Free Counterfeit Love by Julie Fison Page B

the problem. ‘No problem. I’ll pretend the maid wrecked it in the wash,’ he joked.
    Lucy gasped. ‘You can’t! That’s terrible. No, come back to my place. I think I’ve got a needle and cotton.’
    Byron was momentarily lost for words. He looked into Lucy’s eyes, wondering if she was just being helpful or if there was something more to it. ‘Okay, if you think it’s worth fixing.’
    Lucy nodded, smoothing the sleeve of his shirt out. She bit her lip and studied him for a while before she responded. ‘Yes, come back to my place,’ she said quietly.
    Those were the last words Lucy said for some time. The sewing arrangement seemed to instantly rob the evening of fun. They stood silently on the kerbside waiting for a taxi while mahjong tiles clattered in a room above the restaurant, and a dude murdered a karaoke number in a nearby bar.
    Byron wondered if it had been a mistake to agree to go home with Lucy. It had definitely changed her mood. She’d become so serious, and when he tried to take her hand she indulged him briefly and then pulled away, folding her arms across her chest.
    Lucy was virtually silent the whole way back to her apartment, just shrugging or offering monosyllabic answers to his questions. She didn’t ask any of her own. When they pulled up outside her apartment block, Byron was pretty sure she didn’t want him around anymore. He’d be handed a needle and cotton at the door and told to mend his own shirt. It seemed strange; she was the one who’d suggested coming back.
    ‘This way,’ Lucy said in an expressionless voice, pulling her house keys out of her bag when the taxi pulled up. Byron, wondering where he’d screwed things up, followed her into an oldish block and up three flights of stairs. Maybe she’d just realised he wasn’t up to her standard. Standing on the kerbside in his torn shirt, he must have looked like a complete tool. She’d called him the Incredible Hulk. Of course it was meant as an insult!
    ‘Lucy, if you … ’ he started to say when they reached her apartment and she put a key in the door. ‘I don’t have to come in.’
    Lucy turned to him. As her eyes bore into his face everything in his mind started to spin. Her expression was so serious it looked like she was about to slap him. He took a step back, but she stepped forward, throwing her arms around his neck.
    ‘Byron,’ she breathed. His legs almost gave way.
    They fumbled their way into the apartment in the dark – hands, fingers, lips, bodies all over the place, in a desperate chaotic dance. It was a wild few minutes before he crashed backwards onto a sofa. At least he thought that’s what it was, but it felt unusual – hard and furry.
    Lucy slipped on top of him, her face finding his neck, and he forgot the sofa. He shuffled to free himself of his torn shirt as Lucy ran her fingers over his chest. Byron pulled her face towards him and kissed her desperately. Her lips, her neck, down her bare shoulder. And then something cracked – or did it yelp?
    ‘I think I’m on a dog,’ he mumbled.
    Lucy got to her feet and switched on a lamp. ‘ Shit. It’s designer. Charlotte’ll kill me if we’ve broken it.’
    Byron rolled off the sofa. He had trouble stifling a laugh now he could see what they’d been lying on. ‘It looks like a cross between an ironing board and a tiger.’
    ‘Shhh,’ Lucy whispered with a half smile. ‘Charlotte loves that thing. I don’t think you’re meant to make out on it. In fact she doesn’t even like people sitting on it.’
    Byron looked around – they were in a lounge area full of girly furniture, all useless for slothing around on and hopeless for making out on. He wondered if girls actually understood the point of lounge rooms.
    ‘Try the bedroom.’ Lucy nodded to a room off the lounge. ‘I’ll see you in a sec.’
    She disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Byron to find his way into her bedroom. Slowly he opened the door, and walked into a virtually