Page 18 of Then Came You

Believe me, I never want him to stop touching me, but too many different thoughts, feelings, and emotions at once are overwhelming. He obliges, squeezing my hand before circling back to his seat.

"Want to talk about your sister?"

I really don't. It will just depress me.

"Maybe another time," I say, water rinsing through his hair, washing away the shampoo suds.

"Your Dad's not in the picture," he starts, but I interject.

"He's dead. He died when I was ten."

"Row..." He doesn't know what to say. No one ever does.

"He was driving back from Queensland. They had a flood, and he had a truck so he could transport lots of supplies. They say he fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the road."

Go figure, right? He literally goes to help these flood victims out of the goodness of his heart, and he ends up paying the ultimate price.

I wonder how my life would have turned out if he had lived? Would he still be married to Mum? Would he have taken Tori and me away? Mum was never maternal when he was alive, but we were always very clearly daddy's girls.

"Row, you're killing me here," he says gently.

"See, I told you, I'm unlucky." My joke falls flat, possibly because my tone is so sullen and gloomy.

"And your Mum?" I wince, tensing my ribs over his question. They're still in searing pain from when Mum kicked me earlier, and most recently from Blade's bear hug.

I don't want him knowing the real fucked up version of my life. A part of me wants to suspend reality for a while. So, I lie.

"She does what she can." I don't want the spotlight on me anymore, so I flip it so he's under it. "What about you? You seem like you've had a busy few weeks." He groans, but not the one that reverberates down below.

"You can say that again. My ex-wife is trying to change the court orders, which is painstakingly gruelling." I'm immediately jealous that this woman got to be his wife. "She's trying to instil a clause where she takes Haven away every September, which coincides with my birthday and Father's Day, and a whole bunch of other annoying things like not feeding her any junk food, which is insane because she's a kid."

"Lollies are life. She does sound insane." I continue conditioning his hair.

"Then I had a fight with my son because he skipped a few important lectures, and to cap it off, my assistant went into early labour, the temp is hopeless, and there are so many stacked-up piles of paper on my desk, I'm half tempted to light them on fire and just play dumb as to why the building is burning down."

His rants are everything.

He cracks me up. I love how real and honest he is. I feel equal when I speak to him, although we're clearly worlds apart.

"Don't laugh, you'll see me on the news soon, 'businessman goes mental and torches workplace,'" I keel over in side-splitting laughter, further antagonising my ribs.

"I need to know why the temp is hopeless, though, before I can give you any sympathy."

"Don't think I'm mean, but she's incompetent," he says deadpan, as if there is no way someone can be so stupid.

"Let me be the judge of that."

"What idiotic thing did she do first? Oh," he snaps his fingers like a crazy old wizard. "In our morning meeting, I listed her tasks for the day. When I noticed she wasn't taking notes, I asked her to write it down. Do you want to know what she did?" he asks in horror.

"Enlighten me." I can't be showing any more teeth. My grin is as wide as it goes.

"She. Wrote. It. Down," he says, his palm crackling against the leather armrest, causing a loud thump.

"Someone call the police," I mock. "The horror of her actually doing what you asked."

"No, Tink, you don't get it. She wrote the word 'it' down." He says it like he still can't believe it. I piss myself laughing.

On another note, have I mentioned how in love I am with my new nickname? The way it rolls off his tongue is like it has always been meant for me. I'm practically giddy when he uses it or some variation. Who knew a simple name could almost make me break out in song?

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