15. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Dinner had been - if anything - under advertised. Lara had never eaten such good food. The company was warm and easy, with chatter about the family business, about the kids and their school, interspersed with loads of teasing, the two guests absorbed with magnanimity. It felt like Lara was visiting a completely foreign land, one full of big families who loved each other well, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“May I please have some bread?” Tilly piped up part-way through the meal.
“What beautiful manners,” Giovanni said kindly as he passed her the bowl to pick from.
“That’s from good mothering.” Francesca met Lara’s eyes approvingly over the table. Damnit, that warmth hit hard. Her smile slipped out embarrassingly quickly at that one.
Sadie elbowed her own daughter.
“Say thank you would you?” She pretended to glare at Frankie who just giggled and stuck her tongue out. Sadie basked just as much in the laugh she got back as Lara had.
“Please, let me help,” Lara insisted again, as the table was cleared. This time she ignored Francesca’s refusal and helped anyway, ferrying empty plates to the sink, scraping off the leftovers, stacking the dishwasher.
“Advertising yourself as a future daughter-in-law are you?” whispered Sadie sardonically as they passed each other in the hall. Lara gave her a small hip check and a glare.
“Are you? ” She looked pointedly at the fresh fruit platter her friend was holding. Sadie stuck her tongue out at her - looking momentarily identical to her ten year old daughter - and pointedly kept walking.
Francesca caved and put Lara to work whipping cream at the kitchen bench. Ollie cut strawberries next to her and the second her mother wasn’t looking, let her eyes track deliberately over the apron Francesca had furiously insisted on, as if Lara’s denim dress was couture to be protected.
“Cute,” she mouthed, echoing Lara’s tease from earlier. Lara made a point of turning her back to her, not missing a beat as she whipped. She wasn’t about to let Ollie see her smile so damn easily. All that good wine going to her head, she told herself.
When dessert was wrapped and the table cleared once more, Nonna and the smallest children were tucked into bed while the older kids were popped inside in front of a Disney movie. The adults lazed back, some at the table, others along the deck, drinking and chatting. Lara watched as Nico slowly approached Sadie, taking the seat beside her Lara herself had been on her way towards. She watched her friend’s face for a few seconds and then smirked to herself. She peeled away to lean against the deck bannister instead and gazed out over the dark winery beyond.
It was only a couple of moments, just as she’d known it would be, before she felt a presence beside her.
“Surviving okay?” asked Ollie, mimicking her posture and looking out at the pitch black view. “Tolerating my presence adequately?”
“I was until now,” Lara smiled at her sweetly. She turned back to the winery and heard Ollie breathe out a small laugh from beside her. She didn’t leave though, just let the quiet grow between them, the murmurs of conversation in the background, her family’s laughter. “They’re lovely,” Lara said begrudgingly. “I have no idea why you turned out the way you did.”
Ollie laughed again .
“Black sheep of the family,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she turned to gaze at her.
“Clearly.”
The silence grew again and Lara found she suddenly couldn’t help but give her something.
“Chickens,” she said.
Ollie’s head jerked up.
“I’m sorry?”
“I don’t have a dog, or a cat,” Lara told her. “I have chickens.”
“Oh,” said Ollie. “I thought for sure you’d be a cat person. Goes with the whole witchy thing,” she added, waving her finger vaguely around her, almost, but not quite, touching her skin.
“No,” Lara denied. “I like a practical pet.”
“Of course you do. Even you can’t afford eggs at the prices you charge.”
Lara burst into laughter. Ollie looked at her in askance.
“Well,” she agreed, “that’s true. My supplier is a real piece of work.” Ollie looked confused by her clear amusement and she laughed again. “Free range, organic, local, ethical, boutique, Ribbonwood heritage eggs?” She couldn’t stop her smirk. “They’re from my own backyard. Most expensive part of the supply chain is the boxes they come in. I make a mint off those things from tourists.”
Ollie stared at her, amusement - and something far warmer - glowing in her eyes.
“You’re an evil genius,” she said admiringly, her voice dropping low. “God, it’s so sexy.”
