Page 54 of Just One Look
Exposure
Elizabeth said, “I should go.”Shedidn’tsay, “This is where I bolt like a scared bunny.” She thought it, though.
Luka said, “Why? Don’t pay any attention to Sofia. She’s just taking the piss. I don’t have a love of my life. Go wash that scent off, and we’ll do the rest of it. The testing. The dress shopping. The steakhouse.”
Sofia said, “Ooh, steak.”
Luka said, “I’ll take you to dinner tomorrow, if you’re still here. Not tonight.” With a glower. Elizabeth had never seen him glower, but he was definitely doing it now.
“Nice,” Sofia said. “But typical. And even though you didn’t ask—I’m down for a couple of days, that’s all. Going to a meeting of the Association for Mum tomorrow, as she and Lana are more than full-on just now. I need to get back up there myself. I’m not going to ask for tickets to your match, no worries.”
“I never thought you would,” Luka said. “Avocado Growers’ Association,” he told Elizabeth. “Anything I can do?”
She laughed. “I’d never ask. You’re hardly reliable. Besides, it’s a woman thing.”
Luka’s face tightened. Only word for it. He looked, for once, the way he had on TV. Hard. He told Elizabeth, “Go wash that off, if you want to shop. Getting late, eh.” Curtly, she’d call that.
She did not need this. Any of it. She’d just go.
You can’t run away from it,she told herself. This is karma. You’ve had every opportunity to tell him, and you haven’t. That’s on you, and now, you need to deal with it.
You don’t believe in karma.
You need to deal with it anyway.
She said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Tell me later,” he said. “Once you’ve washed that off. You need to eat.”
People didn’t talk to her that way. On the other hand, shewashungry, and the scent of too many mingled perfumes wafting up from her bodywasoverpowering. She’d go wash it off, she’d go to dinner with him—which she was paying for, so she wasn’t accepting favors from him under false pretenses—and then she’d tell him. Shewould.This had been hanging over her long enough, and it was stupid. It was years ago, and it didn’t matter.
Also, she was tired of comparing herself to her stepsister. If Luka wanted somebody like that—well, all he had to do was go get it, in exactly the way she’d seen him doing it. Exactly the way his sister had described. This was nothing she didn’t already know. What she needed to do was, first, tell him the truth, and second, tell him goodbye. She did not need a fling. Shefeltlike she needed a fling, but she tended to feel like she needed a big piece of chocolate cake, too, and how well had that ever turned out?
She had a little more self-esteem these days than she had as a teenager, although if you started at about zero for anything outside of intellectual pursuits, “more” was relative. Having a fling—or call it what it would be, a hookup—with a guy like this was guaranteed to send it plummeting again. Especially since, whatever nice things he’d said, she was pretty sure she wasn’tgood at sex. She had self-esteem with her clothes on and, preferably, with a scalpel in her hand. When she was naked? Not so much. She got self-conscious, too aware of how her body looked, how she was moving, whether she was making the right noises, being encouraging enough, being sexy enough.
Actual sex? It was like Jordan had said: more fuel for later fantasies than actual fulfillment. Sure, she could have an orgasm. It felt good, too. It was just that the rest of it too often made her cringe afterwards to recall. Fantasy was better, where your stomach was flat, your moves were graceful, and your partner was overwhelmed by your carnality. Where you could stay in your body and get out of your head.
Lots of shoppers in here, after seven-thirty on Thursday night. Younger women, mostly, carrying bags, chatting and laughing. In pairs and groups, because their shopping was a social activity, their single-young-female bonding after work, which wasn’t, oddly, discussions of particularly fascinating tumor resections over vending-machine snacks that would substitute for dinner. She caught the shoppers out of the corner of her eye, because she wasn’t looking. If she didn’t look, she didn’t have to know.
She wasn’t running away. She just wasn’t looking.
Almost to the ladies’ room. Past the colorful scarves, the cases of jewelry, the vast variety of purses, all of that fashion, as always, overwhelming her, until she could see the sign. Right there at the edge of the shoe department.Ladies.
And there Piper was.
She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to be that person anymore, the one she’d been with Piper, trying to act normal while also trying not to show how insecure she felt inside, and only succeeding in being cold.
There was that unmistakable blonde head, though, its ringlets swinging as she turned in front of the mirrors to check out the reflection on a pair of low boots. An impossibly cute, flower-like face, serious with concentration. A petite body in skinny jeans—on skinnythighs—plus a swingy sweater and big blue eyes that lit up as she turned a little more and caught sight of Elizabeth.
It was like time had stopped. This woman couldn’t be thirty-three. Twenty-six, maybe. Not thirty-three.
“Birdie?” The word was a delighted cry as the woman came forward in a graceful rush. “It’s you, isn’t it? Wait.” She stopped a few yards away. “Tell me it’s you. Oh, God. Tell me I haven’t just made the biggest fool of myself.” She was laughing, though. “Oh, well. Whether it’s really you or not—It’s me! Piper!”
* * *
Five minutes,six, and Elizabeth hadn’t reappeared. Finally, Luka looked around to see if he could spot her. Of course, Sofia picked straight up on it and said, “Reckon she’s bolted? Shedidseem a bit skittish. You could leave a woman alone, you know. It’s a thought. Your neurosurgeon? Honestly? Do neurosurgeons normally go for rugby players, then? The answer could be ‘no.’ The answer probablyis‘no.’ That’s a serious woman. You’re not her type. She didn’t exactly dress for the occasion, did she? What does that tell you?”
He could have said, “She’s the one who asked me.” He could have said, “We were having a moment. More than a moment, until you turned up.” He didn’t say any of that. He may have been defensive and vulnerable in the past. He wasn’t that way anymore. He said, “I’m going to find her.”
