The Goodbye Ride

by Lily Malone

  “If I ask you another heavy question, will it make you turn all mushy again?”

  “If I said yes, would it stop you, Owen?” The pink tip of her tongue stole out to taste her upper lip.

  “Probably not. You’re cute when you cry.”

  “Flatterer.” She waved her spoon at him then scooped at the icecream. “Go on then.”

  “The day we met you said you lived with your parents. But if you moved out after Luke died, I don’t get why you moved home again if being there makes you miserable. Is business so tight you can’t afford your own place?”

  She sat straighter, dessert spoon poised on the way to her mouth. Then she put the spoon back to the plate with a faint clink. “My mother tried to commit suicide in November. It was the third-year anniversary of Luke’s death. Dad came home from work that night and found her passed out in bed. She’d taken most of a bottle of sleeping pills and they had to pump her stomach.”

  Her sentences reminded him of the way a reporter delivered the news. Factual. Precise. But her eyes weren’t so objective.

  “When dad asked me to come home and help him watch mum I couldn’t say no. My dad’s never asked for help with anything in his life.”

  Owen sat back in the dinky chrome chair. Of all the scenarios he’d envisaged, this wasn’t one of them. “Is your mum seeing anyone? A shrink?”

  “The hospital referred her to a psychiatrist at Stirling and he’s been good for her. She’s finally at the point where she can leave the house but it’s taken all this time.” She shuffled sideways as the waitress returned with their coffees.

  Owen dumped the contents of a sugar sachet into his long black, and stirred.

  “You’ve seen my house,” Liv said, taking a sip of her latte. “My mum has always been a neat freak, but sometime after Luke died, it got worse. She stopped going out to do the shopping and had groceries delivered instead. All she did was stay home and scrub everything to within an inch of its life. Dad should have seen the signs, but he had his own demons to deal with.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Dad’s a fireman in the metropolitan fire service in Adelaide. He works nights, split shifts. The day Luke died, Luke had borrowed my mother’s car the night before—which was something dad had told mum not to let him do. He’d driven in to Mount Barker to see Ben. Dad was on night shift and Luke thought he’d have no trouble getting home before dad did, but Ben said they overslept.”

  “You think Luke crashed because he was speeding to get that car back before your dad got home?” Owen asked.

  “That’s what Ben thought,” Liv said, sipping at her latte and getting milk on her upper lip. “He said if my father had never interfered, Luke would still be alive. They had a huge row at the hospital because dad wouldn’t let Ben into Luke’s room. Ben never got to say goodbye.”

  She wrapped both hands around her latte glass as if it was an anchor that might keep her from floating away. “Dad said if Ben had stayed the fuck out of Luke’s life instead of making his son creep around in secret, he wouldn’t be in a hospital room breathing through tubes.” Her lip twisted bleakly.

  Owen reached across the table and wiped her milk moustache away with his thumb. She quivered at his touch. “And what did you think?”

  “I couldn’t talk to my father for months after the funeral. I didn’t understand how he could be so intolerant when it came to his own son. I only held it together until the funeral for mum’s sake. After we buried Luke, I moved out. I concentrated on the last year of my viticulture degree and then I started LiVine.”

  “And then your dad asked you to move home to help with your mother?”

  She nodded.

  Owen spooned dark chocolate brownie into his mouth and thought about what Liv had said. “I’m trying to think how my old man would have reacted if I’d turned out gay.”

  Liv almost choked on her coffee. “I don’t think that was ever on the cards.”

  “True,” he smiled. “But even so, I can’t imagine Mack Carson giving me his blessing, exactly.”

  “What about your mother?” Liv asked.

  “My mum just rolls her own way. She doesn’t let much of what goes on around her, phase her. She’s a bit like Aunt Margaret like that.”

  His mother was also completely self-absorbed, and so busy being self-absorbed, she had no time for anyone else.

  Owen thought about telling Liv his own secret. He had a window if he wanted, but part of him didn’t want to spoil the night by dirtying it with Jayden Parker’s name. He would tell her soon, he concluded, but not yet. Not tonight. He wanted her to get to know him first, maybe—if he was lucky—to fall in love with him.

