Blue Saturn (19 page)

19.

When Mike said he lived in a house in Melbourne, I never thought he meant an actual house. Even though he’d told me he had a pool and a yard, I just automatically assumed it was an apartment type dwelling.

I am standing in a driveway looking up at the most beautiful home I have ever seen. And it’s huge. I cannot even begin to count how many windows I can see.

The house is almost two houses in one; there is a really modern style to it which makes me think it has been renovated, but at the same time there is still enough of the original house to give it a retro look.

It is absolutely beautiful.

“It is good to be home,” Gavin says as he grabs his suitcase and heads to the right of the main entrance.

Mike stands beside me. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting something quite this big.”

“Come on in, I’ll give you and Mikey the grand tour.”

We go through the main doors to a large entry. The floors are all wooden and the walls are a warm colour just off white. Where there should be photos and paintings, there is nothing. The walls are bare.

Mike walks through to a large living area. “This is a living room. I don’t usually use this room, but...” he lifts one shoulder as though he’s suddenly embarrassed that he has rooms in his house he never uses. “Through here is a kitchen and a bathroom...” he stops and turns around. “You know what? I never come in here. Let’s go this way.” He walks past Mikey and I, back out to the entry and starts toward the far end of the house.

We follow a short hallway before Mike opens another set of doors.
“This is where I live.” The doors open up to a room which is almost as big as my entire house. There’s a kitchen along the side wall with a full length breakfast bar. There’s a lounge suite, no make that three modular lounge suites, a dining table that at a quick glance seats twenty and the entire back wall of the room are folding French doors. Through the doors, I can see the pool, but not just one pool. There are two; a lap pool and a large rectangular pool with an attached spa. The outdoor area is paved with a large portion of it under cover. And there is another kitchen/BBQ area which of course is fully furnished with couches and lounges and another oversized dining table.

And for the very first time since I’ve met Mike I wonder about how much money he really earns.

“So this is the living area,” Mike says. “Help yourself to anything at all in the cupboards. My housekeeper went shopping for us yesterday so the cupboards are stocked.” He opens a door which leads to a walk in pantry, and then goes to the fridge. “Yep, full.” He motions for me to follow him. “Through here is the laundry. I don’t expect you to use it, I have a housekeeper that comes in twice a week to do my laundry, but just in case you need anything. There’s a whole heap of cleaning stuff. But like I said, I don’t expect you to do any cleaning.”

I look in at the laundry which is bigger than my kitchen at home. There are two washing machines and two driers and a whole wall of cupboards.

“Then, back through this way,” I follow Mike again back out to the small hallway, “this is like a games room.” There’s a billiards table and a table tennis table. There are some retro pin ball machines along one wall and in the corner a bar, which shelves are completely empty. Mike sees me looking at the bar and slides his arm around my waist. “Cleaners cleaned it out for me. I didn’t want anything here when I got back.” He kisses my cheek. “Come this way, I’ll show you the room I was talking about fixing up for Mikey.”

We follow him down the hallway to the next door. When he opens it, I see what he means about it housing a whole lot of junk. There are guitars and drum kits and couches and boxes of other unpacked items. And like all the other rooms thus far, it is massive.

“What do you think?” Mike asks me.

“I think it would be a great play space for Mikey.” It’s bright and has plenty of windows.

“I’ll need to clear it out. I think I’ll donate it all to the relief fund.” He nods his head and leaves the room.

We follow him upstairs. “All the bedrooms are upstairs.”

“How many bedrooms are there?” I ask.

“Well...” he scratches his head. “There are eleven all together and each one with its own bathroom. But on my end, there are five, and then there are three in the centre...the area we leave for guests, like if family stay or something, and then Gavin has three at his end.”

“Which bedroom is mine?” Mikey asks.

“You can have this bedroom,” Mike says and opens a door.

Mikey steps into the room and instantly smiles. “I get to have a big bed, every day?”

“Yep, that big bed is all yours.” Mike walks into the room and checks that the doors to the balcony are locked. “And you get your very own bathroom with a big bath.” He watches Mikey climb up onto the king sized bed. “You can choose what colour you want to paint your room and if you want to put up pictures or...”

“Green! Green!,” Mikey calls out. “I want everything to be green!”

Mike laughs. “Green it is then.”

He takes me to the room at the very end of the upstairs landing. “This is my room,” he says as he opens the door to the most amazing bedroom I’ve ever seen.

“Wow,” I breathe.

The room is enormous, as expected. Directly in front of me is Mike’s king sized bed, and one entire wall is made up of glass doors. There’s a lounge suite in his bedroom, which makes me laugh and a huge TV mounted on the wall so that you can watch it from either the bed or the lounge.

“Bathroom and robe are through those doors,” Mike says as he points to the far side of the room. He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my middle, resting his chin on my shoulder. “I want this to be your room too.”

I instantly tense up. He senses it and lets go of me. “I don’t know Mike. It’s a bit too soon for me.”

He walks around in front of me and takes one of my hands. “It’s only that I’m going to be so busy. The only time I’m going to see you is at night, before I go to sleep. I just want you next to me. Nothing else. I just want you sleeping next to me.”

I should be able to do that, shouldn’t I? Sleep next to the man I love? My heart is saying ‘yes’, but I have to listen to my head on this one. Because I know that if I sleep every night next to Mike, our entire ‘take things slowly’ stance will go out the window.

“I need a bit more time,” I answer honestly.

“Okay.” He leans in and kisses my forehead. “Then your room is this way.”

My bedroom is exactly the same as Mike’s only it’s a mirror image. While his bedroom faces the back of the house, mine faces the front.

