The Island (30 page)

Ayr hadn’t changed a lot either. Shaw liked that about small towns. It made them good to come back to, even if he’d been bursting to leave at the end of high school. He liked how people still stopped on the street to catch up.

Shaw still had friends in Ayr. They tended to be like him, the ones who had got out before coming back. Paul, a mate since kindergarten, was now the principal of the primary school. Mike was a doctor. And Kate, who’d dropped out of high school to start a punk band, had moved back from Melbourne after her divorce to raise her kids. She was running her parents’ cane farm. Shaw knew he could rely on all of them to meet up at Alva Beach every Friday night, bottles of cheap wine in hand, to relive their teenage years. It took about half a glass each before they had all regressed into giggles and rude jokes, and saying
shh! shh! shh
! like they were afraid they were going to get busted every time a car drove past.

It wouldn’t be so bad here.

Shaw picked up a roll of fencing wire and then headed down the street to get some groceries. Such ordinary, everyday things, and a part of him still couldn’t get his head around it. Five months ago, he’d tortured Pieter Guterman with a cattle prod and watched as Zev cut his throat, all their throats. Now he was buying dog food and toilet paper and wondering what to make himself for dinner. He’d seen some horrible things, done some horrible things, and he was standing in a supermarket aisle trying to decide between light milk and skim milk. Or, fuck it, full cream.

He’d been able to shake things off so easily once. Before the island.

Shaw spent the afternoon fixing the fence. Molly thought it was a game. She kept bouncing away with his tools, and Shaw ran her down every time.

“
Molly
,” he coaxed when she was heading for the beach for the third time. “Come on, girl. Come on, Molly.”

A pair of sunburned backpackers crossed the road behind them, laughing.

When Shaw finally got the pliers off her and turned back to the house, there was someone standing by the fence. Shaw thought he recognized that height, that stance, but he was looking into the sun now and couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t stop his heart racing either.

Shaw was a mess. He was covered in sweat, sand, and dog hair. His shirt was the tattiest one he could find, and his shorts were possibly his dad’s. He’d found them in the back cupboard that morning. They had to be at least twenty-five years old if they fitted Shaw. His dad liked his beer too much these days.

He walked back toward the house, Molly at his side.

It was him. It couldn’t be anyone else. It was impossible, but it was him.

“Hey,” Shaw said and really didn’t know where to go from there.

“Hey,” said Lee.

“How did you find me?” Shaw asked, setting the pliers down on the gatepost.

“You said you’d be here,” Lee said.

“I said I’d be in Ayr,” Shaw said. “This is a little,
ah
, specific.”

“ASIO’s in the phonebook, you know,” Lee said.

And not exactly in the habit of giving out addresses, Shaw thought. He waited.

“It took a while,” Lee said, “but I got through to your friend Callie. She told me where you were.”

“Callie?” Shaw frowned. Why the hell would she do that? Of course. He thought back to the hotel room in Canberra. She was being his mad bitch. Shaw didn’t know if he wanted to kill her for it or send her chocolates.

Lee looked hesitant. “Um, do you mind that I’m here?”

Shaw raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised, that’s all. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

Lee shook his head. “Why would you think that?”

Shaw stuck his hands in the pockets of his borrowed shorts. “Don’t I remind you of everything that happened?”

“You saved me,” Lee said, and his voice was as certain as the day he’d spoken at the inquiry. “You saved my life. You’re one of the good guys.”

His eyes shone, and Shaw wanted to kiss him then and there. But he was filthy, and he stank, and maybe it was still a bad idea, but Lee was here. Lee had come here. They both still wanted this.

Chocolates. He’d send chocolates.

“Come in,” Shaw said, and Lee picked up his bag and followed him inside.

* * * *

Shaw watched as Lee looked at the family photos on the wall. His eyes slid over them as though he was afraid to study them too closely. Shaw had no problems with that. He’d spent half his adolescence wearing braces and outgrowing his own limbs.

“This is, um, this is a nice one,” Lee said.

Two kids in shorts and singlets held fishing rods way too big for them and squinted into the sunlight.

“That’s me and Emma, my sister,” Shaw said.

Lee frowned slightly. “You said you didn’t have a sister.”

Shaw didn’t know whether or not to laugh. He shrugged instead. “I lied, Lee. It’s what they pay me to do.”

