Page 107 of Resist

“No, you stop.” He spun me to face him. “Stop lying to yourself and stop lying to me. You’re not whole. You’re missing a piece and that piece is me, you’re just too scared to admit it.”

“I’m too scared to even breathe right now. I’m too scared to pack these bags and get on that plane because, eventually, it will take us back home and things will change.”

“They won’t, soyoustop.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb under my eye. “Stop being scared because I’ve got you.”

Staring into his eyes, my breathing fast and hard, I flung myself into his arms and sobbed like a baby, expelling my fears, my tears and the love I did have for him.

“Damn you, Lucas Malone.” I pulled back and wiped my eyes. “Damn you for making me fall in love with you.”

Placing his hands on my face, his eyes mystic as they beheld me, he smiled. “I told you I could do magic.”

We finished the end ofa successful tour and returned to Melbourne to find that Brad’s girlfriend, Em — who was also Cori’s best friend — had been in a serious altercation with one of her neighbours. I wasn’t yet privy to all the details, but the despair surrounding everyone in the revue was palpable, they loved Em. It also cemented the extra precaution of security, which was why I’d scheduled an upgrade to the alarm system protecting my house.

“Didn’t you just buy a new system, Mum?” Jason said, as he plonked our shopping bags on the kitchen counter.

“Yes. Well … no, it’s about a year old. It needs updating.” I started rifling through the paper bags, searching for the items that needed refrigerating.

“Why the sudden need to be so safety conscious?”

“It’s not sudden. You can just never be too careful.”

He handed me a packet of mussels. “Did something happen with Dad while you were in Cairns?”

“No, not at all,” I lied. “I did see him though.”

“WHAT?”

I held up my hand to calm him. “It’s okay. I was surrounded by Lucas and the other guys. I was safe.”

He huffed. “At least they’re good for that.” Jason handed me another tray of mussels, his brow furrowed. “So what did he want?”

“He wanted to see you.”

“Not gonna happen,ever.I’m not interested.”

“I did say that, but … you know how he is.”

“Exactly, and that’s why the answer is no and will always be no.”

I rubbed his arm. “Good. Okay. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

Walking over to the fridge, I opened the door and placed the mussels on the shelf.

“You’ve gone a little bit overboard on the seafood, Mum.”

Jason held out a tray of oysters to me while continuing to search my shopping bag. We’d just returned home from a trip to the Queen Victoria market, so I’d understandably been a little credit card happy.

“Lucas is a big fan,” I explained, taking the oysters from him and placing them in the fridge.

“Do you even know how to cook this stuff?”

I turned away from the fridge and deadpanned without the spoken retort.

He cracked up laughing. “You don’t, do you?” Continuing to laugh, he handed me the squid. “This lunch is gonna be interesting.”

“How hard can it be to fry up some calamari?” I snatched said calamari from his hands.

Jason continued to laugh and rifle through the shopping.