Mourning Mates

Havermouth, A Year Before

“She’s a beauty,” Cameron leaned against the fence and admired Jules’ new mare, Aria, who was grazing in the field nearest to the house.

“She is, sired by Maverick James, and out of Soprano Siren, fourteen point two hands, she needs a bit more work, but she has a sweet, gentle nature,” Jules was pleased by his purchase. “I’ll take her out to ride the fences later today and see how she does.”

“Chester will be jealous.”

Jules slid his eyes to Cameron and then away. “Sometimes we have to make choices, Cam, and no matter how much we love a horse, sometimes a new one is needed, right?”

Jules wasn’t talking about horses, Cameron thought grimly, but about women. “Sometimes, there only is one horse,” he replied softly. “And you can’t replace it.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Jules murmured. “I am, Cam.” They watched the mare graze in silence before Jules gave a slight restless gesture. “You should go see your mum before you head off, have a cup of tea. She’s leaving again for the beach tomorrow and will be gone for a while.”

“Yeah,” Cameron straightened and stepped back from the fence. “I actually came to see her but got distracted by your horse. Brought her something Rhett painted recently, and Heath sent some of that perfume she likes, to cheer her up, you know?”

“She’ll like that.”

Cameron stopped by his Ute on the way to pick up the presents, and took them to the back door, rather than through the mud room, as he was dressed for a run, and not in muddy and shit-covered boots.

Catherine was in the kitchen, icing a cake and salting it at the same time with her tears. As he came in, she looked up guiltily. “Oh, Cam,” she set the spatula down and picked up a tea towel, patting her cheeks dry. “Don’t mind me.”

“Mum,” he wrapped his arms around her, and pressed his face into her hair, breathing in her scent. “Dad says that you’re going for another holiday. That will be nice, right? A few weeks at the beach, walking on the sand, eating ice cream?”

“Yes, lovely,” she said holding onto him tight. They stood for many minutes, embracing, and he did not rush her, letting the hug calm them both. She sighed eventually and leaned back to touch his cheek. “Such a handsome good boy. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“I have presents!” Cameron announced and went to where he had set the gifts down. “First, this one from Rhett. He’s calling it his colorful era,” he drew out the canvas depiction of the river house. “Heath’s put one in his office, too.”

“Oh,” Catherine admired it with a smile. “He is so talented. So much detail, I almost feel as if it’s a photograph rather than paint. Tell him that it’s amazing, and that I love it. I think I’ll put it in my sewing room, so that I can think of you boys as I do my pieces.”

“He’ll like that. I’ll put a hook in for you before I go,” Cameron set the picture down carefully. “And from Heath,” he placed the glossy little shopping bag with its gold striped tissue paper lining and ribbon handles onto the kitchen benchtop. “Your favorite.”

“Oh, he always remembers,” she smiled through her tears, touched by the thoughtfulness. “I was just beginning to run out. He must set a diary reminder; he always seems to know precisely when I need a new bottle.”

“He probably does,” Cameron laughed through his sorrow. If Heath kept a reminder, Cameron didn’t know. They shared the house, their finances, and, occasionally, a bed, but otherwise their lives had separated so much that Cameron often felt as if he were living a lie with Rhett and Heath, pretending that they were mates, when they were just friends who occasionally f-ked. He wasn’t sure if the fact that they no longer argued was a good thing - like their love lives, it felt as if the passion had simply seeped out into resignation.

“And this,” he put the little glass jar onto the counter. “Is from me.”

“Oh! Is it!” She was excited picking it up.

“It is,” he said with delight. “First harvest from the new hives in the lavender fields. I think they got a bit excited, and got into the roses at the house, though, because Rhett’s been complaining about the increase of bees around the gardens.”

“They will do the gardens good,” Catherine said getting two teaspoons from the drawer. “Open it up, Cam, and let’s try a bit!”

They ate honey and cake with their tea, and Cameron put up a hook in Catherine’s sewing room, before kissing her goodbye with another tight hug. “I love you, mum. Have a nice time at the beach, and I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Take care of your dad, Cameron.”

“I will.”

“And Rhett and Heath,” she gave him a squeeze. “I’m so happy that the three of you are all doing so well.”

Cameron fought back tears as he pulled out onto the main road. The lies weighed him down so that at times he felt as if he were sinking into depression, like his mother. “Perhaps I should go to the beach, too,” he muttered under his breath. Sometimes he just wanted to escape his life. He only felt at peace when he was working the farm, his mind eased by the well-known routines and the peace and quiet of the fields.

