if you’re going to offer me a get out of jail free card in the next breath. I don’t want to occupy space in the middle ground while I wait for something else to come along. I thought you didn’t want that, either.’