Unsuitable (10 page)

“I
bet the girls miss you.”

That
made him smile. “They’re still fighting over who gets my room. Charlie has
threatened to get a boarder.” He glanced at the clock on Audrey’s mantel. He
was late. That wasn’t going to play well. “I should go.”

“Right.
So same program next week, with the addition of the extra hour on Wednesday
night. In two weeks time, on the sixth, I have an overnight. Will you be okay
for that?”

He
grinned at Audrey. An overnight, that was good. “I’ll put it in my calendar.” He
bent to look at Mia, she was stacking coloured blocks. “See you Monday, Mia.” She
stayed focused on the block stack, bound to topple any minute. She was tired
enough to be deliriously unhappy about that.

Audrey
walked him to the front door. “Thank you for this week.”

“No
problem.” They heard the blocks scatter then Mia throwing or kicking them.

“And
especially for my dinner.”

His
face got hot. He hoped it didn’t look red. He gave Audrey a smile and Mia
appeared. “Don’t go. Stay wif us.” Her bottom lip was tucked under her top
teeth and her chin was crinkled. It might’ve been about the blocks, or bedtime.
It might’ve have been about him leaving. Cameron had let him take the bulk of
the contact with Mia during her handover so they were already mates.

He
went to his knees in front of her. Audrey’s bare feet, her neat legs in his
view. He had a sharp vision of running his hand over her instep and cupping her
calf and had no idea where that came from; all that talk about Carrie and being
propositioned, or his nagging fear he’d done the wrong thing moving in with
Sky. Whatever it was, it was a good thing it was in his head and not his hands.

“On
Monday we’ll have so much fun. We can build more blocks. But you’ll have fun
with Mum too. I’ll see you soon, okay.”

Mia
sniffed. “Okay.” She buried her face in Audrey’s hip and Audrey touched his
shoulder so lightly, it might’ve been accidental, except it was like Princess
Olivia’s clothing—magnetising. He had to stop himself leaning towards her.

“I’m
so glad Mia and I found you.”

Sky
wasn’t.

He
was an hour later than usual. It made for a terse meal. Sky liked people to be
prompt and reliable and she had very little tolerance for spontaneity. And that
was something he’d only learned in the last month. He was a fool to think he
didn’t need to work at this relationship, to think it would be easy, and he’d
been coasting on the high of this new phase of his life; the job, getting out
of home. He needed to pay more attention to Sky, to where they were going as a
couple. Well, that’s what she said, anyway.

He
ate ribs seasoned with unreasonable resentment and resolved to do something to
make things better before he got Sky’s turned back in bed, and his phone rang.

Sky
said nothing as he dug it out of his pocket, but she didn’t have to, her
discontent was evident in the set of her jaw, the way she swung a hunk of hair
over her shoulder like it was a weapon. He didn’t look at the screen, just sent
the call to message bank. He didn’t get it in his pocket before it rang again. Sky
breathed heavily and he glanced at the screen. Etta. He sent it to message
bank.

“Don’t
hang up on your boss for me. If she needs advice on putting her kid to bed
you’d better snap to it.”

He
took the last piece of bread in the basket without offering it to her. “Was
Etta.”

Sky
got like this sometimes, begging for a fight. He wasn’t going there. She didn’t
mean to disparage Audrey or knock him in the process. His phone peeped, the
text sound. Etta again.
Pick up. We’re in trouble. Need you
.

That
was harder to ignore. He texted.
Don’t F around. I’m busy
. That should
stop any nonsense. He put the phone back in his pocket. It rang.

“Oh
God, Reece, answer it.”

It
was Polly. “Mate, you gotta talk to Etta.” He mouthed Polly to Sky, but needn’t
have bothered, she was doing something with her own phone.

“She
rang you?”

“She
fucked up, her and the twins.”

“Anyone
hurt? Where’s Flip?”

“Flip’s
at a sleepover. The girls aren’t hurt.”

“What
did they do?”

“Got
themselves kind of arrested.”

“What?”
he said too loudly.

Sky
looked up with curious eyes.

“Skateboarding
in the Food Plus car park.”

“What?”

“Security
guard picked them up, fined them. Dude is holding them for a parent to collect.
Etta wants you, not Charlie.”

“Fuck.”
Charlie was out on a girl’s night. Something she rarely got the chance to do. At
least Etta didn’t wreck that.

“I’d
help out, but—”

“I’m
on it. Thanks, Pol.”

He
disconnected. Sky was standing, wallet in hand. “I’ve got this. Go. Do what you
have to do.” She smiled. “It’s all right. I’ll see you at home.”

“You
hate me.” She was remarkably calm given the night was ruined and she’d need to
get a cab home.

