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“You wanna talk about it?” Phoenix startled at the question. Craig had shifted over so they now sat next to each other, and as he swung his gaze around the fire, Phoenix noticed for the first time that they were alone. “They all went their own ways while you were thinking,” he said by way of explanation. “Dunno if I’m the right person to talk to, but I’m listening if you want to try me.”
Phoenix nodded and gave him a small smile. He appreciated the hospitality and their attempt to include him even though he was a basket case. “What’s the deal with you, Ally, and the tall bloke? Sam? She seems to be close to both of you.” Phoenix closed his mouth and blew out a breath. See? Basket case. He would never normally ask a question like that, but the way they looked at each other told him there was something more to the image they portrayed to the world.
“Yeah, Sam. We’re together, in our own way.” There was more to their story, and when Craig explained it, Phoenix couldn’t help but think how lucky he was. “What about you? You seeing anyone?”
“Nah, I did have a friends-with-benes type arrangement, but there was a certain redhead that I couldn’t stop thinking about.” Phoenix motioned to the house where Pete had gone to check in on Scottie and Ally. “When all the shit went down with work, he was the only person I wanted to talk to.” He shook his head, disbelieving that he could have thought for a moment that he and Pete were supposed to be together. If he hadn’t had the courage to come out to him in the years they’d lived together, how could he possibly have been the one? When he considered what it must have taken for Scottie to have opened himself up, Phoenix knew that he and Pete were only ever meant to be friends. “He talked me off a ledge I wasn’t sure I could come back from. Then when he invited me here, I felt like I could breathe again. Being back in the country was exactly what I needed.”
“Where are you from?”
“Bit west of the Gold Coast. The ’rents own a small farm. They used to be pretty self-sufficient, but now that they’re older, they rent the barn space out for weddings and parties, that kind of thing.” The truth was that his parents weren’t old. His mum was barely seventeen when she’d had him. His dad dropped out of high school to get a job and support them, and the only place they could afford to rent was out in the country. His dad commuted to whatever building site he was labouring on every day, and his mum picked up as many odd jobs as she could where she didn’t have to pay for childcare. Then, one of the local farmers had passed, and the family property was subdivided. A parcel came up for sale, and his parents had bought it, wanting more space and the ability to be self-sufficient. They’d worked non-stop, paying off their loans until they were financially stable enough that they were no longer living week to week. Phoenix had moved out the moment he could, wanting to take the burden of looking after him away from his parents. He’d used the excuse that he hated it there, but it was a lie. “I moved to Sydney to go to uni.”
“What did you study?”
“Law. I wanted to be a judge by the time I was forty and hang out on Oxford Street in my spare time.” Phoenix’s laugh held no humour, and he couldn’t help the grimace. “As if I’d have spare time. Anyway, I had a position with one of the best firms in the country, learning the ropes in court with plans to do an internship with a top QC—a barrister. It all went to shit when the partner of the firm busted me in bed with his son while his son’s girlfriend watched us.”
Craig sputtered out a shocked cough. “What? How?”
“They arrived unannounced for Sunday brunch.” Phoenix shot him a smirk, but the pain squeezed his throat tight until he was blinking back tears, and he fought to keep the wobble out of his voice. “I worked hard for that position, but it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. That one night was worth it, though. I’ll never forget them.” The calm, collected tone of his words surprised him. He was a mess, had been for far longer than he wanted to admit, but everything he’d said was true. He couldn’t regret being with Jake and Cassidy—not when he’d experienced perfection, if only for a minute—even though his life had been turned upside down afterward.
Craig looked like he was working up the courage to ask a question. Phoenix waited him out, happy to stare at the fire. Thankfully he asked about growing up on the Gold Coast before he asked another question about Sydney. “Are you looking forward to going back?”
