“—and we’re yet to get to the heart of the issue.”
“There is no heart. I was deceived. I’ve vented to my best friends. And now I’ve moved on. No more Allie. No more fake weddings. It’s back to the welding, the odd jobs, and dinners with my friends. No more love and romance, just some hot flings with passing travellers. There’ll be more of them now, thanks to Gay Bells.”
“Do you mean that?” Will pushed his plate aside. “Really, Tarryn? I’ve never seen you like this. So angry. Defensive.”
“Heartbroken,” Garrett said.
“Yes, that. This isn’t your way. Quandong is accepting of the circumstances and happy with Allie’s work. You’ve slept with straight women before, and you’veneverbeen like this.” Will took a sip of his own wine. “I’m going to take a punt that, this time, your heart’s involved and you don’t like it. That maybe you wanted more. That you did want more until you thought you’d been made a fool of. Allie didn’t do that. You’re the fool now for not going after what you really want.”
Tarryn ate a forkful of pasta. “I feel like an idiot. I should have known she was lying.”
“How? None of the rest of us did,” Garrett said.
“Relationships need to be built on trust. How can I trust someone who lied about who she was? Her sexuality.”
“Sexuality…well, not everyone pops out of the womb knowing they’re gay. Some people take longer. Allie’s obviously the latter. She was protecting whom she loves. I doubt she came here with the intention of falling for you. Sometimes these things just happen.” Garrett cast Will such a dewy-eyed look, it stole Tarryn’s breath.
He was right. She knew, deep down, Allie hadn’t intended to fall for her, in whatever way that was. To whatever depth it was.
Maybe I just needed the right person. Maybe I just needed you.Allie’s words hammered in Tarryn’s mind like a song on repeat. Allie had been open in that. She’d put herself out for her heart to be trampled on. And she didn’t have to own up about the deception. She could have kissed Tarryn goodbye and driven off to Sydney, leaving Quandong and Tarryn as blissfully ignorant specks in her rear-view mirror.
But she’d told the truth—knowing it could destroy not only what they might have together but also have immense repercussions on her sister’s business. The sister she loved enough to protect in the first place.
Why would Allie blow things apart if she didn’t care enough to set things straight?
Tarryn swallowed and stared at her friends. “I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?”
They nodded in unison.
“Total fuckhead,” Will said.
“Understandable,” Garrett added. “Your knee-jerk reaction was to protect yourself. But a wise woman would see past that. You have.”
“What would a wise woman do now?” Tarryn glanced from one to the other as if the two of them held her future in their hands. “What should I do?”
“Think about it for a day. Be sure anything you do is really what you want, what you can commit to,” Will said.
“Sober up,” Garrett added. “Make sure it’s not the wine making you sentimental. Stay here tonight while you do. Have brekky with us in the morning—Will’s cooking, so it will be better than this”—he pushed his plate away—“and we’ll come up with a plan of action.”
Tarryn nodded. Was this salvageable? Her friends seemed to think so. And did she want it? She’d do as they suggested and sleep on it. No drunken phone calls or texts from her. But they were right. She’d been the worst sort of judgemental fool.
Allie was too much a part of her heart to let her go without a fight.
* * *
Tarryn’s phone rang loudly, jerking her out of sleep. She stretched. The bed was smaller and softer than her own. Will and Garrett’s spare room. Her eyes opened slowly, and she squinted in the light. She needed water, paracetamol, more sleep, a couple of fried eggs, and a pee. Not in that order—a pee was winning. And she needed to answer her phone.
She fumbled for it and managed to answer it before it went to voicemail.
“Are you alive?” Phyll asked.
Tarryn bit back a groan. She should have looked at the screen before answering. “Only just.”
“I want to talk about Allie.”
Tarryn put the phone on speaker and dropped it face down on the bed, resting her head back on the pillow as Phyll explained that the committee had decided to pay Sophie’s full fee.
“Allie thought you had already told me about the twin switch.” Phyll’s voice held none of the expected censure.
