TWENTY-TWENTY-NINE #2
I just …’ My throat tightens. I take a shaky breath, my voice breaking a little.
‘After my parents vanished into their own lives, I had to raise Issy. Doctors, lunches, homework, puberty. I did all of it for her.’ I blink hard and my voice catches.
‘I told myself I’d never have kids. That I’d already done it.
And it broke me. I don’t want to do it again.
’ I take a deep breath. ‘So, yeah, I should have told you, but I don’t regret what I did, and I would do it again,’ I say, and this time it’s not for him – it’s for that terrified teenage version of myself who never got to fall apart.
Luke frowns at me, his eyes unfocused as if lost in thought. I fight the urge to flee and wait until his features relax and he nods. ‘It’s okay. You did what you had to do.’
A beat.
The horses’ hooves crunch softly on the cracked earth beneath us. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles.
Luke clears his throat. ‘Is this the new honest Jamie?’
I huff a laugh. ‘Who knows? This might be a limited-time offer. I heard vulnerability has a poor shelf life.’
He gives me a soft smile. ‘Noted.’
We ride further in silence. Then, because I’m me and I can’t sit in my own feelings too long without my insides trying to self-combust, I blurt out, ‘So … I did a bit of research last night.’
Luke glances sideways, suspicious. ‘That so?’
‘Yeah.’ I shift slightly in the saddle. ‘Turns out this land’s actually perfect for growing hemp.’
He doesn’t respond, so I press on, nervous now. ‘There’s a program. All you need is a commercial licence – there’s even a startup that’s already working with farmers. They’d be interested in this place. You wouldn’t have to go it alone.’
That gets a reaction. He snorts – dry, humourless. ‘Let me guess. Is this the same thing your last toy, Dylan, was harping on about the other month?’
The words sting, sharp and fast. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You know,’ he says, still not looking at me, ‘the one who thinks saving the planet means never wearing socks?’
My jaw tightens. ‘That guy is trying to help, actually. I’m trying to help.’
‘By doing what? Googling my future?’
I straighten, heat rising behind my ribs. ‘No. By offering options.
Ideas. Because you’re doing it tough out here, and pretending you’re not doesn’t make you a hero, it makes you stubborn.’
Skip’s stride falters for a moment, muscles tense. ‘Jamie—’
I cut in. ‘I’m not suggesting you take a handout. I’m telling you there are people out there who want farms to succeed. People who don’t see it as some pity project but an actual opportunity.’
His silence is louder than anything else around us. It buzzes with pride, with hurt, with that worn-in bitterness people wear when they’ve been let down too many times.
‘You think I don’t already know what’s out there?’ he finally says, voice tight. ‘You think I haven’t tried? Filled out every form? Waited months to be told I missed the cut-off, or the funding dried up, or that some other farmer got it because he had a better postcode?’
I swallow hard. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘No. You didn’t.’
His voice is frayed now. Not from yelling – he just looks exhausted. ‘You don’t get how it feels to run yourself into the ground only to stay exactly where you are.’
‘I’m trying to,’ I say, quieter now. ‘I’m not criticising you. I’m just—’
‘You’re just showing up with good intentions and links and pretending this is a puzzle you can fix in a week.’
That one lands. Clean and cruel.
I feel it all beginning to unravel – whatever we were building, whatever I was letting myself hope this could be. My mouth opens. Then closes.
When it opens again, my voice is brittle. ‘Wow. So that’s what you really think.’
‘I didn’t mean it —’
‘No, it’s fine,’ I cut in, tone sharper now. ‘I forgot I’m the tourist here. Sorry for caring.’
His mouth opens again. Then—
Thunder.
The sky opens.
Rain slams into us like a freight train. Cold, hard, furious. The ground goes from dry to soaked in under ten seconds. My shirt clings to me. Banjo jerks beneath me, startled.
‘Shit,’ Luke yells. ‘We need to move!’
We break into a gallop, no time to finish the fight. No time to be anything but fast.
The wind lashes through my hair. Water stings my face. The horses thunder across the field, hooves kicking up wet dirt, the ground turning slick beneath us.
By the time we make it back to the yard, we’re drenched. Dripping. Wild-eyed.
Luke slides off Skip and yells, ‘Grab the tarp!’
I jump off Banjo and nearly eat it in the mud. We scramble, pulling covers over the feed bins, tying down the equipment, shouting instructions we can barely hear over the roar of the downpour.
By the time we get to the front porch, we’re soaked to the bone, shoes squelching, hair plastered to our faces.
We stand there, chests heaving, breathing hard.
And then Luke lets out a sound – half laugh, half shout.
He throws his head back and laughs again, properly this time. Loud. Free. Rain-soaked and completely unhinged.
I gape at him. ‘What?’
He grins, water streaming down his face as he grabs my shoulders. ‘Rain!’ He whoops, triumphant. ‘Finally! Some fucking rain!’
I start laughing too – because he’s soaked and yelling and my heart’s still racing and I’m so emotionally off-balance I don’t know what else to do.
And then his hands are on my face, mouth crashing into mine. It’s full of pent-up anger and lust and confusion and apology rolled into one perfect, electric, desperate kiss.
‘I’m sorry,’ he breathes, forehead resting against mine.
‘Me too,’ I whisper.
I kiss him again, and we don’t talk after that.
We stumble into the house, wet clothes clinging to our skin, shoes discarded somewhere along the way. Inside, the hallway is warm and dim and too small for all this energy.
Luke pulls me into the bathroom. His hands are tugging, stripping me, peeling my wet clothes from my body. He’s rough with it. So am I. Buttons snap. My shirt clings to my arms and he tears it free. He fumbles with my shorts. I rip open his belt.
He reaches for the drawer, his fingers brushing the handle before I grab his wrist. He freezes. Looks at me, confused.
‘I’m on the pill now.’
It’s all I need to say before I shove him back into the shower. Water blasts overhead, warming us as fast as our bodies already are.
Steam builds instantly.
I press my hand flat to his chest. Wet. Warm. Beating fast.
Then I slide my hand lower, wrapping it around him and guiding him in.
No pause. No hesitation. Just the heat of him filling me in one long, perfect thrust that knocks the air out of my lungs.
He groans – a deep, primal sound – and grabs my hips, grounding himself.
Then he moves.
Hard. Fast. Reckless.
Water crashes around us, plastering our hair to our faces, our bodies to each other. Every thrust slaps skin against skin, loud and wet and obscene. The sound bounces off the tiles, mixing with the groan in his throat, the breath hitching in mine.
I dig my nails into his back. Bite down on his shoulder. He slams into me again, deeper this time, faster, chasing everything we’ve held back since the first moment we laid eyes on each other.
His fingers grip my arse, pulling me tighter against him. I hook my leg around his waist to leverage myself higher. He thrusts up, again and again, hitting that perfect spot that sends stars spiralling behind my eyes.
Steam fogs the glass.
My body burns.
I don’t say his name, but I think it.
He doesn’t say mine, but I feel it – in the way he grips me as if I belong to him. As if this is the only place where we’ve ever made sense.
I come with a cry that echoes through the bathroom, breaking open against him. He follows, hips jerking, chest heaving, forehead pressed to mine as we fall apart together.
Just water and heat and the sounds we make when we finally stop pretending that we’re not starving for each other.