And maybe Mike Holliday could help me prove it.
CHAPTER 4
MIKE
It took two shakes of a lamb’s tail to sort the mix up with the cake(s). The birthday kid’s mum had assumed I’d forget a cake so she’d put in a second order with Lia from the bakery. Luckily Lia had the good sense to come check with me first.
In the kitchen, Aroha, our head cook, had veggie cups, three trays of savories, and a massive bowl of saveloys with tomato sauce ready to go. My work was pretty much done here. I chatted to a few parents and finished an order with our butcher, Charlie.
It was such a normal Saturday afternoon at Levitate that I almost forgot about the big-city influencer who was sitting at a corner table, bent over her phone, frowning. When I approached, she turned her phone face down and straightened up.
She had been waiting for me.
Lyssa Luxe was here in Aotearoa, waiting for me.
She’d been here all of twenty minutes and already I’d eye fucked her and laid my hands on her. I was supposed to be showing the town I was a very good boy and a serious businessman, so throwing my sister’s friend around like she was my girl was not the way to do that. NEW MIKE.
“I’m going to go and check into my hotel,” she said, getting to her feet. Her shiny shorts squeaked as she did. I’d never seen shorts like this in my life, and I bet no one else in Woodville had either.
“I just wanted to say goodbye first. Maybe I can come by your farm sometime tomorrow? I’d like to see it.”
I stayed cool. “Sure, if you want to.”
The mental image of her in my house felt wrong, like a dolphin in a barn, but I couldn’t stop trying to picture it.
This whole thing was a clusterfuck, because Caroline would flay me alive for inviting her friend here, but would also flay me if I didn’t make every effort to look after her now that she was here—but there was an invisible line at play here, which I couldn’t under any circumstances cross. My sister would double (triple?) flay me if she thought I was putting in too much effort because I liked the look of her friend.
Which I didn’t, by the way. I just watched her videos sometimes. That was it. Like how people watched a TV show, or a rugby game.
Not that I had any plans to confess this to Caroline.
I never usually thought twice about something once I said it—what was done was done, and there was no point jerking off over it—but having Lyssa accept my offer to come here made me sweat a bit. Probably, the right thing to do when I’d seen her looking so bummed would have been to pull Caroline out of her love bubble and tell her to go check on her friend, or send a singing fucking telegram or something. Not be like, oi come fly across the globe and stay here.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Earlier in the Levitate kitchen, I’d sent my sister a text, trying to cover my ass.
HEY SHRIMP UR AMERICAN FRIEND IS HERE FOR A VISIT AND ALSO LIA SAYS TO TELL YOU THAT SHE CAN SEND YOU MORE PICS OF THE BOOB CAKE SHE NAMED AFTER YOU FOR YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA JUST LET HER KNOW
It was about midnight in New York right now, and my sister worked nights as a burlesque artist, so by my math, I had about twelve hours before she wanted to know why the fuck I’d done this.
Dead man walking.
“Okay then,” Lyssa suddenly said to me, and for some reason she was beet red. “See you later.”
The keys to her rental car were in her hand. She was heading for the door.
“Hold on.” I grabbed Lyssa’s shoulder and whirled her around. Her massive blue eyes doubled in size.
“You’re not getting back behind that wheel,” I said firmly.
“What? Yes, I am. I need to drive to the hotel.”
“You’re the shittiest fucking driver I’ve ever fucking seen.”
She rolled her eyes. “Say fucking again, Mike. I don’t think the kids heard you.”
Like they could hear anything other than Lizzie.
