-- Chapter 36 --

The paperwork took longer than anyone expected, but at least there was movement. At least something was happening.

While Jamie remained living at the hostel, in Thompsonville there were home visits, interviews, conversations with the case worker from the Department of Community Services, and more than the occasional quiet discussion between Matt, Luke and Tony. Tim and Guy were home one Thursday evening, a few weeks later, and were sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the whole plan. After a cautious start they had soon warmed to the idea, and it hadn’t been long before they had given their approval for the move. They liked Jamie just as much as the others did.

‘You’re doing a good thing here, guys,’ Tim had said simply. Guy nodded. ‘He’s a different kid since he’s started coming here to stay with us for a few days. That counts. He will have a future here . . . with all of us.’

‘We hope so,’ Luke replied. ‘We’ve still got to talk to him about it yet though. We’ve just been trying to get everything in place first, as we didn’t want to get his hopes up, only to have them dashed, should we not get the go ahead.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Tim.

‘Like Luke said, we wanted to have everything in place before saying anything,’ Matt replied. ‘That was what Tracey from DoCS suggested, because if the final approval didn’t come through and we’d already got his hopes up, then the kid would have been devastated.’

‘I guess that makes sense,’ said Guy. ‘So, he’s coming this weekend again?’

‘Yes!’ Levi answered, with some excitement. ‘Zack and I will be there after school tomorrow, so he’s going to come back with us.’

Tim and Guy both smiled at him. It wasn’t hard to like, and share in, Levi’s enthusiasm.

***

It would be the following day when Matt received the call they had been waiting on. Tracey McGregor from the Macquarie Harbour office of DoCS called around lunch time to say that the final approval had come through. It felt both sudden and inevitable. This was real, and had been expected. Jamie would not be going back to the centre at the end of this weekend visit. Once it became official and signed off by the courts, Avalon would now be his home.

Matt called Luke straight away, but he decided not to call or text Levi, just in case he might spill the beans while he was at the hostel with Zack later that afternoon. He wanted it to be a family event when breaking the news to Jamie, and asking him if that was what he wanted.

After discussing it that afternoon, Matt and Luke decided they wanted to mark the occasion and make the announcement with a dinner at Charlie Wong’s Chinese restaurant – assuming that Jamie’s response would be a positive one – and so a table was booked for the following night, Saturday. They had to get past Friday night first, however, when they would need to finally discuss their plans with Jamie and determine if this was a step that he was willing to take.

***

Zack turned the ute into the hostel driveway just after four. The place looked the same as always.

Levi was expecting an ordinary Friday: mow, edge, trim bushes, load the trailer, collect Jamie for the weekend, drive home. It wouldn’t quite be that ordinary.

Two unfamiliar boys were sitting with Jamie on the back steps. Both looked about sixteen. One was lean with a nervous habit of pushing his dark hair back; the other, with bright red hair, sat close enough that their shoulders touched. When the ute pulled up, Jamie lifted a hand in a quick wave. The two newcomers glanced over and then looked down again.

Levi climbed out and returned the wave. ‘New faces?’

Zack was already dropping the tailgate. ‘Must’ve come in during the week. Come on, let’s get the gear off before the light goes.’

They unloaded the mowers and whipper snipper, then set about their work. The familiar rhythm took over – the smell of cut grass, the drone of the machines, the satisfaction of clean edges along the path. Every so often Levi glanced toward the steps. Jamie was talking more than usual, hands moving as he explained something. The two older boys listened, still reserved but not unfriendly.

By the time the last of the clippings were raked and bagged, the carer had appeared with a tray of cold drinks. Zack and Levi walked over, wiping their hands on their shorts.

‘This is Jake and Martin,’ the carer said. ‘Arrived Tuesday.’

The introductions were polite and a little stiff. Both boys mumbled hellos. Levi learned, in the careful way these things usually came out, that they were a couple. Both sets of parents had reacted badly when they found out. The centre was temporary while the case workers looked for longer-term options. Jamie sat beside them, as if he had decided they needed someone friendly close by.

After a few minutes of easy talk about the heat and the lawns, Levi turned to Jamie.

‘Got your bag packed?’

Jamie’s face lit up. ‘Yep.’ He jumped up, nearly knocking over his drink, and disappeared inside. When he came back, he had the familiar, small backpack and a slightly bigger duffel that had started living at Avalon on weekends.

