by Lisa Henry
“Thanks.”
They locked up the station behind them, and set out across the grass towards their houses. The moonlight was bright enough that Gio didn’t bother with his torch. The stars in the zenith of the sky were still vivid, although dawn was beginning to soften the edges of the sky. The moon hung huge and low, almost brilliant orange. Gio didn’t think he’d ever seen a sky so radiant.
Their boots crunched through the grass.
“Gio? Can you help me out with my keys?”
“Um, yeah.” This dance was even more awkward than the one in the armoury. Gio slid his hand inside the sergeant’s pocket, and tried not to dig too deep. He hooked the keys out easily enough, and flicked through them until he found what looked like a house key, and then preceded Sergeant Quinn up the front stairs and unlocked the door for him.
“Thanks, Gio.” Sergeant Quinn leaned against the doorjamb, still holding a sleeping Taylor in his arms. “I appreciate it. And I am sorry for wrecking your night.”
“You didn’t.” Gio was glad the darkness of the veranda hid his flush. “It was just a hookup, you know?”
He was surprised to hear the sergeant’s huff of laughter.
“Nah. It’s been a bloody long time since I had one of those.”
A weight Gio hadn’t even realised he was carrying lifted. A joke, but it wasn’t on him. Wasn’t on his sexuality. “Yeah, well, it didn’t exactly rate.”
Another huff. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”
If he’d been on first name terms with the sergeant, if they’d been friends, Gio might have made a joke about how surely it was impossible he wasn’t getting something on the side. A good-looking guy like Jason Quinn? That had to be a crime. But Gio didn’t know him well enough to make that joke.
He smiled slightly instead, and ducked his head. “Maybe.”
“Good night, Gio.”
“Good night, Sarge.”
The sergeant paused, half turned in the doorway. “It’s Jason.”
“Right.” Gio nodded. “Jason.”
“Good night,” Jason said again, and stepped inside. He closed the door behind himself.
Gio headed for home, with the moon at his back.
Taylor was tired and bad-tempered at breakfast, and Jason packed him off to school with his backpack, his lunchbox, and a reminder to keep out of trouble that hopefully wasn’t a waste of breath. He went back to bed after Taylor left, but couldn’t sleep. Guilt, probably. After all, if his son was facing the day sleep-deprived and grumbly, Jason deserved no less. After lying in bed for twenty minutes, he gave up and went downstairs to throw on a load of laundry. The stray cat watched him narrow-eyed from her perch on top of his tool cupboard, and Jason pretended not to notice her. He wasn’t caving. He just didn’t have the energy to get into a battle of wills with a bloody cat. Not today, when he was pretty sure the cat would win. Jason’s ego couldn’t take a blow like that, not after Sandra had torn strips off him last night over Taylor.
“This needs to stop, Jason,” she’d said, looking terrifying despite her pink fluffy dressing gown. “I love you, and I love that kid, but you are fast using up what little goodwill I’ve got over this.”
“I’m working on it.”
She’d fixed him with a stare. “Work harder.”
He’d felt smaller than a chastened child.
With the load of laundry in the machine, Jason headed back upstairs and dug the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard in the hallway. It had a thin layer of dust covering it, which was a damn good indication of how long it had been since Jason used the thing. He gave the living room a cursory sweep, and then tackled the bedrooms.
“What is dust anyway?” Alana had asked once. “It’s just tiny bits of stuff.”
They’d been high at the time, lounging around in Graham’s room in that shitty share house in Aitkenvale he’d been living in. Alana and Graham had laughed themselves stupid because Jason had insisted on locking the door and pulling the curtains closed. He was going to be a cop. He couldn’t get busted for drugs. Except the more he’d tried to emphasise the gravity of the situation, the harder they’d both laughed at him. He’d tried to shush them every time a car had driven past, and they’d just fucking howled.
Idiots.
Last Jason had heard from Graham, he’d been going to Laos to do humanitarian work. It sounded like a great fit for the weird pot-smoking Nietzsche-quoting guy who’d been taking everything from Philosophy to Anthropology, to Politics to Human Geography. Jason was sure they’d have nothing in common these days, but back then he, Alana, and Graham had been thick as thieves.
