Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (36 page)

He shifted uncomfortably. He couldn’t put Georgia through this, couldn’t put her in the position of not being able to choose to walk away for fear of his condition. He’d have the surgery and go home to the farm where he wouldn’t need a voice or to continue to disrupt the lives of his friends. He’d come back when Georgia had moved on and he had a handle on what to make of a life without sight and sound. “I need to get out of here.”

“I’ll make you a deal.”

He sighed. He knew when she arrived he wasn’t leaving alone without a fight. “Yes, you can put me in a cab. No, I’m not coming home yet. No, you can’t come with me.”

“I’ll talk to Jamie if you talk to Georgia.”

He dropped his chin to his chest as Taylor’s words hit. “It’s not. It won’t. Christ.”

“Yeah. And don’t bother thinking evil thoughts about me. I’ve already had every freaked out black night, Satan worshipping, dungeon master, whip wielding, dead headed thought there is. I fucked it up. Just like you’re going to unless you talk to her. You have to tell her what’s going on with you, give her a choice.”

Every word he had left was measured out. He didn’t want to spend them engaging people’s pity or helping them deal with his issues. He needed Georgia to walk away with her head up because he was an arsehole, not because he was incapable of being the man she’d fallen in love with anymore. Not because she couldn’t deal. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can, once you work out how not to be a coward, and that’s coming from someone who’s been a coward about her feelings for way too long.”

This cowardice felt like sacrifice, so much sacrifice. “Are we really in a fire exit?” More than anything he wanted out of this conversation.

“We’re really in a fire exit and quit pretending you’re not on fire.”

But there weren’t enough words to express how much he wanted Taylor and Jamie to work through their pain. “You’ll talk to Jamie, tell him what you feel.”

She nodded, rubbing her check against his shirt. “I have been punishing him and Angus. I’ll fix it or die trying.” She pulled away. “What are you going to do?”

“You think I’m a coward?”

“Yep. Man up, Dame.”

“Georgia has unfinished business with her ex-husband.”

“You’re looking for an excuse to be a dick? Georgia loves you. Give her the space to work it out, but don’t push her away because you’re scared.”

He reached out and cuffed the back of Taylor’s neck, unbalancing her and dragging her into his side, folding around her.

He was a dick. He was a coward. He was wordless and terrified.

30: Whispered

Fluffy floated on her side, tail drooping, eyes staring. There was still food in the long-life block. Georgia tried not to see it as a sign.

“Goldfish, they’re fragile. Sometimes they just die.” Jamie watched her as if she was tissue paper about to tear.

It was a stupid fish, she’d half thought would asphyxiate in its plastic carry bag before she got it home. Who got upset about a goldfish turning belly up?

“Don’t not cry because I’m here.”

“I’m not crying over a stupid fish.” But her eyes were burning, aching.

“Okay, good.” Jamie quirked his head. “What about over a fuckwit boyfriend?”

She turned her back on him and blew out a breath. She didn’t want to cry in front of Jamie. She didn’t want to see Fluffy’s death as a symbol that her relationship with Damon was over. But both were a hard call. Jamie seemed reluctant to leave her, so she filled the kettle, got busy with cups and the teapot. When she heard the toilet flush and saw the now fishless tank, she realised he’d disposed of the body. She poured the tea and added milk and the sugar she knew he liked.

“I’ve never asked, are you musical, do you sing? Lots of engineers are frustrated musicians, according to Taylor.”

He’d driven her home from that horrible dive of a club Damon insisted on going to, but he didn’t need to stay and small talk her into feeling better.

“There is more music in a pair of scissors than in me. I can’t even hum in key. Damon thinks it’s a great joke.”

And there it was, Jamie with his according to Taylor and Georgia with her Damon thinks. They were both stuck.

Jamie took a seat at the breakfast bench. “I don’t know why he’s like this suddenly. Well, yeah I guess I do. He’s had a run of bad luck lately.”

She looked up. Jamie was a face load of frown. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a death wish. I’ve been over and over that night at the beach. He took a fucking stupid risk. The beach was closed, but there was no swell, it was dead calm, and we were in between where the flags had been, the safest place, and he had a whistle.”

“A whistle?”

