Page 14 of Free Wind (Lifeguards of Barking Beach #2)

As his phone chimed, Damo blinked awake and thought of jizz in chest hair.

A thrill whipped through him, his morning wood throbbing as he fumbled to turn off the alarm.

The night before replayed through his head, and he laughed to himself.

He’d actually done it. There was no going back to his previous status as Officially Curious.

He hadn’t done anything this exciting in… possibly ever?

Which was scary, but also such a bloody relief. He couldn’t take it back—and he didn’t want to.

His belly fluttered as he remembered getting off with Blake. Big hands on his back. Blake sucking his cock. Blake looming over him and coming in his mouth. Blake lifting him up into his strong arms…

“I’ll take care of you.”

Jesus, it had been so sexy.

Damo fumbled for the lotion and tugged himself, spreading his legs. He closed his eyes to the faded posters—surfers and beach babes. He was waking up in the same old room, but he’d finally gone outside his comfort zone.

Outside his open window, ravens cawed loudly. Even though he’d blown his load twice the night before, Damo’s balls tightened, and he bent his knees, breathing hard, digging his heels into the saggy single mattress. Fucking up into his fist, he was so close already—

The thud echoed through the single-story house, followed by Tabby’s curse.

Damo cursed too, rolling out of bed and yanking on his board shorts.

He wiped his hand on the pile of dirty laundry in the corner as he crashed back down to earth.

Nothing killed a boner quite like his baby sister needing help.

Their parents’ room was at the end of the hall, and Damo was there in a flash. As he suspected, Dad was on the floor, sprawled face down on the faded blue rug beside the bed. His walker stood by uselessly. Tabby stood over him, red-faced in the gloom, the blinds drawn as always.

“I told him to wait until I had it steady!” Her golden hair was pulled back in her usual ponytail, and she stood with hands on her skinny hips, wearing her green footy kit. To their dad, she pleaded, “Why couldn’t you wait?”

“I need to piss!” Dad barked, then muttered, “Stupid girl.”

“Oi!” Damo closed the door quietly and marched over. “None of that.” He bent at his knees and heaved his father onto his back as gently as he could. Dad grimaced, his drawn, craggy face turning from the usual grayish-yellow pallor to red.

Hoisting his father onto his feet was no easy task. Dad was a head taller than Damo, and though his weight went up and down depending on what drugs he was taking, he was a big man even at his thinnest. More than that, he was dead weight, no matter how often Damo asked him to push with his legs.

Dad just gritted his teeth and groaned as Damo hauled him up like he was a drowned patient he needed to get on his board. Tabby was ready with the walker, and they hovered nearby as Dad grumbled and moved by centimeters to the adjoining toilet.

Over his usual pajama bottoms, his bare back was sweaty and pale. Jagged, shiny scars where the doctors had put in pins to try and fix his broken bones were stark even in the murky light. Once he was inside on the crapper, Damo shut the door.

The ceiling fan thumped overhead in the bedroom. It stank of cigarettes, pot, sweat, and something that had to be complete fucking misery. Lips pressed in a line, Tabby crossed her arms. Damo slung an arm around her rigid shoulders.

“You’d better get to practice, hey? I’ll get him settled back down. Careful not to wake Mum on your way out.”

“Dunno how she slept through that,” Tabby muttered.

“Mum’s exhausted.”

“She always sleeps on the couch now. Never in here.”

Can’t say I blame her. “You better get a wriggle on. I’ll make dinner, okay?”

Tabby’s narrow shoulders loosened. “Okay.” She glanced at the bathroom door, sadness and resentment souring her freckled face.

“Sorry I didn’t get up earlier to check on him,” Damo said. “It’s hectic when he gets like that.”

When he wasn’t at work, he always tried to be the one looking in on him. Dad usually slept late, so Damo could go for a dawn surf if he wasn’t on the opening shift and still make it back in plenty of time.

When he wasn’t out with a bloke, that was. He cursed himself for not setting his alarm for earlier.

Tabby shrugged, and he hated that she had to deal with any of this. She shouldn’t have had to handle anything more than homework and playing footy and her first crush.

“You were home late,” she said, eyeing him curiously.

Guilt nipped with sharp teeth, and he kissed Tabby’s head and gave her a little shove. “On yer bike!”

While he waited for his father to finish shitting, Damo picked up the dirty plate left on the one bit of the side table not lined with pill bottles. A chip packet had floated to the carpet, and he grabbed that on the way to the kitchen.

