“What about your vow?” Nicola asks as Ava noisily sips on her smoothie. It’s Saturday afternoon and the three of us are in a coffee shop, celebrating the fact that I’d finished my article and handed it in to Neil yesterday, who is going to fix it up and hand it in to Joe. I’d spent three days writing it and rewriting it until finally I was happy with it. Neil was happy with it. And Nicola just read the whole thing, looking damn impressed.
Naturally though, the conversation shifted to Lachlan. Well, me bitching about Lachlan, this beast of a man who seems forever off-limits.
“My vow?” I repeat, confused as to what that has to do with anything.
I look over at Ava who is coloring in her book, her tongue sticking out in concentration. I put my hands over her ears and say, “Fuck my vow.”
When I release Ava, she looks at me then her mom, and says, “Auntie Kayla said a bad word again.”
Nicola smiles at her adoringly then gives me a mock stink-eye. After having the two of them live with me for so long, Ava knows the drill very well.
“I knew you wouldn’t last very long with your…drought,” Nicola says, rather smugly I might add.
“Hey, I’m still going,” I tell her. “But for Lachlan, I would make the exception. In fact, if by some grace of god I was able to get in his pants, I swear I’d never touch another man again.”
She looks startled at that. “Jeez. Be careful what you wish for, Kayla.”
I wave my hand at her dismissively before sucking down my iced coffee. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen. He is completely immune to my charms. I mean, I was running around in the mud, soaking wet in a white t-shirt. I was writhing beneath him. It was practically like having sex. And yet…nothing. Later on at his place, he was about to take a shower, and I made a joke about joining him. You should have seen his face.”
“Did he look disgusted?” Nicola says, already sympathetic.
“No,” I tell her. “But thanks for thinking he might have. He just looked…I don’t know. I can’t read him at all. It’s like he didn’t even hear me.”
“Maybe he didn’t,” she says.
“He heard me,” I say, leaning back in my chair and folding my arms. “He’s just not interested.”
“Well, you can’t be everyone’s type,” she tells me, taking one of Ava’s crayons and coloring a square before Ava swats her away.
“I refuse to believe that.”
She sighs and looks up at me. “I have to say though, I didn’t think he would give you this much.” She nods at the article on the table I printed out from my work computer. “I mean, whenever I’ve spoken to him, he’s only responded in monosyllabic caveman grunts.”
She’s not exactly wrong. Half of his responses to me are in the form of grunts and other manly noises, but I feel more adept at distinguishing those noises. “Getting him to talk is kind of like pulling teeth. The whole time I was asking him questions, I was terrified I was going to say something wrong and set him off like a bomb again.”
“I wonder what his deal is,” Nicola muses.
“Yes!” I exclaim, slamming my palms on the table. Ava and Nicola both jump. “What is his deal? Can you find out for me?”
Nicola’s face scrunches up. “I told you, the guy barely talks to me.”
“Yes, but Bram would know.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Bram says he barely talks to him either, and when he does, you can be sure it’s nothing personal.”
“I need to talk to Bram,” I say, nodding to myself.