Yeah, in the pocket of his boardies. I was so freaked I basically dragged him out to the shore. I felt it. It didn’t register till later, the shape of it. He used to carry a whistle when we were kids so if he got into trouble out on the farm he didn’t have to rely on yelling.”

“It was still a huge risk.”

“Shit, yeah, but he’s not suicidal. He’s just being a fuckwit.”

She gestured to the empty tank. “He gave me Fluffy.”

Jamie swallowed tea and a smile.

“He was trying to win my trust. Now he’s trying to destroy it. I don’t get it. Has he done this before?”

“Never. He could be a dick when we were kids—a real show-off, but he was a funny bugger. I don’t think we ever consciously made any allowances for him, he was just one of us. I had dreadful asthma, Angus was always in trouble at school, they said he was a slow learner. Taylor is adopted, Damon had bad eyesight. It was no big deal. When his career kickstarted he settled down. That was his proving ground—he didn’t have to worry about being special because he was, but in a different way to what everyone expected. Then he made allowances for us. He went guarantor on Angus’ loan for Moon Blink. Stumped up cash to help Sam buy tools when he started Royal Flush. He fed us, entertained us. What he wouldn’t do for Taylor or me. Or you. But that crap tonight, what he’s been doing to you…” Jamie shook his head. “You don’t have to put up with it.”

Georgia’s head was thumping. Her flat was stuffy from being closed up for weeks. The band had been awful, Damon was a stranger, her fish was dead. She had a tension headache and a problem. Damon was turning into Hamish and Hamish was turning into Damon and that was too much to deal with tonight.

Jamie poured himself a second cup. “Talk to me.”

She took a deep breath and shook her head. It was late, she was tired and disappointed and Jamie didn’t need this. She popped two headache tablets from their blister pack and downed them with her tea.

“Come on.” Jamie scrubbed his face with both hands. “One Taylor is enough in my life.” He looked at her, a mock stern expression. “Don’t even think about asking about her and me.”

He wasn’t getting away with that. “I’ll give if you will.”

He groaned and laid his head on folded arms on the countertop. His, “You first,” was muffled in his shirtsleeves.

“I’ve never had the kind of magic, the kind of attention I got from Damon.” Georgia clamped her mouth shut, making a frog face with flattened lips. She paid Carmella for this. Listening to her lonely hearts confessional wasn’t Jamie’s job. He’d sat upright, watched her, nodding, encouraging. He was the nicest man, considerate and gentle; what would be so bad about telling him?

“You love him, don’t you?”

She dropped her chin, looked at her cup. Avoid, avoid. She wanted Jamie to go so she could stand in the hot shower water and cry till she was too tired to function.

“I’ve loved Taylor since the day she split her lip climbing the fence between our place and hers.” She looked up; Jamie was smiling. “Her teeth were all bloody. I laughed at her and she hit me, gave me a black eye. I was ten, she was nine. I was too stupid for too many years to work out I loved her right through pesky neighbour, adopted sister and long-term friend into…” his smile folded in on itself. “I don’t know what it is, but I took that two year Singapore posting to try to get free of it. Taylor thought I was a sell-out because I gave up wanting to be a guitar hero. Traded ripped denim for grey wool. She dated these hardcore guys with beards and bikes and avoiding the cops on their brains, and that’s not me. That night, I thought she was drunk and I was too weak not to take advantage of it. I’d wanted her so badly for so long and we weren’t careful. I figured we shouldn’t have done it, but I never thought she’d shut me out like she did. At least now I know why.”

“I didn’t know what to do that night, for you, for Taylor.” But Georgia had known what to do for Damon. Taylor’s confession made Damon reach out for her, be with her like before his surgery, make love to her, whispering gorgeous obscenities in a broken voice that made her forget they’d been estranged and filled her with renewed hope.

Jamie sipped his tea and stared into the empty fishbowl. “What do you want to happen now?” she said.

He closed his eyes, when he opened them again, they were glossy. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know.” It felt shameful to admit that. “I love him, but I can’t let him treat me like he’s been doing. ‘You get the behaviour you accept’,” she said, quoting Carmella. “I know he’s struggling, but it’s not my fault and though I want to be there for him, I have a history of martyring myself. I can’t do that again.”