From the hall, he could peek into the living room. Mum’s light hair was messy on a pillow on the couch, and she didn’t move. He left the plate on the kitchen benchtop and padded back to the bedroom.

Dad was shuffling across the carpet with the walker. At least once he got up, he was usually okay to go to the toilet and back alone. Damo hovered nearby, prepared to steady him but not getting too close.

He couldn’t resist saying, “You shouldn’t talk to Tabs like that. You know—”

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what I know!” Dad cringed as he lowered himself to the bed, holding on to the side rail they’d installed years back. He sucked in a gasp. “Feet.”

Damo hefted his father’s swollen feet and legs up and helped pivot him onto his back. Once he was settled, Damo asked flatly, “What do you want for brekkie?”

“Whaddya think I want?”

Turning away, Damo went to fetch the coffee, toast, and a Cherry Ripe. A horrible little cry made him jolt around.

Tears shone in Dad’s red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered, a hoarse—and increasingly rare—confession. For a second, he was like himself again. The dad he’d been before the accident and the personality changes that came with it.

Just for a second.

“I know.” Damo tried to smile and escaped to the kitchen.

He scraped the thin layer of Vegemite on the buttered toast just like Dad liked, struck by a memory of when he was Tabby’s age and Dad was home early from a job, still in his high-vis tradie gear. Damo had helped him make brekkie in bed for Mum’s birthday while Tabby had gotten underfoot.

Dad had swung her up onto his back, shushing her as she laughed.

She’d clung to him while he’d scrambled the eggs, and Damo had buttered and Vegemite-d the toast. They’d all climbed into bed with Mum.

She was groggy after her hospital shift but beaming, snuggling them close while they got crumbs all over the doona.

He blinked up at the water stains on the ceiling, a remnant of a summer storm and faulty roof tiles they couldn’t afford to fix. He wasn’t sure what would be worse—allowing Dad to see tears in his eyes or letting the toast get cold.

“Swimmers in front of us! Come straight back to shore. This is not a safe swimming area!”

Damo sat beside Liam Fox in the buggy at the north end of Barking, watching as the people completely ignored him. Still holding the smooth plastic of the transmitter attached to the megaphone on the buggy’s roof, Damo shook his head.

“Foxy, ya reckon they think I’m talking to you?”

Liam chuckled and adjusted his mirrored Aviators. “Apparently.”

Damo pressed the microphone button, blowing into the transmitter to make a static noise to attract attention before saying, “Did you know that this area of the beach is not for swimming? There are big yellow warning signs and everything. And lifeguards going hoarse.”

“In fact, I did know that,” Liam said, scanning the water back and forth.

“Glad the message is getting through to someone. It’ll be gnarly soon.”

Damo propped his bare foot on the dashboard. It was clouding over, but the sun still broke through to glimmer on the waves. The tide was turning low, and the Croc would start biting, and the people who ignored the warnings and refused to swim between the flags would be caught in the rip.

Kids playing on the sand shrieked and laughed, and Damo breathed in the fresh, briny scent of the beach—salt, seaweed, and the sweet slap of sunscreen and surfboard wax. Someone nearby was using Mr. Zogs Sex Wax with a coconut scent he’d know anywhere.

Annnd now he was thinking about sex, which meant thinking about Blake. About his cock and foreskin and those nipples surrounded by hair. About said cock stretching Damo’s lips, tasting like skin and man.

He’d finally done it. Tomorrow, he’d do it again, which gave him a secret shiver. He was wishing like hell he’d told Blake he’d see him tonight, but he couldn’t leave Tabby alone two nights in a row.

Damo’s phone was locked up in the staffroom in the lifeguard tower, so he couldn’t check to see if Blake had texted.

He should’ve sent a message himself before his shift, but after dealing with Dad and tiptoeing around while Mum slept, he’d had to jog the few blocks to the beach to make it on time.

At least their house was in a prime spot in Barking.

As a kid, Damo hadn’t wondered if it was weird for his dad to live in his childhood home as an adult, and now it was too late to ask. If he tried to bring it up, Dad would probably call him names in one of the surges of fury that simmered under the surface, ready to explode.

Damo forced away thoughts of home. The beach was his place.

His freedom. Also his job, and he sternly reminded himself to be vigilant.

He watched a young couple having a play on a sandbank.

Any minute now, they’d get lifted off it, not be able to touch the bottom, and full-on panic. You could set your bloody watch by it.