Lara looked back at her. The way Ollie was looking at her seemed to be giving her very little choice. At least, that was the only excuse she could give herself for why she couldn’t seem to shift her gaze.
“I’m going to throw you a bone here,” she said after a minute, looking down at the seemingly shrinking inches of deck rail between their arms. “Only one of those compliments actually means anything to me. ”
Ollie considered her.
“That makes sense,” she said. “It’s probably the first time in your entire life someone has ever told you you’re sexy. It’s thrown you.” Lara huffed out a small laugh. Ollie tucked a lock of dark hair back behind her ear. Her fingers were painfully elegant, her nails neat and small. She gazed steadily at Lara. “Thanks for the head’s up,” she said softly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Without looking away she shifted slightly, tilting her whole body towards Lara’s. “I think you misheard me though. I said it was your smart scheming brain that I found sexy. Not…all this… ” She slowly waved her finger again, at Lara’s lips, her body, and screwed up her face. “Ugh,” she tried.
Lara laughed. She’d been desired for her looks her whole damn life and it had never brought her anything that was truly good for her. She made herself look away, unsure why hearing the word sexy from Ollie Gabrielli’s lips seemed to to be the exception that hit her low in her belly.
“Is my daughter taking good care of you?”
Ollie jumped back as her mother’s voice broke the spell that was growing between them. Lara blinked too as the bubble burst, wondering exactly how Ollie had managed it. Francesca had a bottle in her hand and she looked pointedly at Lara’s almost empty glass, forgotten on the rail beside her. Somehow though, Lara felt like her question insinuated a whole lot more .
“She’s adequate.” Lara smiled, absolutely not about to let Ollie’s mother think there was anything going on, when there most definitely was not. Francesca laughed as she topped her up.
“We were just talking about Lara’s chickens,” Ollie tried quickly to defuse whatever her mother was about to say, and Francesca’s eyes lit up.
“Oh!What kind do you have?”
Lara recognised the tone of a chicken fanatic and she found her smile stretching wide, watching Ollie start to wilt as her mother settled in for a long yarn about breeds and feeds, predator prevention and how to make a yolk truly golden.
“Have you tried colloidal silver for a sick chicken?” Francesca asked her a few minutes later and Ollie huffed with annoyance.
“Oh my god, mum,” she sighed. “That’s not science, I’ve told you.”
“Oh, listen to this one.” Francesca nudged Lara with her elbow. “Gets a medical degree, thinks she’s a chicken doctor.”
Lara laughed, enjoying joining forces with the woman who knew best of all how to get under Ollie’s skin .
“You really do need some, “ Francesca went on seriously.“It’s a must for every chicken owner’s medicine cabinet. Ollie,” she instructed. “Go down and get some from the shed for her, it’s on the back shelf. I make it myself,” she told Lara, “so you know it’s the good stuff.”
“Mum, honestly-”
“Actually, take her with you.” Her mother ignored Ollie’s protest. “Show her the mealworm farm I’ve made for them too, she’ll love that.”
“I’m sure she would.” Ollie looked so flabbergasted at the turn the evening had taken that Lara felt almost sorry for her.
“It sounds incredible,” she told Ollie, her smile broad. “Please, lead the way.”
Sadie broke from her conversation with Nico to give Lara a solid raised eyebrow as she and Ollie walked by, heading off the verandah into the dark together. Lara raised hers right back, looking sideways to where the middle Gabrielli brother was looking extremely chuffed with himself. She left her wineglass behind and stepped off onto the soft grass with Ollie who’d grabbed a torch from a porch shelf and was lighting the path ahead.
“God, I’m sorry about her,” Ollie said, her voice strangely more intimate as they walked out into the dark of the night together. “She likes to take every chance she gets to make my life miserable. ”
“That’s probably why I like her so much.”
“We’re not actually going to go look at weird chicken medicine and worms just so you know,” Ollie announced.
Lara stopped still.
“Oh yes we are. What if she asks? ” she hissed, horrified.
Ollie laughed.
“Are you serious right now?”
