Page 34 of The Season to Sin

‘I used to leave work early on Friday,’ I say. ‘I’d go there and have a quiet hour all to myself.’

‘With the oysters,’ he says, the jocular comment undermined by the ice-cold determination in his eyes.

‘Right, with the oysters.’

‘You said you met him in high school?’

Do I want to speak about Aaron? Not really. Yet I find myself nodding. ‘He’s two years older than me. You know what it’s like when you’re a kid—there’s something so...cool...about older guys.’ I roll my eyes. Before he can ask another question, I reach for an oyster. It is ice-cold and so salty that I moan as I eat it.

‘Jesus. Maybe that’s why they’re supposed to be sexy.’

I laugh self-consciously. ‘What about you? Any sexy school girlfriends in your past? Big, romantic love affairs?’

‘Nah.’ Another word that makes him sound so Australian.

‘Nah?’ I try to imitate it an

d fail. He grins.

I like his grin.

‘Nah. Nope. Nada.’ He takes another oyster and eats it. I look away, sip my wine. My face is warm.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ he says with a shrug.

‘You mean you’ve literally never been in a relationship?’

‘You going to psychoanalyse that?’

I reach for another oyster, buying time. ‘I can’t switch off my brain just because you don’t want to talk about your past.’

He arches a brow. ‘So what do you read into it, then?’

‘I thought we agreed I wasn’t going to do this.’

‘I’m just curious,’ he prompts.

‘Well—’ I choose my words with attention ‘—I suppose I’d say that it’s...interesting.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s unusual,’ I continue. ‘To be your age and not have someone in your past.’

‘I haven’t been living a monk’s life,’ he points out.

‘Things you probably don’t need to discuss with me.’ It’s unexpectedly haughty.

He laughs, a sound that runs like smooth caramel over my back. ‘Jealous?’

I don’t answer. I am—it’s no doubt very apparent. My silence seems to sober him.

As if realising that he’s crossed a line I don’t like very much, he sighs. ‘I’m a busy man, Holly. Gabe and I have been like hamsters on a wheel since things took off. Ten years later, I look around and I’m thirty-six. I haven’t exactly had time for anyone else in my life.’

‘So you’re saying you want a relationship, to get married, grow old with someone, but you just haven’t had time to find the right person?’

‘Better than marrying an abusive shit like you did.’