Incapable

By Ainslie Paton

Love can be a great healer, except when it hurts…

As voice actor royalty, Damon Donovan is trouble.  He's professionally intimidating.  He's confident. He's charming, funny and genuinely talented. And he triggers the nurturing instincts newly separated Georgia Fairweather has sworn to ignore.

Damon Donovan is used to three types of women: those who fawn, those who mother and those who want to fix him. So a reticent, prickly engineer he can neither awe nor charm triggers his interest.

A recording engineer and a voice actor should be a match to sing about, but the thrilling rhythm they create is soon drowned out by static. Georgia doesn't know who she is, and Damon doesn't know who he'll become.

Can a man facing his insecurities and a woman afraid of her own instincts harmonise, or are they destined to sound good in theory, but be out of sync in life and love?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780857992819

Ainslie Paton

Ainslie Paton always wanted to write stories to make people smile, but the need to eat, accumulate books, and have bedclthes to read under was ever present. She sold out, and worked as a flack, a suit, and a creative, ghosting for business leaders, rebel rousers, and politicians, and making words happen for companies, governments, causes, conditions, high-profile CEOs, low-profile celebs, and the occasional misguided royal. She still does that. She also writes for love.

Book preview

1: Eyes Open

Taylor blasted her horn like she was announcing the grand opening of the gates of hell.

Damon set the alarm, shouldered his bag, pulled the front door closed and locked it. She started blasting again before he got across the pavement to her little car. He felt for the handle and swung the car door open as she pumped the horn the final two times.

Geez, Tay, I’m not deaf. He threw his bag on the floor and got in.

No, but you’re slow. I said I’d be here at ten.

It’s quarter to.

Damn.

He laughed. She was so always prompt. Taylor the reliable, the girl least likely to let you down, despite having the appearance of the girl most likely to mess you up. It amused them both she was trying to put one over him, which meant he had to tease her—as mercilessly as possible. It wasn’t going to be difficult.

You put perfume on to go to the gym.

I did not. She hit the blinker and pulled out from the kerb. The indignation in her voice could’ve starched his shirts.

Cut grass. It’s going to make me sneeze. He’d smelled it the second he sat down.

Why would I put perfume on to go to the gym?

Waste of a good spritz. He sniffed, then put his hand to his face to try to quell the itch. Did you bath in the stuff?

Does it really smell like cut grass?

He sneezed.

She thumped him, hard on the top of his thigh, and he should’ve seen it coming. You did that for show. He also should’ve gone for a hug before going for ritual humiliation. He’d missed her so much.

He sneezed again, let that second splutter stand for itself and felt the third one building at the back of his sinuses as she made a right-hand turn onto the main road.

Damon.

He sneezed then laughed. It wasn’t often his nasal passages rushed in to help him get a rise out of Taylor. You’re such a girl. She was the same tomboy who’d gotten him into trouble on the farm when they were kids.

She flicked the blinker on again and turned left. I’m not letting you out of the car till you tell me if it really smells like a fricking front lawn after a push mower’s been over it. It was expensive, fuck it.

First I’d have to know why the hell you’re wearing perfume to the gym.

She pummelled the steering wheel. I kinda had plans before you called.

He swivelled in his seat to face her, the need to tease put aside. Why didn’t you say? I could’ve called Jamie.

They kinda scrambled like eggs.

Was there a new man involved in these plans?

Blinker on again. None of your business.

He cleared his throat, moment of sympathetic understanding over. Couch, or possibly Buffalo. Grown on the south side, mowed with a Victa at dawn. Did people wax on about perfume like they did about wine? No idea, but he was going for this.

Why didn’t you stay in LA?

If Taylor was attempting to date again, this was big news and he wanted in on it. He went for very round vowel sounds, David Attenborough via Pierce Brosnan. A light frost was present at the time of harvest, adding a touch of petrol to the fragrance. A bouquet designed to bring out the best in expulsions of mucus.

I hope you fall off the treadmill and die.

