Fly In Fly Out

by Evie Snow

  “Hey, that’s not fair, you can’t whack on an amendment like that,” Jo protested with feigned indignation. “That was low.”

  “I agree. Myf, you’re fired for being a goody-two-shoes prissy pants,” Amy added. “I’m going to have to take over the job. To Stephen Hardy’s . . . trying to think of a word . . .”

  “Delectable?” Myf suggested.

  “Delectable? I like it. To Stephen Hardy’s delectable arse.”

  “I’ll second that,” Jo responded.

  “To cute arses everywhere,” Myf chimed in, and the three of them laughed and raised their glasses again.

  “Here, here.” A deep male voice joined in, causing all three women to splutter their respective mouthfuls of champagne. They turned to find Scott leaning against a pastel-pink wall, looking the height of casual in knee-length khaki shorts and a pale blue T-shirt, a huge cheeky smile on his face.

  “Bloody hell, Scott. You trying to kill me?” Jo wiped a hand over her mouth.

  “Not at the moment. Although Stephen might want to. He’s just stepped outside to die quietly of embarrassment. Any chance of one of those cookies, Amy?”

  Jo blinked. “You’re seriously kidding me, right? Stephen didn’t just hear all that, did he?”

  “Depends what else you were talking about. We walked in around the time Amy declared his arse was delectable. Was there anything better? Care to fill me in?” he asked and then doubled over with laughter at the way all three women turned red.

  “Bastard,” Jo muttered.

  “Hear, hear,” Amy and Myf chorused.

  It turned out Scott had dropped by with Stephen in tow to invite the three women to a Shakespearean play that evening in Kings Park, a massive patch of green real estate in the middle of Perth that overlooked the city and the river. Every year, a Shakespearean theatre company tackled one of the Bard’s plays outdoors in direct competition with the kookaburras, who sometimes cackled so loudly in the surrounding trees that the actors had to stop the show until they finished.

  Forgetting their embarrassment, all three ladies agreed the play was a good idea once Scott finally got around to welcoming Jo home, pulling her into a bear hug.

  “So. I’ve got six tickets,” he said a few minutes later. “Which means one spare. Mike was gonna come, but he’s busy.” He rolled his eyes at Amy’s disappointed frown. “Any ideas who else to bring?”

  “You know, considering how much we’ve just embarrassed Stephen, it’d only be fair to offer the spare ticket to his girlfriend,” Myf said perkily.

  Scott, Amy, and Jo scowled at her.

  “Well, it would,” Myf said.

  Jo noticed Scott’s reaction. “I take it you don’t approve of the girlfriend?”

  Scott pulled his best Japanese gangster poker face. “Jury’s still out.”

  “How long has this jury been deliberating?” Amy asked.

  “Since I met her a couple of weeks ago,” Scott said then heaved a sigh. “I hate to admit it, but it’s a good idea, Myf. I think you girls owe it to him. The man might not be able to show his face in public again given the way he caught you lot carrying on.”

  “Or his arse,” Amy added.

  “Now that would be a tragedy,” Myf said before bursting into another round of giggling.

  * * *

  “Think you’ll be ready soon?” Stephen leaned against the door frame of Bridgett’s marble and gold bathroom, watching her get ready to go to the play in Kings Park with him.

  “I’ll be ready when I’m finished putting on my makeup.” Bridgett frowned in irritation, or at least Stephen thought she was frowning. It was sometimes hard to tell with all the Botox.

  “We’re running pretty late. By about twenty minutes now,” he said, quelling the spark of irritation he felt at the knowledge that Bridgett knew precisely how late she was running and was doing this on purpose. He admired her, she was one hell of a woman. But he didn’t have the patience for this kind of power play and he’d been seeing it a hell of a lot more frequently lately.

  “I said that I’ll be ready when I’m ready,” she snapped, rifling through a drawer of pricey cosmetics to pull out a tube of mascara and begin applying it to her lashes.

  “Alright then. I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said, hoping to hurry her up.

  “I had a little run-in with your sister at your place this morning.”

