The Next Season (novella)

by Rachael Johns

  ‘My ex named him,’ he said eventually, trying not to stare at the see-through-ness of her sopping wet, pale pink blouse and hoping his shorts disguised how much the sight affected him. ‘I wanted to call him Baxter but we tossed a coin and she won. She said his sad face made it the perfect name.’

  Despite his explanation, Zoe was still laughing. Hysterically. At his feet, Eeyore tugged on the lead, desperate to go to her again, but this time Shaun kept a firm grip. It would be better to move right along but he couldn’t get past the fact that only moments ago she’d been crying. Something was seriously wrong. He’d known from the way she’d been curled into herself, her head resting upon her knees, but up close it was even more obvious. Crazy laughter aside, all the signs were right before him; her bloodshot eyes, her blotchy cheeks and puffy face, not to mention the fact she’d obviously been swimming in some rather nice clothes.

  But dammit, it was no business of his if she was upset. Although his heart wasn’t in it, he gave a tug on Eeyore’s lead and started to turn away, vowing not to lament over whatever the hell was worrying her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she called when he’d taken only two steps.

  His heart stilling, he sighed and closed his eyes briefly, before turning back. Sitting up again, she was hugging her knees against her chest and looking at him with her big blue eyes.

  ‘Sandee told me about your ex,’ she said, an expression of sympathy on her face.

  Shaun’s stomach tightened. Of course Sandee would have told her. She might be a saint when it came to fostering state wards but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy a bit of gossip as much as the next woman. ‘What exactly did she say?’

  And that was as stupid as asking What colour is the sky?

  He cringed as he thought back to New Year’s Eve. How he’d dressed up in his best clothes and hired out the town hall. He’d brought in caterers and planned out a menu that included every one of Melissa’s favourite foods. He’d organised a DJ from Margaret River and invited his entire family, along with Melissa’s folks and siblings and all their mutual friends, to what he hoped would be a very memorable night.

  Memorable was an understatement.

  Now he just wished he could forget it.

  But it would take a bad case of amnesia for him to blank out the recollection of getting down on bended knee in front of a room full of people and asking Melissa to spend the rest of her life with him. He’d been with her for almost five years and they’d lived together for the last two, so this was the logical next step as far as he was concerned. Of course he’d expected her to say yes. He’d even gone to the effort of measuring her finger while she was sleeping, and having a ring made that was identical to one she’d gushed over in a catalogue a few years earlier. When she’d started to cry, he’d thought they were happy tears and had been about to kiss them away, when he’d seen the expression in her eyes. Then the word ‘no,’ quickly followed by ‘I can’t’, had slipped from her lips and the bottom had dropped out of his world.

  Zoe cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you really want me to go over it?’

  Of course he didn’t, not when the end of their own relationship had been eerily similar to the end of his and Melissa’s. He shook his head and then looked down at the sand, unsure what the hell to do or say next.

  ‘Wanna sit for a while?’ Zoe asked, surprising him as she patted the sand beside her. ‘I’ve had a pretty crappy couple of months too as it happens, and I’ve heard that misery loves company.’

  He let out a half laugh and loosened his grip on the leash. ‘Don’t tell me you proposed to someone and they turned you down too, hey?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I moved in with someone, spent all my life savings furnishing his house and then found out he was two-timing me with my boss.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yep. Pretty much. So now I find myself with no job, no money and no roof over my head anymore. Suffice it to say you don’t have a monopoly on crappy.’

  He found himself sinking to his knees beside her. Eeyore followed, making a satisfied oomph sound as he flopped onto the sand between them.

  ‘So that’s why you came home?’ Shaun asked.

  She smiled sadly. ‘In a nutshell.’

  They sat in strangely comfortable silence, staring out at the ocean as the sun began its descent into the Indian Ocean. No matter how many times he’d watched the sun set, the bright oranges and purples and yellows and blues left him awed every time. For a while all he could hear was the noise of distant traffic, the waves coming and going and Eeyore’s contented snoring. He glanced sideways and saw Zoe’s fingers absentmindedly raking up and down the dog’s back. He knew from experience how good her touch felt.

