WALKING THE LINE

Chapter 14

FINN

When Ellie didn't answer her door the next morning, I contacted the one person who could help.

Kye answered on the first ring. "If you've broken her heart, I'll have to break you."

"More like she's broken mine," I said, rubbing the grit out of my eyes.

"She didn't take kindly to the news you're a love-struck schmuck?"

"You don't have to sound so bloody amused."

Kye's chuckles petered out. "Sorry, mate, it's not surprising Ellie shot you down. But don't give up. I've never seen her the way she is around you so she's doing her usual putting-up-barriers thing. She'll come around."

Hope made me sit a little straighter. "You think?"

"Absolutely. Where is she now?"

"Holed up in her room, not answering the door."

"At midday on a Sunday?" Kye tsk-tsked. "That's what she used to do when she first came to Sydney. Go on benders in her room, sleep 'til two."

"Shit," I muttered, feeling more of a bastard than I did last night. "What should I do?"

"As someone who was on the receiving end when Mum sent me round one arvo to wake Ellie up, trust me, you don't want to go there."

Great, so much for Kye helping me out. "I'm in love with her," I blurted, feeling like an idiot.

Guys didn't talk about this stuff but I had to do something proactive. I'd had enough of sitting around doing nothing. I'd been up the whole night, alternating between pacing and mulling and staring blindly at the hotchpotch crowd milling along Darlinghurst Road in the wee hours.

"Listen, meet me out the front in an hour. I'll help you find your balls." Kye sniggered. "Because the very fact you mentioned the L word to me suggests you're in way over your head, Irish."

"Okay," I said, and hung up.

Getting out of here for a while would do me good. Hopefully Kye would help me come up with a strategy to win Ellie over once and for all.

Though ninety minutes later, I questioned the wisdom of entrusting Kye to give me advice as I sat in a crowd of red and white-wearing fanatics at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

"Nothing like a good game of Aussie Rules footy to get the blood pumping," Kye said, handing me a beer in a plastic cup. "What do you think so far?"

"It's a poor imitation of Gaelic football," I said, sounding petulant and not caring. "Though I always root for the underdog so the fact the blue and white team, the North Melbourne Kangaroos are thrashing the locals, is a good thing."

"Don't let anyone in this parochial crowd let you hear that." Kye pointed to the Swans emblem on his cap. "Sydney Swans rule."

"What are you, five?"

Kye raised his beer in a mock toast. "Come on, man, I'm trying to get your mind off things. Surround you in testosterone. Make sure you don't turn into a wuss."

"Just because I love Ellie doesn't make me any less manly."

"Just because I love Ellie..." Kye imitated in an exaggerated falsetto. "Heads up, Irish, talking mushy shit does make you sound less of a man."

I placed my plastic cup filled to the brim on the concrete under my chair. "Listen, this was a bad idea. I'm leaving—"

"I thought telling Ellie how you feel might make a difference." Kye shook his head. "Guess I was wrong."

I paused. "What do you mean?"

"Ellie's...flawed." Kye hesitated, downed the rest of his beer, before continuing. "I've known her a long time and she's buttoned up tighter than a nun's habit. She won't let anyone in. She doesn't trust easily."

He poked me in the chest. "So if you told her how you feel and she still shut you out? I don't think you've got a hope in Hades."

But I did have a hope.

If what Kye had just said was true, Ellie didn't trust anyone. So why did she trust me with the truth?

"You don't know anything about her past?"

Kye shook his head. "Don't think she told Mum either. She just arrived one day, they became friends and Ellie became a Kings Cross fixture."

That sealed it. If I was the only one she'd told about not being able to have kids and her guy running out on her because of it, she did feel something for me. And she'd used the truth to push me away before I got any closer.

For the first time since last night's confrontation, I felt like punching the air in victory.

We weren't over and I knew just what I had to do to convince Ellie of that.