You Are the Reason (10 page)

My eyes flew open. Would he message me? Didn’t he say that he would wait for my call? Or was he going to ring me? What if he asked to come over to my place?

Shit.

I scrambled for my phone but collected the coffee table in my mad flight. My foot hit the edge of table, and I crashed inelegantly to the ground, smashing my knee on the floor tiles and bashing my cheek on the edge of a chair. Ignoring the pain, I climbed over the back of the second sofa—the shortest route to the kitchen—and limped to the bench where I could reach the device.

With frantic fingers I swiped at the screen.

Jake Manning.

I sighed, and I’m not sure which emotion won. Was I feeling more relief or disappointment that it wasn’t Lee?

I opened the text.
What works for colic?

Colic?

I blinked rapidly but the word “colic” stayed there. I searched my memory banks and came up with a solution. My sister had married a horse trainer some years back. The year before, she missed Christmas Day at our parents’ house because one of their top gallopers had colic. They’d spent the day with the sick horse. I tried to remember what she gave the horse.

I typed my answer.
Castor oil and lots of walking?

Caroline had told me they’d dosed the horse with oil and then walked him nonstop so he wouldn’t lie down. Apparently a horse lying down was bad, so they paced with him until he passed the bad stuff.

My shin was throbbing, and I was examining the large chunk of flesh I appeared to be missing when Jake messaged me again.

WTF? You want me to feed Maxine oil and make her walk?

Then two seconds later.

Oh, fuck. Wrong person. Sorry. I meant to send that to my sister. I’ve been up with Maxine for over thirty hours. She doesn’t want Patrick, only me, so he went to work today and isn’t home yet. He’s sulking.

I frowned as I remembered the nights that Jake had partied on through the early hours of the morning with me, then got up and went to work for ten hours the next day. I gave the only sympathy I knew.

Red Bull? In a six-pack?

I could feel the heat of his glare coming
at me from eight suburbs over.

Prick! Patrick will be home soon, and I’m going to bed. I don’t care how loud Maxine screams. Tell me, how did it go with Lee?

Oh, and there was
the
question. How to answer? Blurt the whole thing out? Pretend I didn’t even remember who Lee was? (Ha.)

Gutless wonder. That’s what Jake would call me.

I messaged him back, lying through my teeth.
Still considering my options. Hope Maxine stops screaming soon.

Then I flung my phone down and limped to the laundry, digging through the cupboard until I found Mr. Magic 8 Ball again. “Should I message Lee now?”

My sources say no.

I scowled at the answer and shoved it back in the cupboard.

T
UESDAY
NIGHT
I just happened to pull out my cleaning supplies and came across Mr. Magic 8 Ball. Doesn’t every man clean his toilet and shower on Tuesday night after he’s worked the whole day?

“Should I message Lee now?”

Ask again later.

I scowled at the oracle and vowed to hide it in a better spot where I couldn’t ask it again the next day. The anger at Lee’s lie had completely faded. All I was feeling was eagerness to see him again and see what sexual magic we could make together.

Wednesday night I just
happened
to pull out the stock pot that I only use once a year and found Mr. Magic 8 Ball inside. It’s funny how I had the urge to cook pumpkin soup while I was driving home, and just had to stop off at the shop to pick up a huge pumpkin that I would need my stock pot for.

“Should I message Lee now?”

Don’t count on it.

Thursday night, after over an hour of strenuous sport, I had the urge to vacuum the lounge room thoroughly. The type of thorough vacuuming that requires you to move all the furniture. And under the recliner I found Mr. Magic 8 Ball.

“Should I message Lee now?”

Outlook not so good.

I vowed to buy a new oracle. The one I had was obviously broken.

Friday I was two steps inside the door of my house before I dropped my bag and ran to the second bedroom. I pushed aside the boxes and stretched up on tiptoe to reach the top of the curtain where I had stashed Mr. Magic 8 Ball. The law of averages said I
had
to get a positive answer soon.

“Please Mr. Magic 8 Ball. Tell me true. Should I message Lee tonight?”

My sources say no.

“Fuck. Well what should I do tonight, then? Go to Jake’s house?”

Most likely, yes
.

There went my theory of the oracle being broken. It did have positive answers, after all.

I changed out of my work clothes, threw on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed four containers of frozen pumpkin soup out of the freezer, and drove to Jake’s house. Even if they weren’t home, I could leave the soup on the doorstep and head off to the pub.

I rang the bell at the front door and listened to it chime through the house.

I heard the lock jiggle, but the man who opened the door wasn’t the friend I remembered. He was unshaven and haggard and had three sets of Gucci luggage under his eyes. He also had a sleeping baby strapped to his chest.

“Fuck, Jake. You look like shit.”

Even the heat of his glare was off. “Don’t swear in front of the baby.”

I looked at him with alarm. “When was the last time you slept?” I demanded.

He stepped back and motioned for me to enter the house. “Tuesday? Wednesday? I can’t remember. What are you doing here on a Thursday night? Don’t you play cricket tonight?”

I strode to the kitchen and put the soup in the freezer. “Pumpkin soup,” I explained. “And tonight’s Friday. I played cricket last night.”

I loved to play indoor cricket. The game was fast paced and required great reflexes. I’d smashed the ball for a personal top score of eighty-eight during my four overs, hitting the back net so many times that the opposition players knew the only way to get me out was to catch me off the nets.

Jake slumped onto the kitchen chair and dropped his face into his hands. Suddenly my problems seemed small.

“What’s up, mate?” I asked him.

He rubbed at his tired eyes. “Reflux. Maxine just screams in pain if she’s laid down. It’s like all the bile and acid in her stomach comes back up and causes her pain. She needs to be kept upright. Even when she’s asleep. I don’t remember doing it this bad with my sisters.”

