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chapter 1
Craig – Aged 15
The shed was dry and dusty, much like everything else around here. We hadn’t had rain in at least four years. I wasn’t even sure I remembered the sound of it on our tin roof. Or the smell. It seemed like a long time ago for us teenagers. It was even longer for our parents.
We’d grown up on Hayes Horse Farm in southern Queensland, but since we’d been in high school, we’d attended a boarding school in the city during term. It was good to be back home, but our time there was coming to an end. It was late summer and school was going back in just a few weeks. Soon my mate, Sam, and I would get our gear packed and his dad or mine would make the five-hour trip into Brisbane to begin our next year. Goondiwindi was less than an hour east of us, and they had perfectly good schools there, but our parents wanted us to have a good education. So that meant leaving for ten weeks at a time to be stuck in the city, before returning home. By any description it was a hundred kays past the middle of nowhere, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Until we were forced back to school, we’d spend every minute we could here.
With the shed doors thrown open, the late summer sun cast dust motes in the air. Long shafts of light pierced the shadows in the shed where there were gaps in the rusty iron roof. We had plenty of light to work with but enough shadow to make our jobs bearable at this time of year. The heat was so thick it could be cut with a knife. At over forty degrees Celsius, most of the life on the farm was wallowing in the shade. But Sam and I were still at it, trying to get our chores done for the day. We were motivated to get in our parents’ good graces, not that we’d been especially rowdy of late, but we had something to ask and it was better to do it while the folks were in a good mood. Sam’s dad, the owner of the farm, and my dad, his head farmhand were the go-to men, but our mums ruled the roost. So we had to impress both.
We were already considered men when it came to work, but not where it mattered. While we loved it here, we wanted off the farm for just one weekend. Our sixteenth birthday weekend, so we could party in town with friends. Goondiwindi wasn’t exactly known for its nightlife, but girls, grog, and a pizza was about all we wanted anyway. But until we could work our way up to asking, we had chores to do.
Stacking hay bales was physical work, the heat sapping the energy out of us almost as much as tossing the rectangular cubes of feed. I wiped sweat from my brow, using the back of the yellow suede gloves I was wearing. My forearms were scratched and in some spots dots of dried blood littered my filthy skin, but it didn’t bother me. I’d grown up out here, crashing and tumbling around. I barely noticed the few surface-level scrapes.
A gust of heated wind blew into the shed, sending the fine dust pluming into the air. Sam sneezed and I coughed, taking in a lungful of red-dirt-laced air right at the wrong time. “Shit,” I muttered, spluttering. I lifted the hem of my sweaty tee and wiped my face. Grit had filled my mouth, and I took a swig from the water bottle hooked over the back of the ute before spitting it over my shoulder.
“Bloody dusty, hey?” Sam complained as he hefted a bale above his head, carrying it from the ute over to our neat stack. His lithe muscles bulged, his faded navy blue T-shirt riding up and showing a strip of pale skin and a dimple on his back just above the waistline of his low riding jeans. Those jeans hugged him in all the right places. He managed to look good, even covered in dirt, hay, and sweat. Sam didn’t even strain as he tossed it to the second level while butterflies swooped in my belly as I watched him jump up onto another bale to position it properly.
I could watch him work all day, but he’d kick my arse if I did. So with a smile, I followed him, lifting the bale off the tray and taking it over to where he stood. We worked as a team, stacking them three bales high in neat rows.
Feed didn’t grow of its own accord anymore. No water and blinding heat ensured that any grasses that sprouted were quickly burned to a crisp. The Macintyre River that ran along the boundary of the farm had run dry, no more than puddles in the deepest parts. Our horses were healthy—well looked after—but at the toss of a coin, they could be desperately clinging to life. They moved between the shade and the bore. We took the feed to them, so they’d keep up their energy levels. After the endless hot summer, dehydration was a real risk.
Taking the feed to them was the easy part. Getting it out to the farm was harder. Dad and old man Hayes, Sam’s dad, moaned about it all the time.
From my spot on the second layer of bales, I looked over to my best mate, admiring the way Sam didn’t stop working, no matter how hot it was. I caught the bale he tossed, saving him from jumping up, and positioned it ready for the next one.
