Always Fraser

by A. K. Steel

  I roll over and realise I was dreaming or having a nightmare. What was that? Phew, I’m glad that was just some weird dream. The banging is real, though, and it's still happening. It's coming from the front door. I check my phone. It's only 7.15am. Who's here at this time? I throw on my bed shirt and PJ pants and head to the front door, leaving Fraser all snuggled up in my bed still fast asleep.

  I open the door.

  “Mum,” I almost yell, “what a lovely surprise!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elena

  It's way too early in the morning to deal with another one of these awkward family situations. I bet Theo told her to come and check on me, trying to get me caught out, or maybe she's worked it out herself. My mum has always had a sixth sense when it comes to me lying.

  My beautiful mother stands in the doorway. She must have been up at 5am to look as good as she does. Her long hair is pulled into a neat bun and she’s wearing a fitted floral mid-calf-length dress. For someone in her late fifties, she is stunning and every bit the perfect school principal.

  She stands in the doorway with a basket of food. “I thought you and Indie might need some food to get you started, and since I didn’t have a chance to drop by here yesterday, I wanted to see the new place before I started work today. I hope I didn’t wake you up?”

  “Oh, of course. No, it's fine. My body's a bit stiff from moving all that furniture yesterday. I just couldn’t get out of bed, but I needed to anyway. I’ve got a shift at the café at ten.”

  “Can I come in then, honey?” I hadn’t realised but I’m still standing in the doorway holding the front door open.

  “Yeah, of course, silly me, sorry, Mum. Come on in.”

  “Thank you, honey. Wow, this place is lovely. You guys did well finding it.”

  “I know, I’m in love with how vintage it is. Why don’t you go take a look at the kitchen,” I point in the direction of the kitchen, “and I’ll just grab my dressing gown and be right with you.”

  “Of course. We can have some breakfast, then I want the full tour before I have to get to work.”

  I hurry to my room. Shit, how do we handle this one. I’ve got to get rid of Fraser before she sees him.

  He’s lying in my bed with his hands resting behind his head, chest exposed, and looking fucking hot with the sheets just covering his cock. How can he look so relaxed? He must have heard that conversation.

  “What’s Anne doing here?” he whispers.

  “Here for breakfast. You know how she likes to fuss about making sure we eat well. Quick, get dressed.” I throw his shirt and jeans over to him. “You're going to have to sneak out while she’s in the kitchen,” I whisper back.

  He doesn’t budge from his relaxed position. He’s got that cheeky smile on his face, the one I know means trouble. “I’m not going anywhere, Elly, think I’ll just stay where I am. One of your mum’s home-cooked breakfasts sounds delicious.”

  “Fraser,” I threaten with my best serious face, so he knows I mean business.

  “I think it's time we tell your mum anyway. What better time than now? I’m not hiding away from everyone anymore.”

  “No, not happening today, you need to go.” I go over to where he’s sitting and grab hold of his arm, trying to get him up. “Come on, Fraser. Please. I don't want to tell her you’re my boyfriend like this. Just another thing to add to her list of Elly fuck-ups.”

  He looks hurt, and I realise what I just said. “So, I’m just a fuck-up now?”

  “I’m sorry, that's not what I meant. I just want to do this right.” I lean down and kiss him on the lips.

  “Okay, but I’m not happy about it! What am I supposed to do, shimmy down the drainpipe? I’m pretty big, you know, and this building is old. It’s not going to go well.”

  He’s up pulling on his clothes, still looking very unimpressed with me.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you tonight, I promise,” I offer, fluttering my eyelashes at him, trying to be cute.

  “You better,” he mumbles under his breath, not impressed with the whole situation.

  “I'll keep her busy in the kitchen while you sneak out the front door.” I kiss him goodbye. “Have a good day at work.” I rush back to the kitchen.

  “Wow, breakfast smells delicious, Mum, but you didn’t have to do this.” She's found her way around our kitchen no problems and made scrambled eggs with bacon and all the trimmings. Everything is laid out beautifully, she's even made fresh coffee, I don’t know how she does it.

  “It's the least I could do, honey. I know how well you look after yourself when I’m not around. That's why you're so skinny, you need some decent food.”

  The front door creaks as it closes and we both look to the hall. “Old places, they're so noisy,” I shrug, and she nods in agreement. Phew. We got away with that one. He’s gone. I take my first full breath since Mum got here, now I can relax. I feel so bad kicking Fraser out like that and about what I said, but I know in her eyes, it will just be another thing I haven’t done perfectly like my brothers.

  “What's that delicious smell?” Indie walks in rubbing her eyes.

  “Mum’s here with breakfast for us.” Her eyes are wide at me and I can tell exactly what she's thinking.

  “Wow, thanks, Anne, this looks amazing. We'll have to get you over every morning if I can wake up to this.”

  “It's my pleasure, Indie love, but it's just a one-off. I'm pretty sure Elly moved out so she can have her own space. She doesn’t want me cramping her style, especially at this time of the morning. You never know who you might run into in the hallway.” She raises an eyebrow at me.

