I glanced at Max and Connor nodded, his face slightly crumpled with apology.
“Well, best we put him to work then.”
Relief drew a smile from Connor. “You gonna work with Daddy and Ellie today?”
“Yup.”
“You ready to go?”
“Yup.”
“Say, ‘hurry up, Ellie McEllie Head’.”
“Hurry up, McEllie Head.”
We all burst into laughter, my brother’s chuckle the deepest and loudest. “More like McElliephant Head.”
“Shut up, you jerk.”
Max’s face stretched, his mouth forming an O. His hand shot out, his pointer finger nearly poking me in the eye.
“What?” I asked, leaning back, worried.
“Uh oh. You just said a naughty word.”
“I did?”
Max pointed again.
Connor mouthed ‘jerk.’
I covered my mouth with my hand.
“Daddy. Ellie go to naughty corner.”
A devilish grin crept across Connor’s face, his equally devilish dimples popping. “Yes, Max. Ellie will go to the naughty corner.”
My stomach tightened.
What the hell is in the naughty corner?
After arriving at the recording studio, I’d spent ‘free’ minutes staring at a padded wall while Max counted repetitively behind me. Connor hadn’t come to my rescue, instead shrugging and telling me ‘rules are rules’ and that I’d have to endure my punishment, which would end when Max saw fit. Fortunately, my bribery skills were epic and my naughty corner tenure ended at the promise of a choc-chip muffin from the café next door. After that, Max and I became best friends. I even shared some of my notebook pages so that he could draw me a picture of a car.
He was truly adorable. Sweet, funny, intelligent, Max was the apple of his father’s eye, and I couldn’t deny that it warmed my heart. I also couldn’t deny they’d done a great job as his parents. But seeing Connor as a dad … Holy crap, my ovaries were waging war against me and my lonely uterus, tugging at the spot that would one day grow a baby of my own, a baby I hoped would have a father as loving and as attentive as Connor.
One day. One. Single. Day. That’s all I’d spent with him and Max, and the thoughts now swimming around my mind were completely insane. In one moment, I saw Connor, Max, and I at the park, having fun, a happy little family. In the next, I saw Lilah, and Connor putting Max to sleep, cooing over their gorgeous little miracle. And in the next, I saw Byron and me, walking hand in hand along a boardwalk under a humid, Darwin night sky. My head was a fishbowl of mind-fuckery, and the swimming needed to stop, now.
“Ready to see Mummy?” Connor asked as he strapped Max into his car seat.
“Mummy!”
“Lift up your arm, buddy, so Daddy can fasten your seatbelt.”
Max wrenched his arm up and clocked Connor on the nose with his plaster cast.
“Faaaaaar hahahaaaaaa Jesussssss,” Connor howled into the palm of his hand, now covering his face.
Letting go of my door handle, I rushed to his side, my eyes wide when he stood up and turned his back to his son, eyes watering, head tilted. He pulled his hand away from his face, and a stream of blood trickled from his nostril.
Max’s eyes welled with tears; he looked terrified. “You okay, Daddy?”
“Yes, Max,” I said, whacking Connor on the head with my notebook. “Daddy is fine, see?”
Whack.
Whack.
“Stop it,” Connor mumbled behind his hand.
“He’s about to start balling his little eyes out because he thinks you’re hurt,” I answered like a seasoned ventriloquist. “Because he thinks he hurt you.”
“He did,” he mumbled again.
“Oh come on, it’s just a little blood.”
“Yeah, my blood.”
Max’s bottom lip trembled and it broke my heart.
“Should I whack him again, just to make sure?” I whispered.
Max smiled and nodded.
Before I could swat Connor with my notebook again, he caught my arm with his free hand and bent it to tickle my side. I squealed and stumbled toward the back of the car, pulling Connor with me.
“Smooth move, McBusted Nose Head.”
He chuckled but kept his head tilted back.
“Do you have a first aid kit?”
He nodded and opened the back doors of his Nissan Patrol then riffled through music equipment and automotive tools until he pulled out a small, dark green canvas bag with a red cross on it.
I took it from him, unzipped it, and pulled out antiseptic wipes and two large gauze pads. “Sit down,” I ordered, gently pushing on his shoulder to coax him to a more manageable height. “Let me clean your face before Max thinks you’re a monster.”
Connor did as he was told and sat on the back of his car, opening his legs for me to stand between. I paused for a moment then stepped closer, brushing the insides of his thighs with my own, my skin heated and buzzed where we’d touched. His body was more defined now. Bigger. Stronger. Robust. Memories of the last time we’d been this close came flooding back into my mind as if they’d only been made yesterday. So vivid. So real. So heartbreaking. I wanted to scream and cry, but, more than anything, I wanted to pull him to me so I could feel everything he used to make me feel, everything and so much more.
“This … er, this might be cold,” I stuttered, dabbing the wipe across the stubble on his chin and lip.
“Your touch could never be cold, Ellie.”
Our eyes met and I froze. Pressed together, we were electric, familiar, but this also felt unknown and forbidden, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it any longer.