He held back a laugh and they pulled into the gym car park. A lingering aftertaste of stale air conditioning with a high note of body odour.

I hope the elliptical smacks you in the head and gives you brain damage.

Taylor was a locked safe in matters of the heart and he didn’t have the combination, none of them did. He could feel another sneeze building and shook his head to hold it off. Best enjoyed by those who like their perfume to stimulate barfing.

Taylor shut the engine off. Why do I do the things I do for you?

He sneezed. Ow. He turned to face her. Ou mad me bi my tun.

She threw her arms around his neck. You big baby.

He hugged her skinny body close, dragging her half into his seat to do it. Thath’s my livethihood you’re dithing there. His nose twitched and he sneezed again. Geeth, Tay.

She pulled his hair and pushed her face into his neck and he tried not to breathe her too deep.

You going to tell me what the eau de lawn is all about? Her no was the rub of her cheek against his collarbone. Do I need to beat the bastard up for you? He stroked a hand down her back.

She pulled away. Yes. Beat him to a pulp. That’ll make me feel better.

He nodded. You point him out and his flesh is mine to bruise.

She opened the door. I still hope you come a cropper in there. Cut grass. It’s bloody Yves Saint Whosit and it cost more than a week’s rent.

He got out his side and she’d already come around the car to meet him. Why didn’t you ask me to get you something duty free?

She snuggled into his side and he felt her shrug. You’ve got enough to worry about without buying me perfume.

You only have to email what you want. Easy as.

Yeah, yeah.

He stopped and she was forced to prop with him or let go his arm. I’m serious. God, girl, the things you do for me. You filled the fridge with stuff, the freezer too.

Pasta, there’s nachos and that burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice-cream you like. I used the money you left me.

It’s not about the money. It’s embarrassing what I got paid for recording the game alone and you won’t let me buy you anything.

She let go his arm. I don’t want you or anyone buying me things. I can buy my own things, and if I can’t afford them, then I’ll wait till I can. Her vowels weren’t round, but they were distinctly pissed.

It was going around. That ticks me off, you know that.

Yeah, well, live with it, Vox.

He growled, his Captain Vox signature growl—sardonic menace with a squeeze of humour. Does the dickhead who stood you up come to the gym?

Why?

Cause you really have put me in the mood to take him down.

She put the back of her hand to the back of his and he took her arm. Big talker, Damo.

He laughed and put a hand to her shoulder. They don’t call me The Voice for nothing. But the laugh was forced because Taylor’s insistence on doing everything the hard way made him grind his teeth.

She groaned. You’re so full of yourself.

You’re so lawn at dawn. He could feel her trying not to crack up.

They got through reception, flashing their membership tags, and stopped in the corridor separating the women’s and men’s change rooms. She gave him a shove towards the men’s. It only took a few minutes to find an empty locker, stow his bag, take his water bottle, earplugs and towel out, and meet her again.

When they got to the cardio floor, Taylor started laughing. I might get my wish.

Which one?

You on the floor, treadmill stack. They’ve put new equipment in since last time we were here.

He groaned. The new machines would have new programs and interfaces; feel dissimilar underfoot and in his hands. All his regular settings would be redundant. Taylor was still laughing when they stepped onto side by side machines.

He felt around the console, identified the main stop, start buttons and the one to increase and decrease speed. Where’s the earphone jack?

She leaned over and plugged him in and then they were both off, running for the next twenty minutes. It was the same on the elliptical and the rowing machine, getting the speeds and tensions set the way he wanted them to test his fitness was a nuisance. It’d be less frustrating if he’d had more sleep. Maybe. It was easier in the free weights room. Everything familiar again. By the time Taylor flicked him on the chest with her towel to say she’d had enough, he was light-headed and needed grease.

They went to the food court adjacent the gym and he scarfed a hamburger with the lot and a strong black coffee and Taylor told him about the gigs she’d been auditioning for and joked about her day job, but she wouldn’t tell him who the perfume was for.

