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“SURPRISE!”
Camera flashes went off and phones clicked, taking my photo. At least thirty people in party hats stood around the steps to the shearers’ quarters. Mum stood beside Ryan, who was stifling his laughter behind his hand as he looked me up and down. Pete stood beside him, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I clutched my pillow to my crotch like a lifeline. The small crowd began singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
“What the —” The urge to kill my best friend and older brother and hide their bodies in a wombat burrow had never been stronger.
“Tom! Where are your—” Mum began.
“Oh, hi!” Ainslee appeared beside me, dressed again but messy hair messy and flushed cheeks, looking just like we’d been fucking. “Sorry, Mrs Turner. We got distracted.”
Mum giggled. GIGGLED. “Well, it worked. He had no idea we had a surprise party planned.”
My jaw opened and closed, like those clowns at the country fair that you stuff ping-pong balls into for a prize.
Appropriate, really, because I felt like a real clown right now.
Ainslee was giggling with my mother, right after we’d been fucking. What the hell was this?
I never had any intention to bring Ainslee home to meet Mum or my siblings. But she’d showed up today as a surprise, right after a series of sexts that I’d half-heartedly replied to. I don’t even recall telling her where I lived, but when you’re a Turner of Turner’s Creek Station, and the road is named after you, it’s hard to be anonymous.
And Ainslee knew it was my birthday and—
“You planned this with my mum?” I croaked.
A streamer went sailing past my head. Ainslee laughed. “I did, a little bit. Your family wanted to surprise you.”
I should’ve asked Ainslee to leave as soon as she’d arrived on my doorstep, but I’d caved into her offer of sex, thinking getting laid on my birthday had sounded … nice. And now, it was unfurling as a nightmare. I’d said those three words that had no place between us. That I’d been thinking of another woman as I’d said them.
I ran my free hand through my hair. Someone called “Hip hip!” and everyone answered with a rowdy “Hooray!” three times.
No. There was no hooray whatsoever in this train wreck of a moment.
“Happy birthday, Tom!” Uncle Bruce called out. “Birthday suit is appropriate party wear!”
Everyone laughed and cheered.
“Mum, what’s going on?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“It’s a surprise birthday do-over for your twenty-first you missed last year because of uni exams.”
“But I hate birthday parties,” I growled.
“But you’re home now, and I wanted to do something special.” Mum was using her ‘please’ eyes. “And you haven’t had a good birthday since your eighteenth.”
My face fell.
“Or since your father—” Mum cleared her throat. “We had you home, and we thought—”
“It’s okay. Thank you, Mum.”
Oh shit.I couldn’t resist Mum’s ‘please’ eyes. And it wasn’t her fault I was a complete arsehole who said things they didn’t mean to women they didn’t love.
I inhaled slowly. “Give me a chance to … get ready.”
“Really?” Mum broke into a wide grin. “We’ve decorated the shearing shed and set up tables and a bar inside.”
“Just give me ten, and I’ll be there.”