She
shrugged. “You’ll make it up to me. Bring ice cream.”

He
left her settling the bill and drove to the Food Plus, dialling Etta’s phone.

“Reece,
Jesus, were you just going to leave us to rot?”

Etta
sounded freaked out. “Thought about it. What’s going on?”

“This
fascist mall cop is holding us because we can’t pay the fine.”

“Where
are you? Is the fascist mall cop listening?”

“We’re
in his office, and yes.”

“What
did you do?”

“You’re
not supposed to skateboard here, but we came late when it’s quiet so it
wouldn’t be a problem, but he wants $600 before he’ll let us go.”

“Holy
fuck, Etta. $600. You’re supposed to be home, the three of you. Charlie’s going
to go ape and tie you to your beds for the rest of eternity.”

“Which
is why you can’t tell her.”

He
could hear the twins arguing in the background. “Which is why you’ll be paying
me back with interest.”

“Yeah,
yeah, we’re bored, how long will you be?”

He
disconnected. Let them sweat for another fifteen minutes. He was already in the
largely empty car park and he could see the security office. On the wall was a
large sign that read: No skateboards. No bicycles. No scooters. Riders will be
fined $200. He dialled Sky.

“Sorry,
babe. Are you home?” He heard the sound of the security door of Sky’s block of
units closing.

“Yeah.
What happened?” There was no trace of animosity in her voice.

“Etta
and the twins didn’t run fast enough. They got caught skateboarding in the Food
Plus car park.”

“That’s
badass.”

“They
need $600 for bail.”

Sky
laughed. “Is that even legal?”

“I’m
thinking of telling the mall cop he can keep them.” She laughed again and he
heard her keys jingle, she was almost inside the apartment. “If he doesn’t take
credit card, he’ll have to keep them.” He heard the door close. She was safe
inside now.

“I’m
sorry about before, babe. I bugged you about moving in with me and now I feel
like my space has been invaded. It’s made me crabby with you. I don’t want to
be that way. Do what you need to do and come home. I’ll make it up to you.”

He
smiled out at a cement pillar that said B2, reversed out of bright green. Understanding
tasted good. “What flavour?”

“You.”

Sex
with Sky tasted a whole lot better.

10:     Sudden
Comfort

Audrey
took her shoes off outside the front door. Creeping into her own house was
appropriate when it was this late. 12.30am, a lot later than the 8pm she told
Reece to expect her, but the meeting had gone on and on, and the only woman on
the team, she didn’t want to be the first one to leave, because that’s what
they all expected.

She’d
offered to call Merrill to relieve Reece, but he’d said it was no trouble to
stay. He’d done bath time with Mia on a couple of occasions now as well as
putting her to bed, and the one overnight so far, so he knew the routine, and
every time she’d texted to check in, he sent a smiley face back. The last check
in was an hour ago.

She
could hear the TV down low. She dumped her bag and shoes and tiptoed down the
hall to check on Mia. She was curled up with Growly Ted and Paul the giraffe, cosy
and safe, if a little crowded. She stood there a minute and tried to fight off
the return of the bad mother feeling. The giraffe’s name wasn’t Paul, it was
Harold or Harriet or Herbert, some uncommon H name, she wondered how Mia had
learned, and a paid employee had spent all day, all week with Mia, and put her
to bed tonight.

There
was a part of her that hoped Mia played up for Reece, cried and carried on and
got out of bed a dozen times for obscure inventive reasons: her toes hurt, her
throat was thirsty, her bed was too cold or too hot, or too lumpy, just so he
didn’t think it was too easy to be her surrogate parent.

He’d
told her the story of how he’d had to bail out three of his sisters. They’d sat
in the kitchen while Mia played with Lego, and laughed about Etta’s indignation
at being caught, Neeva’s excitement and Gin’s fear, about how Reece had one
over them, keeping the adventure secret from Charlie, and had them doing all
sorts of chores in the house and garden without complaint. He admitted to being
a big sook and missing them. And she liked him even more for that.

He’d
filled Cameron’s shoes in an unexpected way. His care of Mia was exemplary. But
in so many unobtrusive ways he found time to extend that care to her as well. She
regularly came home to a pre-prepared dinner. On Friday nights there was a
chilled bottle of wine in the fridge. They talked through the week, how it was
for Mia first and foremost, then how Audrey’d faired at work.

Reece
didn’t talk much about himself, but he revealed things just the same. Living
with Sky wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. He didn’t say it, but he
wasn’t rushing off at night to be with her either. If anything he dawdled
about, always one last thing he wanted to do, to set up for the next day. She
should’ve pushed him out the door except she enjoyed his company.

