Page 50 of Down the Track

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‘Doesn’t Maggie get cross if you bring food here from a different place?’ Jo asked.

‘Me and Maggie are pretty tight.’

‘Hmm. Very smugly said.’

He grinned. ‘Did that sound smug? Sorry, I didn’t mean it to. I lived in the pub for about six months a long time ago, before I bought my house.’ He gestured in the direction from which he’d walked. ‘It’s getting some maintenance done at the moment. Anyway, when I lived here, I worked for Maggie part time because I was broke, waiting tables, serving drinks, cleaning loos. Whatever she asked, I did, because she cut me a cheap deal on the room. Anyway, long story short, now it’s like I’m the son she never had.’

Jo was silent for a time. ‘You’re lucky that way,’ she said at last.

‘In what way?’

‘People like you. And it doesn’t seem to take you much of an effort to get them to like you.’

He lifted a shoulder. He was ready to make the sort of silly quip about being handsome and charming that he’d make in the Huxtable family kitchen—the sort of comment that would have the Numbers rolling about the floor shrieking with laughter—but he stopped himself just in time. There was something running under the surface of her words. Something bone deep.

‘You think people don’t like you?’ he said, trying not to put any disbelief or mockery, or a desire to point score, into his voice. How was it possible she could think that? He had adored Jo. He’d have given up his home, his writing, hiseverythingif she’d have just said the words all those years ago:I’ve got a job overseas on a dinosaur dig that’s really important and I have to go. But I can’t bear to leave you so maybe you can come with me?

‘My son doesn’t even answer my calls, can you believe that, Hux?’ She flashed a look at him. ‘You probably can believe it. I’m sorry about this morning, too. That cheap shot I threw at you.’

He handed her another piece of pizza and threw another portion of crust down to Possum. ‘How old’s your son?’

‘Ten.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Luke.’

‘Does he look like you?’

She shrugged, and there it was, a bit of a smile. ‘Carbon copy. Other than the boy bits, of course.’

‘What’s his favourite sport?’

‘Water polo.’

‘Favourite hobby?’

‘Reading. He’s really into reading. He’s very advanced for his age.’

Hux snorted. ‘Said every parent ever. Tell me, can he spell?’

‘Of course he can spell.’

‘So not a total carbon copy of his mother then.’

She chuckled. It was faint, but it was there. He wasn’t the only one who remembered their shared past, after all.

‘Is he left-handed or right-handed?’

‘Right.’

This was like writing up a character map for one of his books, but it was working, he was getting a picture in his head, and Jo was definitely cheering up.

‘Who does he live with? You or his dad? Or both?’

Crap. Wrong question, clearly. ‘His dad. I get him on holidays … if Luke agrees to it.’

‘That’s tough.’