Private

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

“You’re cooking, kiddo,” Dad said the minute Shane got into the Land Rover. It was a battered old thing, one of the only constants of their transient lifestyle, and Shane found the old smell of boot polish, deep heat muscle rub and stale air conditioning comforting in a way most people reserved for a mother’s perfume, or a father’s coat.

“‘Kay,” he said.

“Chloe’s coming over,” Dad added unnecessarily.

“‘Kay,” Shane repeated.

“So, you know. Go easy on the spicy food, yeah?”

“‘Kay.”

“You know other words, right?” Dad asked, the Land Rover easing over the ridge and along the exposed track towards Wheatley. Despite its age, its bump and roll was cushioned and relaxing, and Shane stared out of the window with a sense of home. The countryside still wasn’t quite familiar to him, after years of industrial cities and harsh northern landscapes—but the car was as old as his own name.

“‘Kay,” he repeated, just to make Dad snort and roll his eyes.

“Daft berk,” Dad said, his tone idle. “Good day?”

“I guess.”

“Studying with the Devereux lad, or just pissing about?”

Shane shrugged. “Pissing about.”

“Fair enough. Mind your back, though, I’ve heard things about him. Bit of a bender, apparently,” Dad said, then rolled his eyes. “Mostly from your brother, mind. Right gossip Jase is turning into.”

Shane summoned a half-smile. If Dad bothered to look at Luke for more than ten minutes, he’d be issuing more warnings than ‘watch your back’—but he wouldn’t. Dad wasn’t that observant.

“Your kit all ready for cadets tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Got much homework?”

“Nah.”

“Football highlights when Chloe’s gone?” Dad offered, and Shane grinned.

“Hell yeah, Dean in my biology class was saying…”

“Don’t spoil the results, kid, I managed to avoid the gossip all day,” Dad chided, and Shane pulled a face.

“But…”

“Nope. Shut your gob.”

Shane pulled another face.

“How’s Rebecca?” Dad asked, too casually.

“She’s fine.”

“Uh-huh. Jason said he saw the lot of you in town the other day. Says you might’ve been holding hands with a certain redhead.”

“So what if I was?” Shane asked defensively. “It’s only ‘cause some of the other lads hassle her. They don’t hassle her if they think I’m gonna get involved.”

“Right,” Dad said. Like he totally believed. Shane scowled. “I’m just saying, brat,” Dad continued blithely. “You seem a bit sweet on her, and she’s certainly a bit sweet on you.”

“No she’s not.”

Dad made a sceptical sound, but Shane ignored him. He didn’t…mind, not really, because he and Rebecca knew the truth, and anyway, if Dad was so sure he had a thing for Rebecca, then…

Then he’d never work out why Shane spent so much time at Luke’s. Or that when Shane slept over at Luke’s, the girls weren’t actually always invited like Dad assumed they were.

“She’s a pretty girl,” Dad said.

“Yeah, well, she’s not into me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, kid,” Dad said sternly. Shane blinked. “I brought you up to respect girls. That’s a trait in short supply for lads your age, and it’ll make you stand out. A nice girl like Rebecca, she’ll have noticed you’re not a mindless lout.”

Yeah, Shane wanted to say. That’s why she holds my hand and lets everyone think we’re a thing. To keep the mindless louts away.

But—because he wasn’t a d**k, and Rebecca had her own secrets as much as he did—he just shrugged and repeated himself. “She’s not into me.”

“Whatever, kid,” Dad said, pulling the battered Land Rover into the driveway. The army owned the whole of Pear Close in Wheatley: a run of ten terraced houses on either side of a narrow cul-de-sac, the road surfacing so bad it almost counted as a dirt track. The houses were small and more-or-less identical, with box lawns next to tiny driveways. The houses on the south side of the street had long thin gardens running down to the fields that cupped the whole south and east of the village. The houses on the north side had short, fat gardens that backed onto the main road. Shane lived on the north side—but the advantage was that it was easy to sneak out without Dad noticing.

“Spicy ginger chicken?” Shane offered as he dumped his bag in the hall.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dad said, unlacing his boots. He was still in full uniform, and squinted up at Shane from his seat on the bottom stair. “Set the table, too. Something to talk to you and Chloe about.”

“Uh. Okay?”

“Don’t ‘okay’ me, get your chores done. G’wan, hop to it.”

Shane hopped to it. When Dad gave an order, it was obeyed. It was the way things had always been. Dad was in the army—had been since before Shane was even born—and he expected his orders to be followed to the letter. He could be right scary when he got angry, too, but it was rare these days. Jason was the mouthy git. Shane was happier to let sleeping dragons lie, because if Dad was in a good mood, he was also cheerful and relaxed and…really dense.

In short, as long as Shane did his chores, stayed out of trouble, and didn’t mouth off, he could do pretty much what he wanted. Which was the only way he could live, because if Dad knew the things Shane wanted…

“Shane! I don’t hear pans!”

