FOUR
Zeus
“How did you go?” John rises from his seat at the dining table and carries his empty coffee mug to the kitchen.
I toss my gym bag down next to the sofa, and shrug. “As well as you’d expect.”
After sending Belle back to school for her exams I moved my shit into the spare room, and then headed to the gym for a session with the weights. The mundane routine of lifting, pushing myself to do better, be better, calms my soul. The heavy metal that blasts through my headphones helps too, but mostly it’s that charge of adrenaline that I need to see my problems with a new clarity.
I was still mad at Jodie this morning for stepping out on me, but the truth is she saved me wasted years if I’d stayed with her. I was too blind to see what was happening with us.
Now I have a chance for a fresh start. A fucking hard one thanks to my record, but a new start all the same.
“Want one?” John lifts a cold beer from the fridge.
I nod, walking over to accept as I frown. “Did you tell Belle I was moving in?”
“No,” he scoffs as he uncaps his bottle. “Mate, this is still my house. I gave up letting a woman dictate what I do in it years ago.”
“Amen to that.”
He leans a hip into the counter and narrows his gaze on me. “What makes you ask?”
Fuck. “No reason.” Almost sprung the fact I caught her out. “Just wondered what sort of grief I’d be in for,” I tease.
“She’ll be okay,” he muses. “I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen her, but not much has changed.” Everything has changed. “She still skips school—even though she thinks I don’t know it—and she’s still stubborn, just like you were at that age.” He smirks around the lip of his bottle.
“At eighteen, you and I were a lot more than stubborn.”
John shrugs. “Fair point. I don’t think you need to worry about her jacking cars anytime soon, though.”
He’s right, although I don’t doubt she’d do it if the idea struck her as a good one. Unlike John, Belle has always been fearless. The girl shows no consideration of the consequences at all, and more than a few times I’ve wondered if my influence here will have a negative effect on that trait of hers.
“What are you thinking?” my best mate asks as he gestures to the living room with a jerk of his head. “I can see the cogs working.”
“You think I might be a bad influence on her if I’m here?”
He frowns as he takes a seat in his armchair. “Do you think I’d let you around here if you were?”
He has a point.
“You’re the extended family she missed out on,” he continues, kicking the recliner out. “The uncle she never had a chance to know. I don’t give a shit about what you’ve done, as long as you don’t glorify it when she asks about why you’ve been gone for the past two years.”
“As if I’d do that.”
To make prison out to be something to look up to, I’d have to be proud of the fact I served time. But I’m not. Fuck that shit. Not when it makes me everything I swore I’d never be: my father.
I used to feel sorry for John when we first struck up a friendship as teenagers because he didn’t really remember his parents. Orphaned at a young age, he doesn’t have the extended family most of us do, and so ended up in the foster system. The fact that he wished he knew his parents, and I wished I didn’t, was one of the many things that set us apart. The other major one being the fact he’s a lean, tall white boy with golden hair, and I’m the tan-skinned half-caste with jet-black locks.
You couldn’t get two men more polar opposites if you tried. And yet I wouldn’t trade our friendship for anything.
“What’s she planning on doing after she finishes school?” I ask.
John shrugs, lacing his fingers behind his head as he stretches his arms out wide. “She’s still stuck on using her drawing skills for an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist, but if she doesn’t lift her test scores, I don’t know if she’ll get into tertiary courses.”
“Does she need to do any more studies?”
“You think she could slip straight into an apprenticeship without it?” He frowns as though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
“Don’t see why not. She’s bloody talented.” Belle started drawing as a distraction after her mother left. I don’t think either John or I expected her to be so damn good at it.
“I thought perhaps she could find some fill-in work to save money to back herself with, but then I don’t want her to get comfortable.” John sighs. “You know how it is when you get your first paying job: the cash is such a novelty that you don’t care what you’re doing as long as you get paid for it.”
“Yeah, I remember how that was.” Awkward silence hangs between us. “The whole rebellion thing is just a phase, J. She’ll grow out of it.”
“I hope so.” His eyes sharpen as he snaps out of his daze. “I better chuck this back.” He lifts the bottle in his hand. “Time to head to work.”
“Thanks again for the room.” I twist the bottle in my hand, choosing to stare at the label. “You’ve saved my arse. Promise it’ll only be temporary; a few weeks at most.”
“Where will you go?” The smile slides from his face as he leans forward in the seat and rests both elbows on his knees.
He doesn’t have to say it; the insinuation is there between his words. I’m going to need all the time I can get to find a willing landlord, considering my criminal record. People don’t readily let ex-cons into their investment properties very often, especially re-offenders.
Some of us don’t learn.
“I’m not sure where I’ll end up. The new job with Gillies doesn’t earn a lot, and I’ve only just finished paying what was left on the car. I’ve got nothing saved.”
He hums as he nods, hands clasped. “How is the new job going? I may have a solution if you don’t have any other plans.”
