‘So you just … what? Gave up?’
‘Sometimes that’s what we have to do, Chloe. We have to give up, even when we want something so badly it’s like a dark ache.’
Dark ache. Premonition. When this – we – ended, that’s what it would feel like.
‘I don’t agree with that,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘The … the pilot thing. You could still do that.’
‘Would you let yourself have me then, Chloe?’ He asked the question but when I opened my mouth and nothing came out, he bowled on. ‘Really, Chloe, it’s that simple?’ But he didn’t give me time to find a response. ‘Un-bloody-believable!’
He paced away, then back. ‘No. I will not become a commercial pilot, or a journalist, or a cameraman like Derek you can boss around, or a goddamn astronaut, or a corporate CEO, or anything else that might be on your checklist, just to make you choose me. You take me as I am, because you want me as I am, or you don’t take me at all. The choice is yours. Yes or no. And, Chloe? I can live with a no – I’ve lived with it all my life – so don’t think I’ll keep dangling in the wind now we’ve reached this point. I won’t. And I won’t beg, either. Never. You either want me or you don’t. And I can live with no. Got it? Hell, I can choose it myself.’
He didn’t wait for an answer to that, either.
Instead, he reached for his shoes, shoved them on his feet. One, then the other.
I saw his eyes widen, then close and remembered him dropping the used condom into one last night.
‘And isn’t that the perfect fucking goodbye,’ he said – and then slammed out of the room.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came cautiously downstairs to board the minivan that was booked to take us to the orphanage, but it wasn’t to find Nick in ‘autograph’ mode, laughing with the team. Nobody would have guessed he’d stormed out of my room with sparks shooting off him and a used condom stuck to his toes a mere sixty minutes ago.
When he saw me, he took a deep breath and headed my way. He was wearing well-worn jeans, a light blue shirt and work boots. His shirt collar was up on one side, and I wanted to smooth it down, and the awareness of wanting to do that terrified me. If I touched Nick, and he decided to touch me back, what would I do? Oh God, what?
But when Nick reached me, he jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. No touching, then. I breathed a sigh of relief. Or perhaps it was disappointment. I just didn’t know anymore.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, low, so that nobody could hear. ‘About the things I said, the way I said them this morning.’
‘Does that mean …? What does that mean? That you take it back?’
‘What is this, high school? No, I don’t take it back. You haven’t given me a reason to take it back.’
‘So you really want me to choose your brother? Just like –’ finger snap ‘– that?’
‘Why not just like that?’ he asked, narrow-eyed. ‘You didn’t come running after me this morning to tell me you’d already chosen me, did you? You weren’t about to come over to me just now to tell me that either. You looked like you were about to bolt right out of the lobby for a minute there. I’m still a secret, aren’t I? And you’re still thinking about – Ah, fuck this!’
That last little curse almost cut across the ‘Morning, all!’ that boomed out from across the lobby.
Nick stepped away from me and gave his brother, who was heading towards us, a strained smile. ‘Cutting it fine, Bryce,’ he said. ‘What happened to on-time performance? Or are pilots exempt?’
A crack of laughter greeted that. ‘We’re not late. Yet. But I suggest you do your chatting up on the bus, buddy! Here, I’ll show you how it’s done.’ He turned to me, eyes sparkling. ‘Chloe, you look so good today, I’m hoping for extra red lights so I can stare at you a little longer.’
A darting glance at Nick showed him doing a fine impression of a block of granite. There was no sign of the man who’d whispered all those wonderful things to me as he touched me, and held me close all night. No, this stone-hard man was the one who could live with no, who could choose it himself. Who’d said goodbye this morning like he’d meant it.
Blink, blink, breathe, blink. All right then, if that was how it was going to be. I gave Bryce my warmest smile. ‘Tell me, Bryce, you being a pilot.’ A dig I hope Nick appreciated. ‘Do you know who invented the aeroplane? Because you look Wright for me.’
Bryce laughed, delighted. ‘A girl who knows the history of aviation? Oh you’re good, Chloe. Very, very good.’
He held out his arm, I took it, and he led me out of the lobby.