“I don’t know if I can. Go back there, I mean.” He paused, not really knowing how to explain what fighting the heart-stopping panic, fear, and instinct to run took out of him. In the end, he went with being frank. “Every time I think about getting on that train or even going back to my apartment, I have a bloody anxiety attack. I was nearly hyperventilating trying to figure out how to get my job back.”
“Why do you need it back?”
His question shocked Phoenix, and he raised an eyebrow at the seemingly clueless man. “Do you have any idea how expensive Sydney is? You can’t just keep an apartment there and not work your arse off.”
Craig furrowed his brows, this time looking at Phoenix like he’d missed the most basic of points. “So, give it up. Move somewhere else. Go home. Stay in Longreach. Whatever. Why do you need to live in Sydney if you’re not happy?”
“Because…” He paused and looked at the other man, the cogs in his brain turning over. Was the answer to run away? Just throw his hands up in the air and say fuck it? It didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but damn, it was tempting.
Could he find something else? Do something else that would never nearly break him again? Could he get a nine-to-five job, something that didn’t have a lot of overtime? He wanted to blame Denyer. He wanted to put all his problems on the man’s shoulders to wear like a karmic blanket, but Phoenix couldn’t. He’d been the one to lose his friends. He hadn’t fought for them, hurt when they’d been bitter about his need to move out. Then he’d buried himself in work, sacrificing himself in the misguided belief that he could catch his career up. And for what? So he could spread his mental state so thin that he was at breaking point. That one cruel word, one barb from an opponent, had him crashing and burning. But what choice did he have? He was a lawyer. It was what he’d trained to do. A university degree and years of work just to get where he was. He’d be crazy to change careers now, especially when he was on the cusp of stepping his career up. That thought alone was enough to send his pulse skyrocketing and his chest tightening, but he managed to choke out, “It’s expected. It’s what I am.”
“Okay,” Craig conceded, accepting his answer just like that.
Their conversation meandered, winding back to coming out and what it had been like for Phoenix as a teenager. He hadn’t expected to find so many LGBTQIA people at the station, but it was refreshing to know that both gay and bi men had found a soft place to land well outside of the rainbow flags hanging on Oxford Street. But mid-conversation, Craig went quiet. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, the colour in his face draining and his lips turning down. Thoughtfulness morphed into horror, and he reared back as if his own thoughts had reached out and slapped him.
He took off. Sprinted away in the direction of the cabins.
Phoenix wasn’t sure what to do with the fire now that he was alone out there. Did he let it burn out? Did he throw a bucket of water over it? Could he even leave it to go and ask at the main house? His questions were answered when Pete and Scottie wandered out hand in hand, coming to sit next to him. “Sorry ’bout that. Had some paperwork I needed to wrap up.”
“All good. I was talking to Craig. He’s a nice guy.” They exchanged looks, the silence loud in the still of the night. “What? What am I missing?”
“He wasn’t an arsehole?”
“No.” Phoenix shook his head, wondering why Scottie would ask that. “We were talking about Sydney and work, and then what it was like growing up bi. Coming out, when we realized, that sort of thing.”
“Bi? Coming out?” Pete asked. “What?” There was an edge of panic in his voice, and Phoenix swallowed. He thought back over their conversation. Craig had asked him questions, and he’d answered them. The conversation had been one way; Craig hadn’t shared any of his experiences. Had he made a terrible mistake in assuming he was bi?
“But Craig, Sam, and Ally are together. He’s bi, isn’t he? I thought—” Phoenix furrowed his brow. He was sure Craig had told him they were together. Or had he imagined the whole exchange? He supposed that it was more than possible for each of the men to be with Ally but not be together. If Craig had been disgusted by Pete and Scottie’s relationship, then it was probably likely, not just possible.
But it just didn’t seem right.
“Ah—” Pete started but then looked to Scottie. The other man reached out and squeezed Phoenix’s shoulder.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
Phoenix intrinsically trusted Scottie. He knew he was good people if Pete trusted him. But this time, Scottie sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Why would he have something to worry about?
