Page 44 of The Winning Ticket

JAKE

It’s Thursday night, and I’m meeting Dad for dinner at the pub in town. Although we work together, we haven’t been on the same sites this week, and he insisted we have dinner tonight.

“It's just us guys tonight. Donna has her book club meeting,” he said earlier today, which meant my stepmum wouldn’t be home to cook him dinner.

My culinary skills came from Mum. Dad struggles to boil water unsupervised.

I pull up outside the pub and glance at my phone. For someone who barely used his phone a month ago, I've been checking it a lot — always looking for messages from a certain blonde housemate.

A knock on my window makes me jump, and Dad shakes his head when he looks at my phone.

“Are you coming inside, or are you messaging that girl?”

I detect a little annoyance in his tone.

“What girl?” I ask, climbing out of the car.

“The one you keep racing back to Brisbane to see,” he replies, his voice gruff while he leads the way inside.

“I’m not going back for a girl.”

He shoots me a frustrated look over his shoulder while I follow him into the restaurant area. “I wasn’t born yesterday, boy.”

I sigh. He has done this every time I’ve dated someone from Brisbane.

“I’m not dating anyone in Brisbane, Dad.”

“Good. What about Stacey? I saw you around with her a few times.”

“Since when have you asked about my relationship status?” I ask, scanning the QR code on the table to bring up the menu.

“Since I want your focus here in town instead of running back to Brisbane.” Dad has never been one to beat around the bush, but I could have done without his direct line of conversation right now.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m around the weekends when I’m on call, so what does it matter if I go back to Brisbane the rest of my weekends?” If I’d known dinner would come with a side of guilt trip, I’d have found a reason to stay home.

“I just wish you’d realise your life is here now.”

I feel an unexpected wave of aggravation and bite back the retort on the tip of my tongue.

Not wanting to get into an argument with him, I shrug. “Can we just have dinner without you giving me a hard time, please?”

He looks at me for a moment before nodding. “How did things go out at number 53?” he asks, and for once, I’m relieved to be talking about work.

“Good, it’s ready to go,” I reply, and we continue chatting about work until our meals arrive.

After dinner, my father wanders off to the pokies, and I grab a beer in the sports bar, staring at my phone once again.

“Hey, stranger.” I look up and see Stacey standing beside me.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I ask, putting my phone on the table.

“Yeah, good… Haven’t seen you around much.” She takes a seat across from me.

“Yeah, I’ve been heading back to Brisbane most weekends, and work has really picked up,” I say, shifting in my seat a little.

I have no idea why, but I feel like I need to make an excuse for why I haven’t been around, even though we’d only ever been casually seeing each other.

My phone lights up on the table, and I can see the message I’ve been waiting for all evening has finally come through. Stacey’s eyes drift to the phone before she looks back at my face.

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