  He scooped a generous sliver of dessert on his spoon and dipped it in double cream. “Are you ready to try this?”

  Her gaze fixed on the chocolate fudge. “Am I ever.”

  ****

  Owen drove Liv’s Hyundai back up the Freeway. The radio was on and Liv hummed and didn’t talk and watched orange lights fly by, and all the while she thought about the previous night’s wild ride on the down track and how good that leather felt as it constricted about her like some gigantic Amazonian snake. And the speed. God! It had felt like she was flying.

  It was Owen who suggested a nightcap and she leapt at the chance, not wanting the night to end—too shy to let it begin.

  He parked her car in the carport of her parents’ house and they walked back to the main street, hand in hand. Or did she float? She couldn’t be sure.

  Now, perched on a stool in the front bar of the Hahndorf Inn, Liv nursed a nightcap of hazelnut-flavoured Frangelico while Owen swirled a single-malt Scotch in a tumbler of ice.

  For the Sunday night of a holiday weekend, the bar wasn’t busy. A juke box churned out Top 50 hits, most a few years old, and an older couple did what might have passed for dancing twenty years ago in the space between pool tables.

  Owen sat with his body open to hers, one elbow on the bar, knees spread. He didn’t speak much, but he touched her often.

  Liv, facing the bar, doodled in her drink with a straw she didn’t want. Every time Owen’s knee bumped her thigh she’d stop stirring because his touch froze her brain and she couldn’t concentrate. Looking at him didn’t help her focus either. Something in his dark eyes turned her insides to slush.

  He sipped his scotch.

  She crunched her ice.

  And it was almost a relief when the pub door opened and a blast of cold air arrowed in.

  Like them, the couple who entered was dressed for the city. The girl rubbed her hands and stamped her feet and they moved to a booth by the window. The guy came up to the other side of the bar to order drinks.

  Liv knew him instantly. Andrew Straw.

  She averted her face.

  “Do I have to shoot him?” Owen said, so softly, Liv wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  “What? No!”

  “You looked at that guy like he crawled out of Deliverance.”

  “He damn well could have,” Liv grumbled under her breath.

  Andrew Straw paid for his drinks and swaggered back to the girl near the window. Liv threw daggers at his back.

  Owen finished his scotch in one final slug and stood up. “Ready to blow this joint?”

  Liv untucked her legs from the bar stool, pulled her coat more tightly around herself, and followed him out the door. After the beery pub smell, the fresh air was invigorating. A thin veil of dew painted the ground.

  “We’re not all Cave Men you know, us blokes,” Owen began, as they crossed the main road. “Take me, for instance. I read The Australian.”

  “Some would say that proves your Cave Man-ness.” Her shoulder bumped his.

  Owen hugged her into his side. They walked like that, matching strides, and Liv hooked the fingertips of her right hand into the back pocket of his jeans, enjoying the play of his muscles and the loose way he moved.

  “So what did that guy in the bar do to get you off-side?”

/>   “He didn’t do anything to me, exactly, but he was an absolute prick to Luke and Ben. Strawy is one of four brothers who live around here—all called Strawy by the way—and the whole lot of them made Luke’s life hell. Andrew was always cracking jokes about not dropping soap when Luke was around and telling the blokes in the pub to make sure they kept their backs to the bar. He’s half the reason Luke and Ben started riding up to Mannum in the first place. The other half is his brothers.”

  She looked up at Owen, striding beside her, a solid mass of male muscle, and added: “When I first saw you—when you stopped outside Dean Lang’s in your cousin’s red ute? I thought: here’s another homophobic he-man. I see them everywhere.”

  Owen laughed. “That’s because you’re looking for them.”

  They climbed the hill on English Street and turned into Church. Owen’s shoes barely registered a thud. Her boots clacked as if a horse-drawn carriage rattled up the street.

