Tash was wearing off her nerves playing fetch with Coco and her soggy tennis ball when Patrick finally arrived.
The terracotta dish containing dinner was in the oven and wafting delicious smells. Suspecting Patrick would have had only one or two beers at the club and likely to be keen for more after their win, Tash had tipped ice cubes into a bucket and plunged in four of Pa’s beers. She’d inflated two of the surviving glittery purple stools in case he needed to sit and brought her speaker dock outside, setting it to her playlist of hits from their high-school years. Although it was after seven thirty and the temperature had plummeted, the cold wasn’t intolerable. Developing cloud cover had locked in the day’s warmth and insulated the atmosphere from the worst of the night, while radiant heat from the oven added another layer of comfort.
Patrick greeted her with a grin and a kiss on the cheek that left Tash’s skin tingling. ‘Sorry I’m so late. Clip’s fault. He’s in a hell of a mood. If it weren’t for Bec shoving me out the door I’d probably still be there.’ He made a show of sniffing the air. ‘Something smells good.’
‘Chicken with forty cloves of garlic.’
Alarm rippled across his face. ‘Forty?’
‘Trust me, it’ll be amazing.’ Tash plucked a beer from the bucket, jammed it into one of her dad’s neoprene stubbie holders, flicked the top and handed it to Patrick, then did the same for herself.
‘Yeah, but forty cloves?’
She threw him a look. ‘Trust, remember?’
Patrick scratched his cheek and regarded the oven. ‘Suppose it won’t matter if we both eat it.’
Tash tried not to read anything into the comment and failed dismally. The thought that Patrick might want to share kisses with her—even garlicky ones—flushed her with excitement. Looking like he did—clean but slightly roughened, with the first brush of stubble coating his jaw and his hair a bit messed, and with the jumper beneath his coat following the form of his honed body—she certainly wanted to kiss him. Right now would be nice.
She pressed the neck of her stubbie against Patrick’s. ‘To the Saints.’ Then she winked. ‘And a certain star footballer.’
‘You must mean Clip.’
‘Clip wouldn’t have got that goal without you.’
He shrugged and shoved his free fist into his jeans pocket, and stared towards the main house. The laundry and kitchen lights were on but the rest of the house was dark. ‘Where’s your mum and dad?’
‘At the McDayles’ for dinner and cards.’
‘Just us then.’
‘Yep. Just us and a slobbery labrador.’ With a hefty kick, she sent Coco’s ball sailing off into the darkness, the ecstatic dog scrabbling after it.
‘No,’ Patrick told Coco when she galloped back and dropped the ball at his feet. ‘I’ve had enough ball kicking for one day.’
‘Poor tired baby,’ said Tash, turning up the speaker volume as a song she liked came on.
‘Poor tired sore baby, more like it.’
‘I bet the Bulldogs are sorer. That was a hell of a game. Who got best on ground?’
Clip had, which was no surprise given his performance. With Tash urging him on, Patrick settled into a recap of the game and all its glories. After the hardships of recent weeks, it was good to hear him talk with animation and passion.
‘You took some big hits today,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t fall asleep on you over dinner. Can’t guarantee I’ll stay awake for long after though.’
Tash said a mental ‘bugger’, then cocked her head as she recognised the opening bars of an all-time favourite song. ‘Remember this?’
‘Yeah.’
She sighed dreamily and began to sway her hips. ‘I love this song.’
‘I know.’
Tash blinked in surprise. ‘How could you know that?’
‘Year Ten formal. You dragged me onto the dance floor and sang the words from start to finish. Clip spent the entire song on the sidelines laughing his head off.’
Back then that news would have devastated Tash. She’d had an agonising crush on Clip at the time, and had forced Patrick into an intimate slow-dance in the misguided belief that it might make Clip jealous. As usual, the effort had failed. At least on that level. Patrick remembered, and that’s all she cared about now.
A grin split her face. ‘So I did.’ She plucked Patrick’s beer from his grip and placed his alongside hers on the ground, and snatched at his hand. ‘Dance with me again.’
