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She dropped her chin, looked at her cup. Avoid, avoid. She wanted Jamie to go so she could stand in the hot shower water and cry till she was too tired to function.
“I’ve loved Taylor since the day she split her lip climbing the fence between our place and hers.” She looked up; Jamie was smiling. “Her teeth were all bloody. I laughed at her and she hit me, gave me a black eye. I was ten, she was nine. I was too stupid for too many years to work out I loved her right through pesky neighbour, adopted sister and long-term friend into…” his smile folded in on itself. “I don’t know what it is, but I took that two year Singapore posting to try to get free of it. Taylor thought I was a sell-out because I gave up wanting to be a guitar hero. Traded ripped denim for grey wool. She dated these hardcore guys with beards and bikes and avoiding the cops on their brains, and that’s not me. That night, I thought she was drunk and I was too weak not to take advantage of it. I’d wanted her so badly for so long and we weren’t careful. I figured we shouldn’t have done it, but I never thought she’d shut me out like she did. At least now I know why.”
“I didn’t know what to do that night, for you, for Taylor.” But Georgia had known what to do for Damon. Taylor’s confession made Damon reach out for her, be with her like before his surgery, make love to her, whispering gorgeous obscenities in a broken voice that made her forget they’d been estranged and filled her with renewed hope.
Jamie sipped his tea and stared into the empty fishbowl. “What do you want to happen now?” she said.
He closed his eyes, when he opened them again, they were glossy. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know.” It felt shameful to admit that. “I love him, but I can’t let him treat me like he’s been doing. ‘You get the behaviour you accept’,” she said, quoting Carmella. “I know he’s struggling, but it’s not my fault and though I want to be there for him, I have a history of martyring myself. I can’t do that again.”
“He knows that, right?”
She nodded. That’s what made this so tough. He knew it, and she struggled to believe the man who’d created a fairy garden for her, who’d treated her like a princess, who’d brought her first pet, promoted her career and made her feel happy and secure and loved, would knowingly try to wreck that.
“He has a way of making me feel like I’m essential to him. Like I’m beautiful and important and vital. That’s such a…” it was a revelation, it was a massively addictive turn-on, “hard thing to walk away from. You know, the first night I stayed over at the house, he turned the backyard into a wonderland. He dressed the pavilion up with sheets and pillows, silk coverings and mosquito netting, candles and torches everywhere. It was one of those sultry nights after a too hot day and the scent of jasmine and orange blossom was thick in the air. Taylor had a gig in the Hunter Valley that weekend and Damon burned his fingers and then asked a neighbour to come light everything up. There was a line of tiny flickering tea-lights from the front door to the yard. It was such a lovely surprise.”
And what he’d done to her body that fragrant night, under black velvet skies in the Balinese pavilion, re-engineered her understanding of physical pleasure, of craving and urgency; of desire and restraint. Of the kinds of sounds that belong in a song. He gave her abandon so thrilling she’d screamed it under his lips, clawed it on his ribs. He gave her closeness so deep and broad, so total, she could not take her hands away from him, not shift from the aura of his body, the magnetic pull of his voice, and his soft words like liquid pleasure dripped into her bra
in: commands and entreaties, endearments and crudities.
That night he’d taken her infatuation, her fledgling notions of lust and love and made them a tangible living thing, carved on her writhing skin with kisses, poured into her taut body with passion, spoken into her ear as filthy compliments with longing and promise.
The sunrise that followed was fresh, crisp with birdsong, and under blue horizons she’d been different; made strict with need and want for him, partnered to the vision of him, incapable of being the person she once was without him, and joyous for it.
“He’s pushed me away since the surgery,” she said, despair crowding her voice with cracks. “He stopped talking to me, wanting me to talk.”
Jamie’s back rounded, he slumped on the stool. “God, Georgia.”
She flapped her arms, looking for levity in the motion, determined not to cry in front of him. “Look at the two of us. Hopelessly lovelorn. What do I do?”
Jamie groaned. She’d rung him when Taylor failed to get Damon to come away from the stage, when he’d been drinking steadily and shutting them out. Jamie had been somewhere with restaurant sounds in the background, but was in his car before they rang off.
“I want to tell you to tough it out. I want to say that you’ve got no choice, you love him, you have to hang in there and hope he comes out of this, but that’s bad advice. That’s…” he passed a hand across his short clipped hair.
“That’s what you did for Taylor.” It’s what she’d done with Hamish.
“And see where that got me.”
“But you still love her. She wouldn’t talk to me about it, but I’m pretty sure she loves you.”
He shook his head. “That night, Damon doing what he did, and then Taylor. I was so angry and confused. Told myself I was done for good with her. But she’s not like some deadline I can pass, some project I can finish. She’s a 3D spreadsheet, the ultimate infographic, the sweetest riff. I’m so crazy hooked on her and it doesn’t matter what she’s done, I can’t move on.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“You’re not going to let me get away with saying nothing, are you?”
“If that’s what you really want. It’s a valid choice. Maybe there’s too much history, too much misunderstanding and hurt. Maybe it’s better to cut off cleanly.”
“Is that what you want?” Jamie stood up. He undid a button and yanked his shirt so his left pec was bared. He had the word Trill tattooed across his heart in fancy lettering. “That’s not what I want.”
He lifted his chin, a now you gesture, and despite the ink, Georgia had a glimpse of what he’d be like in a boardroom, different to his presence on stage but the same quiet confidence, the same professional competence.
She looked away. There was an answer in her heart and it was rich with the story of her and Damon, but her head read the words as fantasy. Hope was what she’d used to tell herself things would improve with Hamish. Hope and denying the reality in front of her lost her years of living free and happy.
Jamie came around the counter. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not like there’s a formula, a song sheet for this stuff of the heart crap.”
She sighed and they both jumped when her doorbell rang.