  They passed the bowling club driveway. Soon they’d see her parents’ brick and tile house, hunkered on the block behind a bare-branched pair of liquid ambers. The Pantah would be there too, parked beside her father’s Hilux—the exact same spot where Luke used to leave it.

  The Ducati was so close to being hers she could taste it, but the taste was bittersweet. Tomorrow, she’d get the bike, but there’d be nothing to keep Owen around.

  Unless he stayed for her, and that was one question she’d never ask.

  “I have to make a decision on Antarctica soon,” he said, and her stomach jumped because it seemed he’d read her mind. “The HR guy rang yesterday.”

  “Well the vineyard’s all done. You’re all good to go.” She said it as brightly as she could, as if the thought of him leaving didn’t make her feel sick inside.

  “You say that like you don’t care either way.”

  He glanced at her, but it was too dark for Liv to see his face. What she could see was the arch of her parents’ carport and the double chimney, cylinders outlined against the night stars. The Church Street house was like a dog-eared map of her life—she knew every brick, paver, and blade of grass. She knew where its skeletons were buried.

  They angled off the pavement, cutting across the lawn, dodging tentacles of sprawling rose bushes that caught at their clothes. Alison Murphy never pruned her roses before the second week of July.

  “Owen?” Liv stepped off grass onto concrete porch that crackled with the grit under her boots.

  “Yes. I want to come in. Yes. You can make me coffee.”

  She giggled. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

  “It wasn’t? Damn.”

  She fished in her bag for her key. “You know how I told you about the goodbye ride Ben and I planned tomorrow?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you want to come with us? You and I could double on the Duke again, that’s if you’d like to—and Ben can ride his Honda. He’s meeting me here and we thought we’d head off about ten.” She was speed-talking, the words tripping from her lips, hand shaking so hard it took three fumbling attempts to find the keyhole. Even then, she couldn’t make the damn thing turn.

  Owen put his hand under hers and gripped the key. He had the lock defeated in a heartbeat and he pushed the door inward. “Pantahs are okay to ride double for ten minutes, Liv. I’m not sure how you’ll go on the back if we’re riding for an hour.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t got padding.” And if my arms are around you, I won’t care.

  “And beautiful padding it is,” he said, taking her hand, turning it over and placing the key in her palm. “I’d love to come with you.”

  Liv shut the door behind them, thinking that at least she’d gained herself one more day with him.

  For a moment she rested there, glad for the solid surface at her back—a plank of proof that the night wasn’t a dream. Owen’s shoulders blocked the corridor ahead, his dark mass coloured by the streetlights that wavered through the glass.

  “So,” she said, on a shaky breath. “Coffee?”

  “Fuck coffee,” he growled, reaching for her.

  Liv flowed into his big, beautiful arms.

  She knew that they circled slowly, and she knew when the room stilled—Owen’s shoulders against the wall and her leg caught over his thigh. Long seconds ticked by, marked only by the sound of rhythmic breathing, sprinting hearts, and the intoxicating scent of an aftershave that reminded her of pine needles over snow.

  Then Owen moved. He lifted his thigh, taking her weight on the big muscle of his leg so that it made achingly sweet contact with her mound. Pools of thick, liquid heat rippled low in her stomach. She squeezed against him, making that ride more of a slow grind.

  Owen’s groan of response broke the shackles.

  Her free hand stole up his shoulders, skimmed the hair at the back of his head and drew his mouth to hers. Liv opened her mouth to taste him, desperate to deepen the kiss. Soft, mewing sounds vibrated at the back of her throat and when his tongue stroked hers, she thought she might explode. Explode, or faint. Or fall off his thigh—now unerringly targeting her most sensitive parts.

  “Liv Murphy,” he breathed raggedly, releasing her lips but not relaxing the exquisite pressure between her legs. “If you knew what you do to me…”

  “I thought we weren’t…oh… going riding tonight,” Liv breathed, using her grip on his shoulders to shunt herself higher and feeling for the first time, the powerful erection that thrust between them.

