‘I meant are you still on the other end of the phone.’ Another shove.
‘Of course I am,’ he snapped. ‘I’m sorry. This is a shock.’
‘I don’t understand how you didn’t know.’
‘She didn’t tell me!’ A couple of colleagues lifted their heads. He dropped his volume. ‘Look, I’ll be there by four.’ Three if he ignored the speed limits. ‘Which hospital?’
‘Shoalhaven.’
‘Right. Thanks for being there, Bruce. I appreciate it.’ Though not the condescension.
‘Someone’s got to.’ Bruce hung up before he could reply. Suddenly the long stretches of silence on Bruce’s part were more preferable. What the redheaded giant had to disapprove of, he didn’t know. He’d never known. Ever since he’d left Brachen, Bruce’s jaw had shut tighter than a tradie’s toolbox on Friday afternoon. Their old friendship had been locked inside and the hinges turned to rust. But that didn’t matter now. He had to get to his mother. He’d sort Bruce out later.
‘Gabe, are you okay?’ Andrew asked.
His head snapped up midway through stuffing his bag.
‘Andrew, I’m sorry. I’ve had a phone call that my mum’s ill and—’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve got to go see her.’
Sympathy carved lines into his boss’s forehead. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry to hear that. We’ll hold the fort until you get back.’
Tell him. Tell him you can’t do this anymore.
But he froze. People were watching, and he didn’t have time to explain that if Sofia was as sick as Bruce made it sound, him working on Rivervue would likely lead to her death.
‘I don’t know how long I’ll be away.’
Andrew dismissed his concern. ‘That’s fine. You come back when she’s better.’
If—when—she got better, he needed to stay with her to keep her strong while someone else destroyed Rivervue.
‘It might be a while.’
Andrew put his hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the elevator. ‘You give me a ring when you’re returning to work.’
The elevator doors opened.
He should tell Andrew, but he was being so supportive and so kind he didn’t want to add to his woes. Or his own. He’d return to Brachen then call the office and say he’d have to resign to take care of his mother. Truth or not, he couldn’t work on Rivervue. He whispered his thanks to Andrew and the doors closed on his last day at Y Studio.
Chapter Two
Bruce really needed to get back to work. Instead he was in Sofia Mora’s hospital room and sitting—sitting!—in a hard plastic chair that was barely large enough to hold him. He’d done the pacing thing, almost burning a hole in the scuffed hospital floor while talking to Gabe on the phone.
Not Gabe. Gabriel.
‘Gabe’ implied they still had a friendship. They hadn’t been close enough to have anything like that for years. It hadn’t been a difficult thing to call him using Sofia’s phone. He’d had the element of surprise and was ready to ream Gabriel out for not knowing Sofia was ill. For not being around. But hearing his honeyed voice—sting and all—on the other end of the line weakened him. Not enough to hold back his snark. His chest still prickled with the shame of trying to guilt a kid who would already be feeling bad enough.
Not that he had any proof. Gabriel hadn’t felt bad about anything before, why would he start now?
Bruce massaged the knuckles of his fist. He wouldn’t let Gabriel get to him. That saga with him and Jason was in the past and it could stay there. Gabriel would come back to take care of Sofia and they’d have nothing to do with each other.
Except for the fact that Bruce was meant to be at Sofia’s house right now building a gazebo in that stunning garden of hers. And then there was all the time they worked together at the theatre: her designing the sets, him building them. Her latest work, however … She was behind on Larrikin’s designs. The cast list had just been announced and the production was charging ahead—and hopefully wouldn’t leave her behind. He’d honoured her determination to not let cancer get her down, even when he thought it better for her to rest, but thanked Christ he’d been at her house when she’d collapsed. He’d come with her in the ambulance, stayed while she was examined at the hospital, then sat by her bedside hoping she’d wake.
At least she was breathing.
He wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to tell Gabriel she’d died. No matter the pain Gabriel had caused him, he wouldn’t want to be the cause of that much pain in return. Bruce knew what it was like to lose a mother, even if Sofia was nothing like his own.
He’d called Gabriel soon after Sofia had been admitted. Even accounting for traffic, it should only take Gabriel a couple of hours to get there. Bruce could leave and head back to Brachen, but the idea of her waking up with no-one around sat about as comfortable as the way he was sitting now.
But the longer he stayed, the less time he was working. And he needed to be working. And getting paid.
Or else he was going to be out on his arse.
That thought drove him off it and into the hallway. Back to pacing. It was the closest he could get to doing anything of use. But each footstep pounded out the reality of what was happening to him, and they’d gotten even heavier since Felicity had called from the bank. He was five months behind in his mortgage loan repayments and she couldn’t hold them back any longer.
He’d hastily plunged himself into debt so he could pay his sister for her half of the family home over a year ealier, a loan he should have easily been able to pay off. But a new ute had added to the debt, a broken arm had forced him to stop work for six weeks, and he’d lost work to another builder
