Chapter 57

Noah

Earlier that day

“Come on, we’re painting the nursery,” Knox growled at me when I turned up at his place the next morning.

“And a good morning to you too.” I handed him a takeaway cup of coffee I’d picked up for him on the way, and he took it with an appreciative nod. “But isn’t this something we need to discuss with Millie? Women start…” I pulled out my phone and looked at the article I’d been reading. “Nesting late in their pregnancy. She’s going to want to design the nursery herself.”

“Already talked about it,” he said, walking down the hall, leaving me to close the front door. “Went to a baby shop and everything. Said the furniture was coming later this week, but I paid extra to get it delivered today. Charlie will take her out on his date, then will bring her here.” He looked me up and down speculatively. “So we’ve got a few hours to get the room ready for her.”

But why now? I wanted to ask. A sharp look from Knox and I fell silent, knowing what that meant. He expected his orders to be followed without question, which was fine at work. A discussion during a raging fire could get someone killed, but there was no great urgency now.

Except inside Knox.

“Hey, Buster…”

I dropped down to give the dog’s chest a scratch, smiling at his furiously wagging tail, but it was Knox that I watched closely. He was always a grumpy prick, but right now, he was wound way too tight. He disappeared out into his garage, returning with tins of paint and drop cloths before nodding curtly to me. He hadn’t led me wrong in all the fires we’d attended, so I had to believe he wouldn’t steer us in the wrong direction now. And besides, spreading out the cloths, mixing the paint, then loading up a brush? It gave me something to do, got me out of my own head.

There was no road map for what we were doing. The new father articles made that clear as I read through them obsessively. In each one, they talked about the things I would need to do, the adjustments I would need to make, but that’s not how it would work. Co-parenting was largely confined to articles about what to do after you’d divorced the mother of your child, something I never wanted to consider. Negotiating conflict, using parenting apps so everything was documented? Smart, but too depressing for me. Instead, I focussed on cutting in the trims in neat precise lines, because we were building something, not trying to work out what to do after a relationship had failed.

“For the love of god, tell me that Millie likes this colour,” I told him when we stepped back hours later. The walls had been given two coats of paint in this pale, milky green.

“She chose it.”

That was the first time I saw anything in him that resembled a smile, his look of satisfaction contagious. Painting helped get my mind off things, but acts of service? They were my love language, one hundred percent. In my mind, I could imagine her coming down the hall, walking in and seeing her ideas made flesh. She’d love it, love… I swallowed hard, knowing she wasn’t there yet, but this. I nodded. This would make clear to her how it would be if she ended up returning my feelings. The toot of a car horn broke the spell I was under, Knox jerking himself to his feet.

“Furniture’s here,” he said.

My paint roller was left in the tray as we walked out to meet the delivery guy.

If there was ever an activity to test a team, it was putting together flat-pack furniture. We unboxed each piece of furniture one by one, covering Knox’s lounge room with sheets of foam and cardboard. Buster started to get excited, dancing around and barking, sure somehow this was for him.

“Whaddya reckon, Bust?” Knox asked him, giving the dog a vigorous scratch. “You reckon your little brother or sister will like this?”

I wasn’t so focussed on the baby as the mother. Our child wouldn’t even see clearly for the first few months of its life, but Millie… She’d see our hard work today. I picked up an Allen key and went to work, attaching the side rails to the crib.

After another hour or so, we were done. The change table and the crib were all pristine white and perfect, now placed inside the nursery, but not too close to the still curing walls. The nursing chair was brought in, mounds of soft toys placed on top of a chest of drawers that we’d then stacked with nappies and other things Millie would need. It was all here, all of it, every single thing a mother could want. We stepped back and surveyed the results of our hard work, now with beers in hand.

“It’s done,” I said.

“Almost.” Knox turned to me, the cranky bullshit of before finally fading away. I saw it then, as I stared into his eyes, the same certainty he carried with him into every fire we fought, every time we converged on our truck to clean and maintain it. He was a natural leader, even if he was a tough one and right now he saw it. A great and glorious future. “We just need her.” Always, I thought furiously, always. “And for you mob to move in.”

“Move in?”

He shook his head as I looked around the room in confusion.

“Not here, dickhead.” He led me out of the nursery and down the hall. “When’s your lease up?”

“About a month,” I told him, “though they’re asking if I want to renew.”

