Page 39 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Come on, I’m serious. This isyouryear, Hannah, didn’t we decide that? To do stuff, and be adventurous, and think about some life goals. So you’ve had a small setback; are you going to give up?’
She gave a huff. ‘You sound like a life coach.’
‘Maybe you need a life coach.’
‘I don’t. I can’t afford one. And no, I’m not going to give up.’ Living her life in a more socially well-adjusted way wasn’t just a gimmick she was trying on for a year; sheneededto get her head straight if she was serious about becoming a mother.
‘Let’s set some ground rules, then. One, we use our nice words instead of our fists.’
She chuckled through her sniffles. ‘Agreed.’
‘Two. We have a support team around us when we’re going to try something new.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like me, doofus. And Graeme. Your brother, the Joneses, your mum and dad if they ever finish their trip around Australia … Tom.’
Hannah narrowed her eyes. ‘Why would you include Tom? The guy’s barely been here our whole adult lives.’
‘Because I can recognise URST when it’s six-foot-two and struts down Dandaloo Street with its eyes firmly fixed on you, Hanrahan.’
‘URST?Do you mean—’
‘Yes, I do. Unresolved sexual tension: the stuff of dreams and long-running TV series that keeps desperately horny single women like me glued to the screen.’
‘That is a hundred per cent bonkers, Kylie.’ Which she knew for a fact. Hadn’t he told her that, in explicit words, when she’d asked if they could put The Incident behind them?Already done.
‘I know what I know.’
‘He’s not interested.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he told me.’
‘Wait just a freaking minute. Is there something you haven’t told me? How did this topic of conversation even come up? Has something happened between you two? Don’t tell me—’ Kylie lowered her voice and leant in, grabbing Hannah’s face between her hands and giving her the hairy eyeball ‘—are you having romantic feelings? You can tell me anything.’
Oh, boy, this was starting to unravel. Besides, the uncomfortable feeling she got every time Tom was in range was annoyance or irk (if that was a word) for him spinning her complacent little life out of its orbit, notromance.Sheesh.
Kylie’s curiosity needed to get squashed.
‘I don’t have a romantic bone in my body, as you well know. I can’t remember how it came up—’ her BFF was right, she was a lousy liar ‘—maybe he was being a dick or something, dunno. And sure, I knew Tom pretty well when I was little, but that’s because he and Josh were like two sides of the same coin back then. But now? I barely know him.’
Her phone rang, her ringtone loud and annoying because she’d forgotten to drop the volume from when she was last on call, and her and Kylie’s eyes dropped to the screen just in time to see the wordsTom is callingscroll back and forth across the screen.
Shoot. She’d have liked to ignore it, because Kylie was sitting there spooning what was left of her risotto into her very smug-looking face, but she couldn’t just let it ring out and—
‘Hello, Tom,’ she said briskly.
‘Who I barely know,’ mimicked Kylie.
She raised her middle finger for her friend to inspect. ‘What’s up?’
‘I have a proposal to put to you, and I wondered if you were free to come up to Ironbark and talk it over.’
‘Well, I’m working all week, and then—’
‘I was thinking this evening.’