He’d
found time to work in her garden, cleaning it up and re-organising the shed so
she could find things there again. He fixed a wonky hinge on a cupboard in the
bathroom, and he glued new rubber soles on her favourite boots. He brushed
aside thanks that made him blush. And that blush did something to her. Erased
her regard and redrew it with big chunky strokes as admiration that bled
outside the lines.

Reece
would know she was home, but he must be engrossed in what sounded like an old
ep of Buffy. She pulled Mia’s door to a near close and went up the hallway. He
had a side lamp on, so the room glowed warm. She saw him bare feet first. He
was stretched the length of her couch, his calves and snowshoe feet hanging out
in space, his arms folded around a pillow behind his head, his t-shirt rucked
up so she could see a line of skin between it and the waist of his jeans. He
was breathing deeply, eyes closed, his hair all mussed, as gone to this world
as Mia was.

He
looked like the giant in Mia’s
Jack and the Giant
book, captured and
held down for her examination. His feet were twice the size, and some, of hers.
She could lie full length on this couch with Mia in her arms and none of their
body parts hung off the edge. His shoulders were almost wider than the couch
cushions. It was a novelty to see him so relaxed. He was always moving. Picking
up after Mia, playing with her, sorting things out around the house. And then
there was the dancing.

She’d
stopped the others from watching Wiggle Time. But not teasing her about it. She’d
tried to stop watching it herself, especially as her confidence in Reece had
grown and her trust in him blossomed, but it was such an avalanche of cute she
was helpless to resist it. Mia was so giggly happy and Reece was so abandoned,
so free in that five or ten minutes where they danced to The Wiggles together,
that if she was in her office she couldn’t help but check the nanny cam program
and watch without the sound. She still felt like she was betraying him, spying
like that, but the joy she got from watching far outweighed her remorse.

Now
she could watch him that way again. She could study his extraordinary body up
close for as long as she wanted. Without guilt, without getting caught out,
with something harder; more rigid and pressing than joy. She’d been falling
apart from lack of food and sleep when she came in the door, but now she felt
refreshed. The day was finally over. Her baby girl was asleep and her shockingly
handsome babysitter was laid out for her delectation.

She
went to her knees on the rug in front of him. Behind her the Buffy crew were in
the library doing research from sacred spell books. Her research was more
visceral. She started at his toes. Squared off, the nails short and neat, the
instep a gentle slope on both the top and underside of his foot. A smattering
of dark hair on his instep, a rind of tougher skin on his heels. His shinbones
were long and thick, like steel rods connecting a solid swivel of ankle to a hinge
of rounded knee and a thigh muscle like, like...

God
,
the flare on his thighs, wider than his hips. She wanted to touch his quads,
dig her fingers in and feel the heat and strength of him. She licked her lips. If
he woke up now he’d find her ogling his groin. Trying to imagine what he was
like under the denim. Not insignificant. She could see that. The outline of
him, the potential. It made a shiver kick at the base of her spine and ripple
out over her hips, flaring into her belly. He would be proportional. And
assuming he knew how to use that equipment, he’d be potent. And she’d watched
him dance, he knew how to move, he found rhythm in a kid’s song; what would he be
like in the bedroom, in an adult dance?

It
made the breath come out of her in one long mournful stream and she groaned
aloud. She had to stop this, he might wake. Hopefully not until she’d finished her
study, but before she spontaneously melted down, because good Lord, the man was
made of places her fingers would fit, her hands could slide across, her knees
slot against, her body absorb. He would bear her weight as if it was nothing. He
could take her standing without tiring.

Heavens
.
She needed to stop this. She needed not to be having thoughts about wrapping
her legs around Reece’s hips, over the tight curve of the butt she watched
shake it on the nanny cam, and made herself not watch in the kitchen at night. She
needed to stop thinking about what he’d look like naked and imagining how he
might feel. It was enough to see the way his chest swelled with each breath,
enough to marvel at the tight knot of muscle that was his bunched biceps. And
that t-shirt, shortened at the waist, loose enough at the neck she could see
one collarbone, a line of his clavicle. That soft cotton curved across the triangular
flair of his lats and caressed the rise of his thick rib cage.

It
wasn’t fair it got to be so close to him and she had to stay on her knees. It
showed her only a narrow strip of skin at his hips, but enough to see a line of
hair, marking his flat belly and the ridge of his hipbone. If he took a deeper
breath, if that shirt lifted, she’d see the hard outline of his Adonis belt. As
it was, his jeans were suspended slightly between his hipbones, and a ridge of
black cotton showed her the edge of his underwear. The rest was a dark cavern
between blue denim and black cotton. It was an invitation shaped like her hand,
a place she dare not go and keep her sanity.