  I bury my head in my hands. Great, she knows, and she's just waiting for me to tell her. Whenever I was lying to Mum as a kid, she would pretend she didn’t know a thing, then she’d do something nice for me like take me shopping or to a movie. I’d feel so guilty I would fess up every time! That's what this is. She knows for sure, and she's waiting for me to say something. This time I’m keeping my mouth shut. I'm not ready to burst my happy bubble with family drama just yet.

  Fraser

  This will not be happening again, sneaking out before one of her family members sees me. What are we, 16? It's getting ridiculous. She’d better tell Drew soon or I’m going to have to tell him myself. Fuck the consequences!

  I arrive at the office after a quick detour home to shower and get ready for the day. This is a big week for us, with our business being nominated for an award, and we're going away to the Gold Coast for the awards ceremony on Saturday night. We also have our new staff member starting in the office, Claudia, our new office manager. Elly’s mum, Anne, found her for us. When she heard we were looking for someone, she knew just the right person. Claudia's kids go to Anne’s school, and she's had a bit of bad luck lately with her husband leaving her and the kids and needed a job and fast. With years of experience in office managing before she had her kids, I’m sure she will be the perfect person for the job.

  Blake has organised a meeting for us this morning so we can get to know each other and work out what her exact role will be. As usual, it looks like I’m late. The boys and Claudia are both in his office already, oops.

  “Morning, Ash, Blake, Claudia.” I reach out to shake her hand. “Sorry I’m late, it’s been an interesting morning already.” Claudia looks to be in her mid-thirties with long dark hair which she wears pinned back. She looks very professional in her navy-blue jacket and skirt.

  Blake is giving me a death stare for being late, but he’s trying to be polite in front of our new staff member. “It's okay. We were just going through a few things until you got here.”

  I pull up a seat next to Blake.

  Ash smiles.

  “Now, Claudia is going to be working school hours. She will finish up for the day at 2.45pm so she can collect her kids from school,” says Blake.

  She's fiddling with her hands and looks so nervous. “I hope that's going to work with you guys? It's so har
d to find something that fits around school hours, and I don't have any family around to help out with the kids.”

  “I can't see why it won't,” I offer, trying to reassure her. “This is a new role for us, so any help we can get to organise this place the better. It’s going to be better than what we had before.” This is obviously a big deal for her. I guess it must be hard having kids, especially on your own. I never really thought about how you would manage all that before, but it's what it would have been like for my dad when Mum left, so if I can help someone in the same situation, I’m going to do what I can to make it work for her.

  “Thank you all for the opportunity. Since Anne told me about your company, I have looked into your past work and I love what you're all doing. I think it's amazing how you're trying to work as many eco-friendly aspects into your designs as possible. I’m very passionate about protecting the environment myself.”

  Blake looks impressed. “Well, I think you will fit in here perfectly then.”

  "You will be a great addition to our team," adds Ash.

  I nod in agreement.

  My phone is buzzing in my pocket. I pull it out to turn it off but it's Dad’s name that lights up the screen. I haven’t talked to him for weeks, and he can be really hard to get hold of depending on where they are in the country.

  “Sorry, guys, I better take this. Claudia, I’ll leave you in Blake and Ash's capable hands. Anything you need, though, I’ll be in my office all day so just come and grab me.”

  “Thank you, Fraser, nice to meet you.” I give her a wave and head to my office to answer my phone.

  “Dad, how's things?”

  “Great, son. We’ve spent the last three weeks slowly making our way from Sydney to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road. You would love it here, it's beautiful.”

  “How’s Janice?”

  “Perfect, son, your old dad’s a lucky man.”

  I can hear him smiling through the phone, and I’m so happy for him. After everything he went through with my mum, he deserves all the happiness in life.

  “That's great, Dad. So glad you're enjoying yourselves. When will you be home next? I need a proper catch-up.”

  “Missing your old dad, are you? We’re looking at coming home at the end of next month. Is everything all right, son? You don’t quite sound yourself.”

  “I guess. The business is going well. We have hired an office manager to give us a hand around here because we're so busy. We’ve also been nominated for an award for the library rebuild we did here in Byron.”

  “I’m happy for you, son. You deserve to be doing well, you boys have worked so hard on this business. I knew it would be a success.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it.”

  “There’s still something playing on you, though, I can tell. What's up?”

  “It's nothing... It's Elly, she's back in town, and we’ve kind of started dating.”

  “Well, that's great news, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it's just she hasn’t told her family yet. She’s worried about a silly pact she had with Drew when they were kids. She's scared if she tells them, it will hurt her close relationship with him. But I’m starting to feel she just thinks I’m not good enough for her. You know what the Walkers are like, they're all so close. They’re the perfect family. Maybe she’s worried about telling them because I’m not the man she wants to bring home to them.

  “Son, you know that's not true. That girl has been in love with you since you were teens. It was obvious to all around you, and trust me, that includes Jim and Anne as well. We just thought you two hadn’t figured it out yet! Now you have, you need to hang on to her and work out how you make it all work. Her brother will come round, might just take him a while to see it from your perspective.”

  “Thanks, Dad, that was exactly what I needed to hear. Was it that obvious?”

