Chapter 7

7

B rock tensed when his phone rang out the familiar tune. He’d assigned it specifically, one for his mother, another for his father, so he could distinguish easily when to divert or answer. He diverted most of the time, preferring to communicate with terse texts than one-on-one conversations that rambled.

But his mother hadn’t rung in a while and to call this late at night could only mean one thing: trouble.

After leaving a surprised Jayda in his lounge room, he holed up in the bedroom before answering, surprised to see his mother’s face on the screen. If she rarely called, she video-called even less. Both suited him just fine.

He swiped his thumb across the bottom of the screen. ‘Hey, Mum. What’s up?’

Tears instantly filled her eyes and his heart sank. What had his old man done this time?

‘It’s your father. He’s broken his hip.’

Brock quashed a momentary flicker of compassion. George Olsen didn’t deserve his sympathy. ‘How?’

‘He was hanging a new sign for the car yard.’ She shook her head, the perpetual worry lines furrowing her brow deepening. ‘You know your father. Doesn’t accept help from anybody and never shows weakness.’

Yeah, he knew dear old dad all right and to this day he couldn’t fathom why his mum stuck with him.

He’d blamed himself for a long time for their shitty marriage: Mum got pregnant in her teens, Dad felt compelled to marry her, sticking it out for the sake of their only child. Being witness to their constant bickering and arguments had scarred him for life, ensuring he never, ever, wanted a long-term relationship. Why put himself in a position to be trapped?

He saw it with his friends too, guys he’d gone to uni with who’d morphed from cool coders to hen-pecked shadows doing whatever their partners demanded, browbeaten into meek submission. No way he wanted anything remotely resembling that shit.

With his mother, he didn’t understand why she’d stayed with the selfish prick after Brock left home. She could’ve escaped and started a new life for herself. Instead, she continued to live with the miserable bastard who only cared about one thing in this world: his precious secondhand cars.

Brock scrubbed a hand over his face to hide his scowl. ‘Yeah, I know Dad has a stubborn streak a mile long.’

Usually, his mother would chastise him for being disrespectful. Today, the wrinkles bracketing her mouth deepened.

‘I need your help, Brock.’

He stiffened. If she expected him to play nursemaid to his father, no way in hell he’d agree.

‘With what?’

‘You know your father handles all the bookkeeping at the yard himself because he doesn’t trust anyone else. Well, the part-time manager is fine to step up and run the yard on a daily basis, but your father wants you to do the books.’

Brock exhaled the breath he’d inadvertently been holding. Working remotely to cast an eye over the car yard’s accounts was definitely doable.

‘Sure. I’m leaving Melbourne in two weeks but can still—’

‘Your father will be out of action for ages, in hospital for another two weeks, then rehab for four, so you’ll need to do a lot of the work onsite.’

Fuck. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the rundown car-yard on the outskirts of western Melbourne. It held nothing but bad memories.

Watching his father lie to prospective customers—George had always followed the mantra ‘baffle with bullshit’—then being forced to wash the rust buckets to earn a measly few dollars pocket money. Having his father ignore him for most of the day, not caring whether he had lunch or not.

Resenting his mother for dumping him at the yard during the school holidays when she cleaned people’s toilets part-time because his pig-headed father wouldn’t sell the car yard despite the fact it never made a profit and they lived like paupers.

But he now saw his mother’s pinched mouth, the pallor of her skin with an underlying greyish tinge, the apprehension in her eyes, and knew he couldn’t say no. Not to her. Not after what she’d put up with for years because of him, the child who’d tethered her to a bastard.

‘Okay, Mum, I’ll help.’

She sagged in visible relief and he wished he could say all the things he’d been bottling up for years: why do you stick by him? Why can’t you grow a backbone? Why don’t you leave?

Instead, he said, ‘I’m swamped with work but I can stop by the car yard twice a week and do the accounts. How do Tuesdays and Fridays sound, around three?’

‘Perfect.’ She blinked rapidly, as if staving off tears. ‘You’re a lifesaver, Brock. We both thank you for this.’

Once again, he had to bite his tongue, this time against blurting ‘bullshit’. His father rarely thanked him for anything, the one and only time after Brock had bought them a new house with the proceeds from his first mega deal with a software company. Even then George’s gratitude had been begrudging.

‘Will you be at the yard on Friday when I’m there?’

His mother shook her head. ‘No, I’ll be at the hospital.’ Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I haven’t seen you in a while.’

He ignored the jibe. He’d given up feeling guilty about lack of contact with his parents years ago. He might feel sorry for his mother but he couldn’t fake it, not even for her. As long as she remained in a gloomy marriage as his father’s figurative punching bag, he couldn’t pretend to approve.

He’d tried once to broach the subject of her leaving his father and she’d shut him down quickly and in no uncertain terms, heaping a barrage of abuse on him that had left him reeling.

He’d learned his lesson then: nothing he said, no amount of logic presented in clear, concise terms, could help someone who didn’t want to be helped. So he’d backed the hell off and kept contact to a minimum.

Who knew, maybe after not seeing her for months he could orchestrate seeing his mother on her own and she might listen to reason with his father out of the picture for a while?

Yeah, and maybe he’d be trading his six-figure electric-powered car in for one of his dad’s lemons.

Never going to happen.

‘See you soon, Mum.’

She nodded, her wan smile making his heart ache as he disconnected. He flung the phone onto the bed and leaped to his feet, pacing from one end of the bedroom to the other. He always felt the same after any contact with his parents: angry, resentful, and bitter.

And he still had Jayda waiting for him in the living room.

Thank fuck she wanted this fling as much as he did. Considering how shitty any interaction with his folks made him feel, she was exactly the distraction he needed.