Page 83 of Just One Look

Plan B

The rain was drumming.His heart was pounding. His neck was on fire, but his hand was on her breast, and he was kissing her neck like it was his.

“Luka,” she said. “Stop.”

It took a second to sink in, and then he raised his head. And was rewarded by another blinding flash of pain.

She had her hand at the back of his neck now, was saying, “Sit up carefully. Put your hand here. Support it.”

He did, and got a couple more jabs of lightning for his trouble, but said, “No worries. I’m fine.”

“No,” she said. “You’re not fine.” Sitting up herself, swinging her legs around, pulling her T-shirt down. “Do you have pins and needles in your arm? Your hand? Any weakness?”

“It’s the nerve, that’s all,” he said. “I’m coming in for an MRI tomorrow. You can look at it.” And started to laugh. His hands on the wheel, his neck jabbing at him with every movement. Pain, frustration, pleasure … he had no idea anymore. “Who gets …” he tried to say.

She was laughing, too. “Lord have mercy,” she said. “I am sobadat this. I’m having the most exciting … the most … and I’mdiagnosingyou!”

“No,” he said. “Me. Broad daylight. My mate’s house, and trying to take your clothes off in front of it. My bloodyneck.”He grinned at her. “Ouch.”

“I should go home,” she said. “You should, too. Rest that.”

“Really?” he said. “That’s your answer? You don’t know how you do this? How you do it is—when it starts getting good, you keep going.”

“Right,” she said. “And when you come in for that MRI tomorrow, and your whole arm’s gone numb, and I’m trying to explain to Dr. Larsen how it got that way?”

“No,” he said, one hand at the back of his head, trying to find a comfortable position. “That’ll be our secret. A couple of Panadol, and she’ll be right.” She didn’t move, just stared at him like the warrior queen, and he sighed and said, “I’m used to hurting. And I’m not a patient.”

She said, “So, OK, we’re not doing any more of this. Alternative plan for my day. I already did my laundry. I guess I’m going shopping, because clearly, I have experimentation to do on my reboot, and I don’t have the wardrobe for it. You said once that you wanted to come, but I can’t imagine you do, so I’ll just …” Her hand was on the door handle.

“Wait,” he said. “You have what to do on your what?”

“My reboot,” she said. “Moving to New Zealand. New place. New life.Temporarynew life. I’ve never even kissed somebody in a car before, for example, not like this. I didn’t date much in high school, you could say.”

“Right.” Somehow, he was getting a cold feeling around his head. “Now explain the experimentation.”

“Well, obviously,” she said, looking even more flustered. “Like I said. I’ve never kissed somebody in a car. Experiment. Temporary insanity. Whatever.” She looked away, out the side window. “It ispouringout there. Also, the windows are steamed up.”

“Tends to happen,” he said, “when you kiss somebody in the car.”

“Well, what about you?” she asked. “What were you going to do today? I’ll bet you had a date.”

“No date,” he said. “There wasn’t much point in a date tonight. Shopping’s good. Plan B. Let’s do that. We shopping for the dress and the shoes, is that the idea?”

Why was he saying that, if she was just experimenting here? Did he want to be her experiment?

Of course he did. Obviously he did. Her confusion was leaching into him, was what it was. He wasn’t confused. He was clear.

“Wait,” she said. “Why isn’t there much point in a date?”

“Buggered neck?”

“So there was no point in going out, because … you can’t have sex without hurting yourself. Wow. Wow. OK. You don’t go out with women unless you’re going to sleep with them?”

He tried to think. It wasn’t easy. Finally, he said, “Can’t sort out what’s best to say now.”

“So tricky,” she agreed. “So we’re going dress shopping … why?”

“Elizabeth,” he said. “You must know why.”