You still want to surprise the guys? she said, on the way to the car.

He did. He’d been away too long this time and it didn’t feel like he was home till he reconnected.

Can I shower and change at yours?

Bummed, she still felt she had to ask. Only if you don’t use the new perfume.

There was silence except for the engine kicking over. Was it really that bad?

She’d lost the ginger sting, she was all wet sugar disappointment, and despite the fact it’d made him sneeze he’d do almost anything not to hear Taylor sound defeated over a stupid fragrance.

Nah, it wasn’t that bad, Trill, he used her pet name, knowing she’d still think he was lying. I probably picked up a bug on the plane. Let me put it on you when you’re ready.

And she did. When they were both showered and dressed to go again, he sprayed just the right amount of perfume on his fingertip and painted it at the crook of her elbow, behind her left ear and in what little cleavage she had. He didn’t stop to think touching her there might be inappropriate. They touched each other casually all over the place and had since forever, but never with intimacy in mind. But she took a sharper draw on her breath and it made him tense, pull his hand away too fast, as if her skin might burn him.

She caught his hand and brought it to her chest. I missed you.

He felt the steady rhythm of her breathing, her heart pumped under his wrist. I always miss you.

If she’d taken the job as his assistant, travelling with him, looking after his bookings, transport and accommodation, this would be easier, but she’d seen through it, too proud to accept his help. She’d used the excuse of needing to be available for auditions, and while it was a fair call, he hated the fact he was raking in the money and she was struggling in a retail job where the shifts were short and too infrequent.

He should’ve asked her to move in with him before now. For Taylor he’d sacrifice his privacy and he was hardly home for more than a few weeks at a time anyway. He’d ask her this time, but he needed to pick his moment.

She released his hand. You don’t have to rehearse, you know.

He kissed her forehead and though his nose itched, he didn’t sneeze. Can’t wait to see everyone. The guys bent the rules so much for him, it was the least he could do to front for a run-through before a show when he was in town.

They listened to the radio, a pop station on the way to Moon Blink, singing the chorus to some new hit that didn’t have many more words than, get it in, get it up, get it out, get it over, delivered in a tongue twisting syncopated rap beat. He had the singer’s intonation down the third time the line came around. It was a good warm up.

Moon Blink lived up to its namesake. It was cool and dark inside the club. He bumped into a table before Angus almost hugged him off his feet.

Vox! When did you get home?

Arms pinned, he could smell the beer on Angus, but on his clothes, not on his breath. He’d been cleaning up, which meant someone hadn’t shown up for their shift and Angus had to fill in again. Nothing glamorous about owning a bar. Last night. Figured you wouldn’t mind if I crashed rehearsal.

Angus steered him to the bar and there was coffee in front of him before he took a seat. Taylor slid in beside him.

So Trill, you kept this one to yourself?

Angus was irritated. Damon closed his eyes as the coffee hit the back of his throat, as the beginnings of jet lag made itself known. No sound came out of Taylor, she would’ve shrugged.

Angus gave Taylor her nickname after the amazing bell-like quality she had in her upper range, and it was his band, his bar, that employed her to sing three nights a week, but the best that could be said about his two closest friends now was they tolerated each other. It never used to be that way. Some days that was more annoying than others. Today it was exasperating. He’d need a nap before the show tonight or his own frustrations might come prowling out.

He pushed his cup forwards for a refill. I thought it might be fun to surprise you. Fronting up with no warning had been Taylor’s idea. Why he was helping her out he didn’t know. He felt her elbow insinuate itself between his ribs and refused to give her the pleasure of reacting, except she pushed harder and his cup hit the saucer off centre and he had to use both hands to stop it flipping over; still coffee sloshed everywhere. Technically a win for Taylor.

Angus mopped up and put a wet towel in his hands. You’ll sing with us tonight?

Hell yeah. Then he’d be home. His mates, a small audience, songs from musicians he admired to sing, no pressure to do anything but have fun.

Angus refilled his cup. How long are you around this time?