  “Rachael?” Stephen stopped in his tracks, his brow furrowed. “Rachael’s on holiday. Last I checked, she was in Sydney at the wine expo I told you about.”

  “Sydney,” Bridgett repeated, carefully pursing her lips and applying peach-colored gloss. “So who was the nearly naked brunette in your apartment this morning?”

  “Naked?” Stephen asked, an image of a naked Jo Blaine flashing through his mind. His mental picture was pure imagination, augmented by what he’d seen when he’d come across Jo and Scott at that dam on Evangeline’s Rest when she was sixteen, but that didn’t really hamper his body’s reaction. He shifted uncomfortably.

  “Hmm.” She picked up a bottle of perfume and sprayed her wrists before dabbing them onto her neck.

  He decided to go with a polished version of the truth, not comfortable discussing Jo but wanting to smooth things over since they’d all be watching a play together in a couple of minutes. “Jo’s a friend. We’ve known each other for years and I’m doing her a favor by looking after her place for a couple of months.”

  “Oh?” Bridgett prompted, but before he could say anything else, she interrupted him. “What time did you say we had to be there?” She presented her back to him, lifting up her hair. “Zip me up, will you?”

  He slid the zip of her butter-yellow sundress up her back and, for the first time since he’d met Bridgett, didn’t enjoy himself in the process. Normally, he loved helping a woman dress, loved the guilty pleasure of watching her make up her face and brush her hair. It probably had a lot to do with never knowing his mother, who had died when he was still a baby. The undressing was good too, but there was something so sexy about watching all the good bits being covered up. Sort of like wrapping a present for later.

  “We were supposed to be there at seven,” he said, resting his hand on her lower back and meeting her eyes in the mirror. “You ready to go now?”

  She pursed her lips again, looking thoughtful. “I have to make a couple of calls. I won’t be long.” She turned, patted him on the cheek, and swiftly walked away, her lethal stilettos clicking over the bathroom tiles.

  Stephen rested both his palms on the marble bathroom counter, feeling frustration turn into genuine anger as he met his own eyes in the mirror. The fact that he was copping this kind of thing from yet another woman didn’t escape him. He knew this was Bridgett’s revenge for him asking her to wait the other day, but the difference was that he’d only been asking her to wait. This was different. His friends were waiting on them and he was letting them down.

  He’d never had patience for games. He didn’t understand them and didn’t want to understand them. All he knew was that this wasn’t a game he wanted to play.

  He heard Bridgett talking on the phone, looked down at his watch, and made a decision.

  He had a choice. He could break things off with Bridgett tonight, or he could do it later. If he did it now, it would be rushed and unfair to her. The right way was a nice dinner somewhere expensive and a conversation tailored to keeping things friendly and fair. He knew the kind of woman Bridgett was and knew she’d accept nothing less.

  No, he’d do that later. For now, he had some Shakespeare in the Park to see.

  Chapter 7

  Forty minutes later, Stephen searched for his cousin in the large crowd sprawled on picnic blankets over a lush patch of lawn in the middle of Kings Park.

  Luckily, he’d arrived between the first and second acts. Unluckily, he was fuming. Bridgett had stayed on the phone, deliberately ignoring him when he’d tried to tell her that he was going to the play without her.

  I
n the end, he’d simply gathered the few things he had at her place and left.

  “Where did you come from?” Scott peered up at him, his head resting on Amy’s lap while Myf sat next to them, sipping a glass of wine and tickling his nose with his thick plait of hair. All in all, he looked like some benevolent cliché movie sultan being waited on by his women. The image would have struck Stephen as humorous if he weren’t still worked up.

  “Bridgett got held up,” he said more curtly than he’d intended.

  “Everything alright?” Jo asked distractedly while going through a picnic hamper to successfully retrieve a can of Coke.

  He took a couple of seconds to focus on chilling out before answering her with a reassuring smile, feeling his mood lighten a thousandfold. “Yeah. Fine. Fine.”

  On autopilot, Stephen’s eyes ran over her hip-hugging blue jeans and tight white T-shirt as he sat down next to her. There were large silver hoops in her ears. She had a thing for jewelry and these were even flashier than the last. He’d seen a million women wearing earrings, but there was something sexy about a tomboy like Jo wearing them.

