The Love Left Behind Page 2

  Lyall tightened a few screws, fiddled with some wires, did god-knows-what in the dark recesses of the apartment’s walls, and reset the fuses.

  ‘Try the lights,’ he called out.

  Nick flicked the switch and the lights came on. And stayed on. Fixed.

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Glad I could fix that. About dinner …’

  Nick’s heart thudded inside his chest. ‘Hey, it’s ok. Sorry if I overstepped the mark. Don’t want to violate some electrician’s code of ethics about dating clients.’

  Lyall shook his head and grinned. ‘It’s not that. Friday nights are a big thing with my family, but can I let you know later whether I can get away?’

  Considering how weird his work schedule was he had no right to expect others to always be available. Would Lyall be as understanding in return? If it got to that.

  ‘Sure. Family comes first.’ Although he’d jettison his plans with Dimitri in an instant if Lyall had wanted him to.

  Lyall unlocked his phone and handed it to Nick to add his number.

  ‘If tonight doesn’t work, another time then,’ Nick said. ‘I’m home this weekend so I’m flexible.’ He sent himself a message so he had Lyall’s number then handed back the phone.

  Lyall sighed. ‘Looking forward to it. It was nice meeting you, Nick,’ he said with a sincerity that left Nick speechless. Lyall stepped into his shoes and left the apartment.

  When he was gone, Nick leaned against the wall under the steady glow and let out a long breath. All the possibilities that the night could bring raced through his mind. And with them went any ability to fall asleep, in case he missed a message or a call from Lyall.

  2

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

  Lyall’s sister opened her mouth to speak, but their mother’s voice leaped out.

  ‘She’s fine, aren’t you, Rosie?’

  Rosie’s eyes looked heavenward before she rubbed his forearm. ‘I’m fine,’ she whispered, whether it was because she didn’t want their mother to hear or she was too weak to make a sound any louder. She winced as she leaned back in her chair.

  Thirty-one years old and recovering from a laparotomy. Ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes: gone. Fuck ovarian cancer. And now she was sitting at the table with the rest of the family, amid the bustle, the noise and the smells when she probably wanted to be lying down in a dark room somewhere. He should have taken her back to her place after picking her up, but with Leo away and their mother, Grace, looking after the kids here, the doctor had said not to leave her alone. Guilt twisted the knife in his cancer-free gut. If he hadn’t had to go back to work, he could have stayed with her at her place and made sure she got some rest. Maybe he’d suggest that to her for tonight; he still wasn’t sure if seeing Nick was a good idea and he’d have more than enough reason to cancel.

  ‘Glad you’re feeling better, honey.’ Their dad, Steve, pecked Rosie on top of her head.

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’

  ‘Hopefully that’s the last of it.’

  Worry wiped away her made-up smile. Lyall placed his hand in hers, and she squeezed it weakly before pulling back and reaching for a glass of water. She didn’t want to talk about it, and he couldn’t blame her.

  ‘How was work today, Lyall?’ Steve asked.

  How to answer without telling them he’d been asked out on a date? What did he normally say?

  ‘Oh, you know, the same.’ He avoided his dad’s eye and picked up the beer, hoping to cool the heat rushing up his neck. Meanwhile, around him glances were exchanged.

  Rosie snorted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  His eyes narrowed at her. ‘Who’s name?’

  ‘Come on, Sparks, you should see the colour of your neck right now.’

  ‘It’s hot in here.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Just spill it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to spill.’ Except his beer as he slammed it too hard on the table and it frothed over. He swore and grabbed a piece of paper towel to mop it up.

  ‘Now, Lyall, we’re your family,’ Steve said. ‘We support you no matter what.’ His father’s chair scraped across the floor as he inched closer.

  ‘Dad, I don’t need the pep talk, alright? There’s nothing to tell. I just … I just might have met a very nice client today.’

  Rosie laughed again. At least she was well enough to laugh. ‘Money changed hands, did it?’

  ‘Rosie!’ His dad’s subsequent laugh undermined any rebuke.

