SHIFTED.✔

69

Keean arrived right on six and knocked on the door. Dad opened it and let him in. He was dressed in jeans and a black button up shirt. My stomach surged at the sight of him. The black went perfectly with his dark hair and seemed to make his eyes bluer. Keean smiled at me. I watched as his eyes quickly assessed me. They twinkled and he raised his eyebrows a fraction. He sighed as he slipped his hands into his back pockets. I was wearing the dress I had worn on free dress day. Not only because he had asked me to but because I didn't have another that was suitable for going out to dinner. I wore my hair down and had put on some mascara and lip gloss.

"You ready?" he asked.

Mum and Dad said goodbye and watched as we went down the stairs and climbed into his truck.

As we drove down the street he exhaled loudly and looked me up and down, a big smile on his face.

"What?" I grinned.

"Your father wasn't really serious when he said we had to keep our hands to ourselves was he?"

"Oh...he would have been."

Keean, still smiling, scowled. "I don't think I'm going to be able to do that."

"Well you'll have to try." I gave him a mock serious look.

He nodded and focused on the road. We didn't talk again. I wondered how I was going to handle him. Maybe I should just let things happen.

No I didn't want to do it until he was out of the centre.

I didn't want it to be some rush job because he had a curfew to keep.

I didn't want the pressures of all that stuff turning it into some horrible experience.

We pulled up in the motel car park in front of unit number six. His father must have been waiting for us because the door opened before Keean had the chance to turn off the car. There was no mistaking he was Keean's father because they looked so much alike. In the light coming from inside the room he looked quite young.

I climbed out of the car feeling nervous. Keean who was faster at getting out came around and took me by the hand.

"Dad, this is, Charlie." Mr. Crone held his hand out. Keean said, "Charlie, this is my Dad, Liam." We shook hands and smiled at each other then he reached back and shut the door.

"We better go in," Liam said moving his hand in the direction of the restaurant. "I booked for six thirty."

When we sat down he asked if we'd like a drink. I said, "Just water thanks."

He frowned. "Are you sure, my shout."

"No water's fine, I don't like soft drink."

Keean beamed. "Well seen it's your shout I'll have a rum and coke."

"I don't think so, son." His Dad's brow wrinkled. "You get picked up with any alcohol on you, you can kiss early release goodbye. You're not even supposed to be driving around by yourself."

Panicked, I looked at Keean knowing how many times he had taken a risk by picking me up for school. He noticed my concern and explained because he was on a weekend pass to visit his father one of the conditions was he was supposed to be in his father's care at all times.

We talked in general about school and how Keean and I had met. Liam asked what I wanted to do when I left school and I asked him what he did.

"I'm a truck driver. At the moment I'm driving one of those suckers with the big wheels you might have seen pictures of."

"They're massive," I said in awe. "Have you always driven trucks?"

"Before Keean's mother died I drove Semi's but when she was killed I had to get a job that didn't take me away from home. I drove delivery trucks in Brisbane. When he was old enough I got a job with the mines on a fly in and fly out basis." He scratched his head. "Keean's always been responsible. I guess my being away so often led him to getting himself into trouble."

I glanced at Keean. He had his head hung. He reached out and touched his father's arm. "It's not your fault, Dad. I made the wrong choice."

"Yeah but if I'd been there..."

I could see the stressed look on Keean's face so thought I'd change the subject. This was stuff they needed to talk about on their own, not with me as an intrusion.

"You both look so much alike. What nationality is the name Keean?"

They both looked at me. Keean chuckled. I think he knew what I was doing and because he laughed his father grinned.

"Sorry, Charlie, I shouldn't have brought that up in front of you. Keean was my father's name. It's Irish. An adaptation of the name Keenan."

I smiled. "So you're Irish?"

"At least my parents are Irish. I was born in Australia."

The food came. Our conversation turned to family history. Keean explained our history projects and told his father how I was interested in genealogy.

"You must have been young when you had Keean," I said and hoped it wasn't an invasive question.

He tittered. "Yeah...well...Keean was a bit of a surprise, I was twenty and Rachel was eighteen."

A sick feeling spread over me as I worked out that Keean's mother must have been only twenty-one when she died. The dessert was put down in front of us and was enough of a distraction for me to compose myself.

Copyright © 2017 by Donna Fieldhouse. All rights reserved.

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