The Aussie Next Door

by Stefanie London

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t usually get writer’s block, but ever since I started writing this plotline about the bridge to the mainland, I keep getting stuck. So I detoured and wrote T the Dog and we had a few funny moments with him.” Jace shook his head. “But I can’t figure out how to resolve the bridge issue. I had thought about Hermit having some foiled attempts to delay the bridge’s production, Pinky and the Brain–style. Maybe trying to blow it up. But that seemed a bit extreme.”

  “And he doesn’t want the bridge to be built because it will bring more people to his island.”

  “Exactly. He’s trying to keep his life quiet and stable, and the bridge will bring tourism and noise and all the other things he hates.” Jace reached over to the notebook and flipped a few pages back. “I did a ‘nightmare’ sequence, where the town is overrun with children, that was pretty funny.”

  “So he’s all about keeping the status quo?”

  “Yeah. He has life the way he wants it, and the mayor wants to grow and expand the town to make more money.”

  Angie snorted. “Sounds familiar.”

  “I certainly take inspiration from real life.”

  “The thing I always wondered was how you were going to keep the story going if Hermit never changes.” Angie traced a fingertip over one of the drawings of Hermit. The character was tall and had delightfully spiky hair and wore a pair of round glasses. Jace had worked a cute little detail into the drawings where Hermit’s T-shirts always said something funny that related to the strip. Sometimes they were riffs on brand slogans—Just don’t do it. Other time they were funny sayings—I can’t people today.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, Hermit always wants the same things. He’s constantly battling changes to his town—”

  “I would say he’s preserving what he sees as important.”

  “Sure. But it’s always the same thing, right? If he’s always chasing the status quo, then what happens in the long term? Do you keep coming up with scenarios to have him fighting off the next big bad without ever changing?”

  Jace leaned back against the headboard and blinked. “I never thought about it like that before.”

  “Maybe it’s all the romantic comedies I’ve watched—the person has to change at the end of the story. They have to sacrifice something they care about to show how they’ve grown.” She lifted a shoulder into a shrug. “But what do I know about comics? Probably nothing.”

  “You’re smarter than you think.” He was looking at her with fresh eyes now—like he’d seen something that wasn’t there before.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Maybe if I was smarter, then I would have found a lawyer I could trust.”

  There it was—the dark cloud hovering on the horizon that threatened all the perfection of her night with Jace. It would rain all over the day if she let it. Maybe the best thing she could do now was create some distance. Try to figure out her next move.

  “I should get going,” she said, climbing off the bed carefully so she didn’t disturb the snoozing dogs.

  “Why don’t you stay? We could grab lunch.”

  It was tempting. So tempting.

  Jace looked like hot buttered toast and cinnamon sticks and all things cozy and right with the world. He had a pair of jeans riding low on his hips, his obscenely perfect chest on display in all its sculpted glory. His hair stuck out in every direction—coaxed by her fingers and his. But the worst thing—slash best thing—was the glimmer in his eyes. The anticipation. He wanted her to stay.

  Angie hadn’t exactly been with many guys in her life; her past and messy relationship with trust made abstinence the easier option. But on the few occasions she had slept with someone, there’d always been this awkward dance the morning after where she’d never quite felt welcome. Where there’d always been some niggling feeling like she needed to get out of dodge. With Jace, that feeling wasn’t there. He was an open book, for better or worse. Which meant he was happy to have her here, knowing it went against her plans.

  And she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  “I, uh…I promised I’d check in at work.” She backed away from the bed. “And aren’t you usually heading to the beach by now?”

  He glanced at the clock. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want to disrupt your plans.” She smoothed her hands down the front of the borrowed T-shirt and tugged on the hem. It came to mid-thigh, yet she still felt naked. “Thanks for last night. I had a good time.”

  “So did I.”

  Bobbing her head, she scooped up her bikini and T-shirt from the floor and headed out into the main room of the house. The throw pillows were on the ground and two barely touched Worst Cocktails Ever sat on the coffee table. It looked so…homey. Comforting.

  This isn’t your home. You’ve made damn sure of that.

  Swallowing past the sense of uneasiness in her throat, she headed out Jace’s back door and strode across the lawn to her place. An afternoon with her favorite poker-playing ladies should help her get her head on straight—they always had good advice. Maybe they would know what her next steps should be.

  …

  After Angie left, Jace couldn’t get his head back in the game. Not even his morning surf helped, and that always made him feel good. Was it the amazing, mind-blowing sex? Or was it that Angie had totally zeroed in on Jace’s fears about Hermit vs. World? That his comic was stagnating. That he was stagnating.

  Shaking off the troubling thought, he pulled on a T-shirt and decided to head down to the pub on his lunch break. There was a tradition in Patterson’s Bluff after Australia Day, where long-term residents headed to the White Crest for some good old-fashioned “hair of the dog.” Hangover cure for the true-blue Aussie.

  By the time he got to the pub, it was scorching. He pushed the door open and was blasted with frosty air-conditioned air and the scent of beers and salty hangover-reducing foods. Immediately, he spotted Adam and Nick at the bar with two of their friends—brothers Leigh and Kellen.

