by Lisa Henry
“Good night, mate.”
“Good night, Dad.”
Jason sat on the couch and flicked through the channels on the TV. It felt selfish to want something more than this. Worse, it felt almost dangerous, as though he were somehow tempting fate. Jason knew how fucked up the universe could be, after all. He didn’t need another demonstration. Not in this lifetime.
The quiet was fine.
He must have fallen asleep on the couch, and only woke up when he heard a car door slamming. It took a moment for him to get his bearings and realise he was on the couch and not in bed, and then he stood up, stretching, and made his way to the front door. He stepped outside onto the veranda.
The car was at Gio’s place. It was a new model crewman ute. In the bright moonlight, Jason made out the familiar logo on the side.
Baxter Mine.
Jason watched as Richard Hanna headed up Gio’s front steps. Gio was standing at the top of the steps, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It was too far away to make out his expression, but he had his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. He looked loose-limbed and more relaxed than Jason had ever seen him.
As Jason watched, his stomach twisting with some emotion he wasn’t anywhere near ready to name, Gio retreated to his front door.
Richard followed him inside.
It was Sophie’s idea.
You need to get a hobby, she’d texted a few days earlier when Gio had been bitching about having nothing to do in his time off. Or a friend.
That had cut close, and Gio hoped that hadn’t been her intention, but she had a point. Sitting around the house after every shift playing video games and killing time until he was due at work again wasn’t good for his health, either mental or otherwise.
After the shit day he’d had, it had been easy to text Richard. He’d intended to flirt for a while, maybe get each other off with some sexting and some pics, but somehow that had turned into an invitation. Now, four hours after Gio had sent the first text, Richard was walking inside his house. Gio wasn’t sure where his unease was coming from. He’d had plenty of hookups before. He’d been spontaneous.
Before Pete.
Before Richmond, where there was no such thing as anonymity, and where he was living in the house next door to his boss.
Before his whole life had gone to shit.
“You need more furniture,” Richard said with a half smile as he looked around the place.
“Yeah.” Gio nodded towards the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
“Depends,” Richard said. “Am I driving back tonight?”
It was a fair question. Gio had been exchanging dick pics with the guy for over a week, and now Richard had driven three hours to town. Gio appreciated that Richard was asking, but he’d also figured it was a foregone conclusion that Richard would be staying over. The sudden thought that maybe it wasn’t foregone, that maybe he could still call the whole thing off, made him feel oddly unsettled. He didn’t like leaving room for his doubts to creep in.
“Are you working tomorrow?” he asked instead.
“I can start late.”
“Then you might as well stay here the night,” Gio said, ignoring the knot in his gut that reminded him how long it had been since he’d gotten laid. That the last guy who’d touched him, who’d kissed him, had been Pete. And that he’d been in love with Pete.
Gio went to the kitchen to grab a couple of beers. When he came back into the living room, Richard was standing by the small table, holding up the pack of dog treats that had come in the internal mail to the station that day. Gio’s heart skipped a beat.
“You’ve got a dog?”
“No. That a . . . um, that’s a joke,” Gio said, shrugging it off with a smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes.
Dog.
A can of Pal had been traditional back in the bad old days, apparently, when corruption had been rife and before the Queensland Police Force had been shaken up, cleaned out and rebranded as the Queensland Police Service, but trying to send a can of dog food through the internal mail would have raised some questions that his former colleagues on the Coast—because who else would it be?—clearly wouldn’t want to answer. They hadn’t forgotten about him, then, and they wanted him to know that. Half the bloody state away, and they were still fucking with him.
Richard raised his eyebrows and set the Schmackos back down. He was probably wondering what sort of dumb joke a pack of dog treats was. He took the beer that Gio offered him, and twisted the top off. “Thanks.”
“Couch?” Gio asked.
They sat together, the TV on for noise mainly, and for something to fill the suddenly awkward silence between them. Gio drank his beer too fast.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to come all this way,” he said at last, picking at the label on the bottle with his thumbnail.