A couple of months.

Months. Angus and Taylor in duet. He laughed. It’d been years since he’d been around for months. I’m booked on a couple of small jobs here, favours really. I need the break. He’d been working solidly for the last three years with very little time off and way too many flyer miles accumulated. Underneath the niggle of jet lag was a more bone deep tiredness, it sat under his eyelids like emery board and in the back of his throat like a lump of sand. He had six months to rest and plan the next year’s work commitments.

Sleep would help, not needing to be anywhere further than a couple of local recording studios would make a difference, and being with friends instead of living like a road warrior in hotels and sound booths, buddying with people he’d likely never meet again, would make a huge improvement to his stress levels.

Angus clapped his hands. The band is back together again.

Taylor huffed. As well she might. If he sang with them more often it would change their set list and she’d have to share the stage.

Tay, you okay with Damon on your stage?

Of course I am.

Ah indignant, thy name is Taylor. Damon swivelled his stool so his knees grazed her thigh. Trill?

She cupped his jaw with both hands. You’re an idiot.

He snorted. She was all right about it. I love you too.

Angus clapped again then rubbed his hands together. We need a new set list. Got any preferences?

No rap, he said, on song with Taylor, and they all laughed.

They settled on some U2, Clapton, a little John Legend, Michael Buble, James Blunt, Bruno Mars, and covers from the bands One Republic, London Grammar, The Fray and The Stones. A list of artists entirely in his range. It left Taylor singing backup, but she refused to do much more than that and her favourite Pink ballads, Try and Sober. They’d do Give Me A Reason together.

They were still arguing over that when Jamie and Sam came in.

He heard the door thunk shut and braced for the inevitable mauling. It came, a headlock from Jamie. He had to slap the bar to get him to let go, then he copped a bear hug from behind from Sam. Sam kissed him on the back of the neck so he made an elaborate show of wiping it away.

Man, when did you get home? Jamie sat on the stool beside him. Angus poured more coffee.

Sam was still standing behind him. Untrustworthy. Last night.

Sam did the lips to the back of the neck thing again, this time with sound effects. He would’ve gotten a mouthful of hair, Damon needed a cut badly.

That’s it. He swung the stool around and grabbed Sam by the shirt and they wrestled, haphazardly bumping into chairs and tables, grunting and laughing. Sam taunted him sprouting dialogue from Dystopian Conflict, pretending to be Lord Wrack to his Sky Pirate Captain Zice Vox.

I banish you to the Red Star Dystopia, Vox.

You couldn’t banish breakfast, Wrack.

In Dystopian Conflict, the movie and the video game, that was the line that got Vox into big trouble, his galaxy ship impounded and his pirate queen, Umbria Starstarter, taken hostage. In the sequel he’d just finished recording, Dystopian Outlaw, the actress who voiced Umbria had taken a shine to him, offering to start his star anytime he liked. He’d spent an uncomfortable ten days declining the opportunity.

Sam tried to wrestle him to his knees. Filthy pirate scum.

He choked out, From spew spawn like you, Wrack, that’s a compliment.

He’s staying a while. That was Taylor, and it had the effect of distracting Sam long enough that Damon got his arms around Sam’s knees and tipped him over. They both went down tangled with a couple of chairs, and Angus yelling at them to quit it.

He sat on the floor and laughed. It was good to be home. Sam hauled him up and half an hour later he was singing U2’s Beautiful Day just to prove it.

2: Sound of Alone

Georgia pulled the grimy wooden blinds closed and collapsed into the only chair not piled with boxes or other household guff. It would take hours to unpack and get sorted but she didn’t give a hoot that this tiny flat was grubby, messy and missing a connection to functioning electricity.

It was her private space. If she never unpacked a box, washed a plate, scrubbed soap scum off the shower curtain she’d yet to hang, no one would care. She sprawled in the chair and breathed deeply of dust and musty smells and they were cleansing. This was freedom, this was her new life and it was joyful. She’d start over with her old name, in this new space where no one could make her feel responsible, guilty, frustrated or angry.

