The Dating Game Read online

  ‘Too divine is what he is!’ Erica said, and as David’s eyes settled on her and his dimples gave a half-flash, she released Sarah’s wrist at last and settled back, ready for his arrival at their table.

  And Sarah knew there was nothing to be done except wait for doom to strike, because there would be no budging Erica now the dimples were in play.

  ‘It seems to me he’ll be more interested in talking to you than me,’ Sarah grumbled.

  Erica stared at her for a moment. And then: ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘You’re giving me the Eyebrow of Disapproval!’

  Sarah muttered something about Jeremy.

  ‘The same Jeremy who flirts with you every time he sees you?’ Erica asked, dripping faux-sweetness.

  ‘I don’t flirt with Jeremy.’

  ‘No, he flirts with you. Everyone flirts with you. Hell, I’d flirt with you if I were that way inclined.’

  Sarah laughed, even as she shook her head in exasperation.

  ‘Much better,’ Erica said approvingly. ‘And really, there’s nothing wrong with a little innocent flirtation. In fact, it should be de rigueur to flirt until the wedding vows are said. But …’ She sighed as she cast one more look in David’s direction. ‘I have a feeling that guy could talk a girl out of her current boyfriend and her panties in a red-hot second, which is not at all the same as a little innocent flirtation. And that would not be good, so if you’re really not interested in him for yourself, I’m happy to try somewhere else. Jeremy suggested we should join him at Seagull, where he may have a new guy for you to look over.’

  But David was heading their way with great purpose. It was too late for a strategic retreat. ‘Erica,’ Sarah said, feeling an urgent need to confess all.

  Erica had started gathering her things. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Erica, I have to tell you— Oh, no!’

  Way, way too late, because David had arrived.

  ‘Blonde … brunette … Where’s the redhead?’ David asked Erica, voice all husky and suggestive.

  Erica’s eyes lifted to his, an arrested expression on her face.

  ‘There has to be a redhead somewhere to complete the set,’ he went on. ‘And I’ll bet you come in small—’ flicking a look at Sarah ‘—large, and … let me guess, you’re the middle of the road model. The average.’

  Sarah choked on a laugh—she just couldn’t help it. Oh my God, we are a set, she thought. She, Erica and redheaded Lane. All different heights with her ridiculously short, Lane ridiculously tall, and Erica in the middle. Not that anyone would ever call Erica average.

  Erica’s eyes had widened in disbelief. ‘I don’t meant to be rude, but are you negging me?’

  One freeze-frame moment … and then David burst out laughing. ‘Badly, apparently. Sorry, I’m out of practice. I haven’t negged anyone since I was eighteen.’

  Erica raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows at him. ‘I suspect you haven’t needed to neg a girl to get her attention since you were eight, hold the teen.’ But then she smiled. ‘But if I were in the market, I’d grade that as a six-and-a-half. And because it wasn’t a dismal failure, I’m going to introduce myself. I’m Erica Wilder. The blonde is Sarah Quinn. The redhead—yes, there is a redhead, who comes in a tall size rather than a large—is otherwise occupied tonight.’

  ‘And I’m Lucas Green,’ David lied, blink-blinking as he smiled full-bore at Erica.

  ‘You’d better pull up a stool, Lucas Green,’ Erica said. ‘Just as soon as you’ve popped over to the bar and bought us another drink. Mine’s a Negroni. Sarah is drinking Pina Coladas this evening.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ David said, smoothly depositing his brimming wineglass onto the table before strolling to the bar.

  Erica turned to Sarah. ‘This is either going to be very interesting, or I’m going to kill you.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid? You already know him, don’t you?’

  ‘What? How do you …? Argh, how do you do that? You’re like a psychic. It’s paranormal, telepathic, clairvoyant—’

  ‘Yada, yada, yada. Thank you for the vocab lesson, but it’s simpler than that. First clue? There isn’t a man on the planet who doesn’t give you a second look, so why didn’t he? And second?’ She did a twirly thing with her finger encompassing Sarah’s face. ‘You’re blushing a brighter red than an Anzac Day poppy right now.’

