by Amy Andrews
Trinity never got sick of this sight.
She and Oscar came to Sydney’s beaches often. It cost nothing, after all, and building sandcastles and paddling in the shallows where you could easily spot a movie star frolicking in the surf was a fabulous way to forget they were part of the have nots.
They grabbed a section of sand a few metres back from where the waves washed up.
‘Can we go in, Mummy?’ Oscar said, bouncing on his heels as he stared at the water. He was in a full-length rasher shirt and a pair of boardies that both hung on his skinny frame.
She’d already crammed a hat on his head, lathered his arms and legs in factor fifty and slapped thick, white zinc on his face. ‘Yep. Hang ten,’ she said. ‘Let me just slip, slop, slap too.’
‘I can take him while you get ready.’
Trinity glanced up at Reid, who’d peeled down to his boardies. Her mouth dried at the sight of him. As if all the sand on the beach were suddenly in her mouth. She’d seen him without a shirt before but looking all the way up his body like this was something else entirely.
Up his tanned legs encased in pink and purple hibiscus boardies to his flat abs and further to his bronzed shoulders. His tats were in full vibrant colour beneath the spotlight of the sun. The man was tanned, ripped and built.
He was goddamn perfect.
She swore she heard a passing woman sigh at the sight of him.
‘Oh...it’s okay.’ She swallowed. ‘Thanks...but we usually just play in the sand and paddle in the shallows.’
He shrugged. ‘I can do that. C’mon, little dude.’ He held his hand out to Oscar, who took it without hesitation. She opened her mouth to protest but the two of them were already on their way.
‘He’ll take good care of the little fella,’ Eddie assured her.
She nodded but it didn’t stop her heartbeat echoing in her head as she tracked their progress. The tall, tattooed man with the pale, skinny kid. Oscar had to walk three paces to Reid’s one but his little hand, placed so trustfully in Reid’s giant one, caused her heart to squeeze painfully in Trinity’s chest.
They stopped at the point where the water pushed high on the beach, foaming to a stop before retreating again. They sat and started piling up wet sand.
‘I think they’ll be needing these,’ Eddie mused as he scooped up a couple of bright plastic buckets and spades he’d found in the shed and trotted off to join them.
Soon Eddie was crouching beside them and Oscar and Reid were on their knees digging in the sand with the spades. A lump the size of Sydney Harbour lodged in her throat at the sight of their three heads together.
Apart from the obvious differences in size and colouring, they could be a family. Father, son and grandfather out for a day at the beach.
This was what Oscar was missing out on. What Trinity couldn’t give him.
A family.
Just then Oscar looked back over his shoulder, his hat lopsided on his head, his gaze searching her out, grinning and waving as he located her. He motioned to her to join them and Trinity’s chest almost burst with how much she loved him.
She and Oscar were a family. And that was enough. She waved and rose to join her son down at the water.
‘Look, Mummy, we’re making a super castle!’ Oscar announced as she drew level.
Trinity laughed and said, ‘That’s super-duper,’ as she tried not to notice Reid’s head turning in her direction. His eyes were shaded by sunglasses but she could feel his gaze on her body.
She suddenly wished she were wearing a bikini or even a one-piece. Something more flattering than her faded, long-sleeved rasher shirt. Sure, it was snug on her body, as were the Lycra bottoms that stopped just above her knee, but there was hardly any skin on show. Even her floppy, practical, Cancer-Council-approved hat felt suddenly daggy.
She might be being sun-sensible but she had about as much sex appeal as the bleached chunk of driftwood they’d passed higher up the beach.
She plonked herself quickly down beside Eddie, the sand cool and wet on the backs of her thighs as she turned her attention to Oscar’s creation. Instead of the way sand clung to Reid’s muscular calves.
‘Wow, look at that moat,’ she said.
‘It was my idea,’ Oscar said, puffing out his chest. ‘I saw one in a book that Raymond brought to school.’
