[Author's note: Trapped by love, Aidan tries one last time to break through with his estranged wife, but it's an uphill struggle. She isn't herself, and Aidan is beginning to suspect why. But how does he save someone who doesn't think they need saving?
This chapter contains depictions of drug use and reluctant consent]
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ONE MAN ARMY
Aidan found himself wandering, again. He'd left Ant and Theo having breakfast and discussing holiday plans, and had taken to the streets. He knew he was drifting, trying to get his bearings in the city that he knew intimately. There were two places that he wanted to go, the gym and to his old apartment, but it was like they were off limits, the streets around them a no-man's-land that he couldn't cross.
Time and again, it came back to the look in Rosa's eyes in the car at the end. He'd opened his heart to her, confessing that he'd given up Mara because he'd realised that he still loved Rosa. It had been simple and direct, he'd expected something, anything, from his wife in return but had gotten a brick wall. As soon as he'd used the word, Rosa's defences had come back up.
Aidan walked, feeling hollow inside. The dread and excitement of coming back and talking to Rosa again had now been replaced by a numbness and a slow realisation that perhaps she had really moved on. What if there really was no way back? What then?
But there was another possibility, lurking in the shadows. Davey's face came back to him, showing a side of Davey that, as his friend, Aidan had seen only very rarely. Davey was a few years older, used to dealing with situations, a self-proclaimed self-made man in property after inheriting his father's business. Davey could be charming, good fun, easy going, but there was also a ruthless streak. People who got on the wrong side of him tended not to fare so well.
That was where Aidan was now, on the wrong side. It didn't matter that Davey was fucking his wife, or spending time in Aidan's apartment. What mattered to Davey was discovering a challenger for Rosa's affections. He played to win, and he usually did. Davey seemed to have Rosa firmly under his thumb, a level of control over Aidan's estranged wife that Aidan found hard to rationalise. Something told him there was more going on, that far from helping Rosa out of her collapse after Aidan has left, Davey was exploiting the situation. Aidan had never seen his wife more isolated and withdrawn. What had Theo said? That even Arly, her best friend, rarely saw her these days. It sat like a lead weight in his stomach.
Maybe Cassie could help. Maybe she could give him a professional opinion on how he was feeling and help him work through all this. Aidan laughed mirthlessly to himself, thinking that perhaps Cassie could help him come to terms with losing his wife when what he really needed was someone to help him form a battle plan to win her back. Digging his hands into his pockets, he stood on the street corner and weighed his options.
He needed a job, since he couldn't go back to the gym. He needed somewhere to stay, before Ant and Theo got sick of him sleeping on their couch. He needed to get his shit together because Davey had his shit together. Rosa needed to see that Aidan was back for good. He nodded to himself. That was the first step. Let's see how Davey copes with a little friction, he thought, knowing that Aidan was nearby and intent on winning his wife back.
"Yeah," he said to himself, "Fuck you Davey. I'm not going anywhere."
Aidan grinned, feeling better than he had for days. Time to stop looking down at his feet; time to