  “Blind Freddy could have seen it. Got to go, son, Janice has just walked in, ready for her daily workout, if you get my drift.”

  “Too much information, Dad!”

  “Sorry, son,” he laughs, “talk soon.”

  “Bye, Dad.”

  It doesn’t matter how old I get, I still feel better when I run things past my dad. Somehow, he has all the answers and knows just the right thing to say. It makes me wish he was still living here. Elly doesn’t know how lucky she is having such a close family. What I wouldn’t have given to have her family growing up, parents who loved each other, siblings always there looking out for you. That's why I spent so much time with them, it was the closest I was going to get to normal, even if they were someone else’s family.

  I feel like I’ve gotten nowhere today. I’m reworking these latest drawings trying to work out how on earth we keep to Ash's budget and still include some of the eco options Blake and I have come up with. This project is going to be huge and will really put our company on the map. It's a four-storey apartment building with shop fronts below. We’ve been working on this design for months now. Ash is really excited about it, but he’s a pain in the arse to keep happy. He's our numbers man and will let Blake and I pretty much do whatever design we want as long as it's not going to cost too much and will make our company big money in the end. I can't really complain; he's the reason we had this opportunity in the first place and he's bloody good at what he does, that's why we’re doing so well.

  If we get this next job right, I will have enough money to be able to build my own place here. That's the dream, anyway. Somewhere close to the beach. I’ve been playing with design ideas for it, but it will all come down to finding the perfect block of land. First, we need to get this contract, and if that means jumping through a few hoops to keep Ash happy, it will all be worth it.

  There’s a knock on my door and I look up to see Claudia. She smiles softly.

  “Blake’s out for the afternoon, so I’m just letting you know I’m about to finish up for the day. All the accounts are filed. Let me know tomorrow if you can’t understand my new system, but it's pretty self-explanatory, and I’ve set the phone to an answering machine for the afternoon, so if you're too busy to take the calls, you can just check the messages later. I hope that helps.”

  “That all sounds amazing. What did we do without you?” I smile back. Why didn’t we think of setting the phone to a message? I've been answering it like a sucker.

  “Thanks for all your work today, Claudia, see you tomorrow.”

  She gives a smile and waves, then she's gone.

  Today has flown by, it’s 2.45 already. I think Claudia is going to fit in perfectly here. If today is anything to go by, she's very efficient, and within the first day has us starting to catch up already.

  I just get back into my design when Blake arrives back from his site checks and pops his head around my office door to check in.

  “Hey, man, how did you go at the new site?” I ask. “And what’s with the smirk? Did you finally get laid?” I rib.

  “Good, it's all on track for starting next week, and no smirk, just having a good day. How did Claudia go?”

  “I think we have the perfect fit there. Go check out the new filling system she’s put in place. We could never have done this ourselves.”

  “Great. Have you worked out what you're doing for the awards ceremony on Saturday night?” Blake asks.

  “We have six tickets, Ash and Chloe obviously, and I was thinking we should take Elly and Indie. We can stay at the hotel and make a weekend of it. What do you think?”

  “I think that's a great idea. We can introduce them to some industry people as well. Might help with their business.”

  “Perfect. I’ll call Indie. I have a favour to ask anyway, unless you want to?” I question, raising my eyebrow at him. I’m positive something’s going on between them, even if he won't admit to it yet.

  “No. Why would I?”

  “No reason.” He leaves for his own office, and I try Indie’s number. She answers straight away.

  “Hey, Indie, it's Fraser. I’ve g
ot a little favour to ask.”

  “Really, what can I help you with?”

  “We have this award ceremony this weekend on the Gold Coast. Blake and I are wondering if you and Elly want to join us. Ash and his fiancée will be there. It's a great opportunity for you both, and it means a weekend away, all expenses on us. What do you think?”

  “Sounds good. Why is that a favour? Sounds like I’m going to owe you guys.”

  “Well, in that case, I’ll take my IOU now! I need help to find a dress for Elly. I want to surprise her with something beautiful, and I’ve got no idea where to start. You're good at that kind of thing, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am, Fraser, but you know how much she hates surprises. Is this a good idea?”

  “Yes, she only thinks she hates surprises, she’ll love this one.”

  “Okay, but if she hates it, I had nothing to do with it, it's on you.”

  “I’m a big boy. I can take the blame.”

  She laughs, “Okay then, I’m free Wednesday arvo. We can meet up and work it all out then.”

  “Can you make sure she has the weekend off at the café too, without it being obvious? And don’t tell her a thing. Let's keep all this between us until Thursday. Thanks, Indie, you're the best, see you then.”

  Now I just have to convince Elly to come along with us, but I’m sure Indie can help with that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elena

  I’ve just finished my shift at the café. I walk through the front door and dump my bag and keys on the buffet in the lounge room and make my way down the hallway to my bedroom. I stop in my tracks. What is this?

  Hanging in my doorway is the most beautiful wine-red silk gown I have ever seen. I look around trying to work out why it's here hanging in my doorway. It’s simply stunning, with a plunging neckline and a low back. The silk is so smooth it looks like liquid flowing from the hanger. I look over the gown again and notice there’s a little note pinned to the coat hanger.