Cherish the Land (20 page)

Except Seth was a fuckup of epic proportions. He’d never managed anything permanent in his life, and this wouldn’t be any different. He couldn’t count how many places he’d lived before his mum married Tony, and they all knew how that had ended. Chris had done everything he could to provide for them after that, but it had hardly been easy. He’d had three good years at Lang Downs before going off to uni, but that was probably his record. Roommates, girlfriends, advisors—he’d run them all off in record time. It would be hard enough losing Jason when he figured that out as it was. If they were living together, it would be a hundred times worse. Jason would say nothing Seth could do would drive him away, but everybody got tired of him eventually. Chris was the only one who’d never given up on him, but even Chris had other priorities besides Seth now. He wouldn’t turn Seth away or kick him out, but Jesse would always be Chris’s first concern now.

As it should be, but it still stung.

“Stop it,” he muttered. “You’re not going for the razor, because life is good. You love Jason, you’re home, this is all you’ve ever wanted. Shut the fuck up and get to work.”

He grabbed his toolbox and went back to the tractor he needed to work on. They needed to drag the roads again, and Caine was counting on him to have the tractor working. It wasn’t new, although Seth didn’t know how old it was. It still worked fine most of the time, certainly enough not to need replacing yet, but it meant the engine was temperamental at times. He’d start with the spark plugs and go from there. He’d fixed it before. He would fix it again.

He lost himself in the familiar rhythm of loosening spark plugs, cleaning them, and replacing them. It worked at first, giving him something to focus on besides his own errant thoughts, but it was too familiar, and his attention wandered after a while, his hands moving by rote as he tried to imagine living with Jason. In one wave of Caine’s magic wand, he’d have it all—the house, the dog, the white picket fence, a picture-perfect life. It scared the ever-living fuck out of him. He’d never had the picture-perfect life. He’d never had anything other than what he could hoard away from his stepsiblings and a string of screwed-up relationships. He could argue that the relationships had failed because he was too hung up on Jason to commit fully to anyone else, but that didn’t mean he’d do any better now that he had Jason.

He moved on from the spark plugs to the carburetor, but the bolt stuck. He cursed under his breath as his hand slipped off the wrench into a nearby bracket, slicing the back of his hand open. “Well, fuck,” he muttered even as the pain pierced through the chaos of his thoughts. He took a deep breath and went in search of a clean cloth to wrap his hand with. He didn’t find anything in the tractor shed, so cradling his bloody hand against his chest, he headed toward the kitchen. Sarah and Kami would fix him up.

“Seth! What have you done to yourself?” Sarah exclaimed when he walked into the kitchen.

“Cut myself working on an engine,” Seth said. “I didn’t have a clean rag and I didn’t want to get any more grease in it than is already there from the bracket.”

“Come on, then. Let me take a look at it.” She ushered him over to the sink and handed him a bar of soap. He scrubbed his hands clean, paying special attention to the cut. He knew how to do this. He could have gone to his own room and taken care of it, but it felt good to have Sarah fussing over him. His mum had never been the fussing type, but Sarah more than made up for it now. “All right, let me see,” she said.

He offered her his hand dutifully, hissing at the sting when she poured peroxide over the cut. “It’s not that deep,” she said. “I think we can wrap it up to keep it clean and it will heal on its own. Just be careful with it for a couple of days.”

“I will,” Seth promised.

“And stay out of the tractor shed for the rest of the day. Give it that much time to heal before you get it dirty again.”

“I have work to finish,” he protested.

“And it can wait until tomorrow, or Patrick or Jesse can finish it today if it can’t wait. You aren’t the only mechanic on this station, Seth Simms, and I won’t have you ending up in the hospital because you were too stubborn to ask for help. And if you think I won’t tell Jason and your brother, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Okay,” Seth said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’ll stay out of the tractor shed until tomorrow. But if Caine asks, I’m telling him it was on your orders.”

“I’ll take that blame,” Sarah replied. “Jason just came back from checking the mob at Taylor Peak. Go spend the rest of the afternoon with him. You lads deserve some time together. I know you haven’t been working together during the day.”

