Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Thirty-Four

MICHAEL

I n the space of a few months, I’ve had more than my share of hardest moments. Audrey, too. So many that were so bad that no matter how shitty right now feels, it doesn’t even come close.

Still, I hate that I am here. Hate that the day after our boys came home, to Audrey’s house, I had to leave. Hate that I’m letting her down. Hate that my actions are doing nothing but reinforcing the idea of me she has in her head. That I leave when things get tough.

She has no idea what I’ve been doing the past few weeks—months, even—and it’s eating her inside. I can see the sorrow behind her eyes when she smiles at me. I can feel the ice in her touch when we cross paths. There have been many, many times I was so close to throwing in the towel and telling her everything. But she deserves all of what I am doing and more. The last thing I want is for her to feel like she is stuck waiting.

So this morning I helped her feed Henry and William their morning bottles and settled her on the couch with a cup of tea and a book and the TV remote and everything else she might possibly need while I’m gone. I premeasured bottles and got the boys back to sleep in their cots. I hugged Audrey from behind the couch, kissing the soft skin below her ear and promising her I’d be back soon. She shrugged away from my touch, so I slid out the door before I ruined the surprise.

The sun glares through the windows of the car, heating the interior until the air is thick. A thin layer of sweat beads on the tops of my arms as I shake away my thoughts.

Brendan slams a hand on the car door. “Get out.”

I oblige, not because he asked, but because it was starting to hurt to breathe in there anyway.

“Can we make this quick?” I ask, taking a hint of my frustration out on my mate. It’s not his fault we happened to plan this meeting to be the day after the boys could finally come home. It’s not his fault I didn’t have the foresight to reschedule after the hospital told us the news. What’s done is done, though, and I want to get this over with as soon as I can.

“How the fuck did I get stuck running your site?”

“Because you’re the one who convinced me to run the big hotel site. Blame yourself.”

Glaring at him, I turn towards the building site. My building site. Audrey’s home. “Come on, I want to get through this walkthrough, so I can go see Noah about the hotel and then get back to Audrey.” The other meeting I stupidly planned and ignorantly didn’t think to reschedule.

“Is she at the hospital with the boys?”

“She’s at home,” I snap. “With the boys.”

Brendan’s mouth drops open. The folder in his hand threatens to fall to the ground as his grip loosens. “When did they come home?”

“Yesterday. So, I’d really like to get back there.”

“We could have done this another day.”

I shake my head, stalking past Brendan to let Baxter down from the tray. He bounds through the mud towards the exterior of the property. It’s dirty, like any job site, with mud splattered on the windows and dust covering the panelling. But it’s stunning. The facade is the perfect blend of modern and historical, giving a cute cottage vibe without feeling like it belongs to a grandma. The patio wraps around the perimeter of the house, but the railing is a cleaner, modern take on a picket fence with clean posts and long horizontal bars.

“I don’t want to delay the build.”

Brendan scoffs something that sounds oddly like “whipped”, but I let it slide. I am, and I don’t care who knows it. I grab Baxter’s long lead and chase after him, tying him to one of the posts on the patio with plenty of slack to move around.

“The boys must be doing okay then?” Brendan asks as we enter the house.

“Yeah, better than. Even the doctors were surprised at their progress. They’ve put on plenty of weight and they don’t need any of the extra support now. Just Audrey. And me.”

“And how are you, and Audrey?”

Depends on what he’s asking, really. I’m fine. Still scared shitless every day, still terrified every time I pick up one of the boys, still worried I’m doing everything wrong and nothing right. But beyond that, I’m okay. I’ve accepted the way they entered the world. Sure, it wasn’t our plan, and it was far from ideal, but it is what it is. I’m just grateful for the team that surrounded us and supported us through their earliest, roughest, days. I can’t shake how awful it felt when I thought I was losing Audrey, when my life started to crumble and I was forced to go with the boys instead of staying by her side. But I can accept that it was a moment in time, and that time has passed.

Audrey is doing well, too, from what I can tell. It’s been even harder on her. She has Maisie to worry about too. And a major surgery to recover from. Everything takes more effort, standing, walking, sitting. She’s only just now able to drive again and even then, she gets uncomfortable sitting in that position for too long. But she is the best mother I ever could have imagined for my children and I love her more and more every day. There has been a distance behind every smile, but her face lit up when we walked out of the hospital.

But, if he’s asking about me and Audrey, together. I don’t know. Everything feels hard and not because it is but because we are exhausted and nothing has gone to plan and it’s difficult to accept the change in our relationship. Just as we were settling into something that felt an awful lot like love, just when we were making plans for a future where we were together—instead of just co-parenting—the universe threw us a massive curve ball.

Instead of supporting each other through the boys’ earliest days and weeks, we’ve been forced to separate. To take turns. We barely see each other, choosing instead to make sure one of us was always at the hospital with the boys. The few times we managed to both be there together, it was a blur of bottle feeds and routine checks and kangaroo care. Our conversation was hushed, forced small talk to drown out the rhythmic beeping and the heaviness in the air.

When I wasn’t there, I was here, building her house, or at the winery trying to prove to my dad—and Audrey—that I’ve changed. That I’m not some stupid kid anymore, I’m an adult and I’m ready. It felt wrong, staying at Audrey’s house when she was at the hospital, so I spent what little free time I had at my old apartment.

