Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

“Neil, fucking come away. I’m not kidding. This is not the same as a B&E. This is not okay. I’m not going to be here for this.”

“Then go, you fucking pussy.”

Drum moved a foot and both men yelled. “Robbo, you should go. Neil and I will take it from here.”

“Fuck, this is not right.” Robbo’s voice cracked. “This is the shit. You’ve had too much. Both of you come away from there.”

“If you don’t go I’ll throw him over.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m done with you. I’m done with your shit.” Robbo was backing away, his shoes dragging, scratching, his breathing wild. Then there was the sound of him scrambling up to the top ledge, the way the kid had done.

Two were safe.

Drum shifted. Knew Neil Jones’ attention would be on him. “It’s just you and me now. What’s it going to be? You going to choose to be a murderer tonight and every night? It’s a stain. It’ll never wash out.”

“How would you know? Is that why you live here? You’re filth.”

“I’ve hurt people. I gave them a push. You can be just like me.”

He felt warmth at his back, his shoulders twitched, his thigh muscles jumped. Neil Jones clamped his hand around Drum’s neck and spat the words, “You’re a fucking freak,” in his ear and then pulled him backwards with a shout and let go.

Drum lost his balance, went down on his hands and knees, face close to the edge. He stayed there, watching the white caps below crash on the rock fall, listening to Jonesy heave himself up the ledge, run across it back to the path, as if evil might catch him.

The three of them were safe.

He sat back on his heels and breathed until his heart was happy to stay inside his chest, then he got up and went to the table. This was another way out. Ready for the taking. A gift for his trouble. He picked up a plastic packet and shook it. So easy. He bundled the gear in both hands and went back to the edge. He dropped it over.

Now all of them were safe.

Except for Foley.

5: Smirk

Hugh gave Foley the wait five and follow look. A head tilt, a chin jerk, a raised brow, a slightly suspicious lip lift. A look well on its way to demented, except it was done so quickly with such an intense focus in her direction, no one else would think he was having a fit. He saw the bag of oranges and that got her a change of expression. A self-satisfied smirk.

She’d once loved that smirk so much she’d decided she had to have it for herself. She’d followed that smirk home from a party. She’d danced barefoot in that smirk-wearer’s kitchen with a bottle of tequila in one hand and the back pocket of his torn jeans in the other. She’d let him undo her zipper and she’d kissed the smirk off his face. And they didn’t bother to exchange names till the next morning. That was the day she got the tattoo.

She didn’t get the regret till much later. And later still she got Hugh as her boss. Well, he should’ve been her boss except as Council General Manager, he was Gabriella’s boss.

While spending time together horizontal, Hugh had put Foley forward for an interview for a council job that paid better than the part-time check-out chick job she had. She got the job. She spent the next six months holding a traffic stop sign while wearing a fluoro orange safety vest and a hard hat. Meanwhile, Hugh moved from road construction crew to his first desk job.

Around about that time they stopped kissing and started arguing. Neither of them could remember what they’d argued about, it was easier to remember what they hadn’t argued about: all sports cars should be red, anchovies did not belong on pizza and Hugh’s smirk had a hotline to Foley’s inner bad girl. They split up. One night at a bar, Hugh smirked at her and they got back together. They did that three times before they figured out the smirk was letting them down, something about them being together wasn’t right and they called it quits for good before they wrecked a decent friendship based on the love of a good argument.

Along the way, Hugh got a fiancée and lost his hair. Foley got her nose pierced and her first desk job in the permits department. She organised licences for buskers, personal trainers and businesses who wanted to use council facilities or land. Then Hugh got married and Foley went to uni part-time and had a disastrous affair with a lecturer who never bothered to mention he was a married father of one—for three years.

Through all this, Hugh smirked at Foley, but the smirk came to mean something different. It no longer meant let’s ditch our dacks as soon as possible and climb all over each other. It meant, I bet I know what’s going on with you, and, oh no you don’t, you smug sod.

They were about to have an, oh no you don’t, you smug sod, conversation.

Foley waited till Hugh disappeared down the hall towards his office, went to the staffroom and made two cups of coffee. People knew she and Hugh were friends, but anyone who’d known they were the pants off kind of friends had long since left council and it was better for both of them if the whole smirk, tequila, sexual favours in storage cupboards, and that one time in the cabin of a road grader, were forgotten. It didn’t mean they couldn’t talk, but the

y tried to make it look like it was mostly business.

Since Gabriella had arrived, Hugh had been playing it very straight, not wanting to give Gabriella any reason to feel undermined by his friendship with Foley.

Pity Foley didn’t feel the same way. She took the two coffees up the hall but restrained herself from making eye contact with Gabriella as she passed by her desk.

Hugh was on the phone. She put the coffees on his desk and kicked the door closed, then annoyed him by picking up anything that looked remotely interesting on his bookshelf and putting it back in a different place. Hugh was a neat freak. This was calculated to make him twitch.