Page 52 of The Story of Us
Eloise shifted her gaze sideways to where Ryan was snoring. “Please. It’s Wattle Junction. And he’s out cold.”
“Bad stuff still happens here. Raff’s told me enough stories to know that nowhere’s truly safe anymore.”
Eloise shivered. She supposed he was talking about the Arturos. The local family had a reputation as drug dealers and all sorts of other bad things.
“And anyway, honestly, I needed a break too. It’s been a long night of peopling,” Nate said. “Are you cold?”
“I’m okay.”
He pulled his grey beanie off his head and passed it to her before retreating to the overhead heater near the front door.
Eloise fingered the soft wool, lifted it to her head and slipped it on. “Thanks.”
Say something else.
“Big night at the bachelor party?” She nodded towards Ryan.
“Not really. He turned up tanked. Mouthing off and being a dick. Typical Ryan behaviour.” It was impossible to ignore the edge in Nate’s tone.
She repeated the line Charlie had told her many times. “His divorce hit him hard. He’s still putting his life back together.”
“Doesn’t excuse the way he behaves sometimes, though. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own actions.”
She raised her eyebrows because hello, pot? The kettle’s on the phone.
Nate bit his lip and ducked his head. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I? I’m sorry about last night. I don’t ever want you to ever think I don’t respect you and our friendship.”
No one could ever accuse Nate of being afraid to apologise. It just reinforced what she already knew—and what everyone else who met Nate discerned within a few minutes in his presence—hewasa good guy. Eloise had just never realised how much he kept to himself or how big the walls around his real life were. The disaster in his kitchen last night only reinforced that fact. She couldn’t be mad when there had been no denying the torment in his eyes was directed at himself, not her.
Eloise sighed. This was clearly another thing they had in common. Nothing ever happened at the right time, did it? “It’s okay, Nate.”
“No, it’s not.”
“What would you have done differently? Not tried to kiss me?”
There was a long pause filled only with the puffs of warm breath meeting cool air. Headlights appeared at the far end of the road, sweeping across the trunk of the wattle tree in the middle of the roundabout.
“I’ve got him,” Nate said when a taxi stopped in front of the pub, an older man getting out and hurrying towards them.
Once Ryan had been bundled into the backseat and the car’s brake lights were just two dots in the distance, Nate spoke again. His tone was sad like the weight of his words made them hard to say. “I would’ve remembered that I have to figure my shit out first before I try to drag someone else into it.”
Eloise shifted so she could see him properly.
“I don’t want to be this way,” Nate said, and her gut told her there were more layers to the simple statement than she could possibly understand right now.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I want to let people in. To share more of my life. But it’s hard.”
There was that defeated tone again. It broke her heart. “You don’t have to do it all at once, you know. Have you ever heard that old saying about the best way to eat an elephant?”
Nate shook his head and Eloise continued. “All you can do is one bite at a time.”
The faintest whisper of a smile flickered across his face, and Eloise watched as Nate took a deep breath, casting a long gaze out across the empty street.
She could be patient.
Without looking at her, Nate started to speak. “You asked me if I have regrets about my time overseas, and I don’t. There’s no point wishing away things you can’t change. But I wanted to explain it better. Every facet of your life becomes a commodity. You’re a brand and a product before a human. All the armchair experts can do your job better than you can, and they’re very happy to tell you about it. To your face, through social media, screaming at you on the field. And when you’re not even from there, all you have is a patched-together support network. You don’t have childhood friends or family you can trust because they’re on the other side of the world. People treat you differently. Thousands and thousands of people turn up to college games. I’m not saying there aren’t good people, great people even, amongst all that, but it’s a lot. They have different expectations for you. Add in the fact you’re barely an adult and you have more money than you know what to do with. And some”—his voice dropped, and Eloise’s heart followed it—“use you. Because to them, you’re nothing more than an opportunity. It makes it hard to trust people. To trust yourself, even.”