  As if she felt his gaze, she turned her head to look at him and said, ‘So, how come you ended up with Eeyore in the split?’

  He reached out and ruffled Eeyore’s ears. ‘Even though Melissa named him, he was my dog. I found him on the side of the highway a couple of years ago. Someone had left him tied to a post with a note that whoever found him could keep him.’

  ‘Aw. Thank goodness you came along.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He chuckled. ‘Melissa thought I was crazy to pick up a stray, but we connected on the drive back into town. I felt like he trusted me, and I couldn’t stand being the one to let him down again. He was about five months old then, so not quite fully grown but a total hurricane. Within a couple of hours of him moving in, it became obvious that he’d probably been dumped because his owners couldn’t handle him. He tore our house apart and every one of Melissa’s shoes to shreds.’

  Funny, Shaun had been all apologetic back then. He’d replaced all her shoes and gone out of his way to train Eeyore into the mostly well-behaved dog that he was today, but now he kinda wished he’d let him ruin her entire wardrobe.

  Zoe leant over and took Eeyore’s giant face between her hands, her fingers disappearing in the rolls of silky, soft flesh. She spoke to him like he was a baby. ‘I don’t believe a nasty word he says about you, scrumptious.’

  Eeyore opened one eye, moaned and then closed it again.

  Shaun snorted.

  Zoe laughed. ‘So the two of you are batching it now?’

  ‘If you mean are we living it up on our own, then’—he sighed—‘we’re taking it one day at a time.’

  ‘That sounds sensible,’ Zoe said. ‘How long were you and Melissa together?’

  Shaun took a deep breath. Although he’d shied away from talking to anyone about Melissa—even his brothers—he now found himself leaning back against his hands and answering her questions.

  ‘Five years. I met her on the night of my twenty-first birthday. She was a friend of a friend who’d come over from Dunsborough. She was doing a degree in journalism online and at the time she was writing a story about surfing in the region. I helped her with the article and we became friends. I can’t really remember how we went from friends to bed buddies, but it happened and I thought we were good together. Time went on, Melissa finished her degree, started freelancing from home and we moved in together a couple of years ago. She knew from the start that I wanted to have a family young and that Wildwood Point would always be home for me. Whenever we talked about the future, she sounded as enthusiastic as me. I keep scrutinising the past and looking for signs that I was more committed to our relationship than she was, but the first time I felt anything like that was the night I proposed and she said no.’

  ‘Geez. That sucks.’

  ‘In a nutshell,’ he said, forcing a grin as he echoed the words she’d used earlier. Looking back, he was beginning to wonder if he was more attached to the idea of marriage than the idea of being wedded to Melissa. Zoe’s rejection years before had cut much deeper, but at least hers hadn’t been in front of an audience. ‘Apparently she had been feeling unsure about us for a while, but hadn’t known how to broach the subject. She was waiting for the right time or something.’

  ‘And that night
was it? Is she still in town?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘Yep.’ It would have been easier if Melissa had managed to get a job at a big city newspaper like she always claimed she wanted to do, but so far she was still living two streets away with her sister. He sighed. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating both our miseries? So far we’ve only discussed mine and I don’t like to hog the conversation.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, trust me, I’m more than happy to let you.’

  But he decided to press the issue. Not long ago she’d looked like she’d been trying to drown herself in the ocean, and he wanted to make sure she was okay before he moved on. ‘Zoe, talk to me. I insist.’

  Zoe felt the breath rush from her lungs as Shaun’s licorice eyes stared into hers. It was as if he was trying to reach her soul. The way he said insist didn’t sound like he was a curious nosy parker who wanted gossip, but like he actually cared. She shivered, but it wasn’t due to her clothes, which had almost dried off in the warm evening breeze. It was all down to being only a ruler’s length from him, so close again after all these years apart. Maybe talking about her ex would remind her why getting close to another man right now wasn’t a good idea.

