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He frowned down at the letter, brooding for a moment. He was out of his league dealing with bureaucracy and Land Management Acts and bullshit … but he knew someone who delighted in grinding up bureaucratic nonsense and sprinkling it on his cereal for breakfast: his old boss, Frank Gullo, loved and feared by building apprentices all over the southern outskirts of Sydney.

He looked at his watch. Perfect time to call: jobs done for the day, Frank was probably sitting in his ute on his long commute home … just one of the things about Josh’s past life in Sydney which he in no way missed.

‘Mr Millimetre,’ he said, when the builder’s gravelled voice said hello. ‘How’s the hard worker?’

‘Josh, mate,’ said Frank, drawling out the word mate so long he must have covered a good hundred metres of freeway. ‘How the bloody hell are you?’

‘Good, mate, you?’

‘Busy. You ever get sick of shoving your hand up cow butts, you’ve got a job waiting for you here.’

‘Thanks, Frank. Me and the cows appreciate that. Listen, I need a favour.’

‘Here it comes,’ his former boss said. ‘Do I need a beer in my hand before you hit me up?’

He grinned. ‘No, Frank, I don’t need a loan or a truckload of steel girders on the cheap. I need advice about a planning application.’

‘Yeah? You come to your senses and strapped on your old toolbelt, Josh?’

‘Sort of. My sister and I inherited a Federation three-storey building up here in Hanrahan. It had a bodgy storefront tacked onto the ground floor that I’m wanting to rip out so I can restore it to its former glory.’

‘Brick?’

‘Stone. The original quarry where the stones came from a century and a half ago isn’t far from here. I’m hoping I can match them.’

‘Sounds like quite a project.’

‘Yeah. Could be. Thing is, council just knocked me back.’

‘Typical. What’s the reason?’

‘A submission from someone who claimed the restoration wasn’t in keeping with the street.’

‘Sounds like a typical first salvo across the bows, Josh. Who was the objector?’

‘It doesn’t say.’

‘Go into council. That’s a matter of public record; they have to show you the objections submitted.’

Huh. Well, that would be interesting.

‘Step one, mate,’ said Frank, ‘is make sure you object to their refusal by the due date. Step two, you send your original application to me and I’ll put some flesh on its bones. These desk jockeys in council like their steak cut up and their spuds mashed for them … I’ll give it a rewrite for you, use the lingo they’re used to.’

‘Frank, you’re the man.’

‘Yes I am. You take care, okay?’

‘You too.’

Crap. What next, he wondered, would arrive to piss him off some more? Thank heavens for old mates with expertise.

He peeled off his lab coat, gave his hands a sniff, and grimaced. Still bad. No-one needed to smell where his hands had been today. He stood at the sink letting hot water and antiseptic run over them while his thoughts settled.

He wanted a beer, and food that had more love and care poured into it than a sixty-second whirl in a microwave. And—he could admit it—he had a weak-but-to-hell-with-it yearning to rest his eyes on Vera. What better time than now to start convincing her that he was the one? Besides, he hadn’t seen her since her aunt’s fall. It was his neighbourly duty to go and ask after her aunt, wasn’t it?

Lucky for him, the woman he had the hots for worked in a café that offered dinner, so he could do all those three things at once. It was just a matter of maths, and he loved maths.

‘Or it’s a matter of desperation,’ he muttered to himself in the mirror as he washed up.