Jason smiled at the memory as he worked, feeling the same ache in his chest that he always did when he thought of Alana. It had been years since his grief had been sharp enough to tear new wounds into him, but the ache remained. He was accustomed to the weight of it. He missed her, and he always would, but lately he’d been thinking it would be nice if there was room in his life for someone else.
The vacuum cleaner made a high-pitched grinding noise, and something that sounded like plastic rattled down the tube. Shit. Of course Taylor had left Lego or another toy on his floor, and now Jason was going to have to dig through a bag full of dust and crap to retrieve it. From existential crises to this. It seemed like a pretty solid metaphor for life, actually, but Jason didn’t mind.
He didn’t regret for one minute that he wasn’t in Laos trying to save the world. He had Taylor and Taylor, despite his inability to keep his Lego pieces off the floor, was Jason’s whole world. Everything else—his tiredness, his loneliness, his need for adult conversation and maybe touch as well—got pushed aside for now. For now, Jason always told himself, but it worried him how it had started to sound more and more like forever in his head.
He dragged the vacuum cleaner out onto the back stairs, and carried it down to the scrubby grass. The cat slunk out from under the house and watched warily as Jason gutted the strange creature in front of her, sending clumps and chunks of dust and lint rolling like tiny tumbleweeds across the yard. Jason dug around in the bag until he found the culprit: a formerly yellow Lego block that could now use a rinse under the tap.
“Got it,” he told the cat, holding it up to show her.
He liked to imagine the cat looked grudgingly impressed.
Jason lugged the vacuum cleaner back upstairs again, glancing over at Gio’s house as he did. Gio was managing, wasn’t he? Only in town for a few weeks and already hooking up with someone. Richard fucking Hanna. Jason wasn’t sure if the low burn in the pit of his stomach was because he was jealous of the pair of them, or just Richard Hanna. The guy was a nobody though. Only a hookup. What was it Gio had said last night?
“Yeah, well, it didn’t exactly rate.”
Maybe that meant Richard Hanna was already out of the picture. Jesus, and here Jason was again, forcing away some very unprofessional thoughts about Gio who, even if hooking up with a close colleague wasn’t the worst idea in the history of the world ever, had to be the worst candidate for that hypothetical position anyway. He’d fucked that bloke on the Coast, and then completely fucked him over. Gio was bad news. Except the more time Jason spent with him, the harder that was to remember. Because, okay, they’d disagreed about a few things, but as far as Jason could tell, Gio wasn’t looking to make trouble.
That was probably what his colleagues down on the Coast had thought too.
Jason shoved the vacuum cleaner back in the hallway cupboard, and checked his watch. He didn’t start work until two, but he could go in early and get his paperwork out of the way. See if Gio wanted to grab lunch with him or something.
He dug a clean uniform out of the ironing basket, figured the worst creases would wear out in this heat anyway, and then dressed and headed for the station.
Sandra was on a day off today, so the front counter was unattended. Jason wasn’t proud of the relief that washed over him at that. He didn’t want a repeat of last night’s dressing
down. He’d put off chasing up childcare for Taylor for too long already though, and they both knew it. Jason needed to get his shit together on that front, and at least put a few feelers out around town.
Jason headed into the dayroom.
He hadn’t noticed either of the vehicles missing when he’d come in, so he didn’t think Gio was out on a call or on patrol, but he wasn’t in the dayroom. Jason walked down the short hallway to his office, and heard voices.
Gio and . . . Patricia Howe. Gio must’ve taken her into his office for the illusion of privacy, even though the station was otherwise empty. A more comfortable chair and a box of tissues made all the difference sometimes.
“He’s not a bad man,” Patricia was saying.
“Nobody’s saying he is.” Gio sounded calm, patient. Jason wondered if he really believed what he was saying or if, like Jason, he wanted to punch Brian Howe in the face and make him taste his own medicine for once. “But if you tell the magistrate you don’t want to go through with the order, that just shows Brian that he can do what he likes, and you’ll let him.”
