Page 15 of Rafferty's Rules
‘The ships docks in Picton in two days.’ The thunderous tapping desists, the agent’s gaze resting on Lissa briefly. ‘Alternatively, you can fly to Wellington for day five of the cruise.’ As her attention turns to me, I can almost see her calculatingly. ‘You know, should you have other plans.’
She obviously thinks I’m the reason Lissa didn’t make her boarding time. I guess she mustn’t understand the difference between lookingfuckedandwell fucked.Either way, I’m not filling in the blanks. Or anything else, for that matter.
‘No, I’ve no plans,’ Lissa confirms with a shake of her head.
‘Oh, well then.’ She’s now looking at me as though I’m a cream fucking pie.Or like she’d be game for being the star of one.‘Let’s hope we don’t have trouble getting you a flight.’ Her smile turns saccharine sweet again as she asks Lissa, ‘How does Picton sound?’
‘Like no more than I deserve.’ Maybe she has heard of the place. ‘This is going to be expensive, right?’
The agent shrugs. ‘You might have provision in your travel insurance?’
‘No,’ she answers immediately. I guess she’s one of those organised people who read the fine print.
‘Or a pair of ruby slippers?’ the agent returns, twirling the ends of her hair. And if she flutters her lashes any harder, we’ll both end up plastered against the wall.
‘No magic slippers and no yellow brick road to follow,’ Lissa mutters, pulling her purse onto her lap from where it’s lying between the arm of the chair and her hip. ‘But I do have a credit card.’
‘Excellent. I’ll just pull up some options then, shall I?’Just so long as you realise I’m not one of them, I silently intone as her gaze slides my way again.Keep it sliding...
She begins hammering away on her keyboard, her eyes full of dollar signs as she witters on and on about the luxuries of the “cruising life”. It could come with gold toilets, and I wouldn’t be interested. Being stuck on a floating island with nowhere to escape the hoards? No thanks.
I zone out, struggling to keep my eyes open as the agent’s chatter bores me to tears. At least, that is, until I’m hit by a sudden thought.
What. The. Fuck. Am I doing here?
This is how I get myself into scrapes—situations—fuckups. And it’s not as though I have the greatest track record when it comes to helping damsels in distress. I should have learned my lesson by now—once bitten, twice shy and all that. Maybe I should’ve thought about that before bringing her home.
Nah. I couldn’t have just left her. Same as I couldn’t walk past a stray kitten or puppy out on the street. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe I shouldn’t be such a soft touch. Lost in the morass of my own stupid thoughts, I come to realise Lissa hasn’t handed over her card.
‘What is it?’ I ask as she begins emptying the contents of her bag to her lap.
‘I think I must’ve been buying half of Sydney cocktails last night,’ she mutters, ‘because I’ve half as much money as I started the night with. Plus I think,’ she adds with a defeated sigh, ‘that this is what they call in Oz, a horse of a different colour.’
‘I think someone’s been pulling your leg. I’ve never heard that phrase used here before.’
‘No, not Aus,Oz.Like the movie with Dorothy? As in, this problem is not unrelated tomissing my boarding time but—hell, it totally is.’
‘How about you stop talking in riddles and tell me what the issue is.’
‘As well as spending half my cash last night, my bank and credit card aren’t here. I can’t pay for my flight.’
Twenty minutes later, we’re back at the house, and Lissa is on the phone with her bank. After she’d charged her phone, using my charger. She’d also used my laptop to log into her online banking to get her details because who the fuck remembers that kind of shit?Apparently, not Lissa.After two calls and much vague explanation, she hangs up the phone with a final and possibly one-hundredth “thankyousomuch”.
‘Urgh. Adulting is hard,’ she says, collapsing into a kitchen chair.
‘And cancelling credit cards harder. How’d you go?’
‘Hmm?’ She looks up from her phone. ‘Well, there are fraudulent charges on my credit card,go figure, but they’ve been set aside for now. They’ll email me some forms to fill out to get those charges removed. But I have a somewhat bigger issue.’
‘Bigger than missing your cruise?’ As damsels in distress go, Lissa must be top of the pile. Though he doesn’t exactly look distressed. More like resigned.
‘Good job cruising wasn’t the selling point,’ she mumbles to herself.
‘Notsurprised.’ I hand her a toasted bagel I’d picked up from the café on the corner while she was on the phone. Her eyes light up as she takes the paper bag from my hand.
‘You are a prince among men, Rafferty Fox, though it may be a while before I can pay you back for any of this.’
‘Fox isn’t my surname,’ I scoff, taking out my own bagel.