“You can decorate it however you like. Just let me know what you want and I’ll have it done,” Mike says.

“Thank you.” I walk through to the bathroom. The floors are white marble, as are the walls, the hand basins and the shower recess. The white marble bath is big enough to easily fit two people.

Mike stands behind me as I stare at the opulence of the bathroom. “I want you to feel at home here, Lyndsay. I know it’s not what you’re used to, but I hope you can make a home here for yourself.”

I turn around and throw my arms around his neck, pushing my body up against his. And I feel him again, only a lot stronger this time. That tingly feeling is a surging wave through my body. “My home will always be where you are.” I kiss his neck and inhale his scent. “I’m going to be very happy here.”

Mike showed us through the entire house this morning. The middle section of the house is just as beautiful and grand as his end, and Gavin’s end is completely different. It’s very homey, which surprised me. He’s decorated in warm colours, browns and oranges and reds. The floors are wooden, like the rest of the house, but he has paintings and photos of his family on the walls. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting to find.

Downstairs, in the basement, there is a ten car garage and a fully equipped gym. I plan to use that gym often if I can’t get out for a run. Apparently Gavin uses it a lot too, so it might be fun to exercise with him.

Next to the gym is Mike’s “creation” room. That’s what Gavin calls it because when Mike goes in there, he creates the most amazing music. Then Gavin puts the words to the music and abracadabra, they have a hit song. Mike writes lyrics too, but Gavin is the real master with words.

The “creation” room is a lot smaller than other rooms in the house. It has guitars and a piano in it (I didn’t know, but Mike also plays piano.) There is a drum kit for Steve to run through his paces and on a long table there is a sound mixer thingy with a whole lot of buttons and dials on it.

There is a small bed along another wall and a fridge in the corner.

“When Mike is making his music, no one is allowed to interrupt him. He goes into another world. For weeks at a time,” Gavin says when he sees me staring at the bed.

“He doesn’t come out.”

Gavin shakes his head. “Once he’s in his zone...”

I’m hoping that maybe, this time, things might be a bit different.

*****

It is going to take me decades to learn my way around this house. I’m fine going from my bedroom to the living area downstairs, which I’ve done all afternoon while unpacking, but Mikey tends to wonder off throughout the entire house and it takes me ages to find him.

Mike says not to worry about it. “This is his home, he can go wherever he likes.”

But I guess I’m worried he’s going to break something.

I look into my wardrobe with my few items of clothing in it. It takes up less than a quarter of the space, I’ve only used three of the drawers and all those little square cubbies which are supposed to house shoes, well they are going to remain starkly naked for some time. I only own two pairs of shoes.

I make my way down to the living area. As I approach the door, I hear Mike talking on his phone.

“Christmas day,” he says.

I walk in and make sure he sees me so he doesn’t think I’m trying to eavesdrop on his conversation. He beckons for me to sit next to him on the large lounge.

“Maybe you’re right...hang on, let me ask Lynd’s...yeah, but she’s my girlfriend too...” I listen to one side of the conversation. “No you can meet her too...” Then he laughs. “Things certainly have changed. Hang on a sec.” He puts his phone down on his leg and looks at me. “Do you reckon it might be a bit too much for Mikey to meet all my family at once on Christmas day? Should I take him to meet everyone one on one?”

“How much family are we talking about here?”

“My dad, sister and her husband and two kids, and my younger brother and his fiancé.”

Seven people. And Christmas is three weeks away. I think Mikey will be settled in enough by then to cope with that. “I think he’ll cope with that fine.”

“That’s what I reckon. But I think my sister wants to meet him before everyone else.”

I laugh. “I can understand that. Maybe have her up for lunch one day,” I suggest.

Mike kisses me before picking up his phone again. “Okay, so Christmas lunch at my house. And if you really want to, you can come over before then to meet Mikey...No not today.” Mike sighs. “Call me next week.” Then he stops. “Can you call Lyndsay next week? I’m going to be writing next week...I’ll text you her number...You’ll love her.” Mike laughs at his sisters’ response and smiles at me. “She’s nothing like anyone else I’ve ever known.” He kisses me again. “Yes I did just kiss her.” And he kisses me again. He laughs and says goodbye to his sister before ending the call.

“What was all that about?” I ask, feeling my cheeks go red.

“That was my sister. I haven’t seen her in a while. She found out about Mikey while we were in Sydney and I ignored her calls because I knew she’d have a million questions. I called her when we were in Townsville, things didn’t go too well.” He takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I called her last night to tell her I want everyone to meet Mikey and that we’re having Christmas at my place this year.” He pulls me onto his lap, cradling me in his arms. “This will be the first time I’ve seen my dad and brother in four years.” I look at his expression. It’s clearly showing his regret. “After Angela left, I spiralled downhill pretty quickly. Dad refused to have anything to do with me. Carey sided with dad, like he always does. Cherry kept in contact with me. She called me all the time, but as she got busy with her kids the phone calls became less and less. I went in to visit her in hospital after she had Chloe. I was high and had one of my disease ridden whores with me. I made a bit of a scene. I haven’t seen Cherry since then. We’ve only spoken on the phone.”

I look down at the narrow space between our bodies. “Would it be easier for you if I wasn’t here while you reconcile with your family?”

“No. It would be harder.” I look up at him and he’s smiling at me. “I’m so much stronger when you’re with me.” He leans in and kisses me. The kiss is soft as usual but then something is changing in me. I tilt my head to the side and open my mouth and the instant I do, the kiss changes. This kiss is now full of desire and passion and I find myself quickly reacting to it. I press one hand against his chest, over his heart and grab a fist full of his shirt. I have missed this carnal reaction.