Jason got that. Carl had been brought up by his aunt posing as his mum, while his birth mother lived close by; there must’ve been a good reason for that—if it did come out . . .
Some secrets were best kept buried.
“You’ve seriously told no one else?”
“Only you.”
It’d been different for Jason. His mum and dad had told him he was adopted. They’d always said if he wanted to know more, he could ask, but until he’d run into Carl, he hadn’t felt compelled to. And by that time, they’d already died.
Half his blood relatives lived just over the Tasman Sea.
He’d always told himself it didn’t really matter. His real family was his own mum and dad, the family he’d grown up with. He didn’t miss anyone else in his life.
But . . .
He glanced around the pristine villa, his childhood home. So big; so empty his footsteps echoed.
He shouldn’t be considering this.
Okay, so he had the time, sort of—he was between engagements right now, but he still had a life here.
Carl poked around his living room, like he was acquainting himself with that life. Studying it. He moved to the grand piano, stopped at the keys, tinkered and plucked up a magazine Jason had perched on the stand in front of the notes to Schulhoff’s piano concerto no.1. Honestly, beyond that piano and this house, what life did he have here, really?
Carl smirked and flipped through the pages, then brought the magazine over, slapped it on the kitchen counter and spun it around. He tapped a biro-circled paragraph. “Twin thing? I’m addicted to this shit too.”
Jason reread this week’s horoscope. He didn’t need to read it to know what it said, but he needed the moment to process the shiver shooting through him.
Be bold. Take chances, Sagittarius! Loneliness might be following you around recently, but true, heart-warming company is waiting on the horizon. A good time to step out of the daily routine and into the unknown. Escape into nature. It’s bound to refresh your soul.
He swallowed. He couldn’t do this because of a few measly words on glossy paper.
He didn’t even truly believe in this stuff. It just sometimes . . . made him laugh.
Or hit a nerve.
He pulled out his phone. One after the other, all the weekly horoscopes that came up in his search said variations on the same thing. It was time to do what Sagittarians did best: head out for an adventure.
He bit his lip. “Are you sure your family wouldn’t notice?”
“Eh. If you’re acting a bit off they’d assume it’s to do with Pete and the wedding. Or, y’know, you could tell them you’ve come down with something.”
“And if they found out?”
“The only way they could is if you tell them. So just don’t do that.”
Jason’s phone vibrated in his hand. Instagram notification. Automatically, he checked it out—and froze.
Caroline, her boyfriend, champagne, Caroline’s hand splayed across her chest showing off a bejewelled finger.
Engaged!
His heart flipped and dropped to his feet. He tossed his phone to the side and looked Carl in the eye.
“This piano of yours. What sort of state is it in?”
Chapter Two
Jason hadn’t crammed this hard since his last university exam.
He studied a map of Earnest Point and a file of pictures, memorised names and Most Important Details: the layout of relevant houses; how to work the convenience-slash-pet store; places Carl liked to go; where he bought his coffee; what days he ate out; when he headed to the local pub; how he and his ‘cousin’—cough—mother, Cora, dissected their weekly horoscopes (they read out one another’s). Also, how strange that obsession ran in the family?
Carl quizzed him on the fly while they donned each other’s clothes.
The heavy boots felt odd around his feet, the jeans weirdly airy. The T-shirts he could live with, but the oversize flannel over top made him want to cry. It just . . . hung there. He frowned at himself in the full-length mirror. Flannel did nothing for him.
“Mum’s birthdate?” Carl asked from his perch at the end of Jason’s bed.
“July twenty-fourth. Leo.”
“Allergies?”
“Pollen, pineapple, and bitchy behaviour.”
“Cora’s high-five flick.”
Jason turned and slapped Carl’s raised hand, following up with a beat pressed together, drumming their fingertips. “What’s this one about?”
Carl shrugged. “Something we’ve done since I was a kid. Her way of bonding, I guess . . .”
They went quiet. It must have been strange, learning she was his birth mother. Everything she did would now be filtered through that new lens.
Jason prodded the cheat sheet on the dresser. He’d memorised the layout of the town, the street names, all the important people in Carl’s circles—and who he might meet out and about. But there was one name they hadn’t spoken much of yet. “Okay. Owen Stirling?”
“Sergeant Stirling, one of three cops in town. He lives next door. We don’t get on; I stay out of his way, and he mostly stays out of mine.”