Chapter Seven

TRACY INFORMED me that Ambrose’s surgery went well, and Ambrose sent me more photos over the next two days, this time without messages.

There were pictures of his knee swathed in bandages, a picture of his hairy leg with the brown stain from the antiseptic solution they used in the operation, a picture of his crutches in the corner of a hospital room, a snap of his hospital meal, and a selfie with his face screwed up in pain. To these I replied with pictures of my own—my own two legs, winter pale from the lack of sun, but without scars, my dinner of chicken and rice, a selfie of me squashed on the train from work with all the other sardines, and a photo I spent ten minutes setting up using the timer on my camera. It captured me sitting on the couch, reading a book and sipping a coffee.

I wondered who was looking after him, since Vinnie had indicated Kendra and Ambrose were on the outs.

Then Tracy called me Friday as I was preparing my evening meal.

“Hey, Shane. I need you to do me the biggest favor.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Can you go tonight and pick up Ambrose from the airport?”

My heart sank. Tracy rushed on to tell the whole story. Ambrose’s doctors had advised him against flying back to Perth so soon, but apparently Ambrose was ignoring them. He’d rung Tracy as his flight was boarding, so she didn’t even have a chance to talk him out of it or go behind his back and talk to the coach or someone else he’d listen to. Then he turned his phone off.

Tracy was the manager of a small restaurant—a job she kept because she needed to keep busy, despite the fact Ambrose wanted to give her money so she didn’t have to be employed—and her shift ended near midnight. Ambrose was flying in at 10:25 p.m.

“Fine,” I sighed. “It will give me a chance to yell at him for making you upset.”

Tracy was quiet. “Don’t yell too much, Shane. He’s not taking this injury well. He hasn’t been happy for the last couple of months. I’m not sure why. And now this?”

I tried to pull on the family-friend hat. “Do you think it was breaking up with Kendra?” I asked.

She sighed. “I don’t know. That was months ago. Just lately I feel he’s lost his love for the game. His playing has been off. You know?”

No. I didn’t know. Because I was in recovery from Ambrose-aholic sickness.

“Maybe a good yelling will do him good?” I suggested.

She was quiet for a bit. “Just take it easy with him. Okay? I have a feeling his emotional state is really fragile at the moment. Pick him up and take him to my house. I’ll be home as soon as possible. Could you stay with him until I arrive?”

I might’ve been wallpaper to most people, but I wasn’t uncaring. “Okay. Fine.”

THAT’S HOW I came to be lingering around Terminal 3 at ten thirty on a Friday night instead of tucked up in my bed with the latest book from Ruth Ware. I texted Ambrose and told him to look for me, but he hadn’t replied, so I didn’t know if he’d received the message.

According to the electronic noticeboard, the plane had already landed, so I sighed and reached for Ruth to keep me entertained. I was a bookworm. Of course I brought along a book to read if there was even the remotest chance of me having to wait for anything. Every page or so I looked up, but I couldn’t spot Ambrose in the crowd.

When a call came over the speaker, I ignored it until a familiar name pierced my consciousness.

“…Jakoby please come to the service counter. I repeat, will Tracy Jakoby please come to the service counter.”

No, Tracy couldn’t, but Shane could. I shoved Ruth back into my courier bag and searched for the service counter. It was late on a Friday night, and the woman behind the counter looked tired and bored.

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“Umm? The call for Tracy Jakoby? She can’t come tonight, so she sent me. Is there a problem?”

“Oh.” The woman looked nonplussed for a moment and then asked, “And what passenger have you come to collect tonight?”

“Ambrose Jakoby.”

She stared at me hard, as though I were a stalker fan trying to kid her.

I sighed. It was too late at night for my patience, and I had been running on nerves for hours. “Look. Ambrose is big enough to cause a fuss if he doesn’t know me. Can you tell me where he is? Is there a problem? Is he okay? He wasn’t supposed to fly, but it seems he knows better than the doctors.”

She pursed her lips and pointed. “Go toward the toilet sign. To the left of the sign is a passageway. Head down there, and you’ll see a counter.”

