He sat down. “Sorry, Chook.”
I waved a hand. “It’s okay. I did what you said anyway,” I replied, taking great amusement in the way his eyes bugged out at my words.
“Um…that was fast?”
My phone chose that moment to ring and happy to leave Henry hanging, I tugged it out of my pocket. When I glanced at the display, I dropped it like it was a hissing snake.
“What?” Henry looked at me then glanced at the phone. “Oh shit.” Now he was eyeballing it like it was a hissing snake. “You uh, gonna answer that?”
“I don’t know!” My voice was a shout and my eyes widened in panic as they whipped to his. “Should I?”
At my shout, both Mac and Coby appeared at the doorway.
“What the fuck is going on?” Mac asked.
Coby followed our gaze to the phone and then anger lit his eyes. “Christ. What the hell time is it over in the States anyway?”
“Don’t answer it,” snapped Mac.
The frustration of not having any peace to gather my thoughts had me yelling again. “Would you all shut up for just one freaking second and let me think.”
They paused collectively, almost breathlessly, and tension singed the air.
I started to reach for the phone, wanting to hear his voice.
“Evie,” Mac said in her best “you better not do what I think you’re going to do” voice.
Then it stopped ringing and I missed my chance to talk to Jared.
Everyone held their breath, waiting to see if I'd receive a voicemail. Nothing happened and grabbing my phone, I pushed my way through them and towards the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge.
I grabbed another bottle of wine and poured as much as I could fit into the glass, sloshing it over the sides as Mac grabbed my arm and hustled me inside the walk-in pantry, shutting the door behind us. She didn’t bother turning on the light because it blew again yesterday morning.
Feeling weary I waved a hand in surrender. “Mac, please.”
“I…”
“Get to the point.” I had an alcohol bath to get to.
“Sorry, Sandwich. I’ve been such a shitty friend. I don’t want to make it all about me, but I just wanted to say that it’s been hard for me to watch my two favourite people, both so desperately in love with the other, falling apart, and it hurts. It. Fucking. Hurts.” I could hear the tears in her voice and if the light had been working, I would’ve seen them roll down her cheek. “I know I need to be more supportive, but I thought that… I was trying to just be myself. Thinking if things were normal it might help, but I realised that normal isn’t enough. Normal hasn’t been the support I thought it would be, and I’m sorry.”
There was a painful fumble in the dark where Mac grunted when I elbowed her in the stomach and I yelped when her finger poked my eye, and then we were hugging.
The door busted open and blinking at the flood of light, Henry bore down on us. “Jesus, Chook, first Casey and now Mac. Who else are you planning on assaulting tonight because I have plans.”
“You do?” I asked.
“Casey?” Mac asked.
“Casey and Evie had sex,” Henry blurted out.
“Um, what?” Mac and I replied simultaneously, mine directed at Henry, hers directed at me.
“We didn’t have sex. We kissed.”
“You did? When?”
“Out on the front step, just before.”
With the light flooding in I caught Mac’s open mouthed expression. “You mean after I took the garbage out?”
“I think that the next time Jared rings, you should answer the phone,” Henry interjected.
“Oh here we go,” Mac said with a grumble. “Advice from the retarded relationship bastard.”
“Wait.” I grabbed at her arm. “Sometimes he can be an idiot savant about this stuff. Make your point, Henry. Fast,” I added. I still had an alcohol bath to get to.
“Remember our conversation that night when Jimmy had Mac and we were talking about Jared, and I told you to put yourself in his shoes?”
Mac, not privy to our conversation, folded her arms, and I nodded my agreement, making a rolling motion with my hand to indicate he should continue.
“What’s your point,” Mac snapped.
“My point...” Henry frowned at Mac as he spoke to me “...is that he blames himself. He’s pushed you away because he can’t forgive himself for what happened to you. Remember when you told us that he said he didn’t want to be another asshole in your life like Renny and Kellar were? He feels like he’s no better than them. So he took Casey’s place thinking that was the only way he could keep himself away from you, and he thinks he needs to do that to protect you. From himself.”
“But that’s…that’s…”
Henry finished my sentence. “That’s how men roll. I’m not saying what he did was okay because pushing you away and leaving pissed me right. the. fuck. off. I’m telling you so you’ll understand that it’s not because he doesn’t love you. It’s because he loves you so much that he’s not thinking clearly. Make sure you swallow whatever pride or anger you might be carrying, Evie, and give yourselves a fucking chance. That is why I think you should answer the phone if he rings you again.”
Henry put a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it up and down my arm soothingly as I wiped at tears.
My mind flickered back to the moment I’d first opened the door and saw Jared standing there. The green eyes laughing, the hair in his eyes, the complete and utter panic I’d felt when I knew he was going to mean something to me, something big. The messages we sent every day. The first time I felt his tongue travel the length of my body. Him running for the car when I couldn’t get out. Tackling him to the floor on our first date, then me telling him it was over. Him tucking my hair behind my ears with a curl of his lips, then the pain radiating from his body when he thought I’d betrayed him. The agony in his eyes as he told me he loved me while I lay bleeding on the floor, and the painful sobs that racked my body when he walked out the door and never came back.