  Sarah threw up her hands in defeat. ‘All right! If you must know, Erica-the-Oracle, he—Lucas—and I have an arrangement.’

  ‘Define “arrangement”. You haven’t chucked a Lane and signed him up for sex have you?’

  ‘Not … exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly?’ She laughed. ‘What the fuck? Does nobody date the old-fashioned way any more?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. There is absolutely no sex involved. At all. Ever. Not on. We are completely asexual. Platonic. Non-physical.’

  ‘I think I get the general idea,’ Erica said, and if her eyes weren’t exactly rolling, they were clearly wanting to go there.

  ‘He’s just … painting me.’

  ‘Hang the hell on!’ Erica held up her hands, palms out. ‘Painting you?’

  ‘As in portrait.’

  ‘Portrait. Okay. Got that. I think, anyway,’ Erica said slowly. ‘Now I’d like to know what that has to do with his negging me in front of you like a used car salesman showing off his wares.’

  Sarah shifted uncomfortably on her bar stool. ‘This is going to sound weird—’

  ‘Ya think?’

  ‘—but we did a skills trade. So it’s not like Lane and Adam because there’s no money changing hands and it’s not about sex and it’s only for six weeks—well, four and a half weeks now, so it’ll be over before you know it.’ Okay, that sounded a little defensive. ‘It is in that … that vein, however. Like a barter agreement.’

  ‘So he gets the painting in return for …?’

  ‘In return for giving me lessons on attracting guys.’

  Erica absorbed that in stunned silence. And then: ‘Sarah,’ she said, in a dangerously careful voice, ‘you attract guys just by looking in their direction. You’ve had more boyfriends than I’ve had fancy cocktails.’

  ‘But I’m sick of the whole bar pick-up routine, the blind dates, the internet dating, the friends of Jeremy’s I meet at bars you take me to. I don’t want an endless procession of Toms, Roberts and Jeffs who are all a variation on a theme. Not any more. I want to meet—and keep—just one special guy. I keep saying this but you never believe me.’

  ‘I do believe you, but Sarah, it’s not like you’re fifty years old. It takes time.’

  ‘I’ve dated half the single men in Sydney. I’m going to have to move interstate soon in search of fresh blood.’

  Erica sighed. ‘Okay, I get it. I may not agree with your sense of panic but I do get it. So the neg was a demonstration to help you navigate the dating scene?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah mumbled.

  ‘And were you planning on letting me in on the secret after he’d made a fool of me?’

  ‘To be honest, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work on you. That’s why we chose you. Because you’re an expert, like him.’

  ‘Stop it—you’re turning my head.’

  This time it was Sarah reaching for Erica’s hand. She gripped it hard. ‘Erica, that curse is ruining my life. I have to break it, and I need him to do it. He really, really knows women. He knows what he’s doing. I promise you I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.’

  Erica looked at her as though she were reading every secret in her heart … and then she sighed heavily. ‘Okay, as long as you know this is more dangerous than Lane’s situation. At least we know Adam’s not a psycho—well, we have your word for it at least and your twenty-four years’ experience of your big brother to back it up. But this Lucas … How did it happen? Where did you find him? Online? Or did you just fall over a random artist walking down the street
? We need his bona fides. Because I don’t want to be fishing your body parts out of a lake in a few weeks’ time.’

  Sarah’s tongue came out to touch her top lip.

  ‘Now that’s a bad sign,’ Erica said, gesturing to Sarah’s mouth.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Means you’re thinking.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with thinking.’

  ‘Thinking as in plotting.’

  Sarah opened her mouth to respond, but gulped instead, as a large hand landed on her shoulder.

  ‘So that’s what it means when she does that!’ David-slash-Lucas, announcing his return.

  And Sarah thought, Uh-oh. The gig was about to be up.

  He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly before letting go. ‘So where were we?’ he asked.

  ‘We were trying to guess where you two met,’ Erica said.

  ‘We met at a bank thing.’

  ‘And what was an artist doing at a bank thing?’

