‘The reason you’re going back to SoCal. It’s gotta be a woman, right?’
Cooper shook his head. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Please. You’re my twin brother. You think I’m an idiot? I know you. You’ve always thought with your dick. It’s what makes you you. And since I know that you have some measure of respect for us as your brothers, I know that the only thing that could possibly drag you away from the arrival of your first niece is a woman.’
‘Cal …’
Callum clinked bottles with his brother. ‘I like to be right.’
Cooper trailed a hand through his hair. ‘She’s a friend. That’s all.’
Callum laughed. ‘You? Friends with a woman? Now you really are bullshitting me.’
‘Fuck you,’ Cooper smiled.
‘I’m not buying it.’
‘Again. Fuck you.’
‘So what’s her name, this “friend”?’
‘Maggie.’
‘And what’s so important going on with Maggie that you can’t delay things a week or so?’
Callum didn’t have to say out loud what they both knew: that losing their father made it more important than ever to come together as a family, to hold tight to what bonded them, to make new links with each other now they were men.
Cooper walked to the recycling bin parked at the back of the house near the narrow walkway down the side, opened the lid and tossed his bottle in. Callum threw his to Cooper who caught it without looking and deposited it inside, too.
When he rejoined Callum, his face was serious. The joke in his eyes had disappeared and he ran a hand through his hair.
‘There’s a kid.’
Callum’s spine stiffened. ‘You are fucking kidding me. You have a kid?’
Cooper raised a hand. ‘Wait a goddamn minute. It’s not my kid. It’s her son. Evan. He’s got this thing coming up at his elementary school and he doesn’t have a dad who’ll be there, so it’s me. That’s why I’m heading back to San Clemente.’
‘For the kid.’ Callum could barely believe what his brother was telling him.
‘Yep.’
‘For the kid who’s not yours.’
‘That’s right, bro.’ Cooper held his chin high and defiant, challenging his brother to say one more thing, to have one more go at him. But Callum was going to do no such thing. Their own father had been an absent and distant man, more preoccupied with his business that his children while they were growing up. He’d demanded they all be sent to boarding school down in Melbourne when they reached high-school age, a fight their mother had thankfully won. When she died, it was too late so they’d remained at The Meadows until they’d all been able to escape. Callum respected his brother’s choice. If Cooper was now being a father to this kid, helping this woman Maggie with her son, then that was more honourable than their father had ever been.
‘Well.’ Callum slapped Cooper on the back. ‘I never pictured you taking responsibility for too much of anything except yourself.’
Cooper turned to him. ‘You having a go at me for the millionth time about leaving you to run Malone’s on your own?’
‘I’ve got good cause. You and Chris had your fun for all the years you were roaming the planet and now you’re both settling down. Well, good for you both. I missed out on all that because I was running the fucking company while Dad was screwing who knows who and you two were off cheating death and avoiding sharks. Oh no, I’m not bitter and twisted.’
Cooper’s face slowly transformed into a grin. ‘Man, you need to get laid.’
Callum felt the tension in his shoulders and in his clenched jaw. Ava. There she was again, in his head. ‘You think?’
‘It was good to see Ava again. At the funeral. You know, there’s something about that woman. I don’t know, something … feisty. If I was staying in Sydney …’ Cooper’s voice trailed off and he raised an eyebrow at his brother.
‘But you’re not, are you?’
‘No.’
Sometimes Callum wished his twin brother didn’t know him quite so well.
Chapter Ten
‡
‘Here they are. My plans for your home, Mr Malone.’
Ava picked up a large white cardboard tube. Flipping off the plastic seal at one end, she slipped out a large white piece of paper and spread it out on Callum’s dining table. She reached for her mobile phone and placed it as a weight at one end so the paper didn’t roll back up and held out her hand to Callum, palm up. He reached into his trouser pocket for his phone and handed it to her. She placed it on the other end and it helped hold the plans steady and flat.