  “Hey! It’s been a while.” Kellen went to fetch an extra barstool to squeeze him onto their small high table. It was loaded with half-empty foamy beers and two baskets of what looked to be chips and calamari rings. “How’ve you been?”

  “Busy.” Jace took a seat. “I’ve been working a lot. You?”

  “Same. The gym is starting to take off, but you know what it’s like around here.” Kellen sighed. “The true test will be how many people come through the door beyond February.”

  Anyone who lived in a town like Patterson’s Bluff knew that dance—high season could bring money in like waves crashing on a sandy beach, but the second school started and the tourists went away…poof! A business could vanish quicker than it had appeared. People got cocky during the on season, made one too many risky decisions, and then didn’t make it through the wet, financially barren winter.

  “You should talk to Angie,” Jace said. “She’s putting programs together for the residents at the retirement home. It’s good publicity, might be a way to make sure the locals are supporting you. She’s getting Chloe in to teach a yoga class.”

  Leigh raised a brow. “The bendy bunnies got an invite and we didn’t?”

  “Bendy bunnies?” Adam shook his head and took a long swig of his beer. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “Because they’re always hopping around full of energy from their bloody wheat juice and kale smoothies.” Leigh pulled a face. “I bumped into one of the instructors and she literally told me to have a ‘namaste day.’ What does that even mean?”

  Kellen was the muscle in their gym business, and Leigh was the business brains. When they’d first opened the gym, there had been a little “disagreement” over parking space, given the gym and Chloe’s yoga studio shared a lot out back. Looked like they hadn’t quite patched things u
p.

  “She was probably yanking your chain.” Nick shrugged. “You don’t exactly make it difficult.”

  “You saying I’m uptight?” Leigh frowned and went to take a sip of his beer but noticed his glass was bone dry. “Actually, don’t answer that. I’m going to do the very not uptight thing and get the next round. Jace, you want in?”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “So.” Adam leaned back in his stool, folded his arms across his barrel of a chest, and cocked his head. It was his favorite interrogation pose, which could mean only one thing. “What happened to you last night?”

  “After the barbecue? I went home.”

  “With Angie.”

  Suddenly all eyes at the table were on him, and Jace felt like the room had shot up a few hundred degrees. He hated being the center of attention—especially over something he couldn’t classify properly in his head. He and Angie hadn’t discussed terms or figured out next steps or put any boundaries in place. It was not how he liked to operate. The fuzzy gray would only lead to trouble.

  But she’d bolted out of his room all of a sudden that morning and had totally shot him down when he’d invited her to stay. Though he might not be the best at reading between the lines, he was getting better at reading Angie.

  “Well, she is currently living on my property so…not exactly a coincidence.” Yeah, he sounded guilty as all hell. He was like a giant piece of tasty steak tossed into the middle of some circling sharks. “We decided to walk home together.”

  Adam grinned like a cat that got the cream. “That’s not what Trent said.”

  Bloody Trent. “What did he say?”

  “Only that he asked Angie to go to the house party with him, and you looked pissed.”

  “Angie the American girl?” Kellen nodded. “She’s cute. Real sweet, too.”

  “There’s nothing there.” But even as Jace said the words, he knew it was bullshit. Angie had slipped past his defenses and stirred up all kinds of things he wasn’t sure how to deal with. Now he was questioning everything. “Trent’s story is more interesting than reality.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Kellen chuckled.

  But reality took a sudden turn toward the interesting—well, for everyone except Jace—when the door of the pub swung open and the one person he’d hoped never to see again walked inside: Julia.

  It was like the whole place went dead silent for a moment. If Jace had been feeling the heat of the spotlight a moment ago, it was nothing compared to this. All heads swung in his direction, including hers.

  “Ho-ly shit.” Adam reached out and clamped a hand down on Jace’s shoulder.

  His brothers might tease him and they might fight and debate and argue, but there was no doubt in his mind they had his back. Especially when it came to the source of his one and only heartbreak.

  “You want me to run interference?” Adam asked.

  “You don’t have to talk to her,” Nick added.

  But Julia’s small hand lifted in a kind of half wave, and there was a tightness in her face. It struck Jace that this would be way more unpleasant for her than it would be for him. No matter how ashamed and embarrassed he’d felt after Julia’s no-show at the rehearsal dinner…she was the one coming back to the town who’d stood by him.

  There must have been a pretty good reason for her to come back.

  “It’s fine.” Jace slid off his stool as Leigh returned to the table with their beers. He grabbed his pint and took a fortifying sip.

  Julia still hovered by the door, looking like she wanted to approach him. No doubt the curious glances of everyone in the pub—not to mention the fact that Adam was giving his patented penetrating stare that could make even the biggest of blokes break out in a sweat—was keeping her rooted to the ground. Maybe it would be good karma to put her out of her misery.

  “You’re really going to talk to her…after what she did?” Nick shook his head. “You’re a saint, Jace. And a bigger man than I would be in your situation.”