“I didn’t realise that was such a loaded question.” Brendan breaks the lingering silence as I ponder his question. His expression is soft as he leans against an empty door frame, tucking the folder under an arm.

“It’s been … tough. For her, for me. And for us.”

He scratches his temple with the corner of his folder. “Does she know this is what you’re doing when you’re not around?”

I shake my head, staring down at my shuffling feet. Embarrassed because as soon as someone other than me said it, the idea of the surprise feels childish. She doesn’t need, and probably doesn’t even want, to move house in the near future. Sure, she complained that her house was too small. But the boys just came home, she’s still recovering, everyone is still adjusting.

“You should probably tell her.”

“I know. But now it’s so close to being ready, maybe I should keep the surprise.”

He pushes off the doorway and stands with his legs apart and arms crossed. A power stance if I ever saw one. The guy is me, twelve months ago. Never been in a serious relationship but out here thinking he knows everything about them anyway.

“I think she deserves to know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t want her to worry about the idea of moving. Okay, so the end result is great because she gets the big house she wanted, but the stress of moving house when the boys have only just come home? I want to let her have some time to focus on that, first. Worry about moving when it’s time and we are all ready.”

Brendan rolls his eyes. “Your call mate.”

We go through the rest of the walkthrough without dragging the conversation through the mud. It resonates as I sign away my satisfaction, and I dwell on it as I secure Baxter back in the tray of the ute. One more stop, then I’ll be home.

Noah is a little more understanding when I tell him I need to make the meeting quick. He starts rushing me out of his office as soon as I tell him the boys are home. We fly through the progress report. Everything’s on track, the site is in lock up and all the inside carpentry is complete. Nearly ready to start all the finishings. The hotel will be ready for bookings before the next Spring/Summer season.

Pride swells as Noah thanks me for my hard work, assuring me he never would have known it was my first big project if we hadn’t told him. And he is right, everything went off without a hitch. I renegotiated contracts and timelines with tradies and suppliers. I’ve managed all the paperwork and invoices. We’ve had plenty of these progress meetings, and each one has been positive. It’s still a big step to think my dad is gearing me towards running the whole business. But if I can do this, maybe I can do that after all.

“Why are you even still here?” Noah asks after I pack up my small stack of papers. I slide them into the folder I purchased after our first meeting. “Surely you can take some parental leave? It’s your dad’s business, right?”

“He offered.” I mumble.

“Huh?” Noah moves around his desk and opens the door. He’s pushing me out, knowing more than I do that I need to get home. To Audrey. To our boys.

I stand from the chair and pivot on my heel. “He said he would get someone else to cover the job while I took some time off. But I wanted to finish this. I need to finish this. To show myself, him, that I can.”

Noah closes the door and takes a step towards me, ready to give me what I’m sure will be another one of his meaningful TED talks about life and relationships, and how terrible I am at them. He sucks in a breath and places a firm hand on my shoulder. I have to look up at him, and I hate how small I feel in this moment. I’m not short, but the man is tall. And even though I have a good few kilos of muscle on him, I feel like a child as he looks down on me.

“You can, Michael. Remember how you were the only one who doubted that?”

I clear my throat, trying to rid it of the lump that forms against my will.

“It’s easier for me to keep up with the progress on Audrey’s house while I’m still working anyway.”

His brow furrows.

“She was complaining about how small the townhouse was. She lost all her painting space when Maisie’s toys had to be moved into the sunroom, and the boys’ cots are squished into their bedroom. I had land just sitting there. So, I’m building her a house. I just hate that it means I keep having to sneak away, and at least while I’m working I can say I have meetings.”

I step away from Noah’s reach as I tell him. His face doesn’t soften, if anything, the line between his brows deepens. He purses his lips into a tight thin line.

“Does she know?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? You mean you haven’t told her? Fucking hell, Michael. You don’t think she deserves to know that you’re building her a house? That she might want to know that?”

Noah takes a few steps back until he is leaning against the wall. He props one knee up and crosses his arms over his chest. My shoulders sink and I drop, sideways, into the chair behind me. The armrest juts against my leg, but I ignore it, leaning forward until my head falls between my knees.

“I wanted it to be a surprise. But then the boys were born early and there’s been no good time to tell her. When I left today she was so distant.”

Noah sighs, long and hard. His eyes close and I get the sense he is carefully thinking through each word he is about to say. A skill I probably need to master.

“Her life is on hold, right?” he asks, but continues before I can answer. “She’s on maternity leave, juggling between the boys and Maisie and trying to find maybe a sliver of time to herself to process everything she has been through. And the day after you can finally bring the boys home from hospital, you rush off to ‘meetings’. No wonder she seemed distant.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. I get that you wanted to keep busy while the boys were in the hospital. And as sideways as building a house for Audrey might be, I get why you’re doing it. But now that the boys are home, Audrey is going to need your help. A lot of it. You can’t keep walking out on her and you especially can’t keep doing it without telling her where you are.”

“But the surprise …”

Noah shakes his head and opens the sliding door. Noise from the winery filters into his office, glasses clinking, cutlery shuffling, people laughing. But it’s white noise against the steady pounding in my ear as I realise how royally I’ve fucked up.

Noah pulls me out of the chair and shoves me through the door. Pointing to the exit, he pats the back of my shoulder, nudging me forward. “Fuck the surprise.”