Biting my lip, I shifted my stare to his jaw and calmed my breathing.
“You’re still so beautiful.” His voice was laboured, quiet, and slightly nasal, and together with the featherlight touch of his thumb on the outer edge of my thigh, I almost lost the ability to stand, my knees weak, my muscles trembling.
“Connor, what are you doing?” I whispered, barely able to speak at all.
“Trying to get you back.”
“What?”
He removed his hand from his nose. “You taught me that when you lose someone, you can always get them back in one way or another. Like when I lost Aaron, you showed me how to get back the parts I’d deliberately let go. So that’s what I’m doing now, trying to get you back in every way you’ll let me.”
“But I can’t let you. Not in that way.” I put a gauze pad over his nose and guided the hand he was resting against my thigh to hold it firmly in place. “I have a boyfriend. You know that.”
“I do.”
“So there’s no getting me back. Not like that.”
He didn’t answer and, yet, his eyes glimmered.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I will get you back. One day.”
I shook my head. I even smiled.
Because it was the only thing I could do.
After cleaning Connor’s face, we headed to Lilah’s unit to drop off Max. I thought it best to stay in the car and pretend to focus on something really important on my lap, like the pulled thread in my trousers. But no matter how hard I tried to focus on the expanding hole in my pants, I couldn’t help but glance up at the two of them conversing, Connor appearing to keep his distance, Lilah, too, until she stepped up to him and placed her hand on his face, as if to assess the damage to his nose. He stepped out of her reach and quickly looked my way, so I glanced down again until a tap on the car window startled me.
Winding it down, I gritted my teeth together and kept my face impassive.
“Ellie, hi! I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to catch up last night. Wow, talk about ghost from the past, right?” She laughed, but it was clearly strained.
I couldn’t help but scoff. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”
Looking past her, I searched for Connor. I really didn’t want to be anywhere in her vicinity.
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“He’s taken our son inside,” she said, still smiling like the Joker.
I didn’t bother responding to that.
“So, Connor tells me you’re working together on his album. How … convenient.”
“Convenient?” I blinked a couple of times and pressed my lips together. She was baiting me, so I tried to avoid the hook. “For whom, him or me?”
“Both of you, of course.”
Nodding, I pressed my lips even harder.
“So I gather you’re moving or have moved back to Greenhills already?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” My response just slipped from my mouth even though I had no intention to permanently move back. Or maybe I did.
Lilah stepped closer to the car and lowered her voice, her words sharp as they passed her blood-red lips. “As you can see, we have something really good going on here. Connor is happy. Max is happy. I’m happy. I won’t let anything screw that up. Not even you.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I slowly turned my head to face her and exhaled. “Here’s the thing, Lilah, you have no control over what I do or say, so if I choose to screw anything up, so fucking be it.”
Her black pencil-rimmed eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t threaten me if I were you, because I can make things very … let’s say … inconvenient.”
“I can make things very … let’s say … unfuckenhappy.”
Before I could punch the bitch with more words, Connor opened the driver’s side door and climbed in. “Right. Max is settled on his little cushion couch watching The Wiggles.” He started the engine and then rested his arm on the back of my headrest. “I’ll see you next week, Lilah.”
She offered us a half smile and waved her stick fingers. “You will.”
I, too, smiled and waved. “Bye, Lilah. It was nice seeing you again.” I wound up the window and our eyes locked until Connor pulled away. My heart was racing, anger simmering. “She loves you,” I said, shifting in my seat.
“She loves the idea of me, of the three of us. There’s a difference.”
“You sure about that?”
He glanced over at me. “Of course I’m sure.”
“Regardless of whether there’s a difference or not, she’s very protective of you and Max, and what you share.”
“Max is the only thing we share, Ellie.” Connor turned the car into my old street, and I realised how close everyone lived to one another. “She said something to you back at her house, didn’t she?”
I didn’t answer him.
“Ellie, what’d she say?”
We stopped out front of my parents’ house, and I sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t. You and I are not together so she can say whatever she wants.”
I opened the door, stepped out, and went to close it behind me.
“I meant what I said before, about getting you back.”
Tears filled my eyes, but I blinked them back. “You’re wasting your time.”
“No. I’ve wasted time. Too much time. I won’t be wasting any more.”
“You’re too late. We had our chance and we blew it.”
“I won’t accept that.”
“You don’t have a choice.” I closed the door and stared at him through the window. He shook his head, reaffirming what he’d just said, and that’s when it hit me.
I chose this man to love, and I let him settle in my bones.
And then he left.
And then I left.
But we never really left at all. I was still here with him deep within my marrow.
For ever and for after.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ellie
Fighting a bull with a hunger for red while your heart bled profusely was a battle you couldn’t win, a battle I couldn’t win when that bull was Connor. But my God had I tried in the weeks that followed, when he persistently arrived on my doorstep every morning, ordered Meatlovers pizza and coffees with sugar, held every door I walked through open, and wrote and sang to me lyrics so desperate and passionate that they were now tattooed to my soul. They’d been the best and worst weeks of my life; a tug of war on my heart while stoking a fire that could never burn, which was why when Byron called to say he was going to spend the coming weekend with me in Melbourne, I couldn’t welcome his arrival any sooner. I needed his presence to help me win the battle and keep the bull at bay.
Flicking the indicator of Mum’s car with my finger, I pulled into the airport car park, my brother an unexpected last-minute passenger.
“You look normal today,” he stated, a shit-eating grin on his face.
I narrowed my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You. You’re wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and those stupid coloured shoes you used to wear as a kid. And your hair is turning red again.”
“It’s not turning red, Chris. It’s my regrowth. I haven’t had a chance to go to the hairdressers yet. Why? Is it bad?” I smoothed my hair down while glancing in the rearview mirror now worried I looked like a slob.
“No. You look like you, not some corporate Barbie doll.”
“Remind me why you’re here again?” I opened the car door and stepped out.
Chris followed suit and made his way to the boot to collect his sports bag. “Because it beats catching the bus with the team. I need peace and quiet before travelling for a game.”
I huffed. It made sense.
“So what’s Moron gonna think of the old Ellie?”
“Oh my God! Will you please stop calling him Moron. Ugh! I’m so glad you’ll be in Adelaide this weekend.”
“That makes the two of us. Honestly, I’d fear for my own safety if I were staying home with you guys. I mean, I couldn’t promise I’d chew my own head off so I wouldn’t have to see, talk or listen to the guy.”
I tried not to smile at my idiot brother, but he was an idiot, and sometimes idiots were funny.
“See? You agree.” He slung his bag over his shoulder, and we began walking toward the terminal.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, you do. You’re just too stubborn and scared to admit that Moron is not our type.”
“Our type?” I spat out my laugh like a cat would a hairball.
“Yep. The type that fits in with us. The type that doesn’t change who we are to suit them and their needs. The type that makes us happy without even trying.”
“And who is that type, Chris?” We stopped at the terminal doors, stepping aside for hurried commuters and their wayward suitcases. “Actually, don’t answer that.”
“I don’t need to answer because you already know. The fact that you’re you again after being back here only a few weeks is proof enough.”
Sighing, I fixed the collar on his polo shirt and gave him a hug. “Good luck on Saturday. Smash those Adelaide Crows.”
“It will be murder,” he murmured into my hair.
I laughed. He was an idiot, albeit a smart one.
“Elliephant, you and Connor are a toasted marshmallow. You’re best when held over a flame even if it means you’ll get burnt.”
I stepped back and stared at him, shocked. “Did you just come up with your own analogy?”
“No. I just speak the truth. Always.”
“You do not.”
“I do, which is why you should turn around and leave before Moron’s plane lands.”
“Chris,” I warned, my voice akin to a growling dog.
“Fine. Fine.” He raised his arms and started walking backwards toward his check-in counter. “Just promise me you’ll keep an eye on Mum and Dad this weekend.”
“Why?”
“Because they might be prone to chewing off their own heads too.”
I coughed, “Arsehole.”
He coughed, “Moron.”
And we both went our separate ways.
Stretching on my tip-toes, I spotted Byron’s blond, side-swept hair bob up and down as he weaved through fellow passengers
exiting the plane at the arrival gate. His deep-brown eyes locked onto to mine, so I waved and bounced on the spot, smiling. Byron smiled, too, but then his smile faltered just slightly as he scanned my face and body with more precision than the security checkpoint magnetometer.
“Hi, stranger.” I leapt toward him and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tight.
“I’m a stranger already?”
He let go of his carry-on suitcase handle and lifted me from the ground. I breathed him in, seeking a sense of home, a sense of belonging, a sense of something. But it wasn’t there, or maybe I just wasn’t trying hard enough.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, gripping tighter, hoping I’d somehow squeeze it out of him.
Truth be told, I hadn’t really missed him at all. I mean, of course I’d missed him, just not as much as one should miss their boyfriend after being apart for over a month. Perhaps it was because I’d been so preoccupied with the album and not because of the alternative: that I really didn’t love him.
That very notion festered in the pit of my stomach, gurgling with unease.
Byron placed me back on solid ground and held me at arm’s length. “You look … different.”
I swallowed then bit my lip. “Different good, I hope.”
“Of course, Elle.”
His fingers caressed my hair just above my forehead, his brow crumpling, his expression sweet but inquisitive. Then, bringing me back to his chest, he pressed his lips to mine, a soft, slow kiss laced with relief. “Five weeks is a long time,” he sighed when we pulled apart.
“I know. It won’t always be like this. After we finish the next song, I can come home and perform the final touch-ups from there.”
“When will the next song finish?”
“I don’t know. Maybe another month or two.”
“That long?”
“Yeah, possibly.” I entwined my hand with his and began to lead us toward the exit. “Do you have any checked luggage?”
“Nope. Just this.” He lifted the small carry-on case that also had a suit bag attached to it.
I wasn’t sure why he’d brought a suit. It wasn’t as if we had any important events organised. My plans were to simply chill out and enjoy each other’s company. We only had two and a half days together.
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