  She took a breath and opened her mouth to speak. ‘Jasper and I had only been together six months. He was the chef at the restaurant I worked at on Cottesloe Beach. He was gorgeous, hot-headed and passionate about life, food and me, or so I thought. Within a couple of days of me starting work there, he had my number and was sending me flirtatious texts begging for a date. I guess it was a whirlwind romance. He’d been married before and had a little girl from the previous relationship, but he said all the right things about me being The One and him knowing we were meant to be together.’

  ‘He sounds like a sweet-talker,’ Shaun said.

  ‘You have no idea. I don’t know why I fell for it. It’s not like I’ve ever been a romantic but he must have caught me at the right time.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe I was tender because I’d just heard that my mother had died in prison, but—’

  ‘Oh Zoe, I’m so sorry.’ He cut her off. Of course he would. He wouldn’t be the guy he was if he went past that. But he didn’t need to grab her hand as well. She knew it was a gesture of comfort but how could she continue with her sob story while his warm fingers were wrapped around hers? As her insides twisted pleasurably, she forced herself to continue, didn’t even look down at their entwined fingers for fear of doing something ridiculous.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she lied. ‘It wasn’t like we’d been in contact for years. But even though she was a druggie, even though she couldn’t have looked after me even if she wanted to, I still felt bereft when they called me up and told me the news.’

  ‘Of course.’ His voice was so full of tenderness, it brought tears to her eyes.

  She blinked. ‘And Jasper, the chef, stepped in to take care of me. He asked me to move into the house he’d inherited from his parents and we decided to get rid of their old-fashioned furniture and buy our own. Oh God.’ She slipped her hand from his and joined it with her other one, wringing them, not wanting to admit her stupidity.

  ‘What is it, Zoe?’

  ‘We spent most of my savings on some furniture and for the rest we took out a loan. Or rather, I took out a loan. Jasper told me some cock-and-bull story about it being better that everything was in my name in case his ex-wife got wind and thought he had more money than he did and demanded he increase child support. Me, being stupid, bought his story hook, line and sinker.’

  ‘You’re not stupid. Don’t ever think that.’

  She smiled gratefully at him. ‘I think I was wrong. Misery is just as crappy when shared.’

  He half-laughed, but said, ‘Where’s all this furniture now? Can’t you sell it or something?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s still with him. Our boss, whom he had the affair with, has moved in and although Jasper said I was welcome to take the things that were mine, I could hardly fit a couch and a big screen TV into the back of Jemina. I was so mortified about being used that I just ran. Here. Back to Sandee. I knew she’d take me in until I got back on my feet again.’

  ‘So, is it true about your cards being cancelled, or…?’ His voice drifted off but she knew what he was asking.

  ‘Or,’ she replied with finality. And in case he hadn’t got the message, she elaborated. ‘I’m broke. Knowing I might not have a job for a while, I used the last of my savings to pay my bills and the furniture loans off, so I wouldn’t have creditors on my back.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I might not have cash, but I owe nobody. Now…can we please talk about something else?’

  ‘What about if we take the Elliot’s truck to Jasper’s place and get your furniture back?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You’d do that for me?’

  He nodded. ‘But we’d better make sure Jasper isn’t going to be at home when we do, because right now I’m liable to punch the guy in the head for what he did to you.’

  Oh! Her heart swelled and there went her tear ducts getting twitchy again. Somehow she managed to speak, despite the boulder that appeared to have lodged itself in her throat. ‘I might just take you up on that offer.’ Her lips twisted upwards at the thought of Jasper coming home to an empty house and she was suddenly glad she’d forgotten to leave her key. ‘But only when I can afford the petrol to get us there. Deal?’

  Shaun nodded as he reached out and shook the hand she’d offered him. She ignored the spark that came when his fingers closed once again around hers. Right now she needed a friend, and if this chat was any indication, maybe they could get past the fact they’d once been lovers and help each other through tough times.

  ‘I take it you’re looking for a job in town?’ he asked once they’d both withdrawn their hands.

