‘Okay,’ she said, a little stunned.
Jake raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s it? You’re okay with me being a shit?’
‘No. But I accept your apology.’
‘I should have brought you something to say sorry. Flowers. Chocolates. Another mirror ball. Your own this time. Not borrowed.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘It doesn’t sound fine,’ Jake said.
Couldn’t he see that flowers or chocolates wouldn’t make any difference? ‘It’s not about the grand gesture, Jake.’
‘You’re right. It’s not.’
They stared at each other in the dim light of Ella’s porch with Sam bouncing from foot to foot in the background, but nothing else daring to twitch. Waiting.
‘Can you look past the stuff with Nanna’s house and concentrate on the rest of it, Ella? Because that was real. That was me and you. In your backyard, in my office, when we swam in the dam that day. It was good between us, and it was real. I want more of that.’
‘You only asked me to sell the Honeychurch house because you thought I couldn’t do the job.’
He could have hung his head, but he didn’t. His eyes never left hers. ‘I know. I didn’t know you when I listed the house with you, but you’re right. I used you and I wasted your time when you’re trying to start off this new career with Harvey Begg. Big fuckin’ mistake.’
‘You thought I couldn’t do the job.’
‘Yeah, and you proved me wrong. Over and over. You were right to yell at me. You brought those three offers to me in one week and any one of them was enough for me to sell. You did your job, Ella. You did it real good. Don’t let me or anyone else tell you different.’
Ella swayed in her hot pink boots, leaning into him with her body and the mirror ball box, and suddenly she was shaking like she’d got out of the pool and the winter wind wanted to break her bones.
‘I don’t care about your nanna’s house,’ she whispered. ‘Not anymore. I’m glad you’ve got things sorted out with Abe. Maybe that’s what you had to do to find out what was going on with him. Maybe it’s the only way he would have let it out? We all do things we regret.’ God, isn’t that the truth. ‘We all make mistakes. It’s being messy messed-up humans.’
‘Come here, beautiful messed-up human,’ he said, and whether she dropped the box with the ball, or he took it from her and put it at his feet, Ella couldn’t say.
He was shaking too, tremors she could feel where her chin tucked into his collarbone, where her cheek rested on the hard bone of his shoulder and his t-shirt felt so smooth under her ear, and the foggy feeling that had numbed her brain for weeks was lifting.
Up, up, up. Like a curtain.
* * *
People, people, everywhere, and they all wanted a slice of Ella, but none of them wanted Ella the way he did.
Tonight, Jake wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
He stayed with her through the round of media photos and speeches. He stayed close by as she stood on the stage in the hall at the bowling club and read out lists of sponsors and donations while the mirror ball spun silver bubbles across the ceiling and through Ella’s hair.
He dodged silver and gold balloons later, as he spun her on the dance floor, chasing silver bubbles and streamers with Ella in his arms.
Once Tynan Kennedy cut in on him, tapping him on the shoulder, and he’d had to let Ella go. Tynan was embarrassed about it, and apologised to Jake. ‘The missus won’t let me leave until I ask Ella if she’ll come and tell us what she thinks our house is worth. Two of them got talking at the school the other day about enrolling our kids in swimming lessons apparently, and she comes home and tells me how nice this Ella is, and I know I won’t get any peace till I ask …’
Jake relinquished Ella, and watched as she and Tynan stood on the dance floor, not dancing, for five minutes, with Ella’s eyes all intent and serious and listening and Tynan talking at her and nodding.
Somewhere in all that, Irene and Perry Loveday danced by and bumped him where he was playing wallflower, and Irene leaned in to whisper-shout over the music, ‘Your young Ella looks smashing tonight, doesn’t she, Jake?’
‘She does.’
Irene and Perry danced away—Irene managing very well on that dodgy knee—and Ella appeared at his side.
‘I think I need some fresh air,’ she said.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’ He drew her with him out the club’s double doors.
Kids ran amok across the bowling green, playing hide and seek and chase, some of them carting balloons or streamers they’d stolen from inside. There were people everywhere, crammed into the same ramp from which Sam had threatened to jump his BMX bike in the summer. Most were from the older crew and Jake could hear lots of grumbling about ‘how loud the music is’ and ‘how hot it is inside’ and ‘how much nicer it is out here’.
‘It’s bloody cold out here,’ Ella said, rubbing at her arms.
He wasn’t cold. How could he be cold? Being with Ella had him on constant burn.
‘Come take a look at the pool,’ Ella said. ‘Have you seen it since they got the roof on?’
He hadn’t. He hadn’t come up here once. Lester Huxtable made all the deliveries because Jake hadn’t wanted to set foot in the place without Ella.
She took his hand and pulled him through the mass of people, all of whom wanted to greet her, speak with her and kiss her cheek, so it took for-bloody-ever, but finally they got down the ramp and around the corner, where the noise of the music and the kids and the people faded.
The new pool building was lit up like a