“Keep your hair on!” Shane yelled back, and rattled them extra-loud to make a point as he hefted them out of the cupboard. Dad had been playing single father for more than ten years, but he still sucked at cooking anything more complicated than toast. Jason had done this until Shane was thirteen, and then Shane—by far the best cook in the family, which was a bit like saying the fastest snail in the race—had taken over permanently.

He didn’t mind, though. Beat doing the washing. Or vacuuming, urgh.

The house was an identi-kit job, the same as all the other army houses Shane had lived in over the years: tiny, functional, and soullessly decorated in white and beige. He’d never lived in the same place for more than two years—in fact, Wheatley was a record—and nowhere had really been home, simply because they’d been too fleeting. There was no evidence of this being anyone’s home: the decor was too neutral, the floor too obviously designed for a quick-and-easy cleaning between families, and the constant stream of post for people who no longer lived here too stark a reminder.

Except for the pictures. Dad put family pictures everywhere, in every house they’d ever lived in. Mostly just of him and Jase and Shane, but Nana Hannah was up in the kitchen, with Shane as a toddler. Aunt Nessa and her twins were in the living room, from a Christmas Shane didn’t remember but suspected had been in the Doncaster house. Aunt Jenny was posing with Jason in his very first cadets uniform in the hall. There were pictures everywhere, of everyone in the family except…

Well, except Shane’s mother.

But he didn’t remember her much, and Dad had never forgiven her for what she did, so that didn’t matter. Everyone who counted was there.

And soon, Shane suspected…

The kitchen door rattled and popped open. “Hi, Shane!”

…Chloe would be up there, too.

“Hi, Chloe,” he said, not taking his eyes off dicing the chicken.

“How was school?” she asked, dumping her handbag on the counter. Shane stared at it pointedly until she pulled a face and removed it to the table.

“Okay.”

Chloe was a new addition. Shane couldn’t quite call her a member of the family yet, but she’d been going out with Dad for almost the whole two years they’d been living in Wheatley, and Dad had never had a girlfriend before. He’d never even gone on a single date since before the divorce, and yet here was Chloe, letting herself in with the key Dad had given her, and toeing off her trainers like she belonged.

“Hope you don’t mind cooking for three, honey,” she said, like she said every time she came over for dinner. “But Steve insisted, and you’re a better cook than me anyway, so I figured why not?”

“S’fine,” Shane said. It was, Chloe was nice and all, it was just…still a bit weird. It’d just been Dad and Jase and Shane for almost as long as Shane could remember, so he still wasn’t quite used to her.

Plus she was twenty-nine. Which was closer to Jason’s age than Dad’s. Ew.

“So, how’s everything?” she asked, liberating a wine bottle from the fridge. She offered him a glass, and he shook his head mutely. “How’s Rebecca?”

“Seriously?”

Chloe laughed. She was pretty when she laughed. She was pretty anyway—ash-blonde hair in a jagged cut, all curves and long legs and skinny jeans that were kind of weirdly in fashion for anyone dating Shane’s father—but when she laughed, she just looked careless in a way Shane envied.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But Steve was telling me all about it the other day. You know,” she lowered her voice, “he can’t decide whether you’ve asked her out yet or not.”

“Well, I’m not telling you either.”

“Worth a shot,” she said, and lounged against the counter. “Is Jason coming?”

“Nah.”

She blew upwards into her fringe. “Mm. Maybe that’s for the best.”

Jason didn’t like Chloe. Dad called him a moody s**t, but Shane figured that Jason could remember their mum. Shane couldn’t really. He remembered the night she…left, but not really her. She’d had brown hair, like his, and she must have had dark eyes like his, too, because Dad and Jase had blue, but…he couldn’t remember her. But Jase did, and Jase had taken a dislike to Chloe the minute Dad had introduced her as ‘the new lady of my life.’

“Dad said he’s got news,” Shane said.

“Mm,” Chloe hummed, sipping her wine. She eyed the ceiling. “D’you think I should go and hurry him up?”

“Keep it down?”

“Not like that!”

“Last time you hurried him up, I heard everything,” Shane argued. “I need counselling. Like. Serious therapy. I’m scarred.”

“Oh give over,” Chloe rolled her eyes, then sighed when Dad’s heavy tread sounded on the stairs. “And now you’ve ruined my opportunity.”

“You were the one who stopped to talk.”

“True. Hey, honey,” she brightened when Dad entered the kitchen, and Shane wrinkled his nose and chucked the chicken into the hot pan when they kissed.

“Ew!” he said pointedly, mostly because it exasperated Dad.

“Shut your trap,” Dad said, jabbing a finger at him. “And you’ve not set the table.”

“I’ll do it,” Chloe huffed.

This bit was kind of nice. A bit of bustling about. So what if it made Shane a housewife to think it? He liked Luke’s house because it always felt so busy and energetic and homey. With Chloe flitting around him to get stuff out and set the table, and Dad pouring more wine and getting the leftover salad out of the fridge, this place felt a bit less like a random army house in a random village near a random military base, and more like home.