As soon as Nick followed us into the minivan and sat beside Leila, however, my bravado started disintegrating.
After Nick had stormed out this morning, I’d done a good job of preparing Chloe Masters, journalist, for the day ahead: dressing in my beige linen pants suit, styling my hair into a smooth ponytail, choosing the perfect shoes, the right earrings, packing my briefcase with those all-important red folders. But regardless of my unruffled façade, I’d been badly shaken. The scene with Nick in the lobby shook me a little more. And seeing him sit next to Leila shook me harder again. I found myself plucking a random folder from my briefcase, just to hold it, to give my fidgeting hands something do. All I could think about was the fact that I was the sexual equivalent of pilot lessons. Given up. After only one day.
Nick had said I had to choose, but he hadn’t given me the chance to do it. It was like he’d had a brain snap the moment he’d seen what was on my computer. And that was it. No choice for me to make because he’d made it for me. Despite my long and intimate experience of being passed on from one place to the next during my miserable years in the foster care system, it hit hard, very hard, being passed on to Nick’s brother like a coffee-centred chocolate. You know, those ones in the corner of the box that people take a bite out of before deciding they’ve made a mistake and it’s the strawberry cream they want?
How I managed to hold a conversation with Bryce, I don’t know – and don’t ask me what we were talking about because I have no idea. But when the minivan swerved to miss a motorbike and the red folder on my lap slipped, spilling its pages, I snapped to attention. The case studies. Of all the folders to choose, I’d had to go for that one!
I made a grab for the pages, but Bryce beat me to it. ‘Are these the children?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I managed to say, and reached for them.
He held on. ‘Can I …?’
‘Oh. Yes. Yes. Of course.’
‘Who’s this girl?’
‘Honey,’ I said. ‘Her name is Honey.’
‘What about this little guy?’
And what could I do? I had to tell him about the children, one by one.
Hearing my voice dispassionately recounting their histories didn’t seem real. It was as though I’d switched to a special part of my brain to deal with what I was saying. A part that was numb and almost soulless and therefore able to get the words out. I knew I should be trying to sound interested, animated, as befitting the stories of twenty-six orphaned children waiting for me to shine a light on them, but it seemed as though the only way I could cope was to go into an emotional lockdown.
I’d thought I’d processed this, thought I was prepared for this. A job, just a job, and those pages with the faces and life stories were just photos and words on paper. But at that moment, the situation I was in finally hit home. Those photos and words I’d programmed into my brain like an automaton were children, and I was about to enter their world, and I didn’t know if I was ready. Twenty-six case studies were about to become real.
The way Nick had suddenly become real to me this morning.
Nick, who’d been abandoned just like I was. Nick, who needed to be chosen. Because like all of us coffee-centred chocolates tossed aside in favour of a strawberry cream, he once hadn’t been chosen either.
When we finally pulled up outside a large white building – the main building of the Sunshine Children’s Home – I
felt spiritually battered and unable to get out of my seat.
Nick, by contrast, bounded out of the minivan and hurried up the steps and onto the large verandah that wrapped around the building, where a middle-aged woman waited. And then he was … he was … hugging her? Yes, hugging her.
Before I could assimilate that remarkable fact, everyone was jostling to get out of the minivan, Bryce was tugging me out of my seat, and I was being swept along with the group. I steeled myself for that first sight of the children as I followed the others up the steps onto the verandah, pep-talking in my head. You can do this, Chloe. You can. It’s just a job. Eyes peeled, body straight, ready, ready, ready. But … no children. I released a long, silent breath as the tension eased. Reprieve. But for how long?
Nick, widening his eyes at the woman he’d been hugging, inclined his head in my direction. Her response was to hurry over to introduce herself as the manager, Joan – my main contact for the week. I gestured for Derek to join us, and as the three of us discussed filming options, I decided the best way to deal with my stress levels was to get straight to work. So as Joan moved on to introduce herself to each team member individually, Derek and I followed her – Derek filming, while I asked an occasional question to elicit usable grabs from the team.