She could wear all those emotions without judgement, without needing to cover them over with smiling patience and polite forbearance like cheeks that needed colour or eyes that didn’t pop.

She could be grumpy and slobby, flippant and silly. She could sing off-key without worrying about anyone’s headache, or dance like she was having a fit without complaints she was being juvenile. She could eat junk food till she packed on the weight and exploded in oozing fatty lumps out the seams of her clothing. She could cultivate bad breath till the scent of it permeated the whole flat and seeped under the door into the street, making dogs howl and cats drop dead.

Even better, she could lie in bed all weekend, or watch endless bad television, or play games on her phone all day, or take up a dorky hobby like scrapbooking. Or she could sit in this comfortable chair all day and read a book, if she could find one, and no one would need a meal, or a complaint heard, a pillow plumped, attention for their bitterness and misery, or an audience for their betrayal.

She was done with the need for attention most of all. When it had been necessary vigilance she’d borne it better, with sucked up grief and determination, with a constant ache in her chest. With love. But once the fear wore off, once a reasonable recovery was imminent, it was the attention that wore her down most of all, because it was always so opinionated and unforgiving.

And Hamish had never been that way before.

But whose fault was that?

She struggled upright and pushed a box of kitchen gear out of her way with her booted foot. There was enough space between the chair, the new old coffee table and the two suitcases to dance. She took her phone out of her hip pocket and thumbed through to her music, picked the Cyndi Lauper track Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and played it through the tinny phone speakers. It was her new anthem, except fun was taking this whole break free thing a little far. What she wanted was to be alone, to be uninvolved, careless and quiet. Not to be defined as a patient girlfriend, a caring wife, a nurse, a companion, a slave. Not to be the one who ruined it all.

Cyndi sang and Georgia faked a dance step that was more a sideways old lady scared of breaking a hip shuffle than a recognisable groove. Not that she had much dancer in her anyway, but somehow in all that time with Hamish she’d lost her sense of rhythm, along with the logic of who she was without him.

And without him was bliss, a deep hot bubble bath, a feather bed, a big mouthful of chocolate praline, endless coffee refills you didn’t have to make yourself.

So getting her hippy hippy shake back should be easy.

But maybe not today. She dropped into the armchair with a grunt. Today her back ached from humping suitcases and boxes up the stairs. Today was all about the savouring, and she could do that while slumping. It was the equivalent of a day spa appointment that was going to last the rest of her life. It was indulgence and choice, ease and relaxation served with real peppermint tea that was steamy and fragrant.

It was so weird.

She’d hadn’t been on her own, truly on her own, without someone in the next room whose needs she’d committed to meet, for eight years. And even before that, after Mum died, with Dad’s drinking, there’d been that need to be the one who cared, who was responsible, whose needs came last.

That realisation was probably why it was hard to get out of the chair. She felt heavy with the difference. Not that it mattered. She could rust in this chair and no one would mind. That was such a lonely loser thought it made her smile. Because that’s exactly what she wanted, to be alone, and if that made her a loser then bring it on, baby, embrace the lame, cultivate the nerd, and institutionalise the geek.

She swung a denim-clad leg over the arm of the chair and fist-pumped, feeling vaguely stupid for doing it. Because for all the sit in the chair till she fused with its second-hand distressed leather notions, she had to get at least part way organised. She had a new job to start Monday and in that particular sphere she had to show a whole lot of anti-loser characteristics. Which meant finding appropriate clothing to wear, sorting out the bathroom and working out how to manage without a power supply and still have decent hair.

The better casual clothes she needed were in the red suitcase. The confidence she needed had to be summoned, and it wasn’t going to be as easy as ringing for a pizza. But she’d managed to conjure cool, calm and professionally collected during the Skype interview a month ago, and that’d been a disconcerting experience, pitching her heart out about her experience to her laptop screen in a cubicle at the library while a man in a tweed jacket with actual elbow patches and a cloth cap scowled at her over the partition.