That seemed to be all the information she was willing to give me, so I followed the directions, and when I reached the counter, I found the answer to all my questions.

Ambrose was sitting in a wheelchair, one leg propped up and resting on a chair near the counter, and he was holding what appeared to be an ice pack to his knee. Two pretty flight attendants were flirting with him.

He looked up and noticed me, and I thought I saw relief. “Shane!”

“Hey. Your mum sent me. She couldn’t get off work. Didn’t you get my text?”

He grimaced. “My phone died on the plane. I forgot to charge it before I left.”

I wanted to give him a hug. He didn’t look well. Perhaps I was imagining it because of what Tracy had said to me. I could see exhaustion and pain in his face. That was understandable. He’d recently spent four hours on a plane when he should’ve been elevating his leg. But I could also see something else—a weariness. I couldn’t hug him there, so I went in with the manly fist bump.

To my surprise Ambrose grabbed my wrist, pulled me down to his level, and hugged me awkwardly.

“Get me out of here,” he whispered, and I squeezed slightly to show I heard him.

“Righto.” I turned to the woman who was closest to him. “He should have some crutches. What happened to them?”

“They had to be stored in oversized luggage. I’ll have to see where they are.” The woman walked to a nearby door and scanned the ID around her neck to get through.

“How’s the knee?” I asked, and the second woman answered for Ambrose.

“Not good. He says he has pills to take, but they’re in his checked luggage. He’s been in a lot of pain and was unable to get off the plane without assistance.”

“No problem,” I said. “Did you have a bag to carry on, Ambrose?”

Ambrose pointed to a black backpack on the floor, and I picked it up and almost threw it on his lap.

“Right.” I took control of the wheelchair, and Ambrose gingerly folded his leg down to the footrest. I threw a look at the second woman. “I need to get him home ASAP. So we’re going to find his bags. Can you please bring the crutches to the baggage collection area?”

I didn’t give her a chance to reply because Ambrose had already disengaged the brake. I wheeled him quickly down the passageway.

“Thanks,” Ambrose muttered.

“We’re not clear yet. Keep your head down. Did you bring a hat?” He usually wore a hat when flying to keep from being so readily recognized.

“Forgot.”

People made way for the wheelchair, and we were soon at the carousel with only a couple of bags whizzing around on it. The other passengers had already grabbed their stuff and departed. Ambrose pointed to his suitcase, and I grabbed it.

“Shit,” I complained. “What the hell do you have in here? Fifty pairs of footy boots?”

“Maybe there’s books for you,” he said, but the grin didn’t reach his eyes. He needed to get some of those pills into him and lie down.

I looked around and saw the flight attendant with the crutches approaching. I cut her off before she could engage Ambrose again by standing between them and taking the crutches myself.

“Thank you,” I said and turned my back on her. I helped Ambrose stand and saw him grit his teeth as he balanced on one leg while I got the crutches set for him. I pointed toward the exit, slung his backpack over my shoulder, pulled up the handle of his wheeled suitcase, and made to follow him.

But the woman got the last word. “Good luck on your recovery, Bro-Jak.”

I saw dozens of heads swivel our way, and people began to point and pull out their cameras. I dashed ahead of Ambrose and quickly made for the ticket machine to pay the fee to get out of the car park. I wordlessly pointed at the aisle I’d parked in, and he crutched his way over.

As soon as I could, I hurried after him, unlocked the car he was patiently waiting next to, opened the boot, lifted his case into the back, and called, “What’s the combination on your bag? I’ll find those pills.”

“Two eight oh six.”

I frowned as I whirled the dials to the familiar number. Had he picked my birthday on purpose?

A ziplock bag with various packets of pills inside was sitting on top of his clothes. It bore Ambrose’s name and information on the hospital’s printed tag. I frowned at the number of packets it contained. When I climbed into the driver’s seat, I lobbed the bag in his direction.

“Doing okay?” I asked.

“That’s just asking me to lie to you, Shane.”