  ‘You’ve got a filthy mind,’ Lyall growled.

  ‘Who’s got a filthy mind?’ Grace came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth. Meanwhile Chris, the youngest of the Turner children, was clanging around with the pots and pans and getting dinner ready. Lyall dared not turn around; the kitchen probably looked like a war zone.

  Chris was training to be a chef which meant only he and their parents were allowed into the kitchen when he cooked. Lyall and Rosie were barred until it was time to clean up, a job that took many hands, including those of small children, because he used so much stuff. Still, whatever came out usually tasted great. Considering how much racket the skinny kid was making, the swearing that came with it, and with Rosie not at her best, restoring the kitchen to its normal state was going to take Lyall a long time. Perhaps it would be best to cancel Nick and then he wouldn’t have to go into it with any of them.

  ‘No one, Mum.’ He swigged his beer.

  ‘He’s met someone and won’t tell us who it is,’ Rosie snitched.

  ‘Really? That’s wonderful.’

  ‘It’s not anything,’ he snapped.

  ‘I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to share this with us.’

  ‘Because I know how you guys will act.’

  His mother sat down beside him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Haven’t we always been supportive?’

  ‘Yes.’ The syllable dragged across his lips.

  ‘Aren’t we always pleasant whenever you bring someone home?’

  ‘Yes.’ Though the last time that happened his boyfriend got so overwhelmed it had cut the two-month relationship dead.

  ‘Is it because you’re ashamed of us?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is there something wrong with us that you don’t want anybody else to see?’

  He sighed and took another swig of beer. Perhaps he could get shit-faced and forget the whole thing.

  ‘What’s wrong with your family? Has this person said something?’

  He rolled his eyes.

  Rosie sucked in her breath but her smile stuck in the corner. Meanwhile, Grace’s face shifted into outrage.

  ‘Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Lyall Francis Turner. We’re just being nice, but if you want to behave like there’s something wrong with your family, then forget it.’ She stormed into the kitchen.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said to Rosie.

  She shrugged a little sheepishly. ‘If you’d just tell us—’

  Lyall jumped out of his seat, went into the kitchen and grabbed another beer. Grace huffed and went out carrying a tray of potatoes, and that left him with Chris.

  And the carnage in the kitchen.

  ‘Minnie, you motherfucker!’ Lyall shouted.

  ‘Language!’ Grace shouted back.

  ‘It looks like fucking Pearl Harbour in here.’

  ‘Lyall Francis!’

  There were at least six baking trays, all coated with grease and charred vegetables and meat. The chopping board looked like it had been used to sever someone’s head from their neck. Beef juices covered half of the bench and dripped onto the floor. Metal bowls filled the sink, each with one or two pieces of cutlery sticking out of it. Saucepans littered the stovetop. Then there’d be all the plates already on the table to clean. The roast better taste delicious.

  ‘You’re welcome to not have any,’ Chris said with a grin that was far too sassy for a straight boy. ‘Go suck on a protein shake inste
ad.’

  ‘I’m taking your potatoes, bitch.’

  ‘You won’t get any potatoes if you keep using that language in this house!’ Grace snapped as she came back in.

  His sister and Dad laughed, and then his niece, Zara, called out: ‘Yeah, bitch.’ That had them all laughing more, even him, even Grace.

  Too bad that didn’t make any of the dishes disappear.

  Chris paraded past him with a carved side of roast beef, and Grace carried out the gravy. Lyall cracked his beer, took another long drink and threw the bottle top on the counter. What was one more bit of mess? He wasn’t going to meet Nick. It just wouldn’t work.

  When he got back to the table, the family were too busy digging into the food to press him further about his now non-existent date. Happy and contented murmurs about the taste of the food and congratulations for the chef were the main focus for about five minutes but then it shifted back to him with the strength of a prison searchlight.

  So close …

  ‘Why won’t you tell us about who you met?’ Grace said.

  Of course he couldn’t escape so easily. Perhaps if he just killed the idea dead then they’d leave him alone.