  She nodded, still busy, and pulled out a Tupperware bowl containing fresh cherries.

  Now that he’d relaxed a bit, he was feeling a little mischievous. He wanted to see if he could embarrass her as much as she had embarrassed him earlier at Amy’s shop. As much as he enjoyed lighthearted attention from the ladies, he’d never come across ones discussing him so frankly.

  Keeping his voice casual, he said, “Bridgett told me you two had a bit of a run-in this morning. Said you were naked.”

  With a surprised exclamation, Jo twisted around, only to rear back when she saw how close Stephen was sitting. She fell onto Scott.

  “Ommph,” Scott groaned. “Jo, I know I said you could do with putting on some weight, but not on top of me.”

  When Jo’s eyes narrowed, Stephen chuckled, the last traces of his black mood fading. He impulsively grabbed her hand, hauling her upright. “You told me you had women falling all over you, mate, but I never knew you were being literal,” he said to Scott, intrigued by the way Jo didn’t immediately pull her hand away from his.

  “He wishes.” Jo gave Scott a shove on his shoulder with her spare hand.

  Scott’s head, still resting in Amy’s lap, pushed against her stomach, interrupting her conversation with Myf. “Hey!”

  “Tell me what you did was wrong,” Scott said to Jo, wagging a finger up at her playfully.

  “It was Stephen’s fault, he scared me,” Jo sulked, not exactly making eye contact with Stephen and only now sliding her hand out from under his on the blanket between them.

  “So which play are we watching?” Stephen asked, ignoring his twinge of disappointment at the loss of contact. The cast and crew were organizing near the stage, calling for their audience to be quiet, ready for the second act.

  “Much Ado About Nothing,” Scott murmured. “Quite fitting given a conversation I overheard about someone’s arse this afternoon.”

  This time, both Jo and Stephen leaned over to push him, which resulted in a howl from Scott and a shriek from Amy. It earned their group an impressive number of dirty looks from the picnic blankets around them.

  “Children, act your age,” Myf admonished, leveling a stern look at the three of them.

  * * *

  The cast of the theater company had done a brilliant job with this year’s effort, leaving the five of them in stitches. The mixed bouquet of cut grass, gum trees, and a light, cool sea breeze created such a relaxed atmosphere it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of being outdoors in enjoyable company.

  At the play’s conclusion, while they were all clapping loudly during the third curtain call, Jo realized she didn’t want the evening to end.

  “How do you guys feel about going to a pub for a post-show drink?” She directed her question to Scott, Myf, and Amy, deliberately avoiding Stephen’s eyes. She was feeling strangely shy around him tonight and very aware of his body so close to hers.

  “Can’t do, petal. I have to get home to Pete,” Amy said, referring to Wimpy, the boyfriend.

  “I’ve got to go too.” Myf smiled apologetically. “Getting up early in the morning to have breakfast with my mum.”

  Jo flashed Amy an irritated frown before bestowing a sympathetic smile on Myf, whose mother’s reputation as a dragon lady preceded her. “Scott?”

  “Meeting someone.”

  “Who?” Jo and Amy asked.

  “Well, that’s my cue to go,” Scott said, smiling enigmatically as he hauled himself up, then helped both Amy and Myf do the same. “Stephen, you’re not doing anything. How ’bout you take Jo home, and I’ll drop off Ames and Myf?”

  “No worries,” Stephen replied. “I promised Jo I’d be the designated chauffeur anyway.”

  This earned Jo a raised eyebrow from Amy and an amused grin from Scott.

  The thought of being out alone with Stephen left Jo feeling more than a little nervous. “Wait,” she called out after him.

  “For what?” Scott asked, his dark eyes twinkling. He knew full well the situation he was putting Jo in and was enjoying every minute of it. She made a mental note to find out the identity of Scott’s current lady friend and anonymously let her know that he had five children and a disturbing venereal disease.