And then I heard them. They were coming. The children. Feet on floorboards. Doors opening. Oh God oh God oh God. A few seconds, that’s all I had to compose myself before the kaleidoscopic spill of children onto the verandah. Automatically, I looked for Nick – ridiculous, as though he could save me! – but he’d taken himself out of filming range, down one end of the verandah.
And then Nick called out, ‘Whoa there, kidlets!’ and started making his way back to the group. No, to the children. He was coming to the children.
Halfway, he was stopped by one of them grabbing his leg. ‘Monty!’ he said, laughing, and reached down to lift the little boy onto his shoulders. He kept coming, and they kept going, until he was walking with four other children attached to him. Two were standing on his feet. Another had a grip on the hip band of his jeans and one more was dragging on his back pocket. Nick looked even more gargantuan than usual with an array of kids hanging off him. A cross between Land Of The Giants and an Enid Blyton Famous Five adventure.
The muscles of his huge arms bunched as he adjusted the little boy on his shoulders, and my mouth went dry. He was so beautiful in that moment. Surrounded by children who looked like they belonged exactly where they were, with him.
Nick’s eyes caught mine, and he smiled, but it was like no other smile I’d seen on his face. It was a self-deprecating, apologetic shrug of a smile. It was … shy, almost.
Aaaand … tilt. There went my world, as everything crystallised.
Nick knew the children by name. The children knew him. Nick had hugged the manager. Nick’s brother was the conduit to the Do-It-Right team.
This project, start to finish, was Nick’s.
He was not in Manila to ‘take one for the team’. He was here because he wanted to be. He’d always planned to be here, not Hawaii.
Whooooooaaaah. Had it only been yesterday that we’d left Sydney? Because I’d learned more about Nick in one day than I had in the whole preceding year – and yet I still knew nothing.
I was so stupefied, it took me a moment to become aware that something was pulling at my jacket. I looked down and saw her … Honey. Black hair cut in a bowl-shape. Eyes, huge and black, blinking at me. Missing a front tooth – I could tell because she was smiling so broadly, I could have given her an on-the-spot orthodontic check.
Instinct had my knees bending so that I was crouching beside her. ‘Hello, Honey,’ I said, and she smiled even wider. ‘I’m Chloe.’
She patted my cheek with one tiny hand, like she was reassuring me, like she knew, and my heart shredded on the spot. It was just a job – but I wanted to grab Honey and hug her and never let her go. Never, never, ever. My eyes sought Nick again. Nick was one of my breed, one of the unwanted kids. How could he bear it? Seeing, touching these children? I needed to know. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it.
Nick frowned at me, and I knew I must be looking at him strangely. Get it together, get it together. But I couldn’t, not while Honey had her hand on my cheek. Ohhhhhh. It was just so hard knowing there were twenty-six Honeys here, and they couldn’t be mine, she wasn’t mine. It was so hard to stand and see her hand flail for a moment, feel her fingers re-clutch the bottom of my jacket. Don’t touch, don’t touch me or I’ll cry.
I could feel Nick’s eyes on me, sharp and curious. I had to get myself together. Now. Or he would see that I was one of them. Any moment now, he would know, like he always knew, that something wasn’t right. That something was wrong with me. And I couldn’t bear that either.
Blink, blink, breathe, blink.
I plastered on a professional smile as I stepped away, dislodging Honey’s grip on me. ‘Derek, can you get some footage of Nick with the kids? I’m going to ask Joan to give me a tour, and I’ll see you at the playground in an hour.’
An hour and ten minutes later, I reached the playground site to find work well underway and everyone sweating up a storm. Derek was roaming with a handheld camera, but when he saw me, he came over to run me through the timetable for turning what looked to be a chaotic mess of building materials into a playground. There would be a fort, slippery dips, swings, monkey bars, climbing ropes and a tyre-strewn obstacle course, as well as a track circling the area for riding bikes and scooters.
‘Great, huh?’ Derek said at the end of his enthusiastic recital.
‘Yes,’ I murmured, but my eyes were roving towards Nick. He was doing something with a hammer. Something that made his arms look like they were about to burst through his sleeves, Incredible Hulk style. Something that made me want to whimper.
‘Do you want me to get him for you?’ Derek asked.
‘Hmm?’ Me – trying hard not to whimper.