They said goodbye to Jake and Martin and the carer. Jamie slung his bags onto the back of the ute, then climbed into the middle of the bench seat without being asked. He knew the drill by now. The mood on the drive home was light. Zack told a story about a client who had tried to pay him in home-grown tomatoes. Jamie laughed harder than the story deserved. Levi felt the usual Friday ease settle over him – the school and working week was done, the coast road unwinding ahead, Jamie chattering between them. It felt . . . natural. It felt like a world they all belonged in.

Zack dropped them at the Avalon gate and the boys stood for a moment watching the ute head on toward Bayview, dust rising in the late-afternoon light, then walked up the driveway.

There was no sign as yet of Matt or Luke, but the boys knew they wouldn’t be too far away.

‘I’m going to hit the shower,’ Levi said, as he pulled off his dirty shirt in his bedroom and took a quick sniff under his armpits, before letting the shirt hit the floor. Jamie glanced Levi’s way, his eyes drinking in the sight of the half-naked, dark-haired boy he had come to look upon as a brother, before he quickly looked away, hoping that Levi didn’t catch him staring.

***

Dinner that night was ordinary at first – salad, sausages, the usual squabbling over who got to eat the last one. Jamie ate with his usual quiet appetite. It was only when the plates were mostly empty that Matt set his fork down and glanced at Luke.

‘Jamie,’ Matt said, ‘Luke and I have been wanting to talk to you about something, mate.’

Jamie looked up, instantly wary in the old way, wondering what he might have done wrong. Levi had an inkling he knew what this might be about, but he wasn’t totally certain.

Luke’s voice was gentler. ‘Nothing bad, mate. We’ve just been thinking . . . about the weekends. About how they’ve been going.’

Jamie’s shoulders were tight. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘What? Oh, no,’ Levi said quickly. ‘Nothing like that.’

Matt leaned forward a little. ‘We’ve been talking to the people at the department. About whether the weekends could become something more permanent. About you staying here. Living here. Properly.’

Jamie stared at him. The silence stretched.

Luke added, ‘Only if you want to. No one’s going to force anything. We just . . . we’d like it. If you would.’

Jamie’s mouth opened, then closed. His eyes had gone shiny.

‘Is that a yes?’ Luke urged. All Jamie could do was nod, then wipe his arm over his eyes.

Matt smiled and picked up his phone, thumbed through the contacts, and put it on speaker. The call connected on the second ring.

‘Matt,’ a woman’s voice said. Jamie recognised the voice immediately. It was his caseworker, Tracey McGregor.

‘Hi, Tracey. I’ve got the boys here, and we’ve been talking about that thing we discussed. Jamie seems to like the idea.’

Jamie’s face was pure confusion.

Tracey’s voice warmed. ‘Well, that’s good news then. So, Jamie – what would you say if I told you that Matt and Luke have asked to become your foster parents . . . and the department has agreed?’

Jamie’s voice came out small. ‘W-w-what?’

Luke smiled. ‘You heard her. We’ve been talking about this for a while now. It was Levi’s idea, actually. We’ve asked if you could become a permanent part of this household. That’s if you’ll have us.’

For a second Jamie didn’t move. Then his face crumpled. He turned and threw his arms around Levi, burying his face against his shoulder. The sound that came out of him was half laugh, half sob. Matt and Luke were around the table in a moment, and the four of them ended up in a clumsy, fierce group hug in the middle of the kitchen.

On the phone, forgotten on the table, Tracey McGregor was laughing softly.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ she said. A moment later the call disconnected.

It was a long time before anyone noticed.

***

The long table in the function room of Charlie Wong’s Chinese restaurant was pushed to its limit that Saturday night. Matt and Luke, Levi and Jamie, Tony and Aaron, Zack, Jess and Kellie with Mia, Tim and Guy, Jimmy and Dan. Even Father Costas dropped in for a few minutes, when he noticed them all there while waiting for his take-away order, offering a quiet word of congratulation before leaving them to it.

Jamie sat between Levi and Zack, shoulders slightly hunched under the attention. Every time someone raised a glass or made a warm remark about ‘the newest member of the Beachside Lane crew,’ colour rose in his face. But he was smiling. Properly smiling. He had a place to call home.

When Tony said, ‘Looks like you’re stuck with this lot now, mate. No more hostel beds for you,’ Jamie looked down at his plate and muttered, ‘Yeah . . . that’s okay though.’

