Chapter TWENTY-ONE
THE LASTcouple of days spent with Mitch was the best weekend Finn could remember having in years. He smiled at the memory of the two of them doing absolutely nothing. All they did for two days was hang around the house and spend hours talking. They cooked simple food on the barbecue and even playedYahtzee. Who would have thought big, tough Mitch would be happy to sitcross-legged on the floor in front of the banged-up coffee table and help Finn relive some of the happier, more content moments from his childhood?
“What are you smiling at?” Pete said as Finn entered the workshop.
“Nothing.”
Pete raised a brow but didn’t question him further, for which Finn was grateful. He knew he couldn’t keep the smile off his face—however, there was no way in hell he wasgoing to admit his shit-eating grin was 100 percent due to the smiling man winking at him from the other side of the large room.
Mitch looked hot leaning against a workbench, his arms folded across his broad chest. He held a Zippo in one hand, spinning the stainless-steel lighter between his fingers like a magician doing tricks—and what miracles those fingers could perform.
There was the soundof a throat clearing, and Finn’s face heated when he saw Pete had turned his head and was looking at Mitch before settling his gaze back on Finn. Pete had his back to Mitch, but he’d obviously responded to Finn’s lack of attention and turned to see what, or more accuratelywhom, had captured Finn’s focus.
Finn dragged his attention back to Pete and hoped to God he wasn’t blushing.
“Hey, haveyou got a few minutes to talk?” Finn asked quickly in an effort to avert any comments from Pete. “I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve had a chance to see each other without all this”—Finn waved a hand at the workshop with its hive of activity—“without a load of people around. Fuck, I feel like I don’t get any privacy anymore, not since I moved back to Sydney.”
Pete nodded, then glanced brieflyover his shoulder at Mitch before heading to the door and beckoning for Finn to follow.
The heat hit like a wall as they stepped outside, the hot afternoon sun radiating against the dark asphalt. Finn followed Pete to the shade cast by a large gum tree on the property boundary. Traffic noise carried across the parking lot, but they were alone apart from a couple of guys standing around a bikeparked in the lot at the far end of the building.
Pete lit a cigarette and sucked in a lungful of smoke, holding it before releasing a thin stream between his dry and cracked lips. He held the pack out to Finn, who shook his head. Pete put the pack back into his shirt pocket, took another drag on his cigarette, and leaned on the fence.
Finn used the opportunity to study him. Pete vibrated withnervous energy, or maybe it was the DTs. Had he stopped taking drugs, or was he back on them? It had become clear over the past weeks that Pete, despite reassuring Finn he was trying to put drugs behind him, was failing. But that wasn’t surprising given the amount of time Pete spent around Rocky. Finn had gotten a sense that Rocky was dabbling more and more in his own product, so the temptationfor Pete must have been great.
“Are you doing okay, Pete?”
Pete scuffed the ground with his boot, kicking up a small cloud of dust and splinters of bark from the gum tree. He looked up and nodded. “Sure.”
“You don’t look good, mate.”
“Thanks for not taking it easy on me, Finn. I’d hate for you to sugarcoat anything.” Pete huffed out a mirthless laugh, then drew on the cigarette again. Hiseyes grew dark, and he finally held Finn’s gaze. “But seriously, I do appreciate you asking. I guess I’m not in a good place right now.”
The honesty surprised Finn. Despite the bond they’d formed in Melbourne, events since Finn’s arrival in Sydney had meant they hadn’t had much opportunity to speak one-on-one—a few quick phone calls and a number of texts being the extent of their private conversations.The rest of the time they were surrounded by other people. Even the conversations via text were stilted, both of them reluctant to share too much in a way that could be intercepted or seen by others. So Finn was pleased to see Pete still trusted him enough to be open about something so personal.
“I’m sorry, Pete. Is there something I can do? A way I can help?”
“Nah. I’m dealing with it. I’vemade my bed, and I’ve got to lie in it.” He sounded resigned, as if he’d given up, and that didn’t sit easy with Finn.
“But you can get help. There are places you can go. If money’s the problem—”
Pete grabbed his arm with surprising ferocity, his fingers digging deep. “Stop, Finn. Money’s not the problem. It never has been.”
“But I’ll support you. You can come and stay with me, live out atthe house for a bit, out of the reach of… of Rocky… of stuff.”
“Support isn’t the problem either.” Pete took a deep breath. “And you and I both know that I can’t avoid Rocky.”
“But if I ran interference—” Finn had a flashback of telling Mitch how Carl had stepped in to protect him from Rocky. “What if I kept Rocky off your back?”
“It’s not that simple, and you know why. I want to be close. Ineedto be close, especially if I’m going to get Rocky to let up on you. Give you the space you need to….” Pete let his words fade and tossed a glance toward the building.
“I hate the thought of you sucking up to Rocky to give me space and because you feel you have something to pay back. There has to be another way.”
Pete snorted, took one last drag, and tossed the remains of his cigarette tothe asphalt. “Let’s be honest, Finn. I said I wanted to make amends for some of the shit I’ve done, and I mean it. I really do.” Pete ground his boot onto the butt before he darted his gaze back to Finn’s. “But you think I don’t like being able to get high all the time? You think for a moment that I don’twantto get high without having to go looking for the shit? Wake up! I’m a fucking junkie,not a good guy, and definitely not worth you trying to save.”
“But youarea good guy. No matter what you say, you’re worth saving! I’ve seen what you’re doing, and I know it’s coming from the right place.” Finn thumped his chest. “Yourheart’sin the right place.”
“Listen here, Finn, and you listen good. Someone tried to save me once. Tried to get me support, paid for me to go into rehab—fuck—theynearly sacrificed their career for me too. I couldn’t do it then, and I can’t do it now. It’s too late for me. But it’s not too late for you. Just a little bit longer, and you can get away from this place, and hopefully me too. One day we’ll both be living far away from here. You need to focus on that, not on me. Got it? I’ve got my job to do, and you’ve got yours. We can’t lose sight of that,or we’ll both be fucked. Listen, if something happens to me—”