“Tell them you don’t.” He shoved a door open to a perfectly generic guest room. Plenty of natural light streamed in through a window that looked out on his very nice backyard. “Move your shit in here.”

“With you?” I asked, wondering how he’d cope with that. Knox was notoriously private.

“With us.”

He waited for the words to sink in, for me to work out what he meant, and it was then that I saw the same future. All three of us rising early in the morning, getting ready for work. One of us would shove a coffee at Knox to stop him from getting snappy, then fight it out over who gets the first shower.

Only for Millie to claim it.

She’d emerge from one of our bedrooms looking perfectly rumpled as she pulled a silk robe around herself. With her eyes still creased by sleep, she’d waft over, sliding into my open arms or Charlie’s, maybe even daring to sidle up to Knox. She’d calm Charlie, cheer up Knox, and me? She’d set me alight the moment she looked my way.

Only for the peace to be broken by the thin wail of our child.

I knew the reality wouldn’t look like this, that Millie wouldn’t calm our baby with one little hush, that breastfeeding could be really difficult or even impossible for women, but that’s not what I saw. In my mind’s eye, we all clustered around the two of them, bringing her food and a drink of water, looking after her as she looked after our child. I shook my head, not letting myself dwell too long on a fantasy that might never come true.

“Us?” I croaked that out, my throat closing over.

“Us.” He was a man on a mission, and we were just all players in a game of his devising. “When Charlie brings Millie here, when she sees the nursery, that’s when I want to ask her to move in.”

“Now?” Apparently, I’d lost the ability to construct sentences of more than one word. I shook my head and pushed myself to elaborate. “I mean, that’s moving fast, real fast. We’ve taken her on one date each.” The frown was back, threatening to silence me, but I couldn’t allow him that. The stakes were too high for me to just leave it all to Knox. “Honestly, I think we’re still working this shit out.”

“What’s to work out?” Knox snapped, but was it at me or the doubts inside his head? “This situation, the relationship, it’s all pretty unorthodox, but it feels right.” He looked at me for confirmation, and I couldn’t help but nod. “This is where Millie belongs, not that bloody apartment building of hers. It’s one of those new builds, and how many fires have we been called out to deal with in one of them?”

He had me there. The lack of oversight, cheap, non-compliant materials and shoddy building practices had pretty much all the fire service steering away from new-build apartment blocks.

“If Millie moves in here, we can keep her safe. We can.” He stepped closer, staring into my eyes, willing me to understand. “I can even tolerate Head Job moving in if Millie does. That way there will always be someone with her, someone looking after her, keeping her safe, making sure she has everything she needs throughout the pregnancy.” His eyes slid sideways, staring blankly at the garden. “She won’t be scared, angry, alone, anything.”

But that’s not how it works, I wanted to tell him, otherwise I’d have moved in years ago. I’d have holed up in his spare room and never left. The world came for you no matter what you tried to do, and, despite yourself, it made you feel all of the breadth of emotions a human was capable of. But when my lips moved to try to get him to admit just that, his phone started ringing. He looked down at the screen and nodded, grinning for real now.

“They’re on their way.”

So it was showtime.

It felt like I was about to step out on stage. I’d been forced to do that at school during a drama performance. Just like then, my ears strained, trying to catch hints of ridicule, but instead, all I heard was the front door swinging open. Millie came forward, her face swathed in a t-shirt, her hands outstretched, prompting me to take them. Buster danced around, being a nuisance and Knox told him off, destroying any hint of mystery. Millie looked stunned, blinking owlishly as her blindfold was removed. My eyes traced the rise and fall of every wisp of hair as Knox started to talk way too fast.

About the reveal, about the surprise, as he led her down the hallway. I only heard a small snippet of any of it. My heart was beating way too hard, too fast, in my ears. Every muscle was tensed, ready to move, do something, but instead we had to step back and watch Millie stare at what we had done.

When the first tear formed in her eyes, I felt a surge of hope. Knox had it right, this was the way forward. For one perfect moment, I could see everything falling into place.

“We’ve got a proposal we want you to think about.”

Did she hear the slight shake in Knox’s voice? I think she did, the pleased smile fading like the sun. She blinked, reconsidering her surroundings, as if that proposal was hidden behind the collection of plush bunnies we’d set up on the chest of drawers.

“Move in.” It was all there, what he wanted, what we wanted, offered up on a platter, because if acts of service was my love language, it was Knox’s only one. Words he struggled with, just like he did now, his throat working, forcing him to take a big swig of his beer. “Move in here and we’ll look after you. Through the pregnancy and after the baby is born.” He blinked, then smiled. “Forever, if you’ll let us.”