I knew Sam stood next to me before he even said anything. It was as if we were tuned into each other so closely that we didn’t even have to speak to communicate. We’d grown up together, learning to crawl and walk holding onto each other, riding our bikes, then our horses. In the last few years, our parents had even taken it in turns giving us driving lessons along the dusty trails of the farm.
I couldn’t imagine being without him. We were still as inseparable as we had been as kids. Everyone knew that where one of us was, the other could be found too. But it wasn’t only that we spent all our time together. Our skills complimented each other’s as well. Where I was better at arts, English, and history, Sam was a numbers and science whizz. Around the farm, we were evenly matched, even to the experienced horsemen Sam’s dad hired. We could hold our own against any one of them in terms of riding skill and training.
Sam nudged his elbow into my arm, and a tingle of awareness shot through me. “Whatcha thinking about?”
“Just looking round at the paddocks,” I lied, steadfastly refusing to admit I was thinking about the way he moved. “Summer’s hot.” I pointed to the copse of gum trees swaying in the breeze that looked like a mirage. The heat shimmered off the dusty ground, masking the line of the horizon in the distance. Blue skies and reddish dirt where the lush green grasses had once grown created a stunning contrast. Nature in all its glory.
“We can stay out here once we’ve finished up if you want? Be a bit cooler by then. I’ve got this new book that Ma picked up for me. It’s supposed to be good. We can read it together if you like.”
“Yeah.” I loved reading—could bury my head in a book all night. And I loved being out here in the summer evenings—the sunsets, the way everything seemed to move slower in the heat. But it wasn’t really what I was thinking about. We stood there, the quiet enveloping us. Even the cicadas, which could deafen you on a summer day, were silent. The land was lying in wait for the rain, waiting for new life to be born. Waiting to breathe again.
“You gonna tell me what you’re really thinking about?” Sam kicked my foot and grinned at me, sitting down on the edge of the bales. I followed him, getting comfortable on the prickly surface.
“Dunno,” I answered as truthfully as I dared. My feelings were all over the place lately. It was as if I was a spring coiled under pressure, ready to burst free and bounce away. I was crawling out of my own skin.
“You think we’ll get the parentals to agree to let us stay in Goondiwindi?” Sam thankfully changed the subject.
“Not unless it’s at the pastor’s house.” I huffed. That was the last place I wanted to stay—there would be no chance of hooking up with anyone if we were there. “And he’s gonna want to have us doing youth club activities.”
“Mightn’t be so bad.” Sam shrugged. I looked at him incredulously, my eyebrows hiked high. “Hear me out. Youth club in Goondiwindi is gonna have most of the kids around town there, right? There’s got to be a couple of girls who’d be up for doin’ it.”
“S’pose.” I nodded. “Maybe I should check the flyer that Ma always collects when they go into town.”
“You ever wondered what it’s like to make out with a girl?” Sam asked quietly. His body language oozed confidence, but I heard the uncertainty in his voice. He was nervous. “Dunno if a girl’d go further if we don’t know what we’re doing.”
“What are we supposed to do? It’s not like our hands can kiss us back.” I used the same sarcasm-filled tone that Ma hated, but usually made Sam laugh. He didn’t though. This time, he looked at me like he wanted to be sick. His eyes were filled with doubt. Sam sucked in a breath and I waited. I wasn’t sure what he’d say, but the words that came out of his mouth weren’t what I would have expected in a million years.
“We could practice? On each other?” His voice was tight. Higher pitched than normal. “You know, so we aren’t clueless when it happens for real.”
With his justification, he gained confidence, or maybe he was just winging it. He was one for logic. If he saw a problem, he’d work on it until he came up with a solution. That’s what this was. It was Sam coming up with the answer to a problem we’d talked about endlessly.
His suggestion made my gut flip. The kaleidoscope of butterflies that had taken flight before swooped again, doing tumbles in my belly. A pang of something shot through me—what I had no idea—and my dick filled at the prospect of learning how to pash. Even if it was with my best mate, not with a girl. He was right though. It was better that we knew what we were doing than coming off totally clueless. We were already at a disadvantage not having any girls our age out here.
