SIX JORDIE
SIX
JORDIE
Leith steps out of arrivals, a leather weekender bag slung on his shoulder, looking travel-worn and vaguely irritated. To be fair, that’s just his face. He scans the waiting area and spots me immediately. Stops dead in his tracks.
He blinks. Squints. “What the fuck are you wearing? And why?”
“For maximum visibility!” I beam and twirl, arms outstretched. “Admit it, you found me in two seconds.”
“I would’ve looked for the shortest person in the room and found you either way.”
I lift the hem of my giraffe pants and flash my canary-yellow gumboots. “Bonus: If I’m going to end up in a tabloid again as your mysterious brunette companion, I might as well commit to embarrassing you properly.”
He laughs, full and unrestrained. The kind he probably hasn’t let out all week. He pulls me into a hug, one of those solid, grounding ones that remind him exactly why he keeps putting up with my nonsense.
“I missed you, too, House Mouse.” He throws an arm around my shoulders, steering me toward the exit.
“Wait.” I linger, glancing around the terminal. “Where’s your PA? And your luggage?”
Leith barely breaks stride. “Richard’s in Brisbane keeping an eye on things,” he says easily. “Deal’s been dragging. Figured it’d move faster with some . . . external motivation.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s not vague or ominous at all.”
“As for my luggage . . .” He tilts his head, as if what he’s about to say is completely reasonable. “Wasn’t keen on carrying one so I donated my suits to a church that helps unemployed people land jobs.”
“So somewhere out there, there’s a guy showing up to a job interview at a Subway in a thousand-dollar Armani blazer?”
Leith grins. “Hope it gives him an edge.”
I can feel Leith’s icy blue eyes drilling into the side of my face as I drive.
The kind of stare that makes my skin prickle. Hot and clinical, the way you’d expect from high-powered forensic analysis. Which is annoying. I already know what he’s seeing. And I’m trying really hard for him not to.
But this is Leith. And Leith notices everything.
“You look—”
“Cute? Gorgeous?” I interrupt, slipping into my best (read: tragic) British accent. “A woman who has thoroughly bewitched every poor soul who lays eyes on her?”
“Bloated,” he finishes, deadpan.
“Rude,” I mutter, tugging at my oversized shirt. “My yellow monstrosity didn’t cover it up?”
Leith doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even smile. Just keeps looking at me with that expression that means he’s about to make me acknowledge something I’d very much prefer to bury under a blanket and six servings of ice cream.
“How have you been?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
Sure, if okay means I feel like a microwave meal that’s been nuked to oblivion and is now boiling over the edges while inexplicably frozen in the middle.
My lower back throbs, straight out of the underworld.
I’m so bloated I might start responding to “When are you due?” with a baby name just to keep things interesting.
My scars hurt. Stiff and sore where the waistband sits wrong. A patchwork quilt of surgical enthusiasm where I was then poked around like my uterus was a pinata full of answers. No candy inside.
Just me and my abdominal road map to nowhere.
I sigh, “I’m—”
“Don’t say fine if you’re not fine.”
“Fine!” I shoot back, because maturity is clearly my strong suit. “I’m handling it. No choice. Bills don’t pause just because my uterus is cursed. The joys of casual nursing. No work, no sick leave.”
“Jordie, if you need time off work, I’ll cover you—”
“Leith, stop,” I groan, already regretting telling him. “You don’t need to add chronically ill best friend to your portfolio.”
“You are my best friend, Jordie.”
“Drop it, Leith.”
“You’re overworked and under-fucked. Let me fix one of those—work, obviously. Not the other. Because gross.”
“You’re right, gross. Also, no. I don’t need you fixing anything.”
Leith lets out a long, theatrical sigh, like he’s been personally burdened by my independence. “God, this really is your anti-romance era.”
“You call it that. I call it survival.”
“How about I write you a check?” he says, lighter now. “I’m not saying you can’t handle things—you always do. I just don’t see why you should when I can help you.”
I don’t have a response for that except for my own mule-level stubbornness.
“Offer again,” I mutter, eyes fixed on the road, “and I swear I’ll push you out of this car and make you walk home.”
That buys me about two seconds of silence.
Finally, he mutters, “I’d like to see you try.”
We’re approaching an intersection. Leith’s gone quiet.
I sneak a glance. He’s miles away, staring out the window.
“I brought flowers to Dad and Mel for Grave Day,” I offer.
The first Monday of every month. That’s Grave Day. A quiet tradition. A weight we carry, rain or shine.
“I told them you were in Brisbane, fighting for something important. I’m sure they understand.” I flick the indicator. “You wanna visit Melissa now?”
Leith’s mouth flattens. Like he knew the question was coming, just hoped I’d skip it.
“Nah.” His voice is sandpaper. “Don’t think I can face her today. I keep . . . failing her.”
“Mel would be proud of everything you’re doing. You’ve already opened two free accommodations in Brisbane. Ipswich is underway. Rockhampton’s secured. That’s huge.”
“It’s not enough.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t have to. Because what he really means is nothing’s ever going to be enough.
“Leith, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for things you couldn’t control.”
He lets out a bitter scoff. “Have you stopped blaming yourself for how your dad died?”
“That’s different.”
“Feels the same from where I’m sitting. Me, still wading through the same shit—losing Melissa. Still stuck thinking I should’ve been able to save her. Save this building that I’m trying to turn into . . . something.” He breathes out hard. “Same way I should’ve saved your farm.”
I shake my head. “Leith, you were sixteen. There’s no universe where saving the farm was on you.”
“I could’ve tried harder, Mouse.” His voice softens on my nickname. “Talked Dad out of pulling the agri-tech project. Fought harder to keep the farm afloat. Made him see it wasn’t just numbers on a page. It was your home.”
“My dad wasn’t na?ve, Leith. He knew exactly what he was doing when he signed on with Clive.” I bump his shoulder lightly. “Besides, some bored, overdressed tech prince got dragged by his father to the farm and ended up on my front porch because of it, and I kept him.”
Leith huffs a laugh through his nose, mouth twitching despite himself. Then he looks away. “Feels like I’ve been failing people my whole damn life.”
“If my dad were alive, he would’ve sat you down under the mango tree, cut up fruit with his Swiss Army knife, eaten it right off the blade, and said something stupid like—”I drop into my best mock-Dad voice: “You’re not a bloody tractor, son. Stop trying to pull everything.”
Leith laughs—short, reluctant, like he wasn’t planning to but couldn’t stop.
I keep going. “Remember? Anytime he got philosophical and wanted to impart wisdom, it was under that damn tree.”
Leith snorts. “And half the time, the lesson was: don’t be an idiot.”
“Or if you’re gonna cry, do it under the mango tree. At least then your tears go to something useful.”
When the light turns green, I swing a sharp U-turn and cut through a service road, veering into the nearest drive-thru.
He blinks. “What—”
I roll down the window at the speaker. “One large Supreme Special. Two choc-lava cakes. Two vanilla milkshakes.”
I pull forward, stop at the window, and glance at him, holding out my hand. He stares at me for a long second. With a dramatic sigh, he leans forward, grabs his wallet from his back pocket, and slaps his card into my palm.
“Remember what my dad used to say?”
Leith groans, but grins.
We say it at the same time: “Nothing can’t be fixed with a good feed.”