  “Ah … Stephen probably has to meet up with his girlfriend, right?” She looked at Stephen directly for the first time all evening. His expression was thoughtful.

  “No,” he said slowly.

  “Oh.”

  “Cool. We’ll catch you two later then.” Scott clapped his hands together and turned to Amy and Myf. “Come on, let’s get going before a stampede happens in the parking lot.”

  Within minutes, Jo was left standing awkwardly next to Stephen, glaring at her friends’ and sister’s traitorous backs.

  “So, what did you have in mind for this evening?” Stephen asked.

  “Well . . .” The thought of sitting in a pub drinking with just Stephen felt too intimate, but she’d committed herself now.

  What to do? What to do?

  She couldn’t suggest they go straight home, because that would make him think she was avoiding him. On top of that, she wanted to talk to him about the whole matter of her accidental meeting with his girlfriend, and it would be easier to do that in neutral territory.

  She looked down at her feet.

  “Hey, the guys forgot their stuff.” She pulled out her phone to call Scott and let him know he’d left behind the picnic blanket and basket.

  “Don’t worry about it. One of us can return it tomorrow.” Stephen shrugged. “Sounds like Scott’s got something planned for tonight anyway. Doubt he’ll be keen to brave the traffic to come back.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Although it’ll have to be you, because I don’t think I can fit it all on my bike,” Jo replied, taking in the basket’s mammoth dimensions. Amy had, as always, packed enough to feed a battalion.

  Jo brushed the blanket with her bare toes, trying to appear fascinated by its tartan pattern while dwelling on the more immediate problem of what to do with Stephen.

  Stephen softly cleared his throat. “You know, I can’t be bothered going anywhere just yet. Would you mind if we moved the blanket and just took in the city lights for a while until the traffic dies down?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jo said, relieved.

  “I’m starving too. Is there any food left?” He lifted the lid of the wicker basket and peered inside.

  “Knowing Amy, there’ll be tons of food. Come to think of it, she probably left it behind because she’s worried I’m not eating enough.”

  When Stephen gave her a casual look up and down, she immediately wished she hadn’t said anything.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You look fine from here.”

  His slow grin sent a shiver of warmth down her spine. She tried to cover it up by folding the picnic blanket and draping it over an arm. “Let’s go find a pl
ace to sit then. I think there’s a bottle or two of wine left too.”

  Jo led the way up the grassy slope towards the city lookout. She walked in bare feet, one hand holding her sandals, the other holding the blanket. She didn’t want to look behind her to see if Stephen was watching her because the thought of being watched turned her legs to wood. She hoped to hell it didn’t show.

  It took a bit of negotiation to find the right spot. Jo wanted to sit underneath one of the many streetlights while Stephen suggested a spot in a darker, less populated area, arguing that it afforded them a much better view of the city lights. In the end, Jo gave in because she really did like the idea of sitting in a more private, secluded spot with him. She just hadn’t wanted to be the one to suggest it.

  It only took minutes to get the picnic blanket on the ground and for him to produce from the basket a bottle of Evangeline’s Rest shiraz and a container of small quiches, a specialty of Amy’s that Jo knew would melt in the mouth.

  “Looks like someone forgot the glasses, but if you’re up for being lowbrow, we can swig out of the bottle,” Stephen suggested.

  “One of us has to drive back home tonight, remember?” Jo congratulated herself on how responsible she sounded.

  “I’ll drive. You enjoy. We won’t be going anywhere for a while anyway.” He gestured to the line of near-stationary cars trying to exit the park.

  They lapsed into small talk for a while, and Jo ended up letting her legs sprawl out in front of her, all nerves forgotten as she teased Stephen about his girlfriend assuming Jo’s apartment was his.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, sorry about Bridgett this morning.”

  “I should be pretty shitty with you, you know. Did you give her a key?”

  “Yes and no. I gave her my key a few weeks ago so she could drop something off, and she must have gotten it copied.” She caught a hint of irritation in his voice and he glanced sideways at her as if to gauge her reaction.

  She met his gaze in the dark. “As I said, I should be annoyed with you.”

  He gave her a relieved smile. “But you’re not?”