  “Let’s see how the conversation goes before you start the canonization process,” Jace muttered.

  He crossed the pub floor, trying not to notice how everyone had their eyes on him. This was small-town gossip fodder—jilted groom and the girl who crushed his heart reuniting in public. Well, he wouldn’t be giving them a show, no matter what she had to say for herself.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Thanks for coming over.”

  She looked different than he remembered—and not because he’d drawn horns and a pitchfork onto the memory of her. Her reddish hair was shorter now, feathery layers dancing around her shoulders rather than falling in a heavy sheet to her waist, like how she used to wear it. Her eyes were harder, her lips tighter. She seemed guarded and more remote.

  Makes two of us.

  “You’re back.” He took another sip of his beer, relishing the slide of the cold brew down the back of his throat.

  “For now.” She toyed with the hem of her dress, which had a soft trimming of lace around the edge. That hadn’t changed—she’d always loved whimsical things. “My dad is sick. I came home to help around the house.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  Despite what had happened, Jace had never held anything against Julia’s father. He’d always liked the older guy, because he’d never made Jace feel uncomfortable or rude when he blurted things out at their dinner table.

  “I don’t know.” Julia’s eyes glimmered. “The doctors are hopeful, but we’ve got a long road ahead. He’s moving very slowly at the moment, and he needs someone with him at all times.”

  “Lucky he’s got you.”

  Something flickered across Julia’s face—an emotion he wasn’t quite sure how to label. “I wanted you to hear it from me, anyway. That I was home and that I’ll probably be here for a while.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation,” he said. The truth was, as much as the past had hurt, seeing Julia now…well, maybe the memory of what happened was worse than the reality. He’d expected to feel something stronger—a twisting in his gut, a clench in his chest. Some kind of remnant of what they’d shared. But he had nothing.

  Maybe he had moved on after all.

  “I feel like I do,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be here today, because I’ve tried three times to walk up to your front door, and I kept chickening out.”

  “So you thought it would be better to have this conversation in public?” He raised a brow.

  “I don’t know if there is a better way to do it.” She wrung her hands in front of her. “I feel like everyone’s watching us.”

  “That’s because they are.”

  A quick sweep of the room sent people’s gazes skittering back to their own tables, but not before Jace had caught every last person looking. He loved Patterson’s Bluff. But gossip reigned supreme here. And right now, he and Julia were a prime source of entertainment.

  “Let’s head out back.” Jace motioned for Julia to follow him outside to the beer garden.

  The air was heavy and hot, the summer sunshine beating down in dry, relentless waves. It made the air full of the scent of jasmine, which crept around the wrought-iron fence enclosing the space. There were a few people dotted outside, sitting at the small round tables and chugging cold drinks. But they, at least, seemed engrossed in their own conversations.

  “I thought I should clear the air,” Julia said, taking a seat at one of the free tables tucked away in the corner of the beer garden. “I mean, I know I can’t undo what I did, but…”

  “But?”

  “I owe you an apology.” She bit down on her lip. “I treated you appallingly. Leaving a note and then running away was a terrible thing to do.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It was really shitty.”

  “I can’t justify it. And I wish I had some grand explanation that made sense of
it all, but the fact is I was scared. I knew I cared about you, but something felt wrong and the closer we got to the wedding…I was worried we were both making a huge mistake.”

  “You were in love with my brother.”

  The words held no emotion, because Jace didn’t even know how to feel about it anymore. It was a fact—something she’d confessed in a cowardly way. Something that had made Jace doubt himself. Doubt his worth. Made him believe the best life he could create for himself was one of solitude.

  “I thought I was, and I felt so guilty about it. But, looking back, I wonder if I simply knew we weren’t right for each other and that was my brain’s way of trying to come up with a reason. Because we should have worked…on paper.” Her eyes searched his. “We had history; we cared about the same things in life.”

  “Did we really?” Because now he remembered something else. Something he’d locked away deep down into a part he didn’t often access: the fact that he’d also been dreading the wedding.

  The night before the rehearsal dinner, he’d tossed and turned until dawn, trying to figure out why he wasn’t more excited at the prospect of getting married. Trying to figure out why, instead of picturing his bride-to-be in flowing white satin, he was wondering if it was possible to drive all the way out of town with the headlights off.

  Rather than anticipation, he’d only had anxiety and a deep, sinking sensation in his gut. But the invites had been sent, the flowers ordered, the tuxedos fitted. Everyone was expecting a wedding. So he’d told himself not to be rash—it was cold feet. Marital jitters. Nothing more.

  He’d told himself they had to go through with it because everything would work itself out.

  But he’d never told anyone that when he found out Julia was gone, Jace had felt the briefest flash of relief. That was, until he’d read the note. Only then had he felt the shame and humiliation of being jilted by his would-be bride. It had taken him four lonely years to make that connection.

  Julia’s actions had probably saved them both a lot of pain in the future.

  “I don’t know why it didn’t work,” she said, shaking her head. “All I know is that you were nothing but kind to me. You treated me well…but we didn’t mesh.”