  ‘Yep.’ She hung her head, thinking of all those poor trees she’d sacrificed handing out her résumé to people who obviously had no intention of employing her. ‘Started the hunt today.’

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Nope. It appears the tail end of the summer season is a crap time to find work in Wildwood Point.’ She might have to look further afield in Busselton, Dunsborough or Margaret River tomorrow, but there was the whole petrol issue to consider if she had to drive far to work.

  ‘What type of job are you looking for?’ he asked. ‘Restaurant or café work again?’

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’ She tried to smile. ‘I’m not fussy. I’ve worked in cafés a lot, but I’ve also done loads of other jobs over the years. Did you know I’m a qualified flower essence therapist?’

  ‘A what?’

  She laughed. His raised eyebrow was the standard response when she told most guys about her unusual qualifications. To be fair, not many women knew what she meant either. ‘I’ll explain later, but I can also wax, do manicures, pamper pooches and mow lawns. Short of selling my body for sex, I’m prepared to do anything.’

  At the mention of sex, Shaun looked like he might be choking. Zoe pursed her lips together to stop the grin that threatened to burst across her face. Even though neither of them were in the market for a relationship, it felt good to know she still affected him.

  He recovered quickly and said, ‘Did you see the new Chocolate Dreams Café on the main street?’

  She thought back a moment. ‘I did. It was all closed up when I walked past though.’

  ‘That’s Hannah’s new project. Apparently she once joked to Matt that the only way she’d ever go out with him was if he owned a chocolate factory. So he bought the place for her.’ Shaun chuckled. ‘We’re all learning never to joke around Matt. He’s the kind of bloke who makes things happen.’

  ‘Wow.’ Zoe sighed, imagining having a boyfriend who made that kind of grand romantic gesture. ‘A new baby and a new business. She’s gonna have her hands full.’

  Shaun snorted. ‘Between our mum and Matt’s mum, she’ll probably never get to see the baby, but Matt will manage the business when the baby’s young—and they’re hiring enough staff so they wo
n’t be too pressured.’

  ‘Sounds like they have it all sorted.’

  ‘Yep. And, in a roundabout way, I’m trying to say that maybe Han could give you a job. She said only last night that she still needs a couple more waiters. Or waitresses.’

  Zoe’s heart leapt. But then it dropped again. Shaun had already rescued her from the side of the road and then offered to help her collect her furniture. She couldn’t keep relying on him to get her out of scrapes. Before she knew it she’d be calling him whenever her shoelaces became undone. Then again, there was that saying about not looking a gift-horse in the mouth.

  ‘Should I give her a call or stop by the shop?’

  He glanced down at her attire. Despite being dry again, her clothes no longer looked fresh and professional and her hair, well, she didn’t have to look in a mirror or run her fingers through it to know it wasn’t neat enough for an interview.

  ‘I meant tomorrow,’ she said, fighting a giggle. ‘Obviously.’

  The grin he returned made her feel like jelly. ‘I’ll give her a call tonight and say you might stop by.’ He dug his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘I’ll text you to tell you what she says. What’s your number?’

  And although she didn’t feel entirely comfortable about him setting this up for her, Zoe couldn’t resist punching her number into his phone. She did so without analysing why it felt so good and then handed it back to him. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be getting back to Sandee’s before she sends out a search party,’ she said, pushing herself off the sand into a stand, reluctant to leave his company but knowing they couldn’t stay there indefinitely.

  Eeyore, who’d been asleep all the while they’d been talking, raised his head and then jumped up as if ready for action. She and Shaun laughed, their gazes meeting. Holding the dog’s lead, Shaun also stood and then things got a little awkward. They’d just bared their souls to each other and now it was time to say goodbye, but she wasn’t sure how to do so. Should she offer her hand for another shake, simply thank him for listening, or maybe give him a hug? After all they’d discussed, a hug probably wouldn’t be over-the-top but she didn’t want things to get awkward between them. She got the impression Shaun was contemplating the same dilemma.