I saw it all, the highest of our highs and the lowest of our lows, and as much as every piece was a part of me, I wanted to howl for never getting a chance to live in the middle.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jared rang back the day after the barbecue. I’d missed it again, not from indecision this time, but because I was in the recording studio. He left a voicemail, and I’d sat on it all day, breathless, unfocused, and waiting until later when I was alone.
“Baby.” The deep rumble of his voice and the term of endearment stirred something inside me until he paused and corrected himself. “Evie. I’m pretty much thinking you don’t want to talk to me, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry. I left you and I’m so fucking sorry.” I heard him inhale deeply and let it out sharply before he continued. “That doesn’t sound enough… I tried so hard to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, but the minute I got on that plane I… Evie, I watched the rose in your skin turn blue. I sat there pressing a goddamn shirt into your chest until I thought I would break. I close my eyes and all I see is you, covered in blood, not breathing, and I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe. Love was the one thing I had to give you, and I fucked it up. I wasn’t there for you. You almost died, and I wasn’t there for you… I want you to know I was wrong. That we weren’t a mistake, and that I was a coward. I was scared of what being with me had done to you, and I was scared of that happening again. I’m sorry… I think of you every minute of every day.”
The message ended and my heart thundered painfully. I’d thrown the phone against the wall and no, it didn’t make me feel better. It just left a small dent in the wall and chipped the paint. I’d snuggled back under the doona. Then I’d huffed and flung it back off, getting out of bed to retrieve the phone. Peter growled because he was burrowed under the fluffy covers trying to sleep.
The next morning, before we left the beach, Casey crowded me against the car. “There’s no coming back for you, is t
here?”
I turned my head, saw the waves rolling in, saw the orange hues of the horizon, and I saw a chance to live in the middle.
I turned back and met his eyes. “No, Casey. There’s no coming back.”
He closed them briefly before he nodded and pressed his lips against mine, quick and soft. Then he smiled, and once again I found myself watching him back out of the car park and drive away.
The next morning there was a brief blurb in the newspaper along with a grainy photo of Casey’s lips meeting mine. The small story commented about who the mystery man was and asked if “Evie had finally found love?” They also included a brief summary of the shooting. News must have been light on the ground yesterday if that was worth reporting about.
“Did you see the paper?”
I nodded at Mac from the dining table because I had a mouthful of Coco Pops.
“What was that about? I thought you and Casey didn’t have a thing, but the proof is on the page.”
“No, Macface, the paper was indicating we had a thing. I can’t explain what that was. It almost felt like a goodbye somehow.”
Mac poured some Coco Pops in her bowl as Henry wandered in, sleepy eyed and shirtless, scratching at his head as he yawned.
“So you and Casey don’t have a thing?” she asked.
Henry looked confused as he frowned at Mac. “I thought we established that Evie and Casey weren’t going to have a thing and that things might be moving ahead with Jared.” He aimed his frown at me, his voice harsh. “You told us you were going to find your middle.”
I exhaled noisily and narrowed my gaze on Mac. “No, we don’t have a thing.”
She put her hands up in surrender before opening the fridge door to get out the milk. “Okay, okay. Just checking.”
I pointed my spoon at both Mac and Henry in turn, milk flying across the dining table. “You two just worry about your own things.”
“But we don’t have things to worry about,” Henry complained as he flicked the kettle. “Cuppa?”
“Yes, please,” both Mac and I replied.
“That’s because you’re the retarded relationship bastard,” Mac informed him.
“So what’s your excuse, Mac?” Henry asked, folding his arms and leaning against the kitchen counter.
“My excuse is that I’m too busy to have a thing.”
“Argh!” I shouted. “If one more person says thing, I’m going to throw my bowl at their head.”
“Thing,” Mac taunted.
I picked up my bowl threateningly as I half stood, and she squealed and leaped behind Henry’s back.
Henry shoved her out of the way. “Jesus, Macklewaine, I almost spilled hot tea all over you.”
Henry plopped a cup of tea on the table in front of me. “What’s on the schedule today, Mac?”
“Got our music video tomorrow. We need to be there just before lunch because we’ll be doing some later afternoon/evening type stuff. So today is prep work for that. Not to mention I’ve got someone coming tomorrow morning for the assistants interview.”
“Yeah?” I piped up. “Who?”
“Quinn Salisbury is her name.”
“Cool. Nice name,” said Henry.
“I agree. I like the sound of her, Henry, and I need someone desperately, so you keep your eyes off her, okay?”
“Whatever.”
Henry gave a salute and took his coffee back upstairs.
The day passed by quickly and the next morning found me having a strange dream where a hotdog was trying to eat my leg. I was holding a gun and telling the hotdog I would shoot it because I was a badass bitch but then it turned into a snake that spoke to me with Snoop Dogg’s voice and told me to “drop it like it’s hot.”
My phone ringing woke me from the ridiculousness that was my mind, and thankful, I reached out from under the pillow to snag it from the bedside table, pulling it back under to answer with a muffled greeting.
“‘Lo?”