‘How about we fill the buckets up with water and flood it?’ Reid suggested.
Oscar’s face came alive. ‘Oh, yeah!’ He grabbed a bucket. ‘C’mon, Reid.’
He headed for the water’s edge without a backward glance, Reid hot on his heels. Trinity’s heart melted as they ran back and forth for what seemed an age, dumping their loads of water into the moat before heading back to the water’s edge again.
The mother in her lapped it up. Lapping up the happiness of her son as he played without a care as if he’d never spent one hundred and eighty days in the NICU. The woman in her lapped it up too. Lapped up a bare-chested Reid, jogging and bending and twisting and turning, wet boardies clinging to powerful thighs.
And it wasn’t just her. Other women checked him out too.
But they didn’t just look. They flirted. Smiled at him and said, ‘Hi,’ as they walked past swinging their hips and wiggling their bare butts totally exposed in their teeny-tiny thongs.
It made absolutely no sense to be peeved about it. She was not with Reid. Never would be.
But she was peeved anyway.
Finally exhausted, Oscar and Reid collapsed on the sand near the castle, happy and laughing.
‘Well,’ Eddie announced, pushing to his feet. ‘I’m going for a dip.’
Oscar suddenly sprang into a sitting position, staring after Eddie. ‘Oh, could I go too, Mummy?’
‘No, sweetie,’ Trinity said. ‘It’s too deep and the current can be really strong. When you’re older maybe.’
‘I can take him,’ Reid offered.
‘Oh, yeah!’ Oscar grinned at Reid before turning pleading eyes on his mother. ‘Please, Mummy, can I go with Reid?’
Trinity looked out over the water. She was torn between the blatant begging and the thought of the current tearing Oscar from Reid’s arms and sweeping him out to sea. ‘Well...’
‘Please.’
‘I won’t let him go. I promise.’
There was that low, gravelly voice again. She glanced at Reid, who’d taken off his sunglasses, the sincerity in his blue eyes as deep as the ocean. She believed him. Not only was he the strongest-looking man she’d ever met but he’d been nothing but protective of Oscar.
He’d asked her to trust him. Told her she could. Proved she could. Maybe it was time she showed him a little in return.
‘Okay.’ She glanced at her son. ‘But not too deep,’ she warned, raising her voice over Oscar’s whooping.
Reid handed her his sunglasses as he stood. ‘I won’t go out higher than my waist.’
She stood too. ‘And you’ll hold onto him. Tight.’
‘I will.’ He held out his hand and Oscar took it.
Trinity grabbed Reid’s arm as he stepped away. The skin was warm from the sun and the muscle beneath full and firm. He half turned, glancing at her hand before his gaze landed on her face. ‘Thank you.’
He smiled and nodded then walked away with her son towards the ocean.
* * *
Reid and Oscar stayed in for close to an hour. He was so excited to be out in the deeper water, splashing around with the rest of their fellow ocean-goers, that Reid was determined to stay as long as Oscar wanted.
His mother needn’t have worried about them being separated. For all his bravado, Oscar clung to him like a monkey, his breathing fast and excited as they’d waded in together.
Still, it didn’t stop Trinity from pacing up and down the shore
line. She was easy to spot in bathers that would have been perfectly at home at Bondi a hundred years ago. Compared to the other scantily clad women she stuck out like a sore thumb, covered neck to knee, her hair stuffed up inside her big, floppy hat totally obscuring her face and eyes.
Even so, he could feel her gaze firmly fixed on him.
Well, Oscar anyway.
Reid, on the other hand, could hardly take his eyes off her. She might not have been exposing much skin but it was the first thing she’d worn that actually showed off her body and what she actually had going on under clothes that usually hung.
It was a novelty to be able to see she actually had a waist. And breasts that looked as if they’d fill a man’s hand. He’d known they were there. Had felt them pressed to him, mashed up against him that day on her bed, but to see them... Or glimpse their outline anyway.
He’d spent an inordinate amount of time while playing with Oscar hoping she might get wet.