  ‘The bank thing was being held in an art gallery—serendipity.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘Destiny, fortune, providence, kismet.’

  Erica seemed torn between laughter and alarm. ‘Oh my God. Thesaurus and italics together. How … interesting.’

  ‘But on a more mundane level, I’m really a banker who paints on the side.’

  Erica peered at David. ‘You’re really a …’ She transferred her piercing gaze to Sarah. ‘Lane’s bank? That bank thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, wishing an earthquake would tear through Midnight Madness and rip the floor in half, stranding Erica on the other side of the divide. ‘So, Lucas, where are our drinks?’ she asked too brightly.

  ‘Glory said she’d bring them over.’

  Erica was looking at David as though she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Glory, the bartender, will bring the drinks over? How the hell did you get her to do that?’

  ‘I asked her,’ David said, with a shrug that was perfectly, charmingly Gallic.

  Erica gave Sarah a look that was half WTF-is-this and half told-you-so. ‘You see, he really doesn’t need to neg anyone. I mean, if a banker can get that sort of service from Glory …’

  ‘Half a banker,’ David corrected, hooking a bar stool with his foot and dragging it closer. ‘And that, Sarah, is a superb example of a neg.’ He hitched himself onto the stool with enviable fluidity. ‘And if I were in the market, Ms Wilder here would have hooked me like a flailing salmon.’

  ‘And how would you have responded?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’d have said something like … “Huh? I’m gone two minutes, and you’re already slagging off bankers? What is it you women have against bankers?”’

  ‘Actually, it’s the artist half I don’t trust,’ Erica put in. ‘Or are you going to tell me it’s not a nude portrait you have in mind?’

  ‘Not nude,’ David and Sarah said simultaneously, with matching expressions of horror.

  Up went Erica’s eyebrows at that overreaction—at which opportune moment, Glory arrived, plonking their drinks on the table. As Glory hovered, basking in the full-dimple version of David’s smile, Sarah and Erica traded glances—Sarah’s anxious, Erica’s knowing.

  ‘Yep, he knows women all right,’ Erica said, as Glory ran out of basking time and reluctantly left them.

  ‘You flatter me,’ David said, failing to look the least bit self-deprecating.

  ‘No, I’m quite sure I really do not,’ Erica said. She picked up her drink, drained it, and stood. ‘Right. I’m going to join my boyfriend, who’s waiting for me at a place where they actually know how to mix a decent drink.’ One direct look at David. ‘I’m leaving Sarah in your hands. But don’t squeeze her too tightly. I take exception to guys who bruise my friends—any of my friends. Even guys with dimples. Okay, Lucas Green?’

  She transferred her all-seeing gaze to Sarah. ‘I look forward to hearing all about … everything,’ she said. ‘Including all about that “bank thing” at the art gallery and Lane and Adam and David and where everyone … fits, shall we say?’

  There was silence after Erica left.

  And then, David said, ‘One for the rulebook: if you’re going to lie, keep it as close to the truth as you can.’

  ‘That’s why you told her you were a banker.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘The thing is, I think because of that she knows who you really are.’

  ‘How could she?’

  ‘Because she’s like that. It was in the way she said “dimples”. Lane’s mentioned your dimples. Erica knows about “David’s dimples”.’

  ‘Lots of guys have dimples, Sarah.’

  ‘And when she said “Lucas Green”, it practically had quotation marks around it. And that whole emphasis on the bank function and Lane and Adam and “David”, she actually said “David” with you standing right there and— Oh God, I am sunk. I really am sunk.’

  ‘Big deal. I don’t care if she knows who I am.’

  ‘But I do. I never keep secrets from the girls.’

  ‘So now you do.’ His tone was as coolly amused as ever, but there was implacability beneath it.

  ‘Now I do,’ Sarah agreed unhappily.

  ‘And it was your choice, Sarah.’

  ‘Yes, it was my choice, and I shouldn’t have made it, and now it’s too late, the same way it was too late to announce I was in that storeroom when you came in. The time has passed, gone, moved on. Oh God, what am I going to do about Lane?’