Peter growled at the noise from somewhere deep beneath the fluffy white confines.
“Did I wake you?” Jared’s smooth sexy rumble washed over me.
“Yeah,” I whispered sleepily, “but that’s okay because I was having a really weird dream.”
I told him about it and when he laughed I woke up just that little bit more, realising that I was actually speaking to Jared for the first time since he left my hospital room. Not only that, it felt so damn good that tears filled my eyes even as I chuckled lightly at his laugh. Peter growled again at the noise.
“Was that Peter?”
“Yeah. The phone call woke him up, and he’s pissed.”
“Tell him I said sorry.”
“Okay, but I’ll wait until he’s in a better mood.”
“Sorry for ringing so early, but I thought I’d be catching you after your surf.”
“No surf today. Casey begged off. How did you know I’ve been surfing?”
“Casey told me. You don’t surf on your own?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied. “Attempting a surf on my own would be tantamount to suicide.”
He laughed and I figured then that he’d heard all about my relationship with the ocean floor.
“Listen, uh, I was wondering if we could catch up?”
I shifted out from under the pillow, realising I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep after this conversation. “Um, okay.”
“What about this morning?”
I sat up, breathless. “This morning?”
“I’m home, Evie.”
The words sent a thrill through my body that started at my toes and ran the entire length of my body until I was sure my hair stood on end.
“But...you’re not due back for another month.”
“I know, but you know Casey was originally supposed to do the contract job over there. He’s flying there this morning to take over the last few weeks so I could come home early.”
I put a shaky hand to my forehead, remembering Casey’s words yesterday morning at the beach. The way his eyes scanned my face before he’d gotten in his car. I let my breath out slowly. “Casey’s leaving? Today?”
“Yeah, Mitch is dropping him at the airport this morning. His flight leaves in an hour or so. Anyway, I have something I want to show you so did you want to? See me that is.”
“I…yeah, but we’ve got our music video today, so I can’t stay long, okay? Give me an hour?”
“Sure. I’ll message you the address.”
I threw the phone on my bed and bolted for the wardrobe. Flinging clothes about in a panic, I realised I needed Mac.
“Mac!” I shouted, running down the hall to her room. “Mac!”
I flung myself on the bed, landing on top of her. She grunted but otherwise didn’t move, so I grabbed her shoulders and shook hard.
“Mac!” I shouted again, this time in her face.
“Fuck off,” she mumbled without opening her eyes.
“Mactard, open your eyes. I need you. Help! I’m meeting Jared this morning, and I need something that says sexy bitch, but in a casual 'I didn’t try hard to look this sexy' way, and it also needs to channel a 'I shouldn’t have left you, but now that you’re here, I want to devour you' kinda vibe.”
Mac opened bleary eyes as I straddled her, hands still clutched desperately to her shoulders.
“What?”
“Mac! Don’t ask me to repeat that because I have no idea what I said.”
I let go of her shoulders, and she pushed up on her elbows. “Jared’s home?”
“Yes, now get out of bed.”
I climbed down and holding her arm, began to drag her off.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get you out of bed, asshead. I need help with something to wear.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“Mac!”
I returned to my efforts and with the core strength I’d worked so hard for coming through, she slid carelessly to the floor.
“Jesus, Sandw
ich, this better be good.” She growled.
“Just hurry up.”
Back in my room, she burrowed into my wardrobe, ordering me to put some blush, mascara, and lip gloss on. Finished, I sat on the edge of the bed explaining my conversation with Jared to Mac as she threw clothes to the floor, muttering to herself. Out came a pair of short aquamarine coloured shorts with a scalloped hem and large button detail lining the pockets. Huh, I didn’t even realise I owned those. I slid them on and checked the mirror, noticing they showcased the long length of leg, tanned and toned from the hours trudging the sand in my quest to ride the ultimate wave. Okay, it sounded good, but my quest to not face plant on the beach was more accurate. I was assured that the ultimate wave would come later.
“Evie, you there?”
Mac was snapping her fingers in my face with one hand, the other was holding out a top.
“Sorry,” I muttered. I slid it on. The white, silver studded scoop neck top was perfect―loose to convey casualness, yet covering enough skin to make the length of leg on display sexy rather than skanky.
“Shit, what’s the time?”
“No idea, Mac.”
“I’ve got that interview for the assistant this morning. You can’t leave now. I want you here for that.”
I slid strappy silver sandals on my feet and a thick silver and diamonte bangle up my bicep. “No can do, Macky Wacky.”
“Thanks a bunch,” she hissed and sent me an icy glare. “Next time dress yourself.”
“Mac, I’ll be late. Go and get yourself ready for Quinn okay?”
I sauntered down the stairs to the kitchen, added my phone and purse to my handbag, and picked up my car keys when the doorbell rang.
“Mac!” I shouted. “That’ll be your interview.”
I opened the door to see a young girl in a hat and giant sunglasses. She had a death grip on a leash that was currently restraining a giant Rhodesian Ridgeback from barging through the front door. The dog had a giant white bandage wrapped around his head, making him look earless and completely ridiculous.
“Hmmm, maybe not,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?” the girl asked.