Levi watched him through the meal and felt something unfamiliar and solid settle in his chest. A brother. He had never expected to have one. Complications would come – he already knew that – but for tonight the simple fact of it was enough.

Afterwards the celebration drifted back to Avalon, with most of the party settling there in and around the house. Even Jimmy and Dan came back to Avalon with the rest of them, while Jess, Kellie and Mia continued back to Bayview. The younger ones drifted into the backyard while the adults lingered over coffee. Zack organised a halfhearted game of touch, using a cushion from one of the outdoor chairs as a ball. Jamie ran harder than usual, laughing when he dropped a pass, and for a little while he looked like any other thirteen-year-old who belonged somewhere.

Eventually the long day and the excitement wore the boys down, and as the adults drifted away – Zack included – the four lads settled into the guest house in the garden, where they sat around on the lounge or in bean bags, talking until well after midnight, before eventually crawling onto the beds in the guest rooms and passing out.

***

The first weeks of the new, permanent arrangement were mostly steady. That was provided you didn’t include Matt in that proclamation, as he now had a new spring in his step, after his cast had finally been removed. It had been two months since his accident after all.

The paperwork was all signed and Jamie became a permanent member of the Avalon household. He was enrolled in Thompsonville Public, and would accompany Levi to school each day for the remainder of the current school year, which was down to a matter of weeks now, not months. At least they would also still have the following year together, while Levi completed Year Ten, before then being separated, when Levi and his friends would transfer to Macquarie Harbour to complete years eleven and twelve. Hopefully that would allow Jamie the time needed to make some friends of his own.

At home, he and Levi were sharing the same room, with the temporary stretcher that Jamie had used for his weekend visits now being replaced by a more permanent solution. Thankfully it was a decent-sized room, and they were able to do some rearranging and make a few small changes to find some space for him to fit in. He had very little in the way of possessions, but they all knew that’d be one thing that would change over time.

Sometimes he still woke at night with that old tightness in his chest, caused by the ghosts of his family’s rejection, and on those nights he would slip from his own bed, silent and miserable, and Levi would shift over without making a production of it. The comfort was simple and wordless. Jamie would settle against him and eventually sleep.

And then it happened again.

Levi woke in the grey, early light to the now familiar warmth of a body laying against his back and the weight of an arm over his waist. Jamie’s hand had found its way inside his shorts once more. The contact was loose, unconscious, but unmistakable. And the slow movement of the younger boy’s hand, as familiar to him as if it was his own hand performing these ministrations, was about to produce a similar result.

Levi lay completely still. A complicated, burning rush of feelings moved through him – the old alarm, a flush of embarrassment, and underneath it something that felt uncomfortably close to comfort. The question rose before he could push it down: How can something that feels this good, be so wrong?

He was still trying to decide what to do when Jamie stirred. Just like the last time, there was a sharp, little breath, the sudden withdrawal of the hand, and the quick roll away across the mattress. Neither of them spoke, then after a minute Jamie slipped out of the room.

As he rolled onto his back, Levi was torn. The feelings were extreme. His body was throbbing. There was something he needed to do. Something he needed to finish, and so he reached down into his underwear and quickly finished off what had been left hanging. The release was intense . . . more intense than usual . . . and he wasn’t sure why. Was it because it had been Jamie’s hand? Or was it just his own wanton need for gratification?

After quickly cleaning himself up with a t-shirt that had been beside his bed, he lay back and was staring at the ceiling when Jamie returned from the bathroom.

The awkwardness that followed . . . then, and later in the morning . . . was thicker than the first time. They were polite with each other in an overly-cautious way. Glances started and then broke. Conversations stayed on safe ground. Levi carried a low hum of guilt and shame and confusion that he couldn’t quite name. Jamie looked like he was waiting to be told he had ruined everything.

Luke noticed.

He waited two days, then found Levi alone in the backyard after dinner, wiping down the outdoor table that didn’t particularly need wiping.

‘You want to tell me what’s going on with you and Jamie?’ Luke asked, not unkindly.

Levi’s hands stilled. For a moment he considered saying nothing. Then he glanced at Luke and the weight of it all seemed to shift.

He sat down at the table, while Luke sat opposite, then he told him. Not in graphic detail – just the essential shape of it. The night terrors. The shared bed. Waking up to Jamie’s hand where it shouldn’t have been. The fact that it had happened more than once. The confusing mess of feelings that came with it.