His other solace was his runs. Some days, particularly when Rhett or Heath were home for the weekend, he would go for runs several times a day, rather than play pretend with his mates. He often ran from the river house to town and back again on those days, but he preferred to run through town, to see people that he knew and who knew him, to look at the buildings he had grown up with, and to smell the jacaranda blossoms crushed underfoot compete against the roses and wisteria that were so popular in the cottage gardens.

He parked in the main street, and began his run there, trotting past the pubs, the restaurants, the cafes. He saw Heath on the other side of the road, at Boyston’s Coffee shop, waiting in queue, but did not stop as it would be awkward - they seemed to have so little to say to each other. As he passed Rhett’s tattoo shop, he slowed his pace, looking through the glass and paused briefly to knock on it, drawing Rhett’s attention from cleaning his workstation, giving him a wave before picking up his pace and running on, preventing any attempt by Rhett to step out to intercept him.

His path took him by Aislen’s house, and Mr Carter was standing on the pavement out front watching as gravel was spread over the stripped bare front garden. Mrs Carter had left him almost two years before, moving down to Trayrock, and the word was that she was living with someone else. The gravel, Cameron thought, was revenge as Mrs Carter had gardened obsessively during her time in Havermouth, compensating for the ugliness of the house and shabby interior by transforming the garden that everyone saw into a glory of flowers and shrubs.

Cameron stopped as he always did, and the two men stood watching as the work men began to rake out the stone. “Be easier to look after,” Cameron said eventually as he regained his breath.

“Will piss the ex-wife off if she ever drives through the town,” Patrick Carter replied with satisfaction.

“Yeah, that too,” Cameron laughed and then sobered. “Have you… heard?”

Patrick Carter slid Cameron a look out of the corner of his eye. He was often curt or downright hostile with the Triquetra when he encountered them around Havermouth, but Cameron’s frequent run-bys were softening his stance towards him, combined with his achievement in giving his ex-wife the f-k you, he shrugged slightly this time. “She’s doing good. She doesn’t say much. Doesn’t really keep in touch. She’s not one for phone calls, and I’m not one for writing. She’s working with her art, has bought her own apartment, and that’s about all that I know.”

“Okay,” Cameron looked away as he controlled his emotions. F-king bitch, he took a deep breath as the now familiar rage took hold. She had left them suffering, a broken Triquetra, missing their female mate, incomplete, and she was off drawing pictures and buying apartments.

He continued on his run without saying anything more, his anger fuelling his pace, driving him back around the loop to his Ute. He checked his phone as he got into the driver’s side and took a mouthful of the sports drink that he’d put ready in the center console. There was a message from Rhett.

“Leaving work in half an hour. Should I pick up dinner, or are you cooking?”

Cameron wasn’t in the mood to cook. “Get Chinese. The usual.” He typed back.

“Right. Find a movie?”

Find a movie was code for pick a porno. Rhett was in the mood for sex, Cameron thought, trying to decide if he was, or wasn’t. Sex was infrequent between the Triquetra, though more often than it had been during the first three painful years. It was a once-a-week event rather than the multiple times a day they’d had before and during their time with Aislen, and it was nothing like it had been when they had been teenagers.

Usually Heath instigated it, and he’d been developing quite a collection of sex toys in his bedroom, luring one or both of his mates in with each new purchase, the sex between them growing more and more adventurous, and less and less tender and loving.

They had become experts at getting each other off, or not, depending on the game they were playing in the bedroom. When they f-ked, and it was f-king not making love, they were vicious with each other, the pleasure walking the line of degradation, and the toys in the play room upstairs taking on a grimmer and grimmer tone.

Sometimes, after the sex, Cameron would remember the time Rhett had fisted Aislen, and their conversation afterwards. She would understand, he thought to himself, how rather than filling his emotional needs, and whilst he never failed to come, and come, and come, he came away from those nights with his mates feeling more separated from them, soiled and dirty by his desire, and raw with self-hate.

His liking for pain complicated things more for Cameron, making him wonder if he deserved to feel the way that he did – his kink becoming twisted and tangled into the nastiness of how they were having sex, tainting it for him.

He sighed. Any sex was better than no sex with his mates, he decided, and texted back. “Alright. I’ll get it ready.” He then texted Heath: “Rhett’s bringing home Chinese and I’m finding a movie.”