  His hand stole through the gap between the lapels of her coat. His fingers slid around her breast, kneaded the weight of soft flesh through her shirt. Liv arched her back as she rode his thigh, pressing her nipple into the rough warmth of his hand. Every cell inside her body clenched, wanting more.

  When his thigh relaxed, the loss of pressure hit her like a sucker punch. “Owen…”

  “I know…God, I want you.” Owen turned those few steps up the hallway into a slow floating waltz. His kisses were expert, drugging in their intensity, and Liv let her eyes close.

  “Which way, Lovely?”

  Her eyes flashed open. They were in the lounge. Starlight struck shadows through the room, glinting on the glass in her mother’s paintings. Wren. Robin. Finch. Shrike.

  “This way,” she whispered quickly, taking his hand before she could think about beaks and birds and beady eyes.

  When she reached her room, she groped for the light.

  Another mistake.

  Every inch of the room lit up like a hospital ward—all three by three metres of it—her single bed in her white on white box. Liv turned her lamp on instead, trying to mute some of the glare. Not that the glare seemed to worry Owen. He pushed the coat from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor then undid the buttons on her shirt.

  Liv snapped the press stud on her jeans, trying to recall the yearning sensation of just thirty seconds before. She started on Owen’s shirt and almost tore the buttons from the holes, sure that if she did it quick, if she did it fast, she’d forget where she was.

  He was so big. So vital. So Owen. The plan almost worked.

  Almost.

  He pulled away. “What’s wrong, Liv?”

  “Nothing.” She sat, patting the quilt invitingly, trying not to let the concern on his face dupe her into another bout of crazy-woman tears. He was too perceptive!

  “Talk to me,” he said, accepting her invitation to sit, charcoal eyes probing hers.

  In the lamplight, Owen’s bare chest was muscled and perfect. So much about Owen was perfect. Liv sucked in a deep breath and wished she could just shut off her brain and let go.

  Still, she hesitated, unsure how or where to start.

  “I came prepared,” he said. “Is that what’s worrying you?”

  She shook her head once, a hard, jerky motion. “Thanks. I don’t have any condoms… I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “You hadn’t thought about it?”

  She heard the smile in his voice. “I mean. I had though
t about it, but… I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “God, I have.” He tucked a swatch of hair behind her ear. “So if it’s not safety-conscious sex that’s on your incredibly safety-conscious mind, what is it?”

  It took all her courage, but she got it out: “I know you’re here in Hahndorf—here with me—for a good time, Owen, not a long time. I get that.”

  “Right. So tell me when my long time finishes so I can clock on for my good time.”

  “I’m serious.” She looked up at him, punching his thigh.

  “So am I, Liv.” He caught her fist easily and gently opened her fingers, tracing her palm with a hypnotic stroke.

  Tracing her—what had his aunt called them? Shine lines.

  A twisted knot filled her throat. “You don’t need to pretend. If you head off to Antarctica again for next summer, I’ll understand. I don’t want to tie you down. I’d never want that—”

  He let go of her hand to put his finger to her lips and whatever she’d been about to say, died. “What else, Liv?”

  “What else? That’s it. There’s nothing else.” God. Isn’t all that enough? “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Look at yourself.”

  Liv glanced at her legs, crossed tight over the side of the bed, and at her left arm, hugging her shirt to her body. Already the hand he’d just released gripped the right tail of her shirt, tugging it to the middle to meet its mate.

  Her shoulders crumpled. “It doesn’t feel right having you in this house. In this room. I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t need to apologise.”

  She couldn’t look at him, she could only mumble in the direction of her knees: “Talk about totally wrecking the mood.”

  He caught both her hands where they clutched her shirt closed, pulled them away, and let the material fall free. Then he traced his finger from her collarbone to her breast, making whorls in the lace of her pale blue bra, and when finally she lifted her face to meet his eyes, they were smiling.

  “My mood is fine, Liv, and I have a cure for yours.”

  She’d thrown his shirt over the only chair in the room and he reached for it now, pulling his mobile phone from its pocket. “Do you have earpieces that could fit this?”