Luke listened without interrupting. When Levi finished, he was quiet for a while.

‘I’ve looked in on you guys a couple of times and seen him in your bed. I figured you were just giving him some comfort. He’s been through a lot.’

‘Yeah, he has,’ Levi replied.

‘He’s thirteen,’ Luke said eventually. ‘He’s had a rough run, and his body and brain are going to keep changing whether any of us like it or not. You’re the older one though, so that will mean that some responsibility sits with you.’

Levi nodded, his throat tight.

‘You’re going to need to be careful. And you’re going to need to help guide him through this, mate. You’ll need to be firm, but also have some compassion.’

Levi could only stare at his hands.

‘This house is a part of it,’ Luke continued. ‘Matt and me, Tim and Guy, half the people who walk through our door – it’s a pretty gay household, and that’s not going to change. Jamie’s going to notice more as he gets older. He’s going to have questions, and urges, and probably some messy moments. None of us can pretend that isn’t coming. What you can do is be the person who keeps the lines clear. Comfort is one thing. Anything that confuses him or makes him feel like he has to trade affection for something else though . . . that can’t happen.’

Levi stared at the tabletop. ‘I don’t want to hurt him.’

‘I know. That’s why we’re having this conversation now, while it’s still manageable.’ Luke’s voice softened a fraction. ‘Just talk to him. Not a big dramatic speech. Just enough so he knows he’s not in trouble, and so both of you understand the boundaries. You’re his big brother now. That job includes the awkward sex-and-bodies conversations, whether you feel ready for them or not. And if you need help, we’ll find it.’

Levi nodded, then they sat with that for a while, before Levi went in search of Jamie. He found him sitting alone on Hidden Beach, just looking out at the waves.

‘I hope you’re not avoiding me?’ he asked, as he dropped down beside his brother.

Jamie glanced at him, but his expression gave nothing away.

‘You’re not in trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Levi added, giving Jamie a gentle shoulder bump as he did so.

Jamie continued to stare out at the water, but said nothing. At least not at first. Levi didn’t push it though.

Eventually, Jamie looked at Levi again, holding his gaze this time. There was something on the tip of his tongue, Levi could see that.

‘Luke asked me what was wrong,’ Jamie said quietly.

‘He asked me that too. What did you tell him?’

Jamie simply shook his head, then said, ‘I couldn’t.’

‘He understands, you know. He was a teenager once too, remember?’

‘Did you tell him anything?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Levi replied.

The talk was short and slightly clumsy, but it cleared the air between them. Jamie was embarrassed and quiet; Levi was careful and honest. He told him about his feelings, about the fact that he didn’t see himself as being . . . like that. But he also told him that if he ever needed someone to hold him, then he had a brother who was there for him.

By the end of it both of them looked lighter. The careful politeness eased. They were still a bit shy, but the fear of having broken something important had lifted.

***

Two days later the other shoe dropped.

Levi was riding home from helping Father Costas when he saw the flashing lights further up Main Street. A small crowd had gathered near the service station. Someone’s car – a late-model sedan that had been parked behind the workshop overnight – was now a blackened shell. The smell of burnt rubber, plastic and fuel still hung in the air.

Constable Leggatt was there, speaking with the owner and making notes. When he saw Levi, he gave a short nod but didn’t call him over.

That evening the news moved through the town the way it always did. By the next morning the whispers had a clearer shape: Casey had been seen in the area late the night before. Someone had mentioned it to the police. Given the earlier sighting near Matt’s burned Commodore, perhaps it was enough.

Just after lunch the following day, Levi was coming out of the canteen when he saw the police vehicle pull up near the front office. A few minutes later Casey walked out between Constable Leggatt and another officer. He wasn’t in handcuffs, but he wasn’t walking freely either – the second officer had a hand on Casey’s shoulder. Dylan and Jarrad stood near the bike racks, their faces blank. Casey glanced across the yard once, found Levi, and held the look for a long second before he was guided into the back of the car.

The vehicle pulled away.

Levi stood very still in the middle of the path, the noise of the schoolyard rising around him again. The fostering, the careful conversations with Luke, the new shape of the household – all of it was real and ongoing. But the older threat had just been put into a police car, and nothing about Casey’s expression had looked like surrender.

The chapter of Jamie coming home was still being written.

So, it seemed, was the one that belonged to Casey.

To be continued . . .