Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

They made a good team, a remarkable one, until the day Drum needed Alan to be more father than chairman and Alan didn’t have a model for what to do when his son was an experiment gone wrong.

But instead of staying, getting a new set of rules, he’d run and he was running still and the rhythm was shame, guilt, disgrace, resentment.

He exercised, swam, read whatever he could get his hands on cheaply. He couldn’t collect his thoughts or still his mind enough to meditate. In the second month at Mollymook Beach, he got work at the surf club, cleaning up after their Friday and Saturday night socials. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.

Then he met Jayden making off with his sleeping bag, and Melissa, making Jayden apologise.

She was a washed-out bottle blonde, with a rocking body and cunning eyes, mother of three to three different men, none of whom stuck around. He’d had a word to Jayden about respecting people’s property and next thing he was getting invitations to dinner. He took the occasional one, mostly to keep the fear factor up in Jayden, but also because he was hungry and for the first time since he’d left his life behind, left Foley, he was pathetically lonely.

Melissa was full of conversation but he answered her with odd jobs her landlord was too stingy to do: patched a leak in the roof, propped the front fence up, changed washers in taps and unblocked the sink. And he ate her food. He did nothing to encourage her affection, but when she started touching him, a hand to his shoulder or his thigh, he knew he had trouble. There was a bed he could move in to, a willing body. More than that, there was a family. He backed off. Melissa managed before he came along, she’d manage again with better plumbing.

She was waiting for him at the tent, on a day the flathead were running and he’d made a solid catch. He knew he’d be smart to pack up and move on the moment he saw her sitting in the wobbly garden chair he’d pilfered from the caravan park.

“Don’t you love us anymore?”

Her shorts were cut-offs, hacked crotch grazing short. It wasn’t that warm yet, so they’d been worn for him, with the skimpy pale pink singlet that didn’t cover much. No bra and at a guess there was nothing under the shorts. She had a jewel in her belly, but nothing about Melissa reminded him of Foley. Don’t think about Foley. Colleen Adderton, Harold Ameden, Swen Aslog.

“I’ll scale a couple of these for you.”

“I don’t want the silly fish.”

He put the bucket and rod down. “What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t been coming around.” She stood and ambled across to him. He had nowhere to go to get away from her without going back to the beach. He was on the run, even in this encounter. “I thought you might want your privacy.”

She had that right, but this smelled worse than the fish.

“Let me treat you good, Drum, honey.”

Shit. “Go home. Don’t come here again.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. We could have some fun, good sexy adult fun. Do you have condoms?” She patted her back pocket. “I brought some in

case.”

He picked up the bucket and held it between them. “Have I given you any reason to think I want to fuck you?” He’d rather fuck the flathead, if that was possible.

She blinked at him in shock. “You don’t want me?”

“Yeah, surprising as that might be, I don’t want you.”

She gasped. “Are you gay?”

A straight yes would get him out of this.

She squinted at him. “You’re not gay. I’ve seen you look at me, I know that look. I know you want me. I don’t care if you’re bi. I’m up for anything.”

He looked at her because he was angry and lonely and it would be so easy to use her to block all that out for a while.

“Go home, Melissa. I’m never going to fuck you.”

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you.”

He laughed. This was funny. She didn’t get rejected. He knew of two other men she’d been sleeping with, and he was living in a tent on the fringe of town and she didn’t think to question there might be something not quite right with him, something she should shelter her kids from. He disliked her immensely at this moment and he despised himself. He knew better than to get involved. He knew more about Melissa and her boys than he’d ever known about Scully, Blue, Noddy or Clint.

“You’re laughing at me, you bastard.”

“Go home, Melissa. I’m not a guy you want to get involved with. And while I’m on the subject, those other two losers you’re boning, they’re no good for you either.”