“He knows that, right?”

She nodded. That’s what made this so tough. He knew it, and she struggled to believe the man who’d created a fairy garden for her, who’d treated her like a princess, who’d brought her first pet, promoted her career and made her feel happy and secure and loved, would knowingly try to wreck that.

“He has a way of making me feel like I’m essential to him. Like I’m beautiful and important and vital. That’s such a…” it was a revelation, it was a massively addictive turn-on, “hard thing to walk away from. You know, the first night I stayed over at the house, he turned the backyard into a wonderland. He dressed the pavilion up with sheets and pillows, silk coverings and mosquito netting, candles and torches everywhere. It was one of those sultry nights after a too hot day and the scent of jasmine and orange blossom was thick in the air. Taylor had a gig in the Hunter Valley that weekend and Damon burned his fingers and then asked a neighbour to come light everything up. There was a line of tiny flickering tea-lights from the front door to the yard. It was such a lovely surprise.”

And what he’d done to her body that fragrant night, under black velvet skies in the Balinese pavilion, re-engineered her understanding of physical pleasure, of craving and urgency; of desire and restraint. Of the kinds of sounds that belong in a song. He gave her abandon so thrilling she’d screamed it under his lips, clawed it on his ribs. He gave her closeness so deep and broad, so total, she could not take her hands away from him, not shift from the aura of his body, the magnetic pull of his voice, and his soft words like liquid pleasure dripped into her brain: commands and entreaties, endearments and crudities.

That night he’d taken her infatuation, her fledgling notions of lust and love and made them a tangible living thing, carved on her writhing skin with kisses, poured into her taut body with passion, spoken into her ear as filthy compliments with longing and promise.

The sunrise that followed was fresh, crisp with birdsong, and under blue horizons she’d been different; made strict with need and want for him, partnered to the vision of him, incapable of being the person she once was without him, and joyous for it.

“He’s pushed me away since the surgery,” she said, despair crowding her voice with cracks. “He stopped talking to me, wanting me to talk.”

Jamie’s back rounded, he slumped on the stool. “God, Georgia.”

She flapped her arms, looking for levity in the motion, determined not to cry in front of him. “Look at the two of us. Hopelessly lovelorn. What do I do?”

Jamie groaned. She’d rung him when Taylor failed to get Damon to come away from the stage, when he’d been drinking steadily and shutting them out. Jamie had been somewhere with restaurant sounds in the background, but was in his car before they rang off.

“I want to tell you to tough it out. I want to say that you’ve got no choice, you love him, you have to hang in there and hope he comes out of this, but that’s bad advice. That’s…” he passed a hand across his short clipped hair.

“That’s what you did for Taylor.” It’s what she’d done with Hamish.

“And see where that got me.”

“But you still love her. She wouldn’t talk to me about it, but I’m pretty sure she loves you.”

He shook his head. “That night, Damon doing what he did, and then Taylor. I was so angry and confused. Told myself I was done for good with her. But she’s not like some deadline I can pass, some project I can finish. She’s a 3D spreadsheet, the ultimate infographic, the sweetest riff. I’m so crazy hooked on her and it doesn’t matter what she’s done, I can’t move on.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“You’re not going to let me get away with saying nothing, are you?”

“If that’s what you really want. It’s a valid choice. Maybe there’s too much history, too much misunderstanding and hurt. Maybe it’s better to cut off cleanly.”

“Is that what you want?” Jamie stood up. He undid a button and yanked his shirt so his left pec was bared. He had the word Trill tattooed across his heart in fancy lettering. “That’s not what I want.”

He lifted his chin, a now you gesture, and despite the ink, Georgia had a glimpse of what he’d be like in a boardroom, different to his presence on stage but the same quiet confidence, the same professional competence.

She looked away. There was an answer in her heart and it was rich with the story of her and Damon, but her head read the words as fantasy. Hope was what she’d used to tell herself things would improve with Hamish. Hope and denying the reality in front of her lost her years of living free and happy.

Jamie came around the counter. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not like there’s a formula, a song sheet for this stuff of the heart crap.”

She sighed and they both jumped when her doorbell rang.

Jamie eyed his watch, “You expecting anyone?”