Some people hated their jobs, but I loved mine. My boss, Mr Delfio Barese, was whistling in his office and occasionally cursing through an unending pile of paperwork, and I was busy working under the one and only car in the shop. It was a simple car service: change of oil and air filters, replace coolant, and in the older cars, we’d check the points and spark plugs, but in newer ones like this car, we’d check the on-board diagnostics.

Unlike the technology mechanics used today, Mr Barese was old school. He’d owned and run the only mechanic’s in Ten Mile Creek for almost fifty years, and he still treated customers today the way he did in the seventies. He made sure each car he serviced was washed afterwards, the windscreen cleaned, the inside vacuumed. The water in the battery would be topped up, if it was an older car, along with the water in the windscreen wiper tank, no extra charge.

He would complain endlessly about how the art of customer service had all but disappeared. “The world just isn’t what it used to be,” he’d say sadly, waving his hands about as he spoke, in that Italian way he did. So the one rule he’d enforced since day one was that we treat our customers the way they used to be treated, “before the world went to hell” along with “that terrible fast food” and “those phones the kids stare at these days.”

His work ethic was great, his attention to detail immaculate, and his penchant for old-school service was admirable. The problem was the customers. There just weren’t enough of them.

Ten Mile Creek was a dying town. Ten miles, or sixteen kilometres, out from the ever-growing regional centre of Maitland, Ten Mile Creek was now down to one convenience store, a public school, a takeaway shop, and Barese Mechanical. Sometimes we didn’t have a car in the shop for a week. Fuel was the only thing that kept us open, and that was only because Mr Barese said it was too expensive to have the fuel tanks removed.

The two hundred residents of Ten Mile Creek all worked in Maitland, if they worked at all. There was no money in this town. The majority of people who lived here were on dole payments of some kind⁠—pensions, single parent, disability, unemployment. I’d spent my twenty-four years in it, hating every goddamn second. Wishing for better and brighter things but tied to it all the same.

Autumn rain kept the temperatures down and people off the streets, and like always, Ten Mile Creek was dead. Not even tourists stopped here. People out driving through the Hunter scenery preferred prettier towns: ones that catered to the old-world charm with pride and dignity. Ten Mile Creek’s shops were rundown, neglected. A lack of funds and care summed up the feel of the place. The occasional Sunday driver’d pass through, but rarely did they stop.

I didn’t blame ’em.

I cranked up the radio and wheeled myself up to the sump plug and proceeded to drain the oil from old Mrs Henderson’s car. Del had dropped her home, just a block away, with a promise to bring back her car when it was done. All part of the service, he’d said.

He was one of a kind, Mr Barese. As the blackened oil sludged into the bucket, I tried to think of anyone I respected more than Del Barese.

There was no one.

I knew some days there wasn’t enough work for the both of us, and I only did three days a week. But he was generous and kind, and for the last nine years, I’d kept my head down and my mouth shut and did the only thing I was ever good at: fixin’ cars.

So I went about my business, makin’ sure everything was as good as perfect and kinda lost track of time.

“CJ?” Del called out.

Thinkin’ he just wanted me to watch the fuel bowsers for a minute, I turned down the volume on the small portable radio I had with me and slid out from under the car on the under-car creeper trolley, only to find he wasn’t alone. Gettin’ to my feet, I wiped my hands on my overalls and looked at the visitor. Del waved us off, going back to his office, leaving me alone with the stranger.

He weren’t much older than me, but he was dressed in suit pants and a button-down shirt, neatly pressed. He’d come in from the rain, obviously, as he ran his hand through his wet hair. Then I noticed his ID badge clipped to his waistband . . . Wayne used to wear one just like it.

There was no way this guy was a PO.

He was too young, too good-looking. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a jaw that could cut glass. The only parole officers I ever saw were old, worn down, and haggard.

He was sizing me up like they all did. Looking at me like they all did. I’d never seen this guy before in my life⁠—believe me, I’d remember him⁠—and he was already makin’ his mind up about me.

Worthless. Trouble. Good for nothing.

I’d heard it all before. It was all I’d ever heard.

He cleared his throat. “Hi. My name is Noah Huxley. I’m your new parole officer.”

Well, shit. He was my new parole officer? “What happened to Wayne? Finally burn out?”

“I uh, I don’t know the reasons he no longer works for the Community Corrections Office. I’m his replacement.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. I gave this guy a week before he resigned. No way, no how was he gonna last. I snorted. “Yeah, right.” I ignored his pointed stare. “So, read my file? Or do we have to go through everything from the beginning?”

He never broke his stare. “I’ve read all I need to.”