  ‘Look.’ He wiped his mouth with a paper towel and scrunched it in his fist. ‘There was a guy at the apartment complex I was working at today. We hit it off, and he asked me out to dinner, but I’m not going.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Rosie’s eyebrows knitted. ‘You’ve been complaining that there are no good men around and one lands in your lap and you’re going to refuse? What possible reason could you have?’

  There hadn’t been anyone worthwhile in a long time. The guys he dated all turned out to be shallow arseholes who were happy to keep things physical, but none of them were ever interested in anything deeper than what eight inches could reach.

  But Nick? He’d felt the promise of something more. And when Nick shaved … There was definitely a face he could spend a lot of time kissing.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does. Why won’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because you need to drop it,’ he said between clenched teeth. His skin burned. He should have thought of something else to say. That Nick was racist. That he was a snob. That he had bad teeth or killed puppies. Anything. But six sets of eyes were all trained in his direction. They’d made this into a thing.

  ‘He’s a pilot.’

  Rosie, Steve and Chris looked at him; he looked at Grace. No one looked at the photo of Bryce on the wall.

  ‘So, you see, it’s impossible.’

  Grace stood up. ‘Excuse me.’ She went down the hall and the door to her bedroom closed.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it,’ he hissed at his sister.

  ‘Hey, it’s ok.’ Rosie rested her arm on his tensed bicep. ‘Isn’t it, Dad?’

  ‘Of course. Lyall, if you like this man, then you shouldn’t let anything hold you back.’

  ‘But how’s it going to work? Really. I can’t even step foot on a plane without hyperventilating and the whole time I’m going to be thinking about him and—’

  Images of planes crashing flooded his brain, and he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to hold them back.

  ‘Breathe, Lyall.’ Rosie stroked his back. ‘It’s ok.’

  After a few rapid and heavy breaths, he pushed the nightmares away. Meltdown averted. Or at least delayed. Bryce—and his death—had a way of sneaking up on him.

  ‘But it’s not, is it?’ He sighed and picked at the bottle’s label. ‘And I really liked him too.’

  It couldn’t work. He’d nearly electrocuted himself when Nick had said he was a pilot, and it had taken all his mental will to not freak out and get away from him. Perhaps if he had, then he wouldn’t be in this situation. But Nick was handsome and he looked at him with these hazelnut-coloured eyes, and seemed so together, so confident and so interested, that he’d fantasised, for just a moment, that there could be something more. He’d held onto that until he’d been surrounded by his family and the always-present ghost of his dead elder brother.

  ‘Why don’t you see how it goes?’ Rosie said. ‘If it doesn’t go well, then you’ve lost nothing.’

  ‘And if it does go well?’ The bottle label tore as he pulled too hard and it stuck to his fingers.

  She shrugged. ‘Then you’ll have a choice to make, but at least it’ll be a choice worth making.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He was over being the centre of attention. He balled up the scraps of paper and threw them on the table. ‘I’ll check on Mum.’

  He knocked on his parents’ bedroom door and entered. Grace was sitting on the bed, having a quiet cry. The photo of his parents with Bryce, Rosie and him was on the bed beside her. Chris hadn’t been born until a few years after Bryce had been killed.

  ‘I’m sorry I upset you, Mum.’ He sat next to her.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’s not your fault. Just with Rosie’s cancer, it caught me a bit on the raw.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I didn’t mean to stop you from doing what you want.’

  ‘Rosie thinks I should give him a shot but I don’t know. What if … What if he wants me to get on a plane?’

  For anyone else it sounded like the most ridiculous thing in the world. If he were honest, that had been the kill factor in a few of his relationships. They wanted to fly somewhere and he would practically cement his feet to the ground. How could anyone deal with that level of insanity? He lived in a country that was so isolated you had to fly to get anywhere. Most people thought nothing of it. The last and only overseas trip he’d been on since Bryce died was with the family and that was only a few hours away to Bali for an uncle’s wedding. They’d had to drug him in the end to get him on the plane. The whole time they were there he dreaded having to be back on board, which was a shame because the few moments where he’d actually seen the place—hanging out by the pool, walking through jungle, going white-water rafting—he’d loved, but then just when he’d finally forgotten about it, his fear crashed into him like a plane going into the side of a mountain. He didn’t remember the flight back.