‘Time hasn’t made it any better to dance to.’
‘Very funny.’ She directed one hand to her waist, the other to her shoulder. ‘Now dance.’
Patrick gave a long-suffering sigh but there was smile on his face and his touch was gentle as he drew her closer. ‘Do you remember us dancing?’
‘Of course,’ she said, addressing his broad chest so he wouldn’t see her expression. Not quite a lie. Truth was she’d been more focused on Clip than Patrick, teenaged idiot that she was. ‘I still can’t believe you do.’
‘It’s burned into my brain.’
She looked up, even more astonished.
He smiled sheepishly. ‘You gave me a hard-on.’
‘I did?’
‘Yeah. You had this low-cut dress. Every time I looked down all I could see was boobs.’ At Tash’s expression he laughed. ‘I was sixteen. Everything to do with boobs sets a sixteen-year-old off.’
Tash regarded him with a kind of wonder. Patrick was laughing. Laughing and telling her he’d once perved on her boobs. Staggering wasn’t the word. ‘You have no idea how good it is to hear you laugh, even if it is over my cleavage.’
‘At the memory, Tash, not your cleavage. Trust me, your cleavage is no laughing matter.’
‘Thanks.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I think.’
Patrick stroked her cheek with a curled finger. ‘You’re funny.’
Tash’s reply of ‘And you’re sexy’ was prevented by a bunt in the leg. Both she and Patrick looked down to find Coco on her haunches at their feet, staring hopefully at their faces with her ball jammed in her mouth.
Patrick grimaced and broke contact. ‘That dog.’
Tash couldn’t agree more but she supposed it was just as well they were interrupted. The chicken was due to come out and with the wind beginning to rise, even the oven wouldn’t be able to keep them warm. She jabbed a toe at Coco’s ball, sending the dog skittling across the yard, and gathered up the beers.
She handed Patrick his and finished off the last of hers. ‘Drink up. I need free hands and strong muscles.’
Patrick soon learned what she meant. Tash passed him a large wooden carving board to hold. She levered the steel door away from the oven, unleashing a waft of heat and delicious aromas, and with hands protected by thick oven gloves, reached in for the dish.
‘Ready?’ she asked and, at Patrick’s nod, lifted it onto the board. She followed Patrick to the flat and slid the door open for him. ‘Just leave it on the bench and help yourself to wine or more beer. I’ll be back in a tick. Just need to finish closing off the oven.’
Patrick followed her back out.
‘Can’t you obey orders?’
‘Sometimes. I thought you might need a hand with the rest.’
A happy bubble popped in Tash’s heart. Sexy, thoughtful, beautiful. Patrick was the stuff of dreams, and tonight she had him to herself. If it didn’t make her look a twit, she would have squealed happiness at the sky.
She bumped him with a blow-up stool as they walked back to the flat. ‘You’d make someone a lovely wife one day.’
He cast her a bemused look. ‘Pretty sure I don’t have the required anatomy.’ He flicked a glance to her chest and quickly fixed his stare straight ahead.
‘Unlike me,’ she said for him, and with a giggle boffed him again with the stool.
Tash left Patrick in charge of setting their dinner places while she finished with the preparations. Using a pair of long forks, she lifted the chook free of its cooking juices and drained it for a few seconds before depositing it on a plate to rest. With a slotted spoon she captured the garlic cloves and set them aside before scooping more juices into a saucepan. Then she squeezed the soft sweet flesh from a few of the cloves into the liquid and placed the lot on a hob to simmer and reduce.
‘There’s a bottle of pinot on the rack,’ said Tash. ‘Can you be a darling and open it for me?’
‘Sure.’
Tash admired Patrick’s backside as he bent for the bottle, only to feel guilty when he whistled air between his teeth and groaned. ‘Injury?’
‘Just the usual bruises.’ That didn’t stop him rubbing a spot on his lower back and wincing.