Richard smiled. “It’s not like I have a reason, usually.”
Gio studied the fine smattering of freckles across his nose before he glanced away again briefly. When he looked back, Richard was still staring at him. “Right.”
Richard’s forehead creased. “Are you into this? Because you seemed like you were when we were texting.”
“It’s been a while.” Gio went with a version of the truth he could live with. “I went through a breakup before I got transferred here.”
“Messy?”
“Yeah.”
Richard leaned back. “So, my boyfriend and I have been together for three years. We’re not exclusive though.”
Gio met his gaze. “Does he know that?”
“Yeah.” Richard set his beer down on the coffee table. “Is that a deal breaker?”
Was it? Gio wasn’t chasing a boyfriend. He wanted a no-strings hookup, and Richard fit the bill. He wondered if Richard was playing him, though, by telling him like this. Telling him here. Like maybe he figured that if he drove the three hours to town before dropping the boyfriend bombshell, Gio would be less likely to tell him to fuck off than if he’d mentioned it by text. Or maybe that was Gio reading too much into it. “No. It’s cool.”
Richard’s motivations didn’t matter, did they? Gio was looking for a hookup, for some stress relief, not a lifetime commitment.
He set his beer on the table and leaned back again. Richard followed his movement, and for a second Gio thought of dancers moving together, the space between them melting away, or of planets in a synchronised orbit. Then Richard’s breath was hot against his mouth, and then his lips were, and Gio curled his fingers into his hair and tried not to think about Pete.
Gio’s phone woke him sometime in the middle of the night, and he fumbled with it for a moment, his fingers clumsy with sleep, before managing to answer it. “H’lo?”
“Gio. It’s Jason. We’ve got an MVC. Meet me at the station in five.”
“Yep.” Gio scrubbed a hand through his hair, and waited for awareness to filter back into the blank spaces of his consciousness. “Yep.”
There was silence for a moment, and then: “Are you awake?”
“Yep.” Gio shook his head to clear it. “I’m awake. Got it, Sarge. I’ll be there in five.”
He rolled out of bed and stumbled towards the door, hitting the light switch. Richard peered at him blearily.
“I gotta go,” Gio said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Yeah.” Richard closed his eyes.
Gio dressed quickly, laced his boots on, and was at the back of the station four minutes later. He was inside and kitting up by the time Sergeant Quinn arrived, with a pyjama-clad Taylor in tow.
The sergeant didn’t say anything about the Baxter Mine vehicle parked in front of Gio’s house, and Gio didn’t say anything about the five-minute detour to Sandra’s place to drop a yawning Taylor off.
As they approached the accident, Gio saw the flashing strobes of the ambulance lighting up the scene from hundreds of metres away. It was a straight, flat stretch of the highway, and at first Gio wondered if the driver had fallen asleep at
the wheel and ended up off the road. Then their headlights caught the shape of the injured steer lying on the road. Gio climbed out of the LandCruiser, and heard the low, pained bellow of the animal. It sounded almost mournful, like it knew exactly what was coming.
Gio’s boots skidded in loose dirt as he followed the sergeant down into the shallow ditch at the side of the highway.
“Vicki?” Sergeant Quinn called out as they walked towards the damaged car. “What’ve we got?”
Vicki was standing by the car with a young woman who must have been the driver. In the light from Vicki’s torch, Gio could see the girl’s pale, shocked face.
“Boys,” Vicki said. “I was just telling Marnie here that tonight is her lucky night. Not only is she okay, but she’s about to meet two of the hottest coppers in the state.”
The driver gave a weak laugh. She was young, hardly more than a teenager. Her hands were shaking badly as she twisted the fabric of her shirt in her fingers.
“I mean, there are some unattractive coppers in this world, Marnie,” Vicki said. “Some real uggos. But these two here? These are definitely some eye candy, right?”
“My dad is gonna kill me!” Marnie exclaimed. “I only bought this car last month.”
