‘She didn’t have to say that. She could have said any number of things; she could have said I was a cool dad or a nice guy, or cute as a button—she didn’t have to use those exact words.’
‘Is that all the evidence you have?’
‘Matt, she makes me smile,’ James said, letting it all out in a gush of words. ‘She makes me want to smile just by being with her. Heck, she makes me smile even when I don’t want to. Constantly. Every moment she is with me, nervous energy spilling from her until I too can’t stop fidgeting, and every moment she isn’t as I count down the moments until I can be with her again. Siena isn’t just a beautiful woman who takes my breath away. She’s my ray of hope.’
‘Well, then.’ Matt said, thinking on it very seriously.
‘Well, then?’ James repeated, desperate for his friend’s take on the whole situation.
‘Well, then, I don’t think you need for me to tell you what to do. You seem pretty hell-bent on doing it anyway.’
James’s shoulders tensed as he broached the one great stumbling block as he saw it. Distance didn’t frighten him, nor her skittishness, nearly as much as how his son would take the news.
‘What about Kane?’
‘What about Kane?’ Matt repeated, his eyes narrowing.
‘Shouldn’t he have some sort of say in all this?’
‘In who gets invited to his birthday parties? Sure. In who gets to play on his trampoline? No doubt. But in who you love? Because I think you are trying to tell me that you love this woman.’
He glanced at James, who gave him one sure—certain—nod.
‘Nope. Uh-uh. Kane doesn’t have a say there. Not even you can have much of a say in that one, buddy. And, if you’re looking for my take on all this, Kane could do with having such a cracker of a girl in his life nearly as much as you could.’
Matt tapped James on the knee, then gathered their empty iced tea glasses and headed into the kitchen, leaving James alone with his thoughts.
And the one thought that rose above all others was that when he had kissed Siena, she had kissed him right back.
It had moved him so much he had forgotten himself completely in her warm giving lips. He had forgotten all responsibilities bar kissing her until the end of time. And, when he had looked up and seen Kane at the window, he knew that his responsibilities had been blurred behind fear long enough.
Meeting Siena, knowing Siena, and, yes, loving Siena had only shone a bright big ray of North Queensland sunlight on what his responsibilities were.
To be happy.
For his son to be happy, well-adjusted, ready to be out in the world, he had to be happy first.
And to be happy he needed Siena.
He didn’t want her to look him up in six months’ time if she came back to visit her family. Contemplating six months between seeing her face, touching her hand, kissing her … His heart felt as if it was being ripped from his chest.
Talking it through with Matt, or writing down the multitude of conflicting feelings into his blog, wouldn’t solve the problem. He knew that now.
Confronting the problem head-on would be the only way through.
‘Matt, sorry to keep you so long again today. But I have a big favour to ask.’
Siena sat cross-legged on her bed reading her emails when she heard a knock at the front door.
Rick, Tina and the kids had gone out for their regular Friday night pasta at Tina’s parents’ place and Siena hadn’t been kidding when she’d begged off with a headache. So she sat still and waited for the door-knocker to leave.
But, a few moments later, Siena heard it again. And this time she realised it wasn’t a knock at the front door; it was a rap of pebbles against her bedroom window.
She hitched her pyjama bottoms higher and moved to the window, peering out to the moonlit suburban front garden to find James, standing in the middle of the yard with arms outstretched and a bunch of flowers in his hand with Rick’s big stupid Triton fountain shooting water into the air behind him.
Her head hurt from thinking all afternoon, and she knew that she had a big night of thinking ahead of her still. Surely the last thing she needed was for James to make some great romantic gesture to cloud things.
But she could hardly shoo him away. He was out there with flowers, for goodness’ sake!