  David’s eyes hardened. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I don’t want Lane. Even if she was suddenly single it’s not going to happen now.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t want it to be my fault that you don’t want her. If Lane changes her mind, I mean. If she still wants … you … to … you know.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘She and Erica would both hate me if I … I stole you from her, for whatever reason, and I don’t think I could bear it, on top of having my brother hate me.’

  ‘None of them needs to know why I’m no longer interested.’

  ‘But I’d know. It’d be on my conscience. And I’m a bad liar, as you know.’

  He dragged in a breath, held it. Then let it out in one gust. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, fine.’

  Sarah’s eyes opened. ‘Fine?’

  ‘If Lane and your brother split up within the remaining five weeks of our agreement and she wants to have sex with me, I’ll do it. Will that make you happy? Will that make you drop it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, and wondered if she’d suffered a Pina-Colada-induced brain freeze because it did not make her happy. At. All.

  ‘Good.’ David took a sip of wine, swallowed, grimaced. ‘I hate this place. Do you really want to finish that drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you mean that or is it your PR gene talking?’

  ‘I mean it, but if you prefer, I can pretend I don’t, as per the rulebook.’ She took a sip, smacked her lips. ‘Yum, yum, this drink is soooo good. Can I have another?’

  ‘No you can’t, brat,’ David said, and all his irritation seemed to dissipate with his laughter. ‘We’re going down to The Rocks at Circular Quay. There’s a new bar there that’ll suit our purposes perfectly.’

  ‘Our purposes?’

  ‘I’m taking you somewhere I won’t have a heart attack no matter who you choose to demonstrate your negging ability on, the way I would in this den of iniquity.

  ‘I’m going to neg someone?’

  ‘Yes. And you’ll have three levels to choose from, plus the Vivid light festival is on so the place will be packed. If you can’t find a guy there, there’s no hope for you.’

  ‘Woohoo! But … wait. Don’t you have a date tonight?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘I mean a real one?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘Fine. If you can call a negs lesson a date, it’s a date. Let’s go, Dreamboat Dave.’

  He made a face.

&n
bsp; ‘Hey, you’re the one who put that name in my phone.’

  ‘I’m not complaining about the Dreamboat, only about the Dave. Dreamboat David, if you don’t mind. I beg you, I really beg you, not to make it Dave.’

  ‘I guess you don’t look like a Dave, anyway.’

  ‘What do I look like?’

  ‘Something more European. You know, more Alfa Romeo than Ford. Something more like … Davidoff.’

  ‘Given Alfa Romeo is Italian, that would be Davide.’

  ‘Dah-vi-deh,’ Sarah said, copying his pronunciation. Then she shook her head. ‘That sounds a little pretentious.’

  ‘Yes, it does. So let’s revert to common, garden variety David, as my mother intended.’

  ‘Let’s go then, Dreamboat David.’ She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, smiling sunnily at him. ‘You know, my mother thinks “Sarah” is too common, garden variety.’

  ‘What would she have preferred?’

  ‘Francesca. Of course, she’s going through an Italian phase at the moment, so that’s probably influencing her.’

  ‘Francesca? For you? No.’

  ‘I suppose you once dated a Francesca.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Do I want to hear the story?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter if you want to or not—you’re not going to. Only cads discuss past lovers. Rulebook: dump any guy who starts talking about his exes or previous flings.’

  ‘You mean the way I talked to you about Liam?’

  ‘That’s different. There was a lesson in that.’

  ‘But what if there’s a lesson in Francesca?’

  ‘The only lesson in it was for me.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Not to date girls called Francesca. Now if you can stop talking for a few minutes, I’ll give you some examples to use when you start negging the guys in Centurion.’

  ‘Centurion? Sounds like a place for would-be gladiators.’

  ‘Excellent. You could start by asking a guy if he’s left his leather skirt at home.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Rocks was always packed on a Saturday night, but during Vivid it was crazily so.

  And Centurion, which was about as close to Sydney Harbour as you could get without being on a boat, was the place to experience the verging-on-miraculous light show projected onto the white sails of the Sydney Opera House during the festival.