‘Do you need Panadol or anything?’ A massage, hot soapy bath, long lingering healing kiss … Tash sawed at the loaf of bread she’d grabbed with unnecessary vigour. She needed to cut this out now. If her face turned any hotter it’d catch alight.
‘I’ll be right.’
‘Tough guy.’
Patrick smiled wryly and cracked the top off the wine. ‘Given how much I’ve sooked on your doorstep lately, I think you know different.’
‘So you’re not Superman,’ said Tash, arranging the bread in a cloth-lined basket. ‘Doesn’t mean you’re not a pretty good kind of human.’
‘So are you.’
Their eyes met for a long moment. Tash’s heartbeat shot through the roof. If it weren’t for the cooling chicken and her simmering sauce she might have launched herself at him and demanded to explore every inch of his human-ness.
Patrick was the first to look away. ‘We should put some more music on.’
With the sauce almost ready and a bowl of green salad alongside the bread, Tash began carving. She cut Patrick an entire leg and thigh, and spooned over a generous serving of the reduced juices. If she was hungry, Patrick had to be starving.
He waited until she was seated with her own serving before pushing an unpeeled garlic clove to the edge of his plate and looking at her.
‘Ah, now this is where the beauty of this dish really comes in. Watch and learn.’ Scooping up a piece of bread, Tash squeezed the creamy flesh of a garlic clove on top and smoothed it like butter. Winking, she took a hearty bite then groaned as she chewed.
Patrick’s eyes never left her mouth. Tash resisted the urge to groan more.
She pointed her bread at him. ‘Try it.’
‘Whole garlic.’
‘Roasted whole garlic in chicken juices. It’s sublime.’
With trepidation Patrick copied Tash’s moves. He looked at the bread, then at Tash, and shrugged and bit, chewing slowly.
Tash leaned closer, intent on his reaction. ‘Well?’
‘Pretty good.’
She raised both eyebrows.
He took another bite, then another until the all bread was gone. Then he licked his fingers.
Tash smirked. ‘Told you. Now try the chicken.’
‘You win,’ he said when they’d finished their meals and Patrick had used more bread to mop up every scrap of sauce from his plate. ‘I’ll never doubt you again when it comes to food.’
‘Good. Because I haven’t finished your education yet.’
They worked as a team to clear the table, Patrick scraping bones into the scrap bucket and passing plates and cutlery while Tash stacked the dishwasher.
He handed her the saucepan and rested his bum against the bench. His arms were folded and his legs crossed at the ankles but his expression was smug. ‘So what else have you planned for my future gourmet education?’
‘That’s a secret. You’ll just have to wait.’
‘Tease.’
‘Not by choice. I need to stock up on ingredients but I’ll grab those when I’m in Melbourne next week.’
His head jerked up. ‘You’re off to Melbourne?’
‘Uh huh.’ She closed the dishwasher and used mitts to grab the still warm dish. ‘I had the most brilliant idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Every other celebrity chef does merchandise. Why can’t I? If I’m smart about it, use good designers and quality products, I could generate a pretty handy revenue stream separate from my advertising and sponsorship income.’ She tipped the leftover juices and fat in with the scraps. ‘It’d be a good buffer.’
‘Sounds a great idea.’
‘Thanks. I’ve already been in touch with a few companies who specialise in these things and organised meetings.’ She placed the dish in the sink and turned on the hot water, deliberately keeping her tone throwaway. ‘Ceci’s in Sydney for a conference, so Thom’s putting me up.’
‘Thom?’
‘Uh huh.’
The chill in the air was so sudden it was like someone had flung the door open.
Patrick rubbed his mouth and leaned slightly forward. ‘Right.’
Tash let him brood for a moment while she gave the dish a cursory scrub then tipped out the dirty water and refilled it to soak overnight. She glanced at him. He was still looking down. Tash wiped her hands dry and went to touch his arm. ‘Hey.’
But Patrick was already moving to the other side of the bench, out of reach.