I wanted her to say yes so damn much. My chest ached so fiercely with that need that my fingers raked across my sternum, only slightly surprised to feel muscle there rather than just skin and bone, but that’s not how shit worked. Good things seemed to just fall into some people’s laps, but me…?

“Move in?” Her head snapped back as if she’d been slapped. Her cheeks were red enough to make you think she had been. “Already?” A little snort of laughter escaped her, then when she smothered it, she looked around for support. Someone to confirm what she was thinking, and that wasn’t a yes. “I mean…” She shook her head and forged on with a slight frown. “We’ve gone on one date each.”

“Plenty of time for dates when you move in.” Knox was talking too fast, his tone too close to the one he used when he was barking out orders. “One of us will take you out every evening if that’s what you want.”

“No.” Jesus, I felt that like a punch to the chest. “I mean, yes, I do want that, but…” Her eyes were wide open and searching, staring at each one of us in turn, pleading for understanding. “But that comes first. You get to know each other, see if you’re compatible first.”

“Pretty sure we worked out how compatible we are last night,” Charlie said with a smirk.

I wanted to shout at him to shut the fuck up. How the hell was he missing this? Why didn’t Knox? Millie was spooked, whirling like a terrified horse and ready to bolt.

“Outside of the bedroom.” She flushed when she realised how sharply she’d said that. “I…” Her hands rose and fell helplessly. “This is all happening so fast. I only just got my head around the fact that I’m about to become a mother and now…”

“Millie…”

I moved closer, wanting this all to stop. I didn’t give a shit that my shoulders ached from the painting and the furniture construction. That was nothing compared to the pain she was feeling.

They were feeling.

Charlie looked like he was the one who had been hit this time, and Knox? I’d seen the man expose his soft underbelly precisely one time, and that was today. Right now, his mind was frantically re-constructing the walls he always hid behind.

“Just let me…”

Whatever she was asking for, the answer was yes, always yes, but it was then her phone rang. She looked at the screen, then winced before tapping it to answer.

“What?” Millie started to move, staring at the floor as she listened to the other person down the line. “Yes, I’m getting the drinks for tonight. No, I hadn’t forgotten. No…” She looked up at us. “They’re busy tonight. They’ve got work. OK, I’ll see you soon.” She ended the call and faced us down. “I need to go. My brothers and my best friend have their housewarming on tonight.”

“An event we are evidently invited to,” Knox said with a growl. I stared meaningfully at him, not wanting him to keep pushing her, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “We don’t have work today.”

“You don’t want to come to this party.” She said that so matter-of-factly. “It’s just my dumb family getting drunk and celebrating the fact that my brothers finally got Jamie to move in with them…” I watched her wince, smile ruefully, and shake her head. “And that’s the main reason why you don’t want to come. They took months to get her to say yes. Years, if you count how long they’ve been pining for her.”

Years then, I thought, maybe that’s how long it would take us to persuade her to become a family with us.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said finally. “This looks amazing, really, and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done.”

But not yet, not now, and maybe, not ever, that went unsaid.

“What’s the address?” The question was out of my mouth without a thought, and she turned around then to look me over closely. “I can ask around, see if I can find it through some of my contacts from school, but…”

Her lips pursed and I knew she was ready to blow me off, but she didn’t know. I’d screwed up, waiting for her to walk back into my life after all these years. Not again. She rattled it off in a matter-of-fact tone, then stopped still. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, but… you’ve had all day to process this. I’m just asking for a little bit of time to catch up, y’know? Just let me catch my breath.”

Something she couldn’t do here. I watched her walk out the door, then call an Uber, from Knox’s lounge room window. My heart went with her apparently, aching and bleeding, as I was left to stare after her, not able to look away until she was safely inside the car.

“We’re going to that party,” Knox said.

“Is that smart?” Charlie looked at him, then me.

“Smart?” I shrugged, feeling the part of me, the biggest one, telling me to listen to Millie, to keep away. It was the voice of my own cowardice, I decided. I’d respect her decision, give her time, but the minute she decided what she wanted?

I’d be there, giving it to her.

“Got a clean shirt I can borrow?” I asked Knox. “Pretty sure a paint-splattered t-shirt isn’t the right outfit to wear to a party.”

Knox grinned then.

“You got it.”