He was reading something that exuded old book smell and making increasingly aggressive shhh noises. She was reading the expression on the faces of two people whose Sydney-based recording studio she fervently wanted to work for and sprouting off about her Bachelor’s Degree in Audio Engineering.

At about the time she mentioned being a panel operator for Radio London Mode, tweed man stood up and glared at her. She ignored his looming presence and went on to talk about her stint as house engineer for the Little Shakespeare Theatre. Tweedy lost it and started complaining loudly while she grimaced and explained how she’d been the engineer for a variety of freelance contracts in the advertising and documentary making industry over the last four years. It wasn’t the career she’d hoped to build, it was what she had to trade with.

But Tweedy was making noises akin to a human distress beacon so she’d been forced to acknowledge she was logged in at the library because she’d needed a private space. She didn’t tell them Hamish would’ve made life even tougher for her than Tweedy had. She did tell them she’d need time to relocate from London to Sydney. Then she expected to wait with all the pleasure of having a dead limb from pins and needles before the inevitable analysis of her résumé revealed her patchy work experience and killed the opportunity like catastrophic blood loss.

Instead she got a cheery text before she got to the tube. We’d love to have you. When can you start? That meant telling Hamish she was leaving was a pressing reality.

She got up and righted the suitcase so it stood on its wheels. If she dragged it into the bedroom and unpacked it would feel like progress and it might stop this senseless rehashing of the events of the last few weeks. They no longer mattered. The whole of the last eight years hardly mattered; it was scar tissue, a non-lethal brain lesion. She never needed to think about it again.

She thumbed to a David Guetta track on her phone and swayed in the space between the boxes, cases and badly positioned furniture. She couldn’t sing for nuts and no sooner krump, pop, lock or hip hop than she could get a basic side to side step, school disco à la 1997 going, but moving, no matter how randomly, felt better than remembering that night she announced she was leaving.

Hamish was seeing someone. He hadn’t bothered to hide it, staying out all night and leaving restaurant receipts and movie tickets on the kitchen counter. It was the act that pushed her to end things and look for a way to move home.

And it was the admission that made her announcement seem like retreat instead of advance. She’d expected him to fuss, cause a scene. He’d laughed and told her it was good timing.

Georgia turned in a circle, knocking her hip on the edge of a tallboy dresser and didn’t care that it nipped and would bruise. She was dancing and no one could tell her she looked like an idiot and moved like a zombie on human meat ‘roids. She was dancing, in her own place, halfway around the world from Hamish and his new lover, Eugenia, and the grey, hesitant existence she’d lived since she’d married him for all the wrong reasons.

The song changed and she was just getting warmed up. She worked a shimmy into her shoulders. Did anyone shimmy anymore? Who cares? She did. In her own flat, where no one could see her, she shimmied and sidestepped and bopped her head, got a little tush action going and knocked over a box of new linen. If she kept this up she might need to strip off, dance barefoot in her mismatched Marks and Spencer’s underwear because she wasn’t scared and awkward, she was young still, and hot and desirable, about to set the local recording scene on fire with her stunning command of sliders, her dab hand at sequencing and her perfection with pre- and post-production.

Dancing made you sweaty. She should’ve remembered that. It made you a little light-headed and giggly. She pulled her t-shirt over her head and did the twist in her beige bra and her vintage 501s, using the shirt as a makeshift boa around her neck. Dancing made your breath come short and your chest hurt. That was peculiar. Was that normal? It made you feel a little panicked and burned your eyelids. But she was absolutely not crying, so it had to be the dust she was kicking up irritating her eyes, making water course down her face and drip off her chin, like it had that night in front of Hamish as she’d packed a bag and left him.

He’d done all the talking. She’d said nothing after all of it, the youthful love, the horror and blame, the stupidly hopeful bedside wedding and the years of trying to make something good from the disaster of feeling responsible.