‘Can we go out to Eddie?’
Pops was out in shoulder-deep water chatting to some other old guy and, while Reid was confident in his own abilities, he’d promised Trinity he wouldn’t take Oscar out deep.
‘Not this time, dude.’
Oscar took it on the chin as he did everything else. He was a good kid. Well behaved, not prone to sulking if he didn’t get his way. Trinity had done an awesome job with him, considering their circumstances.
Not that he was any closer to knowing what her true circumstances actually were. She might have relaxed around him but chatty she was not.
Oscar absently traced the outline of his eagle wings tat with one pruned finger. ‘I like your tattoos,’ he said.
Reid grinned. Oscar hadn’t really mentioned them before—to him anyway—which was unusual. Most kids were agog. ‘Thank you. Tattoos sometimes frighten kids but not you, huh?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Mummy has a tattoo.’
Reid blinked. Oh, does she now? He glanced at her staring at them from the shoreline in her neck-to-knee gear. He really, really wished he hadn’t known that. He was going to be thinking about it way more than was good for his sanity.
Already questions about where and what rose in his throat. But he was not going to pump her kid for information that was none of his damn business.
Oscar shivered and goose bumps broke out on his arms. Reid was pleased for the distraction. ‘Cold, little dude?’
‘No.’
Reid gave a half-laugh. He was on the cool side himself now but, on closer inspection, Oscar’s lips were a nice shade of purple-blue and he was pretty sure Trinity would bundle him straight out if she were here. Because that was what a responsible parent did.
He’d never given a lot of thought to being a parent. A father. He’d assumed he would be one day but, at thirty-four, maybe he’d missed that boat?
Oscar’s teeth started to chatter.
‘Your teeth are chattering.’
‘They’re j...just exci...excited.’
Reid laughed again. Excited teeth. Kids!
‘Yeah, I don’t think your mum is going to buy that, dude, and she’ll have my—’ He cut himself off before he said ass on a platter. ‘I’ll be off her Christmas card list.’
Oscar nodded, resigned. ‘Yeah. She always worries I might catch a bug and have to go to hospital.’
It was a natural thing for mothers to worry about, even though Reid knew no one caught a bug just from being cold. But there was a gravity to Oscar’s words that told him it was a legitimate fear of Trinity’s.
That Oscar had been in hospital before.
He opened his mouth to press for more then shut it again. He wasn’t going to ask about that any more than he was going to ask about Trinity’s tattoo. He should just man up and do it himself—the hospital thing, not the tattoo thing—instead of waiting for her to open up to him.
Maybe he would ask her. In a few weeks.
In the meantime, he didn’t want to start on the wrong foot by handing over a hypothermic child. He motioned to his grandfather to let him know they were heading back. ‘Okay, let’s go in.’
Oscar sighed and put his head down on Reid’s shoulder. It fitted perfectly. Reid’s heart gave a strange little kick and the feeling of restlessness that had dogged him since coming back to stay with Pops stilled. After a moment’s hesitation, he placed his chin on top of the snowy-blond head and strode out of the ocean with him.
* * *
‘Mummy,’ Oscar said as Reid placed him down in ankle-deep water and he ran the rest of the way, flinging his arms around Trinity’s legs. ‘Did you see me?’
‘I did, darling,’ she said, smiling down at him, obviously uncaring that Oscar was soaking wet.
She was, unfortunately, still depressingly dry. Although now apparently the owner of a tattoo, which only made her more fascinating. Not to mention the fact he could see her nipples were erect through the cling of her rasher shirt.
He dragged his gaze off them, grabbed for his sunglasses, which dangled from her fingertips, and crammed them on his face. Now he could stare at them with impunity.
And he did. Friend zone or not.
No matter how much he castigated himself for acting like a horny teenager, he didn’t seem to be able to stop.
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘You’re freezing. Let’s get you changed.’
