Faking It to Making It

Problem was, he knew exactly how he wanted to get loose. With Saskia Bloom beneath him. Up against a wall. In the back of a car. So long as she was hot, and naked, and making those sweet gasping sounds she made whenever he kissed her neck.

Saskia, who’d put on the brakes.

The city lights swept across his windscreen in time to the beat.

It made no sense to him why they shouldn’t explore that in the short time they had. In fact the natural end to their relationship made taking every advantage of their chemistry seem the most uncomplicated decision possible.

He turned into his street, where large homes nestled behind imposing fences. He pressed the remote to his wrought iron gate, before gliding up the curved drive and pulling to a stop outside his front doors.

He rolled his hands over the leather steering wheel as the car ticked and cooled beneath him.

He was not known for backing down at the first hurdle, and just because he was considering dropping a line in the ocean at some point in the future, didn’t mean he’d gone soft.

It was a little under three weeks till the wedding. That gave him twenty days to charm the pants off her. Literally. To show Saskia that a man and a woman could like one another just fine, and could also tear each other apart in bed, and it didn’t have to mean anything other than a good time.

He was the best damn negotiator in town, and if he couldn’t negotiate that he didn’t deserve the title.

Feeling better about things than he had an hour ago, Nate pulled the key from the ignition, leapt from the car and jogged up the front steps. Whistling “Fame.” Or maybe it was “Footloose.” Whatever it was it brought a smile to his lips, which had to be a good thing.

SIX

Another week or so went by before Saskia and Nate saw one another again.

He was busy; she was hiding out. Or maybe she was busy and he was hiding out. Either way, Saskia kept herself busy.

With Stu’s debts all paid—and, oh, what a liberating feeling it was finally to put that whole sordid business firmly in her rearview mirror!—she had real money in her bank account for the first time in months. Money with which to get back to turning her crumbling little house into a home.

And, like a woman who’d been kept away from chocolate for months, and then been given the key to the Cadbury factory, she might have binged. Just a little.

Furniture. Paint. Fixtures. Tiles. Her house smelled like a hardware store. And she couldn’t have been happier!

Spring was a little over two weeks away, and it was pouring outside. Typical of Melbourne’s contrary weather. At least it gave Saskia the excuse to start a fire in the brand-new fireplace she’d helped fit the day before. Music played softly through her new wireless speakers. And she switched on a couple of her new lamps: leadlight and ridiculously romantic. She’d fallen in love with them at first sight.

Looking around at the eclectic, bright, functional, vintage pieces mixed in with state-of-the-art electronics, emotion swelled in her throat.

The truth was she couldn’t have done it without Nate. For that—for him—she’d for ever be thankful. As for the fact that she wondered where he was and what he was doing several times a day and dreamed her raunchiest wishes into existence at night...that was something she’d have to hope would fade in good time.

She downed the last of her coffee, covered her usual attire of multi-coloured tights, oversized sweaters and ugg boots with a smock, and was halfway up a ladder in her bedroom when her phone beeped.

It was a message. From Lissy.

Chinese or Indian?

Lissy had been fixing a client’s website on site all day and was coming for dinner.

Whatever goes best with scent of paint thinner.

Indian then. See ya about seven.

With Lissy out, Saskia had painted the bedroom earlier that day. The wall above her bed was now dry, so she measured for the picture she’d had leaning against a wall for months. Tape, spirit level, pencil in hand, she measured vertically, horizontally, then stood back and looked at the dot with a view to the wall as a whole. Her tummy gave a happy flutter. Symmetry was a beautiful thing.

Yin and yang. Balance. Not just in art, but in life. In love. She was the active participant in her relationships, drawn to people who were content to be more passive. It made mathematical sense. At least she’d always thought so.

Till Stu.

The taking of all her things had been a pretty proactive thing for him to do. The hurtfulness entirely deliberate. As evidenced by the note he’d left on her kitchen bench. In ten short lines, including three spelling mistakes, he’d taken apart everything she’d done for him and thrown it back in her face like a bucket of acid.