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They’d spent the afternoon scoping out the broad brushstrokes of a new deal, more palatable to Avalon shareholders and allowing Will to retain control of Parker, so when he finally returned Pete’s call, he had victory from the jaws of defeat news to soften the blow of his sleight of hand.
Now he and Ted waited for Darcy’s program to start. He was grateful to the older man for sticking around; though Ted claimed he liked a good stoush and just wanted to see Will caught on the wire, he thought there was something more to it. There was at least thirty years between them but they spoke the same language, and when Ted should’ve used Will’s crack-up to crack down, he’d done the opposite. Who did that? It made Will even more wary of him.
Ted handed him a glass. “Time to tell me how badly they hurt you, son.”
They’d avoided getting personal, though Ted must’ve been itching for the details. Will held up both hands. “These I did myself. Problems with anger.” He waited to see what Ted’s reaction would be before continuing, but the older man merely nodded impassively. When he rollcalled his injuries, Ted’s eyes widened and he grunted his sympathy.
“Tell me about her then,” he said, gesturing with his glass at the TV with the sound muted. “Big star now, off the back of that batch of stories she did on you.”
Will sipped the Scotch. “I didn’t know that.” He should’ve found out, but he’d been too busy hiding.
“She looked surprised to see you. I mean, more than the rest of them were.”
“She came to see me in hospital. I told her I didn’t remember her.”
Ted settled deeper in the chair and toed a shoe off. “Something definitely wrong with you son, if you don’t remember a woman like that.”
“
She was with me in the riot.”
Ted paused, one shoe off, one in the process of being offed. “A woman like that, in an all male prison, with the lunatics in charge. Bugger me.”
“She might’ve been...” Will couldn’t finish.
“I’m with you, son. You got hurt protecting her?”
Will nodded. He fidgeted with the edge of the tape over his stitched hand.
“Then you pretended not to know who she was to you.”
“I’m toxic for her. And after what I did to her today I proved it.”
Ted had a surprising cackle for a big man. He used it now. “Son, you’ve got bigger problems than keeping your company intact. You just declared your love for a woman who’s the face of a muck raking TV show in front of, in front of, well everyone.”
That’s exactly what he’d done. Will got a piece of the tape lose and pulled, ripping it from his knuckles with a satisfying sting and a few spots of blood. “Any advice?”
Ted cackled again, slapped the arm of the leather chair he was sitting on. “Run, lad, run.”
When the broadcast started, and Darcy appeared on screen, Will realised he could look at her without his heart lodged somewhere under his tongue, without his senses going into lockdown and making him want to hit something again.
She didn’t look real. And it wasn’t just because TV still made his head swim. She was so thin, and they’d done something to her hair to make it stiff, not a wisp out of place. She wore an expression somewhere between going to the dentist and ‘no, really I’m having a great time’. But her voice was clear and strong, and the way she managed the other woman’s attempts to try and rattle her was slick. He watched with detachment, as though this was happening to someone else and he was a disinterested party. It was supposed to be painful, a deserved retribution—it was oddly lacking in drama.
“That woman did good by you, Will. She didn’t play their game.”
Ted had it in one. Darcy had steered the interview out of ‘romance of the month club’ territory into ‘its all a big misunderstanding’ and started the rehabilitated of his reputation along the way. He’d been prepared for more of the Australia’s most unwanted treatment, he’d copped over the photos. He didn’t know what to think about how smooth she’d made something so rough. Now more than ever he owed it to her to stay the hell out of her life.
Ted was putting his shoes on. “I’ll have those papers over to you by lunchtime tomorrow.”
Will got to his feet on legs that protested. “This is where I hand over to Peter. He’s your guy on the detail.”
“I’m just fine dealing with you, son.”
Will ran a newly unencumbered hand through freshly trimmed hair. “This is where I have to admit another failing. I’m dyslexic, I can’t read. It’s a hangover from the trauma of being kicked in the head. I had a bout of it as a kid and got over it. I’m hoping I’ll get over it again, but from here, I’m just in the way.”
Ted slung his coat over his shoulder. He stood in the entrance way to the suite and studied Will, making him feel like a kid trying not to look guilty in front of the headmaster. He never much worried about what people thought of him, but he respected Ted and felt unaccountably as though with that one admission he’d let him down.
Anger issues, coping a beating, false accusations, reputation damage, trouble with women, they were the stuff men understood, but not being able to read, it was somehow more shameful in this moment than being jailed on a murder rap.