There wasn’t any reproach in her voice but, judging by her speed back to their belongings, she wanted Oscar dressed and warmed even though a few minutes in the sun would achieve the same thing.
By the time Reid had reached their little square of sand Oscar’s rasher top was off and she was throwing a towel around his shoulders, rubbing his arms briskly.
‘Reid,’ Oscar said as he drew level. Trinity had turned and was searching through her bag behind her. ‘You want to get warm with me?’
Oscar opened the towel, a cheeky grin on his face, exposing his puny little chest before Trinity turned back and pulled it around him and started rubbing again.
But not before Reid had seen what he’d seen. A long, pale scar running straight up the middle of Oscar’s chest. An open-heart-surgery scar. And a couple of small round scars between his ribs on both sides. Chest drain insertion sites.
What the hell?
She always worries I might catch a bug and have to go to hospital.
Reid didn’t doubt it. The sternotomy scar had confirmed his suspicion that Oscar had been in hospital before. More than once if those scars were what he thought they were.
So, Oscar had some kind of heart condition? It explained him being on the small side. Was this a chronic thing with chronic issues or was it something that had been dealt with and was in the past?
He didn’t know but he wanted to and she could bet her ass he was definitely asking about it. No maybes. No in a few weeks.
Tonight.
* * *
A few hours later Trinity sat in the dark, on the love seat, appreciating the stars and the sounds of the night. The trilling of insects, the occasional distant sounds of a car and the muffled murmur of a television. They floated to her on the warm air along with the squeak of the hinges and she sighed contently.
It was moments like this that everything felt surreal. As if she were going to wake up tomorrow and find it was all a dream. She’d never imagined herself sitting idly on an old-fashioned swing, staring out over a beautiful back yard with absolutely nothing to do or worry about.
She hadn’t been idle in five years and there’d always been something to worry about.
But here she was and she had Reid to thank for it. She was so damn grateful to him it filled up every cell and all the spaces in between. If she lived to be a million years old she’d never be able to repay him for what he’d done for her and Oscar.
Never.
The sound of dishes clanking together drifted to her from next door and the feeling that she should be doing something reared its head. But there wasn’t anything. They’d had an early tea of fish and chips, then Oscar had gone for his first ever sleepover at Raymond’s house.
Celia had rung as they’d been waiting for their food to be cooked and Oscar was so excited she hadn’t been able to say no. Letting out the apron strings was a work in progress and she was taking baby steps every day. This had felt more like a giant leap but Reid had nodded almost imperceptibly and urged her with her eyes to take it and she had.
It was a big deal though. For her. There’d been very few nights in five years they’d spent apart. Even during his long hospital stays she’d slept most nights by his crib on lumpy, uncomfortable recliners.
She’d been allocated a small unit at the accommodation block for parents with children who had long-term illnesses but she’d rarely spent a night there. And even when she had succumbed to the nurse’s urgings to get a decent sleep for a change, she’d usually ended back at his crib-side a couple of times during the night to express milk or just sit with him.
They’d sure come a long way since those early days. Oscar had gone from lengthy hospital stays to having sleepovers with friends, which was everything Trinity had ever wanted for him so she was going to have to get used to it. Hopefully, when they had their own place, Raymond could come and stay with them.
The sound of the sliding door opening interrupted her reverie. Right on cue, the hair at her nape prickled. ‘Hey.’
The low rumble washed over her as the prickle headed south, beading her nipples and scattering goose bumps across her belly. ‘Hey.’
‘Beer?’
A bottle nudged her upper arm and she took it. ‘Thanks.’
She cradled it in her lap, absently running her fingers up and down the frosty surface as he sat on the other end of the love seat, his right leg tucked up under him.
He didn’t say anything for a while, just sipped his beer and stared out over the back yard. It was nice to sit in companionable silence, even if her body was excruciatingly aware of him. The bunch of his quad as he idly rocked the chair, the way his lips pressed against the neck of his beer and the movement of his throat as he tipped his head back and drank.