In the end, I trim my scruff so it’s more like a two-day growth and attempt, with limited success, to tame my hair with some of the product I have left over from my sister’s wedding. After more internal debate, I go for my best jeans, a white linen shirt and my new tan boots. Smart but not too try-hard. Honestly, I wouldn’tdo this much thinking over a real date, which says something about how interesting I find Lilavati.
My truck is at the panel beaters thanks to our car park introduction, so I ride my motorcycle to Lili’s. She’s going to drive from there since she thinks arriving on a motorcycle might give her mother a heart attack. It’s a shame because I wouldn’t object to having her pressed up against my back.
Lilavati throws open the door when I ring the bell. Her mouth drops open, and her gaze runs me up and down. Her eyebrows lift when she spots the nice bottle of red wine I’m holding.
“You do know you don’t have to win the parents over in a fake dating scenario?” she asks with her usual acidity before turning on her heel and stalking down the hall.
“I’ll be ready in a second,” she calls over her shoulder as she climbs the stairs.
I wander around the open-plan living room and kitchen. I was right. Not a houseplant in sight.
It’s a nice townhouse. Spacious and bright, even in the fading light of the early evening. The furniture is clearly expensive, but it barely looks lived in. The comfy-looking sofa has no indents where Lili’s perfect arse has snuggled down while watching a movie. The bookcase is full of medical textbooks and a couple of biographies. No well-thumbed novels or ornaments or photos of family and friends. There’s no coffee cup upturned on the sink. Not even a laptop open on the dining table. No postcards or notes held on the fridge with ugly joke magnets.
And yet, this is the woman who drives a vintage convertible. There’s a creative soul in there somewhere, but for some reason, she’s intent on hiding it. The contradiction fascinates me.
“Nice place.” I raise my voice a little so she can hear me from upstairs, only to turn and find her standing right behind me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d been checking out my arse.
“Thanks. Let’s go.”
We climb into a nondescript rental car since her cute little sports car is also at the panel beaters.
“Okay, so I’ve been thinking,” I start, as she reverses out of the garage. “We should try and stay as close to the truth as possible. That way, we won’t contradict one another or forget what we’ve said. So we tell the truth about how we met, without the part where you checked out my junk.”
Her pout tells me she’s about to argue, but the expression subsides.
“Sure. That will work. Except we need to be vague about when the accident happened. I told Mum on the day it happened that I was seeing someone.”
“So we say ‘a few weeks’ when they ask how long we’ve been dating. But we knew right away it was something special.”
Lilavati huffs a laugh. “It was something, alright. Not sure special is the word though.”
She swings the car onto the Pacific Highway and heads north in the unexpectedly light Sunday afternoon traffic. It comes as no surprise, given how we met, that she’s got a bit of a lead foot.
“Hey, you didn’t seem to mind the view,” I counter.
She snorts and gives me a side eye as she changes lanes, leaving barely a coat of paint between us and the car beside us.
“That was shock. You don’t expect to find a naked man in a car park. Even at the beach.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “That might be your experience, but surfers see that kind of thing all the time.”
“You still haven’t told me anything much about yourself. I need something more than dogs, coffee and autumn.”
It gives me a little warm glow to know she remembered my answers, supporting my theory that she’s not as immune to me as she’d have me believe.
“Potted history, then. Started surfing when I was ten. When I left school, I went on a gap year during which I supported myselfby making coffee and serving in bars. Now I make coffee and the occasional surfboard.” None of which is untrue, although it’s only part of the story. I’m not sure why I don’t want to tell her the rest. Except that it’s not who I am, it’s what I do. At heart, I’m a surfer and coffee lover. That I’ve turned my parents’ couple of cafés and my skill at board making into a multi million-dollar business is, to me at least, irrelevant. If Lilavati is going to like me, I want it to be for who I am. Not what.
Okay, I might also suspect that, since she seems to have chosen me because of my unsuitability, giving her the full story might take the shine off the idea for her. I don’t want to tempt her to pull the pin. Not until I’ve had a chance to get to know her a little better and show her we could have a great time together beyond the charade she’s selling her family.
“You make surfboards?” Lili flicks me a look while we’re stopped at the traffic lights.
“Yep. When people ask me to.” These days, lots of people ask me to. World champion surfers ask me to. And pay lots of money for me to do it. I have a staff of eight people helping me. None of which I say. “My favourite colour is whatever colour the ocean is at the time. I have one sister and three nieces. My parents retired to Tasmania two years ago. My best friend, Simon, also makes surfboards. We share a house at Collaroy. Does that give you enough to work with?”
She looks vaguely annoyed. “Why couldn’t you have just written all that down for me last Tuesday?”
“And miss the enjoyment of pissing you off? No way.” I turn my face away and look out the window so she can’t see the grin splitting my face. Except when I look back, her expression says she’s clearly annoyed, and that makes me even more inclined to laugh.
“Lighten up, Sparky.”