“Okay,” Lee said.

“Well,” Shaw said, heading for the fridge for beers, “it’s what they
paid
me to do.”

“Did you really lose your job?” Lee asked.

Shaw handed him a beer and gestured at the laminate table. “Have a seat. No, I’m still gainfully employed. I’m just on leave.” He twisted the top off his beer. “And I don’t think they’ll be putting me back in the field anytime soon.”

“I’m sorry,” Lee said, sitting.

“I’m not,” Shaw said, and it was the truth. “It was starting to fuck with my head.”

Lee looked like he wasn’t sure how to respond. He looked down instead, to find Molly’s head on his knee. He rubbed her head, and her tail thumped against the floor.

Shaw drank his beer faster than he should have. He was sure that Lee was fussing over Molly to avoid looking at him.

It’s a long way to come to avoid eye contact. You could have done that from Minnesota, mate.

“I need a shower,” Shaw said, rising from the table. “You can put your stuff in the bedroom if you want.” He saw Lee’s anxious face. “I’m sleeping out the back.”

And he wondered, when he collected his fresh clothes from the sleepout, what that was about. He wondered what Lee hoped to gain by coming here and what his expectations were. Was sex even in the picture? Shaw wouldn’t push it, but what else could Lee have thought? Shit, maybe this wasn’t about Shaw at all. Maybe this was about closure.

Shaw closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower. It didn’t matter, he supposed. At worst, they could watch TV and talk. He didn’t want anything from Lee that Lee wasn’t ready to give.

Shaw relaxed under the hot water, closed his eyes, and wondered how he felt about having Lee here, in this house that belonged to his childhood. His life was designed so that the two worlds never met. He liked it that way. This was his safe place. This was his sanctuary. But suddenly he didn’t hate the idea of sharing it with someone who needed it.

The shower door squeaked open, and Shaw opened his eyes.

Lee was fucking gorgeous. He’d put on weight since the island, filled out a bit, and it suited him. His bruises had vanished. His scars had faded. He didn’t look fragile anymore, but he still looked afraid. His green eyes were wide.

“Do you mind?” he asked in a low voice.

“No,” Shaw said, reaching out to draw him closer.

The shower had always been their confessional. Shaw wondered if Lee would always need the feel of the spray on his skin to make the words come.

“I missed you,” Lee murmured as Shaw’s lips found his throat. He let his head fall back. “I want you.”

Shaw’s chest constricted. Hope rose up, and he tried to force it down again.

“Want you too,” he said, his voice straining. He turned Lee around, following the tracks of the scars on his back with his fingertips. Lee braced his hands against the tiles of the shower wall and pushed back against him, and Shaw resisted. “No, not like this.”

“How?” Lee asked, his breath hitching as Shaw’s hands slipped down to his buttocks.

Shaw nuzzled his neck. “On the bed.”

“Okay.”

Shaw twisted the taps off and reached for a couple of towels. He wrapped one around his waist as he stepped out of the shower and held the other one out for Lee. Lee stepped forward into it, and Shaw wiped it gently over his skin. Lee’s cock was hard, engorged with blood, and Shaw wanted nothing more than to sink onto his knees and take it into his mouth. But not on the bathroom tiles. He satisfied himself with a quick stroke of that rigid flesh, loving the way that Lee trembled and gasped under his touch. He was so responsive.

Shaw took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom.

“Shaw,” Lee asked cautiously as he looked around. He tucked his towel around his hips. “Is this your
parents’
bedroom?”

Shaw took in the room with fresh eyes. The sagging double bed, the patchwork quilt, the World’s Best Dad coffee mug on the bedside cabinet—filled with shells collected by Shaw and Emma twenty-odd years ago.

Lee’s gaze fell on the coffee mug, to the dusty sand dollar on the top of the pile of shells. His eyes widened for a moment—Shaw heard his sharp intake of breath and wondered at it—and then his gaze travelled up the wall.

Crap. Straight to the awkward family portrait hanging over the bed. Very eighties. His dad had a mullet. Baldness was the best thing that had happened to Shaw’s dad.

“
Um
, yeah,” Shaw said. His face cracked with a grin. “Too weird?”