“It’s going all right, I think. But you know how it is.” I pick at a loose thread on my jeans. “I’ll get the trial run, they’ll tell me that my history doesn’t matter as long as I work hard, and then after three months they’ll let me go using my criminal record as an excuse so that they get casual work at permanent rates, just like the last crowd did.”
“Arseholes.”
“Yep.” I take a deep breath and shove the negative feelings aside to ask, “What was your idea?”
“I took a position on the night shift a couple of months back. The pay is another two dollars an hour, which adds up. I need it. We need it, but I don’t like leaving Belle on her own.”
“You saying I should stay here?” I frown, turning my head slightly.
“If you’re okay with that.” He spreads his hands wide and then claps them together again. “Look, I don’t expect you to babysit Belle, but it would make me feel better if she wasn’t alone.”
“I can do that.” Shit, he’s probably saved me a grand in bond and setup costs on a new rental.
“Sorted then.” He rises, bins his empty bottle, and then hesitates with keys in hand. “End of an era, huh?”
“Sure is.” I’ve kicked around with John since we were kids, and Jodie had been there too in one way or another. Back when John was dating his ex-wife the four of us used to head out to the bars at the weekend. Fuck, how times change. “Thanks for this, bro. It’s a real help.”
“We’re friends, Zeus,” he says. “This is the exact stuff I’m supposed to help with. You should have said something sooner.”
“I guess the right opportunity never came up.”
“Probably because I’ve seen you all of what? Twice since you got out?”
“As shit as it sounds, I was just busy, mate.” Busy trying to save a dead marriage.
“Yeah, well, I’ll probably be sick of your ugly mug soon, huh?” He chuckles, making me laugh also.
I give him a simple shrug as he heads for the door. “You had your own problems to worry about, anyway.” I tip my head toward a picture of John and Belle on the side table. “And we both know that she’s way more important than my cheating wife.”
He chuckles, ducking his chin to his chest. “I guess you have a point. Still”—he lifts his eyes to mine—“we’re here to help, both Belle and I. I sometimes think that kid loves you more than I do, mate.”
Yeah. Sometimes so do I.
***
The incessant tick of the cheap clock mounted in the kitchen matches the beat I tap on my thigh with my phone. Legs kicked out before me, I sit in John’s armchair and close my eyes. My body wants to rest, but my mind refuses to take its foot off the gas.
So many things to think about: money, the divorce, and most importantly what the fuck I plan on doing to keep my stupid arse out of the correctional system.
Six months for theft the first time was an easy stretch. Maybe too easy, considering it wasn’t enough of a deterrent when I weighed the tyre iron in my hand and made a choice.
Fucker deserved it.
That much hasn’t changed in the least; I don’t regret a single fucking second of what I did. Only what it meant to the people who mattered: John didn’t have a helping hand in raising Belle, and Belle didn’t have someone other than her dad to lean on for advice.
Belle. Everything comes back to that kid.
She’s got the fiery pig-headedness of her mother, but beneath all that I was lucky enough to be given the occasional glimpse of John—the cool, calm, compassionate side. The better side. She was every part the young woman when I went in, every part the old soul back when she watched her mother tear the family apart for the sake of a fatter bank balance, but now…. Shit. I can’t stop thinking about how much she’s matured in two years. Maybe not mentally, given she was here when she was supposed to be taking an exam, but damn, that body.
Long, lanky teenage limbs have given way to a fuller, curvier woman’s body. She filled out, and the fact I noticed has me torn on what exactly that means. I guess it’s okay to look if I don’t touch.
Fucked. That’s fucked logic, old man.
The staggered beat of my ringtone breaks me from my thoughts, pulling me back to the here and now as I answer the call. “I’m not going to sit around waiting every time if you plan on always calling late.”
“I said around three,” Jodie snaps.
“You said at three.”
Her frustrated sigh punctures the line. “I didn’t call to argue, Zeus.”
“I know.” I drag a hand over my face, already tired with the prospect of another slinging match. “Have you signed them?”
“Yeah.” She hesitates; the fact there’s more inferred in her tone. “I don’t want this to get ugly; our split. We had some good years, Zeus. Made some good memories. I’d like to leave them like that.”
“The wounds are still raw, Jodie.”
“I know,” she breathes. “And I’m sorry. I really am. There were better ways to tell you I was done, a million ways I could have handled it better. I guess I got caught up in the moment.”
“That’s not a valid excuse for fucking my old boss.”
“No, it’s not,” she bites. “But punishing me for it repeatedly will only make you suffer too.”
Fuck her and her ability to point out the facts. “Give me time.” I close my eyes again and drop my head to the seat. “Take the papers back, and give me the space and time you wouldn’t fucking shut up about.”
“Take as much as you need,” she bites, “but Zeus?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m serious; I don’t want to lose my friend.” She sighs. “I sometimes think perhaps that’s where we should have stopped all those years ago.”
Guilt settles in the pit of my stomach—does she think this is ultimately my fault? She wasn’t interested in dating at the start, but after seeing John and Cerise together she gave in to my constant badgering of her and the rest is history.