I winced. “Fine, then. Do you need me to google what hospitals are on the way to your mum’s? And fair warning, I still haven’t learned how to read a map in the years since I got us lost up near Serpentine.”

At least he smiled at that memory. “No. I don’t need a hospital. Just drive me home.”

I put on my belt, started the car, and reversed out while he found the correct pill packet and swallowed the tablets down dry. As we pulled up to the exit where I had to insert the ticket into the machine to prove I’d paid, Ambrose shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to find more legroom.

“Fuck. Why is your car so small?” he complained bitterly.

I didn’t take umbrage. “Because it’s all I can afford because I spend all my money on books,” I said blithely. The gate lifted, and we headed toward the road that would take us to Tracy’s.

“I told you I would buy you a new car,” he muttered. Then he braced himself as I navigated the roundabout.

I was shocked. “You didn’t mean it, though.”

“Of course I meant it.” He shifted in his seat again. The set of lights ahead were green, allowing the traffic to flow straight out of the terminal and onto Great Eastern Highway. I didn’t drive a lot. My commute to work and back was via public transportation, and the weekly grocery shop and the visit to Vinnie’s each Sunday was about the only driving I did regularly. So I concentrated a little harder, conscious of my precious cargo. If I crashed and damaged Bro-Jak further, I could imagine sixty thousand fans baying for my blood, and Tracy wouldn’t be too happy with me either.

“Thanks for picking me up,” Ambrose muttered suddenly in the quiet.

“No problem. And since I had to go out of my way to pick you up, it means I get to yell at you first and demand to know why you flew home against doctor’s orders.”

My voice was mild, more like a slight rebuke. Wallpapers didn’t have much chance to practice yelling.

He made a slight huffing sound and said, “I simply wanted to be home.”

I could appreciate that sentiment, so I changed the subject. “Do you think it’s funny that we still refer to Perth as your home, even though you’ve lived in Melbourne for nine years and have a house over there?”

“Home is more than the physical location you live at,” Ambrose chided.

“True.” I agreed wholeheartedly, but I wondered about what else made a home—roots, family, emotions, friends?

Ambrose’s family was in Perth, but surely he’d made friends in Melbourne. He had blood ties to Perth through his family tree, but I wondered why the roots of his new family—his football club—hadn’t grabbed hold. How long would it take for Ambrose to feel like his life in Melbourne was greater than his blood ties to Perth?

I changed the subject again. “So tell me everything you haven’t told your mum. She said the operation was a success, but tell me the truth.”

Tracy had said he was emotionally fragile, and flying home abruptly against doctor’s orders supported that idea. Had things not gone as well as they hoped?

“All good,” Ambrose said quietly. “I need to rest for a couple of weeks, then into physio. It’ll be painful, but I should play again.”

I could suddenly hear what Tracy was so concerned about. There was a note of discouragement in Ambrose’s voice.

“Isn’t that what you want?” I said softly, almost whispering, as though voicing the thought would summon a demon.

To my horror Ambrose shrugged. I was staring at him, not watching where I was going, and I ended up running up a curb. I shouted a curse and fought to right the car. Ambrose echoed the curse and braced himself as we bumped down and along the road. I knew my bad driving had somehow hurt his knee further.

It was late at night, so the traffic wasn’t that bad, but I took a glance in the rearview mirror to make sure there were no cars inconvenienced behind me. My heart stopped. There was a police car following me, and as I watched, the lights began to flash.

“Shit,” I said and looked for a convenient place to pull over. “Cops. Behind us. Your fault. You not playing football scared me so much I drove off the road.”

Ambrose chucked a look over his shoulder and then groaned at the sight of the flashing red and blue. “Fine. I’ll pay your ticket.”

I indicated left off the main highway, turned up the next street, and pulled to the side in front of a darkened house. “No. I’ll pay my ticket. I’m not destitute. But we’re going to talk about this later. How can you even think of giving up footy? What would you do without it?”

I was watching via the mirror as the police car pulled in behind me, and even though I’d done nothing wrong—apart from run up a curb—my heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. I wound down the window and waited.