“I don’t know,” Lee said. He wrinkled his nose, and Shaw wondered if he knew how fucking cute that was. “Are they gonna walk in on us?”

“This is their weekend place,” Shaw said. “They let me stay here when I’m in town. They’re not going to walk in on us.”

Although, now the thought was in his head, it was difficult to shake. And it would be typical of his dad to drop in to see if he wanted to go fishing, or his mum to pop by with something she’d made for his dinner because she still thought he couldn’t be trusted to eat right.

Yeah, too weird.

“Sleepout,” Shaw decided, and drew Lee through the house onto the back veranda.

“What’s a sleepout?” Lee asked curiously.

Half of the back veranda had been partitioned off when his parents had bought the house. Shaw, as the oldest, had claimed it as his own while Emma had to sleep on a trundle bed in the small lounge room. The roof of the veranda extended far enough to protect the sleepout from the weather. The veranda rails had been enclosed with wood, and the space from the top of the rails to the roof was done in mosquito netting. Or had been, when Shaw was a kid. His dad had since replaced the flimsy netting with the proper security stuff.

The sleepout looked the same. The screens let in the light and the breeze. Shaw could lie in bed at night and hear the ocean. The only difference was that Shaw couldn’t peel back this netting back and escape. Not that he had any intention of escaping now. This was exactly where he wanted to be.

Lee raised his eyebrows as he looked at the single bed. “Transformer sheets?”

“Have you got a problem with the Transformers?” Shaw asked him.

Lee raised his eyebrows. His brilliant green eyes sparkled. “No, not at all. In five minutes here, I’ve learned more about you than the whole time on the island.”

His voice was even when he spoke, but Shaw saw the flash of worry in his eyes. He wondered if it would always be there. He wondered if the sound of the rolling ocean took Lee straight back there.

Lee flushed suddenly. “It’s okay to mention it. I just…I just didn’t know if you would be okay with it.”

Shaw curled his fingers through Lee’s. “Have you been seeing someone about it?”

“A good doctor,” Lee said, squeezing Shaw’s hand gratefully.

“I bet he thinks this is a bad idea,” Shaw said before he could stop himself.

“Actually,
she
thinks I’m ready,” Lee said. He showed Shaw a shy smile. “We talked about you a lot.”

“Huh,” Shaw said.

“We agreed that you were a nice guy not to take advantage of me on the island,” Lee said. He shrugged. “And we disagreed on who took advantage of who on the
Stuart
.”

Shaw frowned. “You did?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lee asked him, dropping his hand. “God, I threw myself at you!”

Shaw’s breath caught in his throat. “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”

Lee shrugged and looked away. “Anyway, here I am again. Throwing myself at you.”

Shaw’s heart thumped. Lee was scared. It wasn’t the same as it had been on the island. This time, he wasn’t scared of pain. He was scared of rejection. Jesus, as if he had to worry about that. Not now and not ever.

“Lee,” Shaw said in a low voice.

Lee raised his gaze.

“Whatever you want,” Shaw told him.

Lee swallowed. “What?”

“Whatever you want,” Shaw repeated. “Whatever you came here for. Just tell me, and it’s yours.”

Lee shivered suddenly, crossing his arms across his chest. “That’s a dumb fucking thing to say.”

Shaw shook his head. “I mean it. You know what I am, Lee, and you still came all the way here.” He remembered what Zev had said on board the
Stuart
:
There’s a boy in your cabin who saw the whole thing and still wants to be in your bunk
. “So, whatever you want.”

Lee looked at him anxiously. “What if I want to stay awhile? If we’re good together, I mean.”

“You can stay as long as you want,” Shaw told him, swallowing. He tried for a cocky grin. “And we’ll be fucking
awesome
.”

Shit, no pressure!

Lee’s lips quirked, and then he stepped forward and kissed Shaw.

Everything fell into place.

This time, they were equals, and it felt good. Shaw didn’t have to direct Lee, to reassure him, or to distract him. This time, Lee was right there with him and nowhere else. This time, there was no island, no Vornis, and no fear.

“How do you want it?” Shaw asked him, running his hands down Lee’s back.

“I want to see your face,” Lee said, his breath hot and fast against Shaw’s ear. He squirmed as Shaw’s fingers slipped under the towel and grazed teasingly against the cleft of his ass. “Oh God.”