Page 98 of Chasing Blue

“Absolutely not, but I will be here till Monday. Where are you?” I ask, not recognising the site he’s working on as one of ours.

“Gabe needed a hand on a job up at Sorrento, so I’m helping him out today. The painters are at the bar, so there wasn’t a lot I could do there.”

Gabe’s one of the partners at another construction company local to where we live. He also happens to be Finn’s girlfriend’s dad.

“Trying to poach my staff, is he?”

“What can I say? Just like his daughter, he can spot talent when he sees it.” My kid winks at me from the screen, his green eyes shining as he smiles, and it hits me then, she would’ve been his little sister. They would’ve been close in age, but Zara would’ve been his little sister.

“What’s wrong?” Finn asks, obviously reading something in the way I’m looking at him.

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah, I’m done for the day, just heading out to the truck.”

“Walk to the truck. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“You okay?” he asks as he moves.

“You spoke to your mum?” I ignore his question and ask one of my own.

“Yeah. What the fuck went down with you two? She said you kicked her out.”

“I did.” Pausing, I wait for him to climb in and shut the door before positioning his phone in its holder. I usually protect him from his mum’s behaviour, but today, I decide to tell him the truth.

“Did you know the police came to our place Saturday night?”

“No,” Finn says with a frown. “About the bloke who punched you?”

“Kinda. His family have cop connections, so despite doing what he did to me, he made bail, then went straight to Scarlett’s showroom and trashed the place.”

“The bloke’s a fucking psycho. Have they locked him up now?”

“Still not caught him as far as I know, but listen . . .” I pause and run my fingers through my hair. “When he trashed Scar’s place, he wrote some shit on the wall about me. Some kind of threat. The police came round to warn me, but because it involved Scarlett, your mum decided not to tell me . . .”

“What? Why the fuck not?” I watch as he repeats my action almost exactly and pushes his own hair back off his face with his fingers.

“Because . . . well, Scarlett. You know me and her have history, right?”

“Kinda guessed you did,” he says with a shrug.

“I was seeing Scar when I found out your mum was pregnant with you. I’ve just recently found out, your mum and Sloan hatched a plan to split us up, thinking I’d get back together with your mum.” I pause, watching his face as he takes this all in. Despite not yet being eighteen, he’s not a kid and proves this when he nods and says, “Knowing them two, I’m not surprised. Go on.”

“Their plan worked. Scar took off to Sydney to start Uni without telling me, I had you on the way, other priorities than chasing a girl, so I let her go. The first time I saw her since then was the day she walked into the bar.”

He grins at me. “When she made out she didn’t know you. Shit, you must’ve really fucked that girl up. She’s fine, I definitely would’ve chased her.”

I ignore his comment and carry on, “What I didn’t know, what she didn’t know when she left, was that she was also pregnant . . .”

“What the fuck, dad. Did no one ever wrap it up back in the day?”

“Once, one time, bud. Let my example always be a lesson to ya. Always, and I mean always . . . unless you’re planning on starting a family, wrap it up.”

“Far out, your jizz is seriously some potent stuff. I wonder if mine’s like that. So wait, Scarlett has a kid . . .yourkid?”

“No, she was stillborn. She had a little girl, but it was too soon. She was born too early and didn’t live . . .”

“Jesus, Dad . . .”