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked.

I watched as he frowned and tried to remember. “Ate something other than coffee you mean?”

I shook my head, grabbed a container back out of the freezer, and popped it in the microwave to warm through. “Where’s Patrick?” I asked with sympathy.

I watched as the light went out in his eyes. “He’s got this weird idea that Maxine hates him. She cries a lot, and he thinks it’s his fault. He thinks that if he weren’t blind, then she would be a better baby, or some shit. We’re both so tired we’re not making sense.” He patted the small baby who seemed sound asleep in the carrier on his chest. It was hard to imagine she would scream. “He took off to work, saying that she would stop crying if he left. But….”

“Dickhead,” I muttered as Jake trailed off. It sounded like Patrick wasn’t thinking straight.

“Hey,” Jake rebuked me sharply and I looked up.

“What?”

He scowled. “That’s the man I love, and only I get to call him a dickhead.”

I laughed as the microwave beeped at me. I poured the soup into a bowl and placed it in front of Jake. He dug in without further comment. I watched him eat in silence. Then, I made the biggest, most generous offer that I had made in my entire life.

“Give me Maxine while you go and have a shower, Jake. And make sure you stay in there for at least ten minutes. And you need to shave.”

The crickets chirping in the corner all stopped in disbelief.

But my mate looked at me with hopeful eyes. “What if she cries?”

Oh, yes. That tiny baby had her two daddies wrapped around her little pinkie finger because neither of them could stand to hear her cry.

“You’ll be close by. And it’s only ten minutes. So come on, help me on with that baby thingy, and I’ll tough it out for the time you’re in the shower.”

We jiggled things around, and soon I was strapped into the device, which seemed to have more snaps and catches on it than a parachute. Carefully Jake lowered the sleeping baby into the sling, and I braced while the carrier took her weight. She was heavier than I’d anticipated.

“Shit, Jake. What have you been feeding her? She’s much bigger than last time I carried her.”

He smiled. “She’s growing, isn’t she?”

It was the correct thing to say, because right there, under the tiredness, was a proud father. He beamed at me and looked lovingly at his daughter.

He helped me clip the last catch of the carrier and suddenly I was holding her by myself. I motioned to him. “Give me your shirt.”

He looked down. “What?”

“Your shirt. It will smell like you. Don’t babies like smelling their parents? That’s how they know people?”

I saw the comprehension come over his face. “Of course. Why didn’t we think of that? Patrick should’ve known.” He pulled the shirt off his torso, folded it and gently slipped it between my body and the sleeping baby so she was resting her cheek on the blue material. It smelled a bit ripe, but I wisely kept my mouth shut. I’d put up with worse before.

Maxine didn’t even stir, and after ten seconds, I shooed him out of the room. The shower started up, and I breathed shallowly, waiting for the baby to fuss and begin to wail.

She didn’t.

I gave a cautious sigh and looked around the room for something to do. I spotted the daily newspaper and lowered myself carefully onto the chair in the kitchen. It took a while to work out how to read because I couldn’t lean over to see the print and it was too far away while I had the chair pushed back from the table to not bump the baby. In the end, I folded it over and brought it closer to my face. I looked like an old grandpa by the way I was reading it.

Finally Jake reappeared. I was up to the international news on page twenty-two.

“Is she okay?” he demanded.

I reminded myself that I was dealing with a protective father. “Yes. She hasn’t stirred. Do you feel better?”

He yawned widely. “No. I think I need about twenty hours sleep.”

“Then go,” I told him. “Go while she’s asleep, and I’m stupid enough to offer.”

“But what if she needs feeding or changing?”

“Patrick will be home soon,” I promised him. “He can do the changing. Show me the bottle, and I’ll do the feeding.”

Jake didn’t argue, which wasn’t like Jake at all. Jake would argue the color of the sky, simply to be a pain in the arse. Instead he pointed to the three sterilized bottles of water lined up on the kitchen bench, and the container with the rotating lid. “The formula is already inside this container, all measured out. You just need to tip it into the bottle. Then rotate the lid around to the next section for next time. Give the bottle a shake and feed it to her. Room temperature is fine. She needs feeding in about an hour, when she wakes. Then Patrick will be home, and he can take over.”

Then he stumbled into the bedroom and closed the door.

W
ITHOUT
M
R
.
Magic 8 Ball to make the decision for me, I decided to message Lee. It was Friday night. Enough time had passed.

Hey Lee. How are things? What are you up to tonight? I’m babysitting—something I thought I would never never never ever do.

I stared at the screen of my phone, but no return message came. Turning my phone off and back on again didn’t make a message arrive either.

With disgust, I threw my phone aside. All this time, all this angst, and now Lee couldn’t even respond immediately to my message. Wasn’t he glued to his phone waiting for me to contact him?

Maxine slept on, so I moved to the lounge room and sank into the couch. I turned the TV on and fiddled with the remote control. Eventually I worked out how to bring up the subtitles for the movie, then sat back in the dark to watch some legal drama in silence.

It was after eight o’clock when Patrick came sneaking into the house. I heard the door and the jingle of Gregor’s harness before Patrick released him from his duty as Patrick’s seeing-eye dog. Gregor ran in and stepped up on the lounge next to me so he could smell the baby. Obviously satisfied that she was still okay, he disappeared into the house.

Patrick was doing some smelling of his own. He stopped in the doorway, assessing the room with his other four senses. “Davo?”

“Hi, Patrick. How are you?”

He ignored me and tilted his head to the side as if cocking his ear for sounds. “What are you doing sitting in the dark with the TV on silent? Do you have Maxine with you? And….” He hesitated. “Jake…?”