SIXTEEN
I wake before the sun.
It’s the kind of early that makes your brain feel unrested; it’s before the world has booted up. The sky outside is a sleepy bruise of pale blue and lavender, but I’m wide awake.
Of course I am.
It’s hard to sleep when your secrets detonate like landmines over the dinner table and your entire identity is currently being rented out to a man who thinks you’re a musically gifted eco-warrior.
The door to our room creaked open sometime after midnight.
I didn’t move, just lay there, still as a corpse, while Dylan tiptoed in, opened and closed the bathroom door, then climbed into bed beside me.
His arm wrapped over my waist, familiar and gentle, and he curled up like he knew exactly who he was sleeping next to.
It almost broke me to not pull away. To not create the space I so desperately needed.
But if distance is my currency, control is my religion. When I’m stripped down to the bone, those two things are all I have left.
So, I stayed still, pretending I was asleep while drowning in the shame of all the things I was not.
Now, I slide out from under Dylan’s arm as carefully as I can, grab the first shirt, pair of shorts and shoes I can find, and ease out the door before I overthink it.
The sky hasn’t committed to morning yet, but the station’s already humming as I walk down the path that leads away from the cabins. A couple of stock hands are saddling horses, tossing hay bales onto the tray of a ute. Radios crackle. Boots stomp. Dogs bark in the distance.
It’s clear they all belong. Everyone has a place, a rhythm, a job to do. No email reminders. No peak hour commute. No filters. Just purpose and dust and sun-split mornings.
‘Hey.’
I spin.
And there he is. Holding the reins of the horse he’s leading like it’s another extension of him, like the universe birthed him out of the dirt.
‘Hey,’ I say back, quieter than I’d intended.
Luke eyes me warily. ‘I see chaos still follows you around.’
I roll my eyes, so I don’t have to meet his ridiculous blue gaze. ‘You didn’t have to be such a dick to Dylan at dinner.’
‘Says the girl who stormed out.’
‘You were being rude.’
‘You don’t get to play the victim here, Jamie.’
I clench my jaw. ‘Why are you even here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
‘Ella invited me.’
‘Should’ve guessed.’
The air is thick between us, the tension taut and stupidly charged.
I fold my arms, more to keep my heart from falling out of my chest than anything else. I don’t want to feel anything for this man. But God help me, it feels like my heart is cracking open anyway.
Luke shifts a little closer – one step – and it feels like gravity bending. Then, his voice is a scalpel. ‘When were you going to tell me about the pregnancy?’
Everything stills.
‘What?’ The word is barely air.
He steps forward slowly, eyes like shards of ice. ‘You thought I wouldn’t find out?’
My stomach drops so fast I feel sick. ‘Who told you?’ When he doesn’t answer, I square my shoulders. ‘It wasn’t your choice, Luke.’
His jaw tightens. ‘Of course it wasn’t. None of this was ever my choice.’
I blink. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you got what you wanted,’ he snaps. ‘And now you’re here, parading around with your – your fake boyfriend and your piano prodigy bullshit, acting as if none of it matters.’
‘It doesn’t!’ I fire back. ‘What did you expect? That I’d show up with a baby and we’d play house?
We hooked up. Twice. You said I wasn’t your type, remember?
’ He flinches. I push harder. ‘You live in the middle of nowhere running a family farm you’re not going to abandon any time soon.
I live in a city, where I fit in far better sipping martinis than roughing it out here in the dirt.
We don’t make sense, Luke. You were a fun, weird blip. Get your head out of the clouds.’
He shakes his head, wounded and furious. ‘I thought you were different.’
I laugh. It sounds hollow even to me. ‘Yeah, well. Take off the rose-coloured glasses, because I’m the worst person you’ve ever met.’
He doesn’t argue. He turns, gives his horse a click and stalks off without another word.
I stand there, shaking, burning from the inside out. I turn abruptly and run straight into Darcy. ‘Sorry.’