‘Nick. Do you want me to get him? To interview?’ Waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Hello, anyone home?’
‘Oh.’ Get a freaking grip – it’s an arm and a hammer, not a naked penis! ‘No, no. No.’
‘Okaaaay,’ Derek said. (Ugh, someone else with a sudden predilection for massacring the word ‘okay’.)
‘Bryce,’ I said crisply. ‘I want Bryce first.’ Even if ‘Bryce’ and ‘I want’ didn’t feel like they belonged in the same sentence anymore.
But what had Nick said, this morning? I can live with no. Hell, I can choose it myself. Well, so can I, I told myself. And maybe I would choose Bryce. Maybe I’d turn out to be Bryce’s strawberry cream. And then we’d see how Mr I’ll-keep-hunting-you-until-you-prove-to-me-you-don’t-want-me Savage felt about it when I went nice and public with his brother. Ha!
I tried to be objective as Bryce, trailed by Derek, approached. He was a very good-looking man, better looking than Nick. And what’s more, I could watch him approach without getting jittery. That had to be a plus, didn’t it? Yes. Score one for Bryce.
He stopped beside me, and I dragged in a great lungful of him, expecting sandalwood … and my eyes almost watered at his pungent eau de sweat aroma. Okay, so the guy was a bit sweaty. It wasn’t surprising, was it? He’d been doing strenuous physical work in the sun for an hour. Everyone was sweaty. I might even sweat at some point. If I squeezed my nostrils together and mouth-breathed every second time I took a breath, I could get used to it. As I ran through the interview process with Bryce, using that brilliant breathing technique, I was rewarded with a little hint of sandalwood cutting through.
Sandalwood, I reminded myself, as I started the interview. You like sandalwood. Score two.
Within thirty seconds of the camera rolling, Bryce had a third score on the board. I already knew he was intelligent – hello, he was a pilot! – but sometimes smart people came across as not-so-smart on camera. That was not the case with First Office Haynes, however. He was sharp and clever, reeling off sound bites that were pithy
and perfect, completely um-and-ah free. In the one ten minute interview, I got everything I needed on the genesis of the Do-It-Right team, the projects Bryce had been personally involved with and the background on each of the volunteers. He even had the smarts to give his employer, AustralAir, a plug, as well as praising his brother to the skies. Nice job.
He was very smooth, very charming, very confident. He was a very ‘very’ kind of guy. A perfect kind of guy. My kind of guy. Well, Nick had said the choice would be easy. And he was right. It was easy, when you looked at it objectively.
But then Nick came towards us, swiping a forearm over his forehead, and three things happened: my heart leapt, my throat dried, and my knees went weak. Which made no sense, because he was not as good looking as his brother. The sight of him should not do that to me, when I had Bryce standing beside me. I was not – not – giving Nick an equal score on visual criteria.
With any luck, Nick would smell like the crotch of a thousand camels. He was bound to, with that sweat-soaked shirt. Bryce’s sweat patches – the circles under the arms, a nice dignified V arrowing down from the neck of his T-shirt – were almost stylish by comparison. If I’d had to pinch my nostrils for Bryce, I would need a eucalyptus-scented nose plug for Nick. Any moment now, any second. He was going to pong, reek, stink. Singe the hair in my nostrils. I was going to gag, I was going to … going to … Ah hell.
Swoon. I was going to swoon. With lust. Because Nick smelled earthy and salty, and the liquid warmth that hit between my thighs told me I wanted to have sex with him right that second. I wanted to drag him to the ground, tear open his shirt and lick him.
This was so not fair.
Bryce was smiling, Nick was not. In fact, Nick was looking longingly over his shoulder, as if he had no idea why he’d come over to us and wished he was back wielding his hammer.
‘Is it your turn in front of the camera, Nick?’ Bryce asked.
‘No, no,’ Nick batted the question away. ‘I just wanted to make sure everything …’ He paused, cleared his throat, looked at me, then over his shoulder again, back at me, and then at Bryce. ‘Just checking that everything’s under control over here, before I get on to pouring the concrete.’
Escaping Mr Right Page 14
