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How did my one-night stand become central to looking after my family during an emergency?
“What are we exactly doing here, Jet?” My voice was high pitched and shrill. I stalked out of the bar and onto the street, looking this way and that for somewhere private.
“Um, talking?”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“Then tell me what you mean, Ari.”
“Why are you staying with my sister?”
“Ash and Cody said it was okay. And you know, cut off from my home in a national emergency.”
“But why, Jet? You could have stayed somewhere else. With Tom Turner in his shearers’ quarters. Even the pub.” I ducked into a laneway beside the pub and paced in front of their bins.
“Well, I just …”
“What! You just what?”
“I want to make sure your family was safe because I know you’re feeling out of control that you can’t help!”
“That’s not true!”
“Ari, at Christmas, you wanted to drive back because you were so worried about them!”
The fact he was correct only ratcheted up my frustration. “Why do you care if my family is safe?”
“Because, of course I do, Ari!”
“But why? I mean, why do you talk to me each week? Why are we friends? What?—”
“Because I care about you!” Jet’s voice boomed down the phone. “I feel closer to you if I’m on the couch at your sister’s making sure your family is okay. Is that so wrong?”
All I could hear in my mind was his voice, full of laughter and happiness on his birthday, screaming into the phone:I love you, Ari! I love you!
As he spoke, Jet’s voice became so deep. “Because, Ari, for me, every Saturday when we talk, it’s more than just fucking over the phone. I like you. A lot. And I thought—” He abruptly stopped.
I listened to his sharp breathing, waiting, and then caved. “What did you think?” I whispered, tears running down my cheeks.
“Never mind.”
“Please tell me.”
“I thought you cared about me, too,” he croaked.
I sniffed. My tongue didn’t work.I care about you so much!
“Jesus, Ari, you drive me crazy sometimes, but I care. So much.”
“That wasn’t meant to happen. This friendship between you and me.”
I should just tell him I feel the same way about him. But I couldn’t help myself—I wanted to bully him into revealing himself, knowing I was going to be cruel and take his beautiful words, smash them into tiny pieces, and then stomp on them.
Jet laughed without humour. “There were no rules about this. There never is with love.”
That little four-letter word bounced around my brain like a dropped drawer of cutlery, metallic sharp things ricocheting into dark places.
Butterflies soared in my stomach. A hot, ugly part of me, all slithering and slimy, made of lava and venom, had strangled my voice.