“No, he’s not,” Sergeant Quinn said. “Your dad’s going to be happy you’re okay.”
“I didn’t even see it! It was just there all of a sudden!”
“It’s not your fault,” Sergeant Quinn said. “Vicki, are you good here?”
“I’m good,” Vicki said. “I’ll take Marnie into the hospital to get checked out.”
“We’ll come and see you there later, Marnie.”
“Okay,” the girl said, and let Vicki usher her towards the road where the ambulance was parked. Gio walked with them. He stepped out of the way while Vicki got Marnie situated in the back of the ambulance.
“Thanks, Gio,” Vicki said, slamming the doors of the ambulance shut.
“She okay?”
“Yeah. Shaken up, but she was already out and walking around by the time I got to her. They’ll check her out at the hospital, but I think it’s her lucky night.” Vicki flashed him a tired smile. “See you fellas back in town.”
The ambulance rumbled off towards Richmond.
Gio watched as the sergeant strode over to the police LandCruiser. He opened the back and took out the rifle. He walked toward the injured steer, his shadow lengthening in the headlights.
Gio looked away.
The steer bellowed again.
A shot rang out, sharp and clear.
Moments later, the sergeant returned to stow the rifle.
There was a winch on the front bull bar of the LandCruiser. Sergeant Quinn fed the cable out and fastened the end around the back legs of the dead steer. Then he reeled it in, and reversed the LandCruiser off to the side of the road, dragging the steer with it. It was the work of minutes.
“We’ll call the council in the morning to get rid of the carcass,” he said.
Gio nodded. “What about Marnie’s car?”
“It’s off the road. No hazard. She can arrange to get it towed in the morning.”
“Let me check there’s nothing in it that’ll get nicked,” Gio said, and headed back down to Marnie’s crumpled little hatchback. She might have just bought it, but it wasn’t a new car. It was second-hand, at least five years old, though clearly her pride and joy with its matching seat covers and floor mats, and the sparkly crystal hanging off the rearview mirror. Her phone was still plugged into the stereo, and Gio unplugged it. He found her handbag half wedged under the front passenger seat, and wrenched it out with some difficulty. The bag was pink and glittery and made Gio think of princesses and tea parties and how Chloe would be getting into that stuff soon and he wouldn’t be there to see it. The familiar ache of homesickness rose up in him, and he pushed it down again. He slipped the phone inside the bag, checked the back seats, and then removed the keys from the ignition and put them in the bag as well.
He didn’t bother to close the driver’s door. The chassis was so buckled it would have been pointless. He walked back to the police LandCruiser, taking a moment to look up at the stars. They were bright here, and low.
Gio climbed into the passenger seat.
“I’m sorry about this,” Sergeant Quinn said as they headed towards town.
“About what?” Gio asked.
“About calling you out for a job I could have handled on my own,” the sergeant said. “Comms didn’t have much info on it. I thought it might have been a bad one.”
“It’s not a problem, Sarge.” Gio held Marnie’s handbag on his lap.
“Yeah, well . . .” Sergeant Quinn shrugged. “You had company.”
Gio stilled, his mind working frantically. It took him a long moment to find any words, because the sergeant wasn’t dumb. He had to know exactly who Gio’s company was. They hadn’t met any women out at Baxter that day. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” Sergeant Quinn glanced at him and then looked back at the highway. “It’s not a problem.”
Which didn’t explain the strange tension in his voice. Gio had dealt with plenty of people before who paid lip service to diversity but then carefully froze him out of their social circles. It was an insidious sort of homophobia he’d dealt with his entire career, an experience that he and Pete had in common, and had laughed about more often than not. Who gave a fuck how uncomfortable they made some fucking arseholes? It had been easy to laugh at when he’d been with Pete, and when he’d been part of a team that liked him. It wasn’t now that he was facing it alone.
He nodded and hoped that the sergeant was done talking to him.
He wasn’t.