If
she thought she was betraying him by watching him dance, by being hyper aware
of his body, she was virtually sexually assaulting him now. Every one of her
senses was on heat. Every breath she took was short and straining. Her hands
were fists. Her centre was liquid, her core was an unsettled squirm of spinning
want.

It’d
been a long time since she’d been with a man. Before Barrett said yes, before
Mia was conceived in a test tube. Once she turned thirty and made the decision
to have a child alone, there’d been no place in her life for casual sex and no
candidates for anything long-term. Since Mia, there’d been no time, no
opportunity and no desire. She’d been happily sexless, because she had
everything else she wanted.

On
her knees at Reece’s side, she wanted.

Freshly,
savagely, inappropriately. Without hope of it being reciprocal. Without shame. And
until he opened his eyes and came back to life, she could have these feelings,
sweat them, tremble with them, luxuriate in them.

She
studied his face. High wide cheekbones that gave his face unexpected hollows. There
was nothing else lacking in solidity, in heft, about him. He had a strong jaw
that met at his squared off chin. Stubborn, that chin. Mia knew when he was
being serious without him raising his voice. It was studded with dark stubble
now. He had a surprisingly Cupid’s bow top lip. His smile was so wide, it
thinned his lips right out so she’d never noticed it before. It was a good
mouth for a man, wrought around happiness. He had a straight nose and neat
close fitting ears. His brows sat flat until he was animated and then they
arched and lifted with his smile. He could make Mia laugh just by lifting his
brows. His eyes were almond shaped, narrow. They could make him look hard,
dangerous. But his lashes were long and curled, outrageously girly in such a
masculine setting. They were dark like his brows, like his tousled hair, and
the traces of it elsewhere. When his eyes were open they were the most shocking
deep green.

She
could touch the hair that swept across his temples, a kind of cowlick from an
informal side part. It was glossy. It would be silky. If she touched his hair,
he might wake, and she wasn’t ready to give up this inert but so utterly
powerful form of him yet, because he lit her up in places, in ways she’d
forgotten about; with feelings she’d suppressed or denied, or lost to the
hibernation that was single parenthood.

She
could put her finger to his belly and maybe his breath would quicken. He might
dream he was being touched. She touched him in their daily life, but it was more
often accidental as they moved around each other. Here, she could put her hand
on his chest and press, lean into him, her ribs to his side so she could bring
her face close, breathe him. He usually smelled of soap and salt when he
arrived in the morning. He had wet hair and a damp beach towel he’d dry on her
line. He ran every morning on the soft sand and showered at the surf club before
he came to her and Mia, bright eyed and big voiced with the morning. In the
evening he smelled of tomato sauce, or magic marker, fruit juice or milk. Sometimes
of sugar, often of unidentified kid grunge. He was softly spoken then, wound
down by the toddler marathon of the day, but just as sharp eyed and ready to
act.

When
she woke him would his voice be gravel and grit? Would he wake violently with
the shock of having fallen asleep in a strange place? Perhaps he’d have that
mortified little boy look on his face. He’d worn it almost the whole first
month. It was a look that told her too much about how much he cared what she
thought of him. She didn’t need to remember that right now.

Four
years ago if she’d come across him at a party, she could’ve kissed him awake. If
she’d had enough to drink and he kissed her too, she could’ve climbed over his
hips and tested those handholds, those places on him she thought would fit to
places on her. She could’ve claimed him for the night. It was doubtful she’d
have wanted to give him back. She might’ve let him do anything to her, because
everything he did would be about her pleasure. That was so easy to imagine. Reece
opening her mouth with his lips, with his tongue, his big hands on her,
swamping her face, firm but gentle, his bulk beneath her, above her, all around
her teasing, tempting, anticipating, unmaking her with his deep voice and his steady
humour and his want to please.

Could
she make him happy too, make his body come alive to sensation?
Ridiculous
.
She was older, settled, a stress-head single mother of zero interest to him,
who already had stray grey hairs. His employer. His salary deposit. And
otherwise irrelevant to him. He saw her hassled about getting out the door on
time in the mornings and replete on the way to exhausted when she arrived home.

And
yet, sometimes the way he looked at her, the things he did for her. She
couldn’t help but let that fuel her imagination. It built the lust fire that
burned inside her now.

Ah.
Who was she kidding? Even four years ago, she was that stress-head person, so focused
on work, she’d probably have left him where he lay, an unclaimed prize that
some other woman, a Carrie, a Junna, would’ve rumbled all over.

She
didn’t want to think about Carrie or Junna touching him.