She wiped her face on her t-shirt and closed her eyes. It wasn’t the loss of innocence and love that hurt. Hamish had cherished his mastery of her guilt more than he’d ever loved her and she’d been the one dumb enough to let him manipulate her into staying in the relationship so long. What hurt, struck the knockout blow, like walking into a glass wall you didn’t see, was the years she’d lost to putting his needs exclusively above her own.

So she danced in a whirl of flailing arms and jerky gyrations to crappy audio, in her cheap flat, surrounded by newly purchased credit card debt, while she sobbed for all the decisions she’d made that led her here, and resolved that everything in her personal life that came after this maddened prancing would be about independence, caring less and standing clear of being needed so she could learn who Georgia Fairweather was when she wasn’t the one to blame.

3: Lucky

Sometime between the rehearsal and the gig the jet lag really kicked in—hard. He thought going to the gym might stave it off, but now Damon felt all fifteen and a half travel hours, and the impact of the dateline in the heaviness of his limbs and how much worse than normal he played pool. And he normally played like it was chess, which is to say the only way he could win was to employ a strategy where he totally screwed with the other guy by making him fudge shots.

Character voices were great for that. He’d wait till the other guy was lined up then give him a blast of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jack Nicholson. Al Pacino also worked a treat to put a guy off his shot, and so did Buzz Lightyear.

But Jamie was immune to all that, so he’d tried Captain Vox, but that didn’t work either because he hadn’t created a voice for Vox. He was Vox.

He managed a decent break, but after that Jamie chased him all over the table; he might as well have been playing by himself. They both cracked up the fourth time Damon air swiped the cue ball, but Jamie, being Jamie, never said a word; he passed more chalk, as if that was going to make it easier to align white, red, pocket with more than fluke on his side.

The pepper steak and jacket potato with sour cream topping Angus put in front of him before they went on made a difference. All that protein woke his system up and the carbs refreshed him, but he still felt like he was sleepwalking.

You okay? Taylor. She massaged the back of his neck.

Feel trashed. Worse than usual. He moved his head side to side as her fingers found sore spots. Now that he’d vocalised it, he did feel like shit warmed up. The coming home jet lag was usually worse than the fly out version, but he was a master at managing it after so many years moving between Sydney and LA, New York or London. The Dystopian Outlaw movie read had been quick and intense, but the game had needed long hours over months; he was either more exhausted than he’d thought or he had picked up a bug. His throat felt tight and his eyes were gritty and wouldn’t stop watering. Maybe he was coming down with something.

Taylor’s hand went to his forehead. You’re not hot. He grinned; Umbria Starstarter thought he was molten lava. Taylor pinched his cheek. Did you get any action this trip?

He pushed his plate away and turned on the stool to face her. Why would I answer that? The bar had filled up in the time he’d taken to eat. There was a low-level buzz of chatter, the occasional shriek of laughter. He had to go get changed in a minute if he was going to bother. He could go on in his jeans, but bloody Sam had stretched the neck of his t, and Taylor had changed so he should make the effort.

She put her hand over his where it lay on the bar. I think you’re lonely.

He flipped his hand and clasped hers briefly before putting it back on the bar top. Christ, where’s that coming from?

Just a thought.

Just a thought that was going to make it harder to get her to accept the idea of moving in with him. It’d virtually convince her she was right if he asked now. Umbria wanted me.

They all want you. Taylor’s voice was all it’s hard to believe but true. Was she as sexy as she sounds?

We only did two sessions in the studio together. Umbria had wanted to go all method on his Captain Vox ass, ten minutes after they were introduced. She was interesting.

Is that code for old, fat and ugly?

He laughed. She was one of those instant clingy ones.

Taylor put a glass of water in his hand. Oh, you hate that.

He shivered. It was an occupational hazard and he did hate it. The only one allowed to cling to me is you, Tay.

But one day you’re going to want someone else to cling to you.

He sipped the water and the ice in it made him cough. Meanwhile I’ll stick to the non-cling variety. By which they both knew he meant women happy to sign up for a good time, not a