“So, tell me.” I sneered at him in his fancy clothes and neatly ironed shirt, his clean-shaven face that looked as privileged as it was handsome. No scars, no bumps, just perfect lines and angles. “Just what did Wayne have to say about me in my file?”

He swallowed and looked around the shop. A droplet of rain ran from his hairline to his jaw, a fascinating path over perfect skin I couldn’t help but watch.

He cleared his throat and my gaze shot to his. Had I been caught staring? Checking him out? Was that written in my file? He narrowed his eyes at me, and he frowned. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

Oh, great. This’ll end well.

I nodded toward the open garage doors that faced the creek at the back and followed him as he walked. He didn’t speak for a while. He just looked over the creek and the weeping willow trees that lined it. “It’s pretty here,” he said.

“Pretty?” I scoffed. “Ain’t no one called this town pretty in all my years here.”

He⁠—what was his name again? Norman? Nigel? Noah! Yeah, that was it⁠—Noah smiled at the scenery. Ten Mile Creek was a small town on a creek that ran into the Hunter River, and lookin’ at it and tryin’ to see how Noah might see it, I guessed it could be pretty. The creek, barely a trickle really, was framed by long green grass and green willow trees. It was all green, that was for sure. The town’s annual rainfall was almost as high as the unemployment rate and teen pregnancy statistics.

There was a rickety bridge that would probably be scenic, if not covered in graffiti, that led to the other side of the creek, the other side of town. The wrong side of town.

My side of town.

“Hmm,” he hummed like he didn’t really agree with me. Then looked upward to the sky. “I’ve never seen so much rain.”

“Where you from?”

“Newcastle. So not too far.”

“But far enough.” God, I could only imagine living in a different town. Even moving from this shithole to Maitland, just fifteen minutes’ drive away may as well be another freakin’ planet some days.

“Yeah, far enough.”

That was a weird answer, or maybe it was the way he said it that made me stop. Like he, some fancy-dressed government worker could understand what it was like. “Anyway,” I said, changing topics. “You takin’ on all Wayne’s cases?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Busy then?”

“Yeah, but I like it. I’m only new at it.”

Totally called it. “I gathered.”

He shot me a look that was part offence, part defiance. “New doesn’t mean stupid.”

I laughed at that, and seeing the rain had eased, I stood under the eave outside, took out a ciggie, and lit it. I took a long drag and blew the smoke out toward the creek. “So, what’s with the work visit? Wayne never did ’em much. Used to make me come into town.”

“Oh.” Noah cleared his throat again and opened the manila folder he was holding. “I’m basically doing an introductory visit. And he should have. Wayne, I mean. It’s part of your parole conditions.”

I smiled at how naïve he was. “Will you speak to Mr Barese?” I took another drag of my cigarette and blew it out. “My boss?”

“Yes.” He seemed to find some conviction. “Will he tell me anything you should tell me first?”

I stared at him and sucked back another draw of my cigarette. I knew it. He already had me written off. “I can guess what was in Wayne’s file about me. I’m a Davis, right?” I didn’t even bother hiding the disdain. “But I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Noah kind of blushed. Embarrassed or reprimanded, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. He’d known me for all of two minutes and already had me pegged as a deadbeat because of my name.

Noah flipped through the papers in the file. “Actually, Wayne’s notes were pretty good. Never missed a meeting, attended all drugs and alcohol counselling⁠⁠⁠—⁠”

“Because I have to.” I took one last drag of my cigarette and flicked the butt out onto the wet grass. “Because it’s a condition of my parole. I ain’t ever taken a drug in my life, yet I gotta go sit in a circle with all them losers and talk about problems I don’t even have.”

“You were caught⁠⁠⁠—⁠”

“I know what I was busted for. I know what the cops thought. I was there.” I pushed off the wall and glared at him. “I did the crime, I’ll do the time. What the fuck ever. You wanna speak to Del, then speak to him. If we’re done here, I got work to do.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I didn’t need to. I was done talkin’ to him, whether he was done talkin’ to me or not. He wasn’t gonna write me up for attitude. He was a greenhorn and wouldn’t dare cite me because it’d make him look like he was shit at his job.

I got back onto my creeper trolley and slid back under Mrs Henderson’s car. I pulled the small radio over and cranked up the volume so this new PO would know I was well and truly done talking. From under the car, I watched his feet. He didn’t move for a while, and I knew I had him rattled. I smiled.

Then his feet walked around the car, past me, and to the office door. “Mr Barese?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Yes, yes,” Mr Barese said. “Come in. Shut the door.”

I watched the old office door close, and Noah’s polished shoes disappear behind it. I stared at the closed door for a beat too long, then picked up my ratchet and went back to work.