Maybe I should have taken the hint and left her alone, but when we were repeatedly thrust together by our best friends being in love; something was bound to come out of it. I guess happily ever after wasn’t it, though.
“I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.”
I end the call, catching her faint “Take care” before I press the icon.
My eyes lift in time to catch Belle as she turns up the front path, walking with her head down and earphones in. The students in the final year at her high school get the luxury of not having to wear uniform, and I can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. Pass her in the street without the bulging backpack, and you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s several years her senior.
She’s a young woman in every way—no longer a gawky teenager—except for her damn attitude. Maybe John isn’t hard enough on her, sure, but I can understand why. His no-nonsense attitude was the very thing that finally made his wife give up, made Belle’s mother pick another man over what she should have cherished most—her child, her family.
The front door opens, followed by the thud of Belle’s bag as it hits the floor.
“Enjoy the rest of your afternoon?” I call.
Her shuffling stops for a beat before she pokes her head around the doorframe. “My maths exam was swell.” Her dark-rimmed eyes narrow on the relaxed position I’ve got in her father’s chair. “How was yours?”
“Productive.”
“Huh.” She disappears again, presumably going through her bag by the sound of it. “You going to answer my question now?” she calls from behind the wall.
“What one is that?”
“Why you’ve suddenly turned up out of the blue after....” She steps into the room. “How long was it exactly?”
“Two and a half years.”
“Hmm.” Her lips purse as she glares at me.
Fuck—she’s just as stunning as her mother was at that age.
“So where did you go, Z?” She sneers the nickname her father uses for me.
“Thought I’d trade my freedom for three meals a day and a complimentary movie channel subscription.”
She folds her arms over her chest, drawing my eye to her narrow waist slightly hidden beneath a loose T-shirt. “You went back to prison.” Her brow furrows.
I nod.
“Why the hell didn’t Dad tell me?”
“Didn’t want you to think the wrong thing.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Huh.” She crosses to the sofa and drops onto the cushions. “What was it for?”
“Assault.” The change is slight, but it’s still there; she’s nervous. “I’d never hurt you, Belle.”
She swallows, hand clutched around her phone, and nods. “Still doesn’t tell me why you’re sitting in Dad’s chair like you live here, though.” She snaps out of her daze and turns her focus to the screen in her hand.
“Your dad’s offered me a place to stay for a while.”
Her thumb stills on the phone as she drags her gaze back to me. “Pardon?”
“I’m staying here for a while, Belle.”
She frowns; her eyes go back to the phone as she says, “Why? Don’t you have your own place or some shit?”
“Did.”
She pauses again, this time setting the phone down beside her. “What happened?”
“Moved out.”
“Why?” Her gaze darts around the place. “Where’s Jodie?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Divorced, split… gone.”
She doesn’t offer condolences, or even pass comment—pretty much what I’d expect from someone her age. Instead, she picks up her phone again and resumes scrolling.
It’s refreshing.
I cast my eyes over her as she frowns at the device, clearly trying to avoid any further conversation, and can’t help but smile. She fights her natural instincts, always putting on this “tough girl” show as though letting people know that she cares would be a sign of weakness.
It’s sad, really, that she denies the world such an amazing young woman.
“What time does your dad usually get in from work?”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, still focused on the phone. “He’ll be done before midnight; he has to pick me up from a party. Why? You want to organise a late-night sit-down when we get in?” She lifts her gaze momentarily to slap me with a scathing glare.
“Do I have to? Or can I trust you to bring up what happened today on your own?”
She sighs, closing her eyes briefly. Her long lashes rest on her high cheekbones before she slays me with what has to be a well-practiced puppy-dog stare. “Do I have to tell him, Zeus? I mean, the school said they wouldn’t contact him since you’d already phoned, so….”
“You think one cute stare can sway me?” I chuckle. “Think again.”
“Was it cute, though?” She smiles. “Did I pull it off?”
“Adorable,” I deadpan.
An awkward beat passes. Does she see the line we just crossed as well as I do? Never once over the years have I commented on the way she looks. Even when she was young, I always kept those kinds of observations to myself. After all, she’s not mine. It was just weird to call her cute and pretty when she’s not related to me. Even weirder now.
“So,” Belle exclaims, returning her hard-edged stare to her phone. “What’s the plan for a Friday night then? You heading out to the pub soon, or what?”
“Thought I’d cook dinner tonight.”
She snorts, tearing her gaze away from that fucking thing in her hand. “You cook?”
“Why? Does that surprise you?” I smirk.
“I’ve only ever seen you man a barbecue, or devour takeaway pizza.”
“Well, I cook. So how about you tell me what things you don’t eat?” I push out of the chair as she swings her legs up onto the sofa and stretches out.
Her T-shirt rides up over her stomach as she slides lower on the cushions, revealing smooth pale flesh. I move my gaze to the wall behind her, focusing on the split in the plaster as she answers.
“As long as you don’t sneak anything weird like eggplant or brussels sprouts in there, you’re okay.”
“Deal.”
You’re okay. If she only knew how far from the truth that is.