“What I said yesterday . . .” Sergeant Quinn gripped the steering wheel tightly. “About having Ethical Standards on speed dial.”
Gio’s stomach clenched.
“It was out of line. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The words tasted like ash, but what the hell else could he say?
Fuck you. Fuck you, Sarge, for giving me that whole speech about judging me on the quality of my work, for making me believe it, and then saying that. Fuck you, and fuck the QPS, and fuck everyone in this two-headed one-horse town.
There was a time and a place for speaking the truth, but it sure as hell wasn’t now and it sure as hell wasn’t here. Gio turned his head and looked out the window, and counted down the kilometres back to Richmond.
Gio had joked once about being able to do his job in his sleep. It wasn’t far from the truth tonight. It was almost 4 a.m. by the time they reached the hospital and caught up with Marnie again. She was a wreck.
“My dad’s going to kill me,” she said again, her lower lip trembling.
“He’s not,” Gio promised her, and the man proved it when Gio called him a few minutes later to let him know what had happened.
“Ah, it’s just a bloody car,” he said, his tone light with relief. “Hell of a lot easier to replace one of those than a daughter.”
There was no other traffic on the road when they left the hospital. The world was quiet and empty.
Sandra’s house was in darkness when they reached it. Sergeant Quinn pulled up out the front. Gio stayed in his seat and checked his phone while the sergeant went inside. Half past four, and he was supposed to start work at eight. He could get a couple of hours’ sleep in before then, hopefully.
A light flickered on in a front room of Sandra’s house. A few moments after that Sergeant Quinn reappeared, carrying Taylor. The kid was too big to carry, probably. He was all long skinny limbs.
Gio climbed out and opened the back door. No way would Sergeant Quinn manage it with his arms full of Taylor.
Taylor mumbled something as the sergeant bundled him carefully into the back seat.
“Seat belt, mate,” Sergeant Quinn said.
Taylor yawned, and straightened up to let his father get the seat belt clipped around him. “Dad?”
“Yeah, m
ate. It’s me.”
Taylor blinked his eyes open, still yawning. “Can you put the siren on?”
“Not tonight.” Sergeant Quinn scrubbed his knuckles gently over Taylor’s hair, and then stepped back and closed the door carefully.
Taylor was dozing again by the time they reached the back of the station. The arc of the headlights cut across the scrubby yard between the station and the houses. Richard’s car was gone. Gio was unsurprised. Richard had had no way of knowing how long he’d be gone. Also, it was hard to regret when his top priority right now was sleep.
“Sorry,” Sergeant Quinn said, his gaze following Gio’s.
“It’s fine, Sarge.”
At least being called out had saved him an awkward farewell. He wasn’t sure he and Richard had really clicked. It had been okay, but not exactly mind-blowing, and the feeling was probably mutual. There didn’t seem to be enough of a spark between them for Richard to bother driving three hours each way for what had been fairly mediocre sex.
Then again, loneliness was a hell of a motivator, wasn’t it?
Sergeant Quinn carried Taylor inside the station. Gio followed him to the armoury.
“Come on, Taylor,” Sergeant Quinn said softly. “Come on. I have to put you down.”
Taylor grumbled and wrapped his arms around Sergeant Quinn’s neck more tightly.
“He gets clingy when he’s tired,” Sergeant Quinn said.
Gio divested himself of his firearm, his spare clip, his taser, and his spray, and set them in the safe beside Brian Howe’s rifles. “I got it.”
Sergeant Quinn turned, angling his hip towards Gio, and hitching Taylor’s legs out of the way. Gio unclipped Sergeant Quinn’s holster and drew his Glock out. He did the same with the taser on his other hip, and then his spray and spare clip. He couldn’t help but notice how the sergeant’s forearms were corded with the effort of holding Taylor. Taylor’s face was buried in the crook of his neck, and he was still holding on tight like a possum.
“Done,” Gio said, and closed the door to the weapons’ safe.
