Page 69 of Power Moves
‘Did I get that wrong?’ he asked.
I took a sip of my drink, still bewildered. Archie floated around with a pack of guys who looked like a poorly disguised SAS battalion. They were all testosterone and bravado. They didn’t talk to girls. Or at least, not ones like me.
‘Why are you talking about theQuarterly Essay?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t you need a distraction?’
‘Oh,’ I exhaled as the realisation blossomed. There was only one reason Archie Cohen would be talking to me. The guy may not have been a conversationalist but it was common knowledge that he picked up—a lot. And if he’d decided to talk to me on the last night of our university year, one could only assume that it was because he’d already churned through every other single girl on campus.
‘No thank you,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You can save your breath. I’m not interested.’
Archie coughed. ‘Okay?’ From his scrunched-up expression, it seemed I’d been disastrously presumptuous. He clearly hadn’t been trying to hit on me.
‘And I’m notyourtype,’ I said, now attempting a counteroffensive to disguise the colour magnifying across my cheeks.
Archie frowned. ‘What’s my type?’
I gestured vaguely to the girls—some of whom were my best friends—dotting the room like bejewelled fairies. ‘Petite, sparkly, Tinkerbell laugh, great in bed.’
‘You’re saying you’re not great in bed?’
My blush deepened. ‘I’m saying I’mtall.’ I motioned to my legs which were quite obviously out of proportion with the length of my skirt.
His eyes flashed down to my thighs. ‘I’m tall,’ he said.
Somehow, my brain heard:We’ll fit.
We’ll fit?!I tipped half the vodka soda down my throat in one quick motion. What a messed-up thought to be having on such an insanely shitty day. Was this what people called ‘grief horn’? The hormonal response that compels people in movies to have sex after funerals?Oh god.I felt an anguished throb in my throat. I didnotwant to be thinking about funerals.
Archie’s shoe jiggled relentlessly against the footrest at the bar. ‘State or federal politics?’ he asked.
My eyebrows lifted. ‘I like both.’
‘Print or broadcast?’
‘Both.’
‘Undercover reporter or prime-time anchor?’
‘If the options are wearing trackies and eating donuts in the car or being a prime-time news anchor with heels so spiky they could bayonet small rodents, then I choose … both.’
His laugh was a deep rumble. It was generous. It invited you to join in, like it somehow contained all the same notes as your favourite song. On a greyscale day it made the dim-lit pub appear momentarily brighter, as though someone had fleetingly shifted the camera dial to super vivid. It madeno sense. He never sounded like this when he laughed at his mates’ dumb jokes.
‘Why journalism?’ he asked.
I twisted my straw between my fingers. ‘I like understanding things, trying to make sense of the world … and I’m told I’m easily distracted. A different story every day would suit my personality.’
‘But you need extra distracting today?’
I don’t know what made me say what I said next. Maybe it was lingering shock. Maybe it was the fact I knew about Archie’s dad, the rugby league hero who died in the tragic car crash, leaving behind the wife and baby son. Maybe I mistook his intrigue for concern. Whatever the reason was, I can’t remember it now.
‘My mum’s got cancer,’ I said. ‘The biopsy results are coming back tomorrow but based on her scan results, the oncologist said he’s ninety-nine per cent sure.’
The words came out quickly and defiantly, like I was daring them to hurt me. I knew this was too much information to share with a virtual stranger, but maybe it was information thatneededto be shared with a stranger. Telling Remi and the girls would make it real, and I desperately didn’t want that. I wanted to keep it to myself, like a secret locket against my chest that maybe, if I wished hard enough, would fall off with a neat plop and slide straight into a golf ball–sized hole in the ground. I wanted to slice this weight off my heart, like it had never been there in the first place. ‘We just found out,’ I added.
‘Oh, Millsy.’ The way he said it was disorientating. His concern felt validating, but I didn’t want pity because I didn’twant it to be true. Also, why was he calling me Millsy? Only my best friends called me Millsy. But why was I worrying about something so meaningless as a nickname when my mum had cancer.My mum had fucking cancer.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