His arm reaches out to steady me, and I look up to find him awkwardly hovering beside me with a half-saddled horse and a face full of Please pretend I didn’t witness that entire emotional murder-suicide. He rubs the back of his neck. ‘You okay?’
I look down at my feet and nod.
‘I take it your run-in with the croc last year wasn’t enough?’ he asks lightly.
It takes me a second. Then I catch up, realising he’s as eager to change the subject as I am. ‘Oh, it was more than enough.’
His horse nudges my arm, and I give it a small pat.
Darcy watches me for a moment, then says, ‘I’m sorry about last night. The whole … pregnancy thing. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Ella says I have no filter.’
I shrug. ‘It’s fine. I made this mess. Not you.’
He nods, then glances over his shoulder. I follow his gaze and we both look at Luke, who’s now mounted and riding off like a cowboy- shaped metaphor for disappointment.
‘Give him time,’ Darcy says.
I exhale and nod. ‘He’ll get over it.’
Darcy doesn’t reply, but he offers me a small, kind smile before stepping away towards the main paddock, his horse trailing behind him. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
I nod again and keep walking, the sun finally rising behind me.
By the time I wander back to the cabin, I’m a sweaty mess and Dylan is wide awake. He’s stepping out of the shower, towel slung low over his hipbones, steam curling behind him. He freezes when he sees me, hand halfway through pushing back his hair. We both … blink at each other.
‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hey.’
He grabs a shirt off the back of a chair and starts tugging it on.
‘I’m not pregnant,’ I blurt out.
He pauses, one sleeve halfway on, then nods slowly. ‘Yeah. I figured.’ I sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘Sorry I left you at dinner like that.’
Dylan shrugs. ‘Family dinners, huh?’ There’s a quiet beat before he asks, not accusing, just curious, ‘Can you play the piano?’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
He smiles faintly. ‘Okay. Anything else I should know?’
I pause. Consider. Lie.
‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘Swear.’
Only … it’s not. Not really. I still haven’t admitted that I hate kimchi.
That the smell of kombucha makes me gag.
That I bought a pair of boots from Shein last month and will probably do it again.
That most days I’m trying to keep up the illusion that I care about things I couldn’t care less about – like artisanal hemp milk and green-washing and loving myself unconditionally.
But I don’t say any of that.
Dylan walks over and gently cradles my face in his hands. He kisses me with more kindness than I deserve.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘I still like you.’
If only he knew.
Late morning and Ella’s herding us into her 4WD.
She’s assumed the role of very radiant, very pregnant safari guide.
Though from the way her eyes keep drifting towards the stables, it’s obvious she’d rather be on horseback with the rest of them.
I eye her belly warily as she climbs behind the wheel.
‘Should you be driving?’ I ask, strapping myself in.
Ella waves a hand. ‘Please. I’m pregnant, not made of glass.’
‘Right … and what happens if you go into labour?’
She smirks. ‘Did June not tell you how babies were made?’
We rattle down the dirt track, dust trailing behind us.
It’s bush, bush and more bush. Dry earth.
Skeletal trees. Wide blue sky that stretches so far you start to question your own importance.
Ella narrates the whole thing. ‘And on the left, more absolutely nothing. And on the right – wait for it – some scrub.’
Eventually, she pulls up beneath a crooked acacia tree with bright yellow flowers where a group of stock hands are gathered in the shade. The horses stand nearby, tails flicking. Darcy’s there and so is – he who shall not be named.
Ella hops out of the 4WD with a carton of fruit and a cooler of water. The boys accept the offerings gratefully.
Dylan jumps out of the car too, but I stay put.
There’s no reason for me to poke that hornet’s nest. Which, naturally, makes me hyper-aware of said nest. Of how the nest wipes the sweat off his brow.
Of how the nest’s shirt is sticking to his back.
Of how the nest doesn’t look at me once.
It’s probably for the best, given I have nothing to say to him.
Eventually, we head back to the house, and Ella gives me and Dylan strict instructions to swim, chill and be baby-shower ready in two hours.