Chapter 10 HAMISH #2
‘Obviously. And she’s completely out of bounds,’ Lachlan said, all humour evaporated.
‘You know I’ll stick up for you anytime, mate, but have you seen Wheaty?
Hauling rocks for a living makes for some serious muscle; mess with his sister, and you’re going to get closely acquainted with those fists. ’
‘Why do you always think I’m on the hunt?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Past experience? History? Habit? The fact that most of your conversations work their way back to the shortage of women around here.’
That was true enough, yet apparently there was a point at which having a good time was no longer fun.
‘You know I’ve always been the first to say Tara’s off limits.
But that’s the thing. Jemma said the other day—’ Bloody hell, he’d promised himself he wasn’t mentioning her again.
He tightened his lips, then blundered on.
‘Well, you know Tara has a thing for me.’
‘You, Juz, and just about anything else in jeans or footy shorts.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s it. She makes it kind of obvious,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘You reckon Wheaty notices?’
‘Notices what? That she’s a twenty-year-old looking for fun? It’s not what she does that’ll be the issue, mate.’
Hamish grimaced. He was overthinking this, thanks to Jemma. ‘You’re right. It’s just that after what happened with Hope last year, I reckon maybe she should be a little careful.’ He ended what should have been a statement on a questioning inflection. What right did he have to stick his nose in?
‘Tara’s in Settlers Bridge, mate. So long as you keep it in your pants, she’ll be right.’
Hamish shoved to his feet. ‘Yeah. Of course.’ Why the hell had he let Jemma get into his head? Lachlan’s take was exactly what his had been before the lawyer made him second-guess himself.
Yet still he felt vaguely unsettled, as though he was turning a blind eye to a looming tragedy.
‘Reckon I might get you a key cut, mate,’ he said as Ethan rapped on the back door, then opened it.
‘You never lock up, so not much point.’
‘Fair call. Know the thought is there, though.’ He liked the way the other guy’s company broke up the silence in the house.
After Lachlan’s divorce, Hamish had hung out with his brother more and, while Charity was always happy to feed them both, it wouldn’t be fair to her if he spent all his time out there.
Ethan placed his bag on a kitchen chair. ‘Here, I brought you something from the big, bad city.’
‘Excellent. Who is she?’ As always, he tried to stay true to the persona he’d spent years cultivating. There was nothing to be gained by letting the world know he wasn’t as carefree as he tried to make out.
Ethan shook his head. ‘More along the lines of what: burrito from Zambrero’s. They have a plate-for-plate thing going for kids in need.’
‘I’ve always wondered how that works. I mean, what if the kids don’t want a burrito?’ he said, unwrapping the package Ethan handed him. ‘What if they want extra guac? Less jalapenos?’
‘Don’t reckon that’s quite how it works.’
Hamish frowned. Normally Ethan would play along with the ridiculous. ‘You seem a bit down, mate. Everything okay?’
‘Sure,’ Ethan replied as swiftly as any and every bloke would.
Then he gave a lopsided smile. ‘Great poster boy for the R U OK? campaign, right?’ He took a breath, laying his hands flat on the table.
‘Nah, everything’s a bit shit at the moment, to be honest. Work’s not getting any better.
No matter what I do, the faculty head is determined to pigeonhole me. ’
‘As?’
Ethan’s gaze flicked to his. ‘Thought that’d be obvious. A druggie, of course. Brought that one on myself, but apparently there’s no outliving it.’
‘Can you get teaching work somewhere else?’
‘Yeah. I can apply for another position next year. Though I doubt I can run from myself.’ He tried for a grin but then scowled down at his hands, clenched into fists on the table. ‘But it’s not only that. It’s Charlee. She won’t accept that we’re never going to happen.’
Hamish lifted one shoulder. Blowing off a chick was always a bit messy, but not anything to get down about. ‘You’ve told her that?’
Ethan blew out a sharp breath. ‘It’s not that cut and dried.
With her history, it’s not fair to pull away the support I’ve given her previously.
I can’t risk setting her off, giving her a reason to fall back into addiction.
Now she’s going on about saving farm animals from abuse and exploitation, and she’s trying to get me involved. ’
‘Not sure that take will make her too popular around here,’ Hamish said. ‘Fine line between production and exploitation. You reckon maybe she’s just grasping at straws to prolong the whole thing between you?’
Ethan snorted. ‘The whole thing that never was anything but a saviour fantasy entirely in her mind.’
‘I’m not so sure about that, mate. From what Sean says, you did save her.’
Ethan tugged on the black plugs in his earlobes. ‘I didn’t save her—no one can do that. I was just in the right place at the right time to lend her some tools. But the thing is, I still need to be here for her, so I can’t do anything to rock the boat. Eventually she’ll meet someone—’
It was Hamish’s turn to snort disbelievingly. ‘Not out here, she won’t. Slim pickings.’
Ethan unwrapped his burrito, pulling it apart in a way that should be illegal, then picking out the jalapenos.
‘If you didn’t want them, why didn’t you say when you ordered?’ Hamish asked.
Ethan’s fingers paused. ‘Because the guy had already loaded up the burrito and I didn’t want to make waves.’
‘Reckon that’s your problem right there,’ Hamish said. ‘You’re too nice, mate. Sometimes you have to tell it how it is.’
Ethan pushed aside the food, shaking his head.
‘Not with Charlee. She’s too new out of the addiction, too fragile.
It only takes one little speed hump to shove you right back there.
You think that this time it’ll be different, that this time you’re in control, that this time you’re using the drug, rather than it using you.
But you’re wrong. Every bloody time. And Charlee hasn’t been there to learn that.
Not yet.’ He clamped his lips in a firm line, seeming to wrestle with himself.
‘It’s my job to make sure she gets to be one of the few who never have to learn it for themselves.
I told her she could do this, I made her believe I had all the answers, that I could help fix her.
But the truth that I don’t dare tell her, because it makes everything so bloody pointless, is that every damn time, the lesson gets harder and the class becomes more impossible to leave. ’
Hamish stared at his friend, his appetite vanished. Was Ethan trying to caution that he was sliding back into addiction? Or was depression clawing at him?
Dammit, this was why men didn’t talk about feelings and emotions: they were messy, formless, pointless. How the hell was he supposed to fix this for his friend? Because if it wasn’t something he could take a wrench to, tighten a bolt, repair, he didn’t want to know about it.