Monkey Business by Kathryn Ledson

demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be happy.’
    â€˜I know.’ I sighed. ‘Why am I supposed to be happy, by the way?’
    â€˜Because it’s trivia night and we’re hanging out.’
    â€˜I know. Sorry.’
    I watched Steve approach, smiling as usual. He towered over most people in the room. Six foot four, same as Jack. Sigh.
    Steve pushed my beer across the table and gave Lucy a glass of red wine. ‘Hey, buddy,’ he said to me.
    â€˜Hi.’ More sighs.
    He said to Lucy, glancing over his shoulder at the big angry bloke who was lucky not to be limping home and who was giving us dirty looks, ‘Geez, Luce, pick on someone your own size.’
    She blew Steve a kiss.
    I said, ‘I agree. I’m still a bit antsy about that night.’
    She said, ‘You haven’t told me why you’re looking so miserable.’
    I shrugged, my mouth turned down. It was hard to talk over the noise in the room. They leaned in. ‘I think I told Jack I love him,’ I said, ‘and now he seems to have disappeared.’

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Two-and-a-bit weeks later . . .
    My hair sucked and I wanted to chop it all off. I needed to blow-dry it to make it straight but blow-drying hurt my arm muscles and made me sweat. And the sweat made my hair frizz. It’s a no-win situation.
    I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, frowning at my hair, munching Vegemite toast, and an image of Jack, naked, popped into my head. I realised I hadn’t given him a single moment’s thought yet today. Which was miraculous. Usually I woke to delicious memories of him and his sexy bod and that was me for the rest of the day. Sometimes I
can’t
think about him because it might cause me to lose my job or get run over.
    I’d chosen denial over the likely reality, in relation to Jack, I mean. This way, I can pretend Jack’s away on business and that, when he comes home, we’ll resume our working relationship with hopefully the occasional ‘social’ time together. And denial stops all the pain. More people should try it.
    Admittedly, I hadn’t heard a word from him since he left and reality-check thoughts like that made my stomach squirm. Where do they come from? Those thoughts? Like the ones I keep having about the Tupperware night. As soon as I’d woken the next morning I knew something had changed. I’d lain there in bed, going over and over the night before in my mind, horrified by my behaviour and making a mental note to email all the ladies at the Tupperware party and apologise.
    But mostly what I remembered about that night was telling Jack I loved him. And now he’d run away. He didn’t just not answer my calls, no. He’s too mature and decent for that. His phone was switched off. I’d wanted to tell him I was sorry, that I was an idiot, and to please ignore my carrying on. I’d driven by his house, rung the doorbell, and even though he could have been inside, hiding from me, I knew he wasn’t there. No one was there. The house
felt
empty. And not just empty because they might have been at the supermarket, it was long-term empty. I suspected he’d gone on his mission, and God knows how long that would keep him away.
    Meantime, I just had to be brave and wait for him to come back. But even when he finally did return, he might not call me. He doesn’t want girls falling in love with him. He’s too nice to string someone along when there’s no possibility of a future with him. He’d remove himself from her life before he’d do that. Finally and forever.
    Axle strolled into the bathroom and wound around my legs, purring like a chainsaw, and this interrupted the unhelpful thought processes. I moved to the kitchen and dug around in the fridge for Axle’s food, scooping it into his bowl, more snapshot images of Jack appearing, horror thoughts of all kinds about Jack not being here and maybe