  Grace didn’t answer. She disliked any of the kids getting on planes either, but so far he was the only one to have not tested it too far. Rosie and Chris didn’t fly anywhere regularly but they weren’t likely to bring a plane down trying to get off.

  ‘If it’s going to cause you grief, Mum, I just won’t see him.’

  She was his last chance to get out of it. If she said it was too hard, then he could say no to Nick with a clear conscience.

  Her fingers brushed the shaved hair over his ear, and she smiled. ‘What’s his name?’

  His heart thumped hard, but whether from relief or fear he couldn’t tell.

  3

  Pylos was a Greek restaurant that most people in town thought of as one of the best. Mouth-watering slow-roasted lamb, and a vibrant familial atmosphere where three generations of the Stefanidis family worked, either in the kitchens, on the floor or behind the bar. The food was always good, the prices reasonable, and little detracted from it being an excellent spot to go for a hearty meal.

  Except Nick was thoroughly sick to death of the place.

  Dimitri was late, as always. These father–son dinners happened every fortnight on a Friday, always at the same time for the same length of time, unless he was flying or Dimitri was away. Then they’d skip it. The only good thing about Nick not being elsewhere that Friday was meeting Lyall, and the electrician had kept him buzzing all day. Despite his jitters, Nick had napped, eventually falling into a rough sleep while half-expecting his phone to beep. But when he woke to get ready for dinner, there’d still been no flashing message from the cute electrician. If he didn’t hear from him soon, he’d forget the whole thing. That darkened his already bleak mood. He checked his phone for a message—there wasn’t one—and to see the time.

  One and a half hours left …

  Christos had seated him with a warm hello and brought out a basket of
bread, which he never ate, and a carafe of house red, which he poured immediately. He typically made it through his first glass before Dimitri showed up flapping about delays with the traffic or parking or … Fuck, who knew. That night, however, Nick took it easy on the wine. Even with the narrowing sliver of hope that Lyall might call, he didn’t want to reek of the stuff if a miracle occurred.

  ‘Been waiting long, Nicky?’ Dimitri gave him two measured pats on the shoulder as he arrived and levered his thickening body into a seat. ‘I got stuck talking to my neighbour, you know the one, oh, what’s his name?’

  ‘Chang.’

  ‘That’s right. Chang.’

  Never mind that they’d lived next door to each other for the best part of fifteen years.

  ‘Chang was telling me about these new rules about companies bringing in foreign workers in preference over locals. I don’t understand what this country is coming to, all these foreigners. Good evening, Christos. Ti kánis?’

  Nick had stopped outwardly cringing at any part of his father’s casual and uncharted racism, but that’s why the dinners were so far apart. That and other reasons.

  Dimitri talked to Christos in Greek, the two of them speaking too fast for Nick to pick up all of it but he caught the gist. The family was good. Work was busy. The restaurant trade was up and down.

  Nick breathed and twirled the wine glass stem in his hand, not drinking.

  One hour and twenty minutes …

  They ordered their usual. Nick hadn’t seen a Pylos menu for years, occasionally swapping his chicken souvlaki for something from the specials’ board, but otherwise the meal was a repeat of the one before. Locked in their habits, Dimitri talked about his latest trip to wherever—all on the back of Nick’s family travel allowance. He often didn’t know where his father went or what he used, not after he’d shown Dimitri how to access it himself. It was easier that way. Easier to not see all the places Dimitri went and his mother hadn’t when she’d been alive. And while Nick had been to forty-eight countries of his mother’s choosing, he’d never once gone anywhere with Dimitri. He couldn’t bear the idea of the two of them being together while his mother wasn’t there.