They’d been sleeping together at night, curled up in Seth’s bed, still mostly dressed because Seth couldn’t get past Chris and Jesse down the hall. Jason hadn’t pressed, but now Caine was talking about them having their own home and privacy and….

Seth took a deep breath and squeezed his hand into a fist. Pain burned up his arm as the motion pulled the cut open, but it steadied him. He wanted this. He could learn how to do it. Sarah had, even after all the years of abuse at Macklin’s father’s hands. She’d met Kami and made a new relationship work. Seth could do the same.

“What’s on your mind, love?” Sarah asked.

“Trying to figure out how to be happy,” Seth replied honestly.

“Oh, love,” she said, pulling him into a grandmotherly embrace. “You celebrate it, that’s how. One moment at a time. Tomorrow will take care of itself. You just focus on this moment and how good it makes you feel.”

Seth had never had that luxury, because tomorrow had never taken care of itself. Tomorrow had always meant the possibility of moving, of not eating, of Tony raising his voice or even his hand, of Chris being bashed. Tomorrow had been something to fear for too long to take it for granted now.

No one here would lift a hand except to help him. He didn’t have to worry about his next meal or having a roof over his head, but that only made the rest more fragile. If he didn’t have to worry about those things, he’d end up screwing something else up even worse.

“Go find Jason. Everything will feel better when you’re with him.”

Seth nodded and headed outside. He didn’t immediately go in search of Jason, though. He couldn’t deal with that yet. Instead he wandered toward Sam and Jeremy’s house—his and Jason’s house, if he could ever get past freaking out at that thought. It was smaller than some of the other houses on the station, one story with one bedroom and bath, a minimal kitchen with only a counter for coffee or tea instead of an eating area like some of the older houses had, and a utility room with a washer and dryer. The veranda stretched all the way around the house, though, leaving plenty of room for chairs and even a table if they wanted to have people over for a beer or a party. Seth didn’t remember them doing it often, but the big table stood in the middle of the back side of the veranda. He ran his hand along the wooden rail that delineated the edge of the veranda. Ian had probably done the woodwork, though Seth didn’t actually remember him working on it when they’d built the house.

It was going to be Sarah’s house until she’d decided to marry Kami and move in with him instead.

Arms around his waist startled him, but before he could pull away, Jason spoke in his ear. “What do you think? Want to move in with me?”

Seth nodded because any other answer would hurt Jason’s feelings, and he never wanted to do that. “It’s a little overwhelming,” he admitted.

“We don’t have to say yes right away,” Jason said. “Or you can move in so you’re out of Chris and Jesse’s hair and I can stay in the bunkhouse until you’re ready.”

“You’ve spent almost every night with me for the past week,” Seth said. “Talk about closing the barn door once the horse has escaped.”

“It’s not the same,” Jason said. “That house, that’s a commitment. It’s not trying things out to see if we fit. It’s the next closest thing to driving to Boorowa and registering a civil partnership. The minute we both move in there, we’re as good as married in the eyes of everyone we care about, because that’s what happens here on Lang Downs. The people who make it home, they come here and they make a life for themselves and the ones they love.”

“I can’t even tell you how much I want that,” Seth said.

“I can’t even tell you how much it scares me,” Jason replied. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and now that I have it, I can’t quite believe it’s real.”

“What if I screw up?” Seth asked.

“Forget everything your stepfather ever said,” Jason ordered. “You aren’t a screwup. You’re an intelligent, amazing, handsome man, and you’ve earned your place here, no matter what you think. My dad even says so, and you know how hard he is on mechanics. What if I screw up? You’re not the only one in this relationship, you know.”

“If you screw up, you’ll fix it,” Seth said. “That’s what you do.”

“That’s all anyone can do,” Jason replied, “and so that’s what you’ll do too. Mum told me one time that relationships aren’t about being perfect. They’re about dealing with the shit that goes wrong together.”

“Somehow I don’t think those were her exact words,” Seth said with a grin.

“No, probably not, but it’s what she meant.” Jason kissed Seth softly. “We can do this. We just have to believe that whatever goes wrong, we can work it out.”

“Then I guess we ought to start packing,” Seth said. He didn’t know how it could be that simple, but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t try. “Caine said something about seeing if we needed anything and making a supply run to Boorowa on our next day off. I don’t even know what we’d need.”

“Sheets, towels, maybe a few dishes,” Jason said. “I know Ian made Sam and Jeremy a few things they’ll want to take with them, but they’ll probably leave the rest. We won’t have much to buy.”

“I have a few things in storage in Sydney,” Seth said. “If we need them, that is. They wouldn’t fit in the car and there isn’t room at Chris’s anyway, but if we have our own place, I could go get them and bring them down at some point. I left most everything with Ilene, but I have a dresser Ian made for me. Chris insisted I take it with me so I’d have something of home no matter where I lived. I couldn’t leave that with her.”

“Of course we’ll go get it,” Jason said. “We just have to decide when we can be gone overnight.”

Seth melted a little at the casual assurance in Jason’s voice. Jason might not have said it in the words Seth wanted to hear, but he was committed to their relationship or he wouldn’t be talking about going together to get Seth’s chest.

“I guess we should go look at our house then, huh?”

Jason grinned and grabbed Seth’s uninjured hand “I’m not carrying you over the threshold. You weigh too bloody much.”

“I’m not a girl,” Seth said as they walked inside. “I don’t need that romantic nonsense.”

As soon as they walked inside, Jason pinned Seth to the wall. Seth could have gotten away—he was bigger than Jason—but he had no desire to do so. “Romance is not just for girls,” Jason said. He kissed Seth tenderly, lovingly even, taking his time with the contact. Seth parted his lips and let Jason take the lead. Silence pressed in on him, driving home to him that they were finally, truly alone with privacy guaranteed. No one would come knocking on the door. No one was listening in the next room. No one even knew they were there, much less what they were doing. They could stand there with Seth’s back against the kitchen wall for hours or they could go to the bedroom and fuck like rabbits. They could strip right there and go at it on the living room floor if they wanted. This was
their
space. The intimacy of it left him reeling. He broke the kiss and gasped for breath.

“Let’s take a look around,” Seth said. He’d been in the house before—he’d even helped build it—but not in years. When he was home for a visit, they either ate in the canteen or at Jason’s house. He’d had no reason to come in here.

Jason stepped back and they poked around in the kitchen for a bit. Like Seth remembered, it had a fridge, an electric kettle for tea, and hookups for an oven and stove but they had never been installed. “Are you a good cook?” he asked Jason. “Because I suck at it. So unless you want to cook, we can just leave it as it is and eat in the canteen.”

“I can put a meal on the table,” Jason said, “but I’d rather eat in the canteen. Cooking is too much work if we have other options.”

Seth opened the cabinets. A few mugs sat on the shelves, along with a tin of sugar, some biscuits, and a jar of Vegemite. Seth laughed. “That’s pathetic, even for two jackaroos on a station. There isn’t even a bag of chips to munch on.”

“Start a list,” Jason said. “We’ll go to Boorowa and get anything you can’t live without.”

The living room was simply decorated, with a couch and a couple of chairs. Nothing fancy, but nothing that would need to be replaced. They didn’t lead fancy lives. Sam’s desk sat in one corner. “They’ll want that,” Jason said. “Ian made it for them the year Thorne moved to the station. I remember because I helped them move it in here after Thorne left to go to Wagga Wagga for a couple of months. I’d never seen Ian look so sad.”

“I never knew what that was all about,” Seth said. “I was only home for a couple of days that year. I actually left the day after Christmas to go back to Sydney because I had a project due.”

“He has PTSD,” Jason said. “Nasty stuff left over from the Commandos, I guess. He flipped out over something—I don’t know what—and punched a wall. He decided he couldn’t stay on Lang Downs like that and went to Wagga Wagga to get help. It took a bloody lot of courage, if you ask me.”

Seth looked down at his bandaged hand. He hadn’t done it to himself this time, not on purpose anyway, but Jason’s words weighed on him. Thorne had been man enough to get help, but Seth was too much of a fuckup for that.

“What did you do to your hand?” Jason asked.

“Sliced it open on a bracket,” Seth said. “Sarah patched it up. It hurts like a bitch, but it’ll heal. I’ve had worse.” He’d done worse to himself. Not often because he didn’t want scars he’d have to explain, but once or twice his razor had sliced deeper than he’d intended.