“ Yes. She’s hosting me! I’m not going to insult her potions.”
Ollie actually giggled. She was shining the torch at their feet and Lara could barely make out her face.
“Wow. I didn’t realise you were this… adorable,” she teased her. Lara scoffed. “Come on then.” She turned them down a row of vines. “This way. Jesus christ.”
“Wait, where were you actually taking me?” Lara asked suspiciously .
“It’s a winery,” Ollie said. “There’s about a thousand pretty places to take a girl to sit and stare at the stars.”
“Nice try,” Lara told her flatly. “Now take me to the mealworms.”
Ollie laughed. She led the way past an extensive, neatly rowed vegetable patch and a small chook house locked up like Fort Knox for the night, until they reached a large potting shed. She was just reaching out to open the door when Lara grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Watch it,” she said.
Ollie looked at her in surprise, but Lara didn’t let go of her. She looked back at the shed and let out a shriek.
“Oh my god!”
“Calm down, it’s just a python,” Lara told her, but Ollie had stepped abruptly back right into her body. It was only a brief clash of warmth but Lara found herself surrounded by the scent of her citrus shampoo. She sucked in a breath. “Hey honey,” she said, stepping around Ollie, refusing to be flustered, and addressing the snake instead. “Oh, you’re a pretty one.” The huge carpet python gleamed under the torch light, her long thick body stretching right out along the top of the shed then down the front to the door, the head swaying right next to the handle Ollie had been about to grab for. “No little chickens for you this evening, my friend.” She watched the tongue flicker, the large dark eyes shining. “Or are you chasing possums tonight?”
“Oh my god, you really are a witch,” Ollie practically squeaked out as she watched Lara admire the snake. “I think,” she said a moment later, as the large reptile straight up refused to move, “that at least we hit on a valid reason not to go in the damn shed.”
Lara laughed, but she let herself get led away. She blamed the wine and the still warmth of the evening for the fact she didn’t even protest as Ollie walked them back through the vines again, up a grassy slope and through a small grove of trees to a long ridge above the property. Ollie switched off the torch and they sat side-by-side in the grass. As their eyes adjusted, Lara found herself smiling. The stars were astonishing. The stars were exactly the fucking same as the ones she saw in her own country backyard every night. The stars were still worth gazing at.
They were quiet. Aside from the rustle of small wild creatures in the trees behind them and the distant sounds of the dinner party continuing, all Lara could hear was their own breathing. Their bodies were close, both leaning back on their hands to gaze up at the sky, but to her surprise, Ollie wasn’t making a single move to get closer to her. Finally, the suspense got to her.
“So is this the part where you’re going to try to make out with me?”
Ollie grinned, turning her head to look at her .
“Is that you asking me to?”
Lara shot her a look back.
“You wish,” she denied. “Though at this point you’re pretty much the only member of your whole family who hasn’t managed to kiss me tonight.”
Ollie laughed.
“I mean honestly, who could blame them?”
“I’m just confused,” Lara needled her. “Because ever since you got back to town you’ve been staring at me like you want to eat me alive, every chance you get. But now you’ve managed to manipulate things so that you’ve got me alone, full of wine, under the starlight and you’re what… reconsidering?”
Ollie turned to face her.
“Oh, I want to kiss you,” she announced firmly. An unreasonable spark of heat hit Lara’s bloodstream, which made no sense whatsoever, since Ollie was only confirming what she’d already understood to be true. “Very much so. Tonight’s not about that though. ”
“It’s not?” For a second Lara wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“No.”
“What the hell is tonight about, Ollie Gabrielli, if it’s not about getting in my pants?” she demanded.
“Tonight’s about amends,” Ollie said softly, her gaze direct. “It’s about not being a piece of shit, in your eyes. I won’t be your hate fuck, Lara Bennett.”
Lara was speechless.
The words hung in the air. She found herself laying back fully in the grass, her eyes on the stars, suddenly unsure if she was still winning here or not.
Ollie was masterful. She’d brought Lara there, right into her messy, chaotic, delightful family home. She’d introduced her to her gorgeous parents and her beloved dying grandmother, let her siblings mock her and her mother embarrass her, all so that Lara had no damn choice but to see her as a whole person. Not just a high school nemesis, not even just as a grown woman with a serious threat of hot sex in her big dark eyes. Instead, she’d made herself more. And even worse, she’d done the very thing that Lara secretly craved in her most hidden of hearts, and made her feel wanted . Not just desired - actually welcome - amongst a whole damn family at that.
For a minute Lara couldn’t tell if she was slightly swept off her feet by such a move or actually just pissed at her. Ollie lived in Melbourne. What the fuck did she think she was trying to do? Lara almost jumped when Ollie chose that moment, to finally make her move.
Her hand found Lara’s in the grass, threading her long slender fingers through hers with intense gentleness. When Lara didn’t move an inch - for or against the contact - Ollie’s thumb stroked achingly softly, a meandering path up and then down the inside of her palm. Lara, absolutely, one hundred percent, did not shiver. Ollie pulled her fingers away.
Lara bit out the words before she could stop them.
“I don’t think you’re a piece of shit, Ollie,” she relented quietly.
Ollie exhaled a quick breath.
“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she told her. Lara found herself smiling up at the stars. She didn’t dare look over at Ollie. They lay side-by-side until all she could hear was her own heart, beating loudly in her ears. “Come on,” Ollie said a few moments later, stretching her back luxuriously and pulling herself up out of the grass. “I guess it’s getting pretty late for the girls tonight, huh? School tomorrow and all.”
Lara’s head spun. Ollie reached down to grab her hand and tugged her to her feet.
“Really?” Lara said in absolute disbelief, tugging her fingers back, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re chickening out now?”
Ollie’s eyes were amused in the starlight.
“Oh believe me, that’s not what’s happening here,” she said. “But I’m also not going to try to kiss you while we’re half drunk and you’re still using words like manipulate about the evening. I’m not that kind of arsehole.”
Lara blinked.
Ollie had already flicked the torch back on and was several steps ahead down the slope before Lara had the wherewithal to catch up to her. They were silent all the way down the vineyard.
At almost the last row of vines, Ollie stopped so suddenly Lara nearly bumped into her. She turned off the torch again and Lara rested her hand on the solid wooden post at the end of the row, her eyes readjusting to the dark night again, light spilling off from the edges of the porch, closer now, illuminating their features.
“What?” she asked, as Ollie stepped in closer.
Ollie was less than a foot away - almost close enough to touch - her eyes serious.
“Lara,” she said softly. “What happened with Robyn Lowe?”
It took a full five seconds for Lara’s brain to comprehend the words. Then, she started to laugh.
“What did you hear?” she asked curiously. Of all the things she’d expected to happen with Ollie Gabrielli out here in the dark, this had not been anywhere on the list.
“I heard,” Ollie’s eyes held hers, “that you spread a fake rumour about her. That she was being unfaithful. But that actually she was sick in hospital at the time.”
“It’s all true,” Lara said. “I did do that.”
Ollie kept looking at her.
“Why?”
“Well,” Lara said slowly, leaning back against the wooden post, “I’m a horrible, nasty bitch. ”
Ollie watched her face.
Then, she bit her lip. Her eyes were steady.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, you should,” Lara shrugged. “I’m bad; everyone knows it. It’s also why you want me,” she pointed out. “And we both know that too.” She let her head tilt back, just enough, exposing her throat. Her back was slightly arched, hips tilted towards Ollie and she watched the other woman track her eyes over her body and swallow. “It’s so bad of you to want me so much,” Lara whispered, delivering the killing blow.
Ollie looked at her for a long beat, her eyes drinking in their fill. And then she smiled. A big, warm, unstoppable smile.
“Lara Bennett,” she said quietly. “I am going to figure you out. And you can’t stop me with that shit.”
With that, she tugged Lara by the hand and without letting go began to walk her up towards the house. Lara was so astonished that she let her for almost a full thirty seconds, before she remembered to snatch her hand back away and out of reach.