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Jog to the beach, it didn’t matter if it was the long sandy strip at Cottesloe or the curved bay of Bondi, as long as it was 3 kilometres.
Swim a kilometre, jog 3 kilometres home.
Shower.
Drink black coffee, two cups before starting work.
He never ate before lunch time. On the many occasions he’d attended business forum breakfasts and conferences, he always managed to politely decline the croissants and eggs and bacon. Even the fruit platter.
But Andrea, his stepmum, was a force to be reckoned with.
It required cunning and subterfuge to dodge her attempts to force feed him.
And this morning was no exception. Oliver grabbed his phone off the marble table in the hall and pretended he was deep in conversation as Andrea’s head popped around the kitchen door.
Completely ignoring the fact that he was making noises into his phone, Andrea called out, “I’ve just made blueberry buttermilk pancakes.” Even though she hadn’t been around when he was an eight year old, Dad had told her that blueberry buttermilk pancakes with crème fraiche had been his undoing.
Andrea gave a beatific smile. “With a little dollop of crème fraiche, maybe?”
Stomach growling loudly, Oliver pointed at his phone and mouthed “work call”. Andrea waited, leaning on the door jamb. Just waited. Until finally he had to answer, so he muttered, “I’ll grab a black coffee after I’ve showered.”
Every day it felt like his childhood was taunting him, a tubby little ghost from the past.
Come to think of it, he decided, as he peeled off his gear and stepped into the shower, too many memories were pecking away at his carefully constructed defences of late, like some kind of crazed woodpecker.
The sight of a police car and his adrenaline would spike. A wedding song he’d chosen with Leonie playing in a shopping mall. A list he’d memorised for the gift registry. He could push them away. Mostly.
It was at night that he had no control. The dreams took over. The mangled metal of a car smash, Aaron standing dry-eyed beside a coffin, his mother’s smiling face fading into darkness, his father alone and sobbing in the middle of an empty room. It usually ended with Oliver staring down a snow-covered slope, his heart pounding, before hurtling into the white void. And when he woke his pulse was racing, his body drenched in sweat.
No, he had no say over his dreams.
But he could get up every morning and run to the beach.
And he could resist Andrea’s pancakes.
Oliver frowned as the water formed runnels over his chest and ran down his toned abs. There’d been another dream last night, he realised with a jolt. The details filtered through him like the water running over his head and shoulders. A girl with a tumble of red hair. Miles of empty beach, just him and her and a bright pink hat. She’d bent down, so close he could trace the constellation of freckles on her nose, see the cartwheel of blue around her irises. When she’d laughed and begged him to join her in the water he’d shaken his head. Warned her there were too many sharks in the ocean this time of year. She’d laughed again as she ran towards the water. A gust of wind had carried off her hat. He’d wanted to chase after it, to capture it, but he was unable to move. All he could do was watch helplessly as it tossed and tumbled and dipped like a sea bird, until it was no more than a dot silhouetted against the bright blue sky.
Crazy. He barely knew her—how come she’d crept into his head while he slept?
Frowning, he soaped his body hard. It wasn’t just his mind that had turned into a jumbled mess of late; his smooth as clockwork libido was gone. Oliver stared balefully at the dark hair between his thighs, his cock lifeless and disinterested.
What would it take, he wondered, to desire a woman again? To wake up hard and wanting and ready for action. Not that he’d ever been brutish, he’d always prided himself on being a considerate lover. Had been sure he’d satisfied Leonie. Yeah, okay, he’d concede their sex life had waned a bit in recent months, but with planning the wedding, their busy work schedules… he hadn’t been worried…. but clearly, he should have been.
These past eighteen years, he’d approached life like a master chess player, anticipating every possible wrong move.
But somehow, he’d not seen Leonie’s final move coming.
Checkmate.
Turning off the taps, Oliver tightened them so hard he’d probably need a monkey wrench next time he took a shower. Ten minutes later he was dressed, and ready to dodge Andrea for his morning espresso.
As he descended the sweeping staircase his father was crossing the large expanse of hallway, heading for the kitchen. David Blake looked up with a quizzical smile. “Ah, Oliver, there you are.” Like he hadn’t got used to Oliver living here, even after nearly six months. He stopped, rubbed at the shiny bald patch at the front of his head, and asked, “How’s things?”
How’s thingswas Dad’s way of saying,I’m worried about you, son. Which meant Dad saidhow’s thingspretty often of late, generally accompanied by an offer of whisky and soda in his study of an evening. Oliver would always evade the question. What could he say? “A lump of lead has replaced my heart, so frankly, I’m baffled as to why I am still alive.”
Besides, the question was rhetorical. Dad didn’t really want the truth.
Even though his father, more than anyone, should understand what a lead heart felt like.