“He doesn’t mean to hurt me!”
“Patricia, it doesn’t matter if he means it or not.” A hint of impatience crept into Gio’s tone. “He hurts you. Full stop.”
“You don’t understand!” Patricia began.
“I do.” The quiet certainty in Gio’s tone sent a chill through Jason. “I do.”
Jason slipped away.
It was an uneventful shift. Taylor turned up after school and fell asleep halfway through his homework. Gio left at four, flashing Jason a smile as he did. Jason was sure his answering smile was hollow. Jason stayed in the station as long as he could, before packing Taylor into the LandCruiser and doing a few laps of town. He was always a little uneasy taking Taylor around with him, but after last night’s run-in with Sandra, he wasn’t going to push his luck with her tonight.
“Dad, can we pull some cars over?”
“Nope.”
Taylor slumped in his seat, but brightened up again when they went to the truck stop for dinner. Jason thought of Gio as he ate. Thought of the large implications behind those very words: “I do.”
It unsettled him.
Back at the station, Jason took a call from Senior Sergeant Gordon, the DDO in Townsville.
“Hey, Gordy,” he said. “How are things?”
“Living the dream, mate,” Gordy drawled. “Living the dream. Listen, I’m calling because I’ve got the report on Valeri’s Use of Force arrest in front of me.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jason retreated to his office, although Taylor looked to be fairly mesmerised by whatever game he was playing on his iPad. “Is there a problem?”
Kev Lindeman’s arrest had been messy as fuck, but Gio hadn’t done anything wrong, and he’d had the bruises to prove it. Jason remembered how shaky Gio had been after Kev had assaulted him. He remembered how he’d wanted to reach out and trace the swelling on his jaw.
“That all depends on you,” Gordy said.
Jason wondered exactly what he was offering here. A way to fuck Gio over instead of standing by him? A way to get rid of him? If that was what Gordy was implying—a rewriting of Jason’s report to screw Gio over instead of backing him—did Gio even know how precarious his position was?
“I’ve got, um, I’ve got a lot of people waiting for the chance to dog me.”
Yeah. Of course he knew.
“Gio didn’t do anything wrong, Gordy,” Jason said firmly. “It was a good arrest.”
Gordy was silent for a moment. “Good. I just wanted to make sure you thought so.”
“Do you know what happened down on the Coast?” Jason asked.
“I heard he lost a good copper his job.”
“You think there’s another side to that story, boss?”
Gordy grunted. “I think if you think there’s only two sides to any story, you’re severely lacking in imagination.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, thinking again of Gio’s words to Patricia Howe. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
At 10 p.m. Jason locked up the station and followed a yawning Taylor home.
“Bedtime,” he said, smacking Taylor gently on the bum when he didn’t move up the stairs to the front door quickly enough.
Taylor squawked in feigned outrage. “Dad!”
Gio’s lights were still on.
“I’m just going next door for a bit, okay? Brush your teeth and get into bed and I’ll be back in time to turn your light out.”
“Okay!” Taylor scurried inside, and Jason moved back down the steps again and headed for Gio’s. He crossed towards the back of Gio’s place, boots treading the familiar path. He’d walked it often enough when Dan and Gabby had lived in the house. They’d rarely used each other’s front doors.
The stairs squeaked as Jason climbed them. From inside he could hear the television. He rapped on the screen door. “Gio?”
Gio appeared within moments, his brow creased in a slight frown. “Sarge?”
Jason raised his eyebrows.
“Jason,” Gio corrected, mouth quirking. He flicked the lock on the screen door and opened it. “What’s up?”
There was no easy way to ask what he wanted to know. “Your ex, down on the Coast, did he assault you? Is that why you reported him to Ethical Standards?”
Gio’s expression froze.
“I heard you talking to Patricia today,” Jason said. “Pretty obvious you were talking from experience.”
Gio stepped aside, and motioned for Jason to come inside, and then turned and headed for the kitchen. “Beer?”
“Yeah.” Jason followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the bench near Gio’s ridiculously fancy coffee machine.
Gio rattled around in the fridge, pulling out two beers. He passed one to Jason, and kept the other one, twisting the top off it, and flicking the cap into the sink. “My team down the Coast . . .” He took a sip of beer. “We were really competitive. Better than any fucking GDs crew. We ran our own ops where we’d go in hard and fast. We were all about getting the most pinches. We lived and breathed the fucking job. We were beyond competitive.”
Jason watched him carefully.
Gio picked at the label on his beer bottle for a moment, and then took another swig. He fixed his gaze on some point over Jason’s shoulder. “This one time, Coop outran Pete chasing down a grub, and didn’t let up about it, so Pete started spending more time at the gym. I had other stuff going on at the time, with . . . with my dad, so I didn’t notice at first. The little changes. Then one night we’re at home, and out of the blue he just lost his shit. It was over something stupid, but he completely . . .” His hands shook. “He completely lost it.”
“Hey.” Jason set his beer down on the bench. He took a few steps forward, closing the space between them, put a hand on Gio’s shoulder, and squeezed gently.
“I didn’t even fight back,” Gio said. “I was too fucking shocked.” His mouth twitched in a brief, bitter smile. “So was he, I think.”
Jason rubbed his thumb against the binding of the neckline of Gio’s T-shirt.
“It’s the old story. He promised it wouldn’t happen again.” Gio shrugged, his muscles moving under Jason’s hand. “It did. I didn’t—” He cut himself off, his mouth pressing into a thin line briefly before he spoke. “He’d gotten into steroids through these people he met at the gym. Then, this one arrest, he went in too hard. I thought, if I didn’t report him, he was going to hurt someone. Really hurt them.”
“Someone apart from you?”
“Told myself I could handle it if it was just me.” Gio lifted his dark gaze to meet Jason’s. “Probably bullshit. Anyway, I told Pete to clean himself up. He didn’t. I called Ethical Standards. He failed a drug test. They had to get the drug squad from another division to search our flat. Couldn’t have our mates do it.”
“Jesus.”
“They didn’t find anything.” Gio swallowed. “I’d already flushed it. He had .
. . he had a lot of stuff at the flat. I didn’t want them to think he was dealing; I wanted him to go to rehab, not lose his job. They can do that. I spoke to the HSO. They’ll send you to rehab if you’ve got a problem. It’s like you get that one pass, you know?” His voice rasped. “I never meant for them to fire him. If I’d wanted that, I would have told them about the DV.”
“You still could.”
Gio flinched. “I already ruined his fucking life.”
Jason shrugged. “Sounds like he ruined it himself.”
“Right.” Gio choked on a laugh. “Nobody else sees it like that though, do they? He said—” He pulled away and lifted the beer bottle to his mouth. Jason tracked the way his throat bobbed as he drank. Gio lowered the bottle and swiped the back of his hand over his lips. “He told everyone he’d met someone else, and I stabbed him in the back because I was jealous.”
“And they believed that?”
Gio’s snorted. “Turns out they were his friends more than mine.”
“Maybe you should have told them the truth.”
Gio expression hardened. “That was the worst thing I could have done.”
“Why?” Jason demanded. He reached out for Gio again, and gripped his shoulder. He wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to keep grounded. “Why?”
“Because I left it too long! Because it would have looked like a fucking lie I couldn’t prove!” Gio shook his head. His eyes shone. “Nobody would have believed me!”
“I believe you.” Jason dug his fingers into the muscle of Gio’s shoulder. “Gio. Look at me. I believe you.”
Gio dropped his gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “I got my car keyed. Tyres slashed. Got calls in the middle of the night telling me they could see me, and that I was a dead man. Telling me the name of the place my fucking niece goes to day care. Fuck.” He twisted away, pushing past Jason. He crossed to the sink, setting his beer down and then gripping the edges of the bench tightly. His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed heavily. His breath rasped.
Jason moved towards him. Gio looked like he was about to shake out of his body. Jason stared at their reflections in the kitchen window, and met Gio’s gaze in the glass. He reached out and gave Gio a moment to flinch away. Then he put his hand on Gio’s shoulder again. “Just breathe. You’re okay. Just breathe.”