There was a pause and then Heath replied: “Good. I have just the thing, something that I’ve been saving. I’ll be a bit late. Eat without me but save me some. I’ll eat after the movie.”

By the time Cameron went home, set up the movie theatre in the cellar, and had a shower, Rhett entered the kitchen with the Chinese food. “Hey,” Rhett smiled brightly. “Did you have a good run? You didn’t hang around. I came to the door, but I missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Cameron lied. “I didn’t realize.”

“Where’s Heath?”

“He said to eat without him, but to save him some, as he’d be late.”

“Alright,” Rhett began to serve the food onto the plates. “We can have fun without him, until he comes. Do you want to light some candles and open a wine?”

“Sure,” Cameron moved into the dining room area of the open planned kitchen/living space. “I ran by Aislen’s house,” he said as he set the wrought iron candle holders onto the table and lit the tapers spiked onto them. They were scented, something dark and mysterious. Rhett’s purchase, Cameron thought as he breathed in. Heath would have chosen a designer scent, something expensive and recognizable, probably from one of their aftershaves, but Rhett’s choices were darkly seductive and dangerous in their mystery.

“Oh?” Rhett carried their plates to the table and set them and the silver ware across from each other on the shortest width of the tabletop.

“Aislen’s dad has covered the garden in gravel.”

“Has he?” Rhett was feigning interest as he placed the left-over food into the refrigerator for Heath.

“Yeah, he says that Aislen is doing okay,” Cameron said hesitantly as he opened the bottle of wine. “Do you ever think…?”

“Think what?” Rhett froze, his back to Cameron, facing into the fridge.

Cameron shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. I guess…” He thought about his dad’s words. “That maybe we should just… take a she-wolf as… you know?”

Rhett’s movements were in slow motion, dragged out and heavy. “Do you want to…? It wouldn’t be, like, a mate, Cam. It would just be… We can’t reject Aislen, without her rejecting us too. It won’t be a clean cut. And even if we did, we might not get a second chance mate. It would just be f-king a she-wolf to have… you know.”

“Babies,” Cameron said softly.

“Yeah,” Rhett agreed reluctantly, no doubt thinking of Charlotte, and the baby boy that had been taken from her upon birth, and that was being raised by Rohan and Lillian. “I guess.”

“No,” Cameron replied with a heavy heart. “I want kids. I do. But I want…” He took a mouthful of wine to hide his emotions. “We can’t replace her. It’s her, or it’s… It’s just us. I think, we’ll be happier if we just… accept that it’s just us.”

Rhett looked at his wine glass. “I feel like beer. You?”

Cameron laughed sourly. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Shall we put on the game?” Rhett rose and went to the fridge, returning with two cans. “We can eat on the couch and watch the game.” He had no interest in football and was making the offer for Cameron, something that touched Cameron as it had been a while since any of had put each other in front of their own wants.

“Alright,” Cameron watched as Rhett took the beer and his plate to the couch and sat, with his feet on the coffee table, whilst he used the remote to flick through the channels. He sat next to him. “Do you… Do you want to find a she-wolf?” He asked Rhett nervously.

“Hell no,” Rhett shook his head. “You and Heath, that’s enough. Sometimes it’s too much, but… I agree,” he turned down the volume of the TV and twisted on the couch to look at Cameron. “It’s her, or it’s just us.”

“I agree too,” Heath said from the doorway to the hall. He walked in and set his briefcase down on the kitchen bench before taking Rhett’s barely touched wine glass and bringing it over to the couch, sitting between them. “I agree,” he said. “I’m glad that you are both… having this conversation. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I think it’s… healthier for us all if we’re all on the same page with this. I don’t want another female mate. I know that’s supposedly our purpose, but… The pack wasn’t happy with the mate that we were given. They can’t complain that we won’t take another, because it’s their fault, and you know, I don’t want to… I just don’t want to bring another woman back here, and put her in the room meant for Aislen,” his voice hoarsened. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“No,” Cameron agreed.

Rhett nodded.

“So,” Heath looked one side and then the other. “We need to… stop mourning her and try to work out how to live without her. Do you agree?”

Cameron’s phone rang and he jumped, startled by its intrusion into the intensity of their conversation, leaning back in the couch to fish it out. “It’s my dad,” he said in surprise. “Hi, dad?”

“Cameron…” Jules’ voice was frantic and there were sirens in the background. “Son… We’re on the way to the hospital. You have to come. Your mum…” His voice broke on a sob. “They don’t think that she’s going to make it.”