take it slow. Still, the thrill of familiar pleasures never ceased to amaze.
Titus Wreh loosened his embrace and gave her bum a friendly pat. “Go grab your phone, or I’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll get our table. The sooner we eat, the sooner we can leave, the sooner …” He dropped a mischievous wink and she punched his arm.
“Don’t push it, mister man. It’s been one helluva week.” She took him in, unable to quell the burn in the pit of her stomach: a tall stretch of warm brown skin clad in a casual olive-green shirt and dark slacks. He graced her with another suggestive grin, dimple twitching and eyebrows waggling. “You know you love the view, woman.”
She giggled. “Hmm. After the wine we shall see.”
She hustled away from the restaurant’s well-lit entrance, trying to de-fog her mental windscreen. All she wanted tonight was a nice dinner with her ex-maybe-could-be-back-together-again-fiancé. But the morning’s fracas kept pestering her. Chlöe had left her and Claremont behind for the office, leaving her agitation behind like a bad smell that stank up the rest of the day. As it had poisoned the past several weeks, when the rumour had first touched down. Their last major investigation at Urban magazine had been a bizarre, winding affair, one that had thrown Chlöe and herself together and cemented their friendship in one fell swoop. Over eighteen months past and still the events of that case dogged her steps.
“You need to hear this from me first,” Chlöe had whispered in the ladies, peeping into every stall as if a drug deal was about to go down.
Vee freshened her lip stain in the mirror. “Oh Lawd, another one of your skinder sessions? You should sell your gossip to The Star and earn a second income.”
Chlöe held up a hand, face stony. “I’m serious, bosslady. I know you hate getting mixed up in office bullshit, but this is hectic. There’ve been murmurings,” she exhaled at length, “that we took a bribe during the Paulsen case. To facilitate a speedier outcome or something.”
Vee closed the tap without washing her hands.
Chlöe fidgeted. “Actually, they’re saying you took a bribe. A big one. But of course being your friend and assistant means I’m guilty too, so …” She shrugged. “Just so you know I’m not exempt from anything tarnished-wise.”
Vee slowed, the jangling of her key-ring bringing her back to the present. The memory alone – the very word – made her flinch, soured her mouth. A bribe. Here she was, calculating how deeply mired in debt she’d be if she ever decided to bite the bullet and buy the house she’d rented for three years, and somewhere in a parallel universe her more mercenary self was flush. Because she’d ‘taken dash’, greased her mouth. She knew full well who’d been running that kind of cheycheypolay, the most malevolent of gossip strains. She’d deal with that later.
“We really should stop meeting like this.”
She started and whirled. And groaned. “Aaay my pipo.”
“Come on, Cricket.” Joshua Allen grinned, sidling up. “Where’s your enthusiasm? You’re starting to hurt my feelings.”
He’d practically melted out of a brick wall onto the sidewalk. Like some thug could’ve, attacking her while her head was in the breeze. True, Green Point after nightfall was no Mitchell’s Plain, but still. Hand to throat, Vee scanned the semi-lit avenue, finally spotting a car guard observing them with interest.
“Seriously? You think I’d jump you in a dark alley for ignoring my calls?” Joshua guffawed. “Gimme a little credit. I’m way too lazy to carry grudges, you know that.”
“I give you credit all the time and you never deserve any of it, Joshua Allen.”
“All the time? Never? What cruel absolutes you wield against me, my lady,” he placed hand over heart in mock pain and fluttered his lashes. Vee battled to keep a straight face. “All the better to heap the blame on me. While you, the biggest hypocrite alive, strings me along with sweet nothings. Forcing me to commit acts I’ve never done with any other woman …”
“What! Don’t dare blame your depravity on me.”
He nodded gravely. “Alas, true. But with you it’s special.”
“Player bullshit. Why I even waste my time …”
“Then you plunge the knife in my back and twist it by turning up here, looking hot with the very man you’ve been two-timing me with for months. The guy you dumped to be with me … the same one you dumped me for. After which you took me back … before dumping me again. Then you ignore me for weeks, and have this crazy list of rules to keep everybody at a distance …” He sighed and stroked her cheek. “Highly punishing rollercoaster. Can’t we just agree that I lied and you shat all over my heart, and call it even?”
She smacked his hand away, eyes narrowing. “How you know I’m here with Ti?”
He leered her top to toe, looking grudgingly pleased with her choice of attire. “Who else commands all this sexiness, if not I?”
“And who would all this,” she gestured wildly over his physique, “be for?”
His maroon shirt, sleeves rolled, complemented a toffee complexion and lifted shimmer in his dark eyes. As usual, his black curls were buzzed short but a new acquisition, a manicured beard, framed his jawline. He looked and smelled good. Off-guard-throwingly good, edible almost. Enough to make her forget, for a split second, that she hadn’t come alone.
He murmured her name once, easing his arm around her waist. Vee stiffened and flinched at the first brush of his lips. Missing was the rush of heat and anticipation she’d felt in the same pose just minutes ago. With Joshua there were too many tacit promises, too much want and need, too much to lose. Too much of so much and not enough balance. Every fibre of her literally hurt with trying to resolve their contact as either a step forward or one backward. Unlike with Titus.
“Juju please … I can’t.”
A bolt of hurt anyone else would’ve missed contorted his features briefly. He dropped his arms and allowed her to step away, eyes darkening to black holes. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just …” He brightened. “Wow.”
She flushed. “Alright I get it, I look hot. Stop your nonsense.”
“Forget you. I’m still blown away by this gorgeous lady right here.” Joshua brushed past to lovingly stroke the bonnet of her car. “Sweet mother. How do you even own this again? I can’t tell you enough how much I hate your guts.”
Relieved, Vee beamed. Gleaming gold with a chocolate-brown trim, the 1980 Chrysler CM Valiant GLX made every other car parked on the street look either washed up or too garishly modern. She still couldn’t believe her luck. Its previous and only owner, who’d been a senior employee at the Chrysler South Africa assembly plant until its closure, had kept it in stellar condition. He’d sold it very reasonably, to avoid his ‘grasping, pissant sons getting their paws on it’, asking only that she cherish it and not drive it like a feeble female. Every time she eased behind the wheel of a piece of machinery as old as she was, she gratefully held up her end of the bargain.
“Technically, this baby’s half mine. Like all your real babies are gonna be one day. Start getting used to it by letting me behind the wheel more often.”
“Psssh, half whetin?
