Page 27 of The Geography of Happiness

“Oh.” I tried to feign a dawning realisation of Spencer’s intent, which probably sucked like all my other attempts at being squirrelly, but too bad. I wasn’t ready for any of this... for Spencer, least of all. “I, um... I don’t think... I mean... shit, I’m sorry if I gave you the impression, but I, um, well, I’m not... gay.” Not an actual lie, right?

My stumbling response drifted into a long silence on Spencer’s end, and I pictured that tiny crease forming between his chocolate brown eyes as he digested my words; the same one I’d noticed while he was examining Miller, his focused look.

This time, however, his focus was clearly on me. But as the silence spun out into the realms of uncomfortable, I realised I didn’t want to hear whatever response was brewing behind those beautiful eyes. I didn’t want to further my evasion, and I certainly didn’t want to outright lie about what I felt, so there could be no more questions.

And so I did what any self-respecting, chicken-shit grown-up in my position would do—I bailed. “Actually, I should really go and let Gabby out for one last pee,” I fudged. “Thanks again, Spencer. I’ll tell Hannah that Miller is fine.”

After a long few seconds, when I thought he might actually call me on my bullshit, Spencer instead offered a quietly spoken, “No problem. I’m sorry for misreading things. Sleep well, Terry.”

I hung up before I changed my mind and blurted out what I really wanted to say. That I wasn’t straight. That I was attracted to him. That talking with him had been the highlight of my day. And that I wanted to do it again.

But I didn’t do any of that. I also didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t go to Hannah. I didn’t let Gabby out because she never peed at that hour. I didn’t even put my phone away.

I just lay on my bed with my hands shaking and my heart thundering in my chest.

CHAPTER SIX

Spencer

My knuckles hovereda couple of centimetres away from the closed door as I second-guessed myself for the millionth time. Coming here was a mistake. The worst idea ever.Get back in the ute and get out of here,the voice of common sense screamed in my ear.

Yeah, about that. If I’d listened to that sucker, I’d have chalked the whole fiasco off as just one of those things and got a full night’s sleep instead of angsting for hours about how I got it so wrong and what I should do about it. Like apologise, for instance. And where the fuck had that come from?

I’d apologised at the time, after all. It was just one of those things, right? Terry hadn’t seemed angry about my flirting, just a little... flustered. And there it was again. Why flustered? How had I read him so badly? And even if I had fucked up, there was no need to be standing on the poor man’s doorstep at nine the next morning just to offer another half-baked apology all over again, right?

Wrong, apparently, because there I was with a belly full of butterflies, looking like an idiot. I didn’t even have a damn visitwritten in my diary. I was due at Hawthorne’s in an hour in the complete opposite direction. But Hawthorne’s didn’t have Terry, did it? Go figure. And for some reason, I wanted to see the guy in person... again. Just call me a boneheaded fool and be done with it.

I drew a long slow breath and rapped my knuckles on the door.

A door slammed somewhere in the cottage and Terry’s voice rang out, “Coming.”

Yeah, if only.I smiled to myself as images of him doing exactly that circled my twisted brain.You’re a sick man, Spencer Thompson.

Still caught up in the inopportune fantasy, I was ill-prepared when the door flew open to reveal a flustered and out-of-breath Terry, wearing a pair of buttery soft jeans, with a towel wrapped around his shoulders and water dripping from his hair like he’d walked straight out of the shower, which I presumed he had.

The first fantasy hightailed it out of my brain to make room for the second, appearing in full living colour.Just damn.

Terry frowned when he saw it was me, those blue eyes skewering me in place, an unreadable emotion in their depths. Then he clutched the ends of the towel tighter to his chest like it was a string of pearls and I was reminded why I was there. “Spencer?” Terry glanced left and right like someone else might appear at any moment, then he returned his attention to me. “Did I leave something at the clinic?”

Me.“Oh, no,” I said a little huskily, then cleared my throat. “It’s, um... about last night, actually.” I watched as he drew the towel even tighter and sighed. “Look, I’ve clearly caught you at a bad time. I can wait outside for a bit if you like?”

Terry glanced down at the damp jeans hugging his slim legs and the water dripping from his hair and flushed a fetching colour of pink. “Oh, yeah, I was, um, just out of the shower.” Hestared at me intently, still frowning, his teeth worrying that full bottom lip. Then he sighed and waved me inside. “Look. Why don’t you come in and take a seat? I won’t be a minute. I’ll just, um—” He indicated the hall leading off the lounge. “—finish up.”

Terry fled into the hall and the door closed with a definite click. I smiled and made myself comfortable at one end of the long couch and looked around. I’d stayed in the cottage a couple of times after indulging in Miller Station celebrations, so the place wasn’t new to me. Instead, it was a sense of Terry and his daughter that I found myself looking for.

A set of canes stood by the front door and I remembered Hannah had elbow crutches when I’d seen her at the airfield.Did she swap between them?Dog leads, a harness, and a couple of windbreakers hung from the coat hooks. An open laptop sat on the coffee table in front of me with a screensaver image of some pretty coastal town that I speculated was Painted Bay.

A selection of fiction books, both adult and teenage, were piled alongside the laptop, and when I turned one to read the title, I recognised it as an adult gothic fantasy, which for some reason made me smile. Clocking the other titles, it was clear that Hannah’s taste ran more to throw-back detective novels with copies of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie earning a place in her current reading.

The remains of breakfast were still waiting to be cleared from the table, and a half mug of cold something with a skin of old milk on top sat on the hearth in front of the fire next to a mound of cushions. I pictured Terry sprawled out there the night before, reading his gothic fantasy and thinking about calling me. Which of course he hadn’t been. At least not in the way I might’ve hoped.

The door opened behind me and Terry appeared in a fresh pair of light-wash jeans and a clean, simple white T-shirt, his damp hair combed back from his face. “Sorry about that.” Heslid into the armchair opposite, his gaze skittering over the room and landing anywhere but on my face.

“Don’t be.” I waited until he couldn’t avoid looking at me any longer, but his eyes when they finally settled on mine were wary to say the least. “It’s me who should be sorry,” I said. “And that’s why I came. To apologise in person for last night and, um... well, you know.”

He watched me for a long minute, like he was running my words through his head over and over, and just as I’d pretty much decided I really had made a big mistake, we broke the silence at the same time.

“I think coming here was a bad idea.”

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