Page 30 of After the Siren
Once they parted ways, Theo took a steadying breath. He could do this. He wasn’t going to be the reason Jake didn’t get to spend the two days before Christmas with his sick mum.
Jake wasn’t sure what Bestavros had said to Davo to get them out of the remaining extras – he obviously hadn’t said anything about Jake’s mum, because Davo would have bailed him up about that – but whatever he’d said had worked. Yelks had called him to deliver the good news around lunchtime, and Jake had been in his car and headed for Phillip Island an hour later.
Breakfast at Jane Orangutan had been nice. A bit weird, but nice. Stavs reminded Jake a bit of Xen back when they’d first become friends: kind of reserved with new people, funny as hell when he opened up. He had a great smile when he smiled properly, and an even better laugh. Jake had spent quite a lot of breakfast trying to get a smile.
He pulled in at his mum’s place a bit past 3 pm. The house had looked the same for as long as he could remember: the eucalyptus in the front yard that he’d fallen out of when he was six (broken collarbone), his mum’s beat-up Subaru in the driveway because she never put it in the garage, the pots on the verandah that Lydia filled with herbs and flowers, the deckchairs you couldn’t sit in until you’d turned them upside down to check for spiders.
The front door opened as he got out of the car and Keeley hurtled down the front steps, Plugger hot on her heels and barking ecstatically. Keeley’s parents liked to take a cruise at Christmas, so she’d gotten into the habit of spending Christmas with Jake. She flung herself at Jake and he caught her, spinning her around. She wrapped her legs around his waist and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder while Plugger leaped all over them both. Jake’s thighs were going to be scratched to hell.
‘I missed you, dickhead,’ Keeley said into his t-shirt.
‘Missed you too, shortass,’ he said, trying not to get a mouthful of her hair.
She kicked one foot into his back, and he pretended he was going to drop her. They were both gasping with laughter by the time he got up the steps. She hopped down once they made it to the door so he could wrap Lydia in a tight hug.
She always smelled of paint and jasmine. She’d never tried to be a parent – had installed herself gradually into cool aunt territory – but she gave the best hugs and made the best cocktails.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said.
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Out on a walk. She thought she’d beat you back.’ They exchanged looks. An apocalypse could be heading for Rhyll and his mum would still get her afternoon walk in.
Jake grabbed his stuff from the car and lugged it through the house and out to his den – also unchanged from when he’d left home at eighteen. Keeley followed him in and handed him a beer.
‘Thanks, love,’ he said, and dodged her elbow. She flopped onto his bed and he gave her a short version of the last couple of days. They texted almost constantly, so she’d been across the Bestavros situation. In that she’d mainly sent him the eyeroll and/ or eggplant emojis.
They were drawn back into the kitchen by the smell of melted cheese. Lydia plonked two trays of nachos onto the kitchen counter (one of them vegan, for her and Keeley). ‘Save some for Debbie,’ she ordered.
‘You snooze, you lose,’ Jake said, trying to avoid burning his fingers on the melted cheese. He’d just put a salsa-laden chip into his mouth when the front door opened and there were footsteps in the hall.
‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ Lydia called as Jake’s mum walked into the kitchen. She was in a Falcons t-shirt, her favourite footy shorts and some sneakers Lydia had been trying to throw out for years.
‘Welcome home,’ she said, and if Jake couldn’t talk past the lump in his throat while he hugged her, nobody was judging.
Chapter Seven
Did you textHappy Christmasto someone who was spending it with a parent who might be dying? Theo typed it out, deleted it, typed it out again, and deleted it again.
He was probably overthinking it.
It was 25 December and he’d retreated to his bedroom because their parents were arriving to spend ten days in Melbourne and Eva was treating it like a royal visit. As though Eva had anything to worry about. Eva was a model child. Basically, all three of his siblings were model children. But every time he went near her, she either snapped at him to get out of the way or made him clean something. Retreat had seemed sensible.
His family would never spend actual Christmas in Melbourne – Coptic Christmas was in January, and they’d have to be in Sydney for the festivities – but Eva and Theo had both said they couldn’t make it back this year, so their parents had decided to make a trip to see them. Or to see Eva and to quietly disapprove of all of Theo’s choices. At least if he’d gone back to Sydney there would have been enough chaos to diffuse some of the disapproval. Maybe one of his cousins would have committed a worse sin than becoming a professional footballer.
His phone buzzed in his hand. Jake had texted himhappy xmasand a selfie: a golden retriever wearing a lot of tinsel wasin the process of trying to lick his face. Jake looked so happy that something in Theo’s stomach flipped over, and he found himself smiling back at the phone.
He’d known going to Davo had been the right thing to do, but that hadn’t made iteasy. The coach had studied him intently as Theo had asked for Jake to be excused from the additional days of extras – Theo said he’d do them, do double, that the altercation had been his fault. He’d thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest; his sweaty hands shoved into his pockets.
‘Alright,’ Davo had said, after what had felt like an eternity, though must have only been a few seconds.
‘Thanks.’ Theo had wondered if he should say anything more, if he should try to explain further. But any explanation would just sound like an excuse.
He’d been about to walk away when Davo had said, ‘You’re doing well, Bestavros. Keep it up. We’ll treat this one as an outlier.’ Then, more sternly, ‘It had better be an outlier.’
Theo had nodded and fled.
Happy Christmas, Theo sent back, along with a picture of their tree. Theo’s contribution had been to put up the lights under strict supervision. It had taken three attempts before Eva was satisfied. It was the sort of tree that looked like something out of a David Jones catalogue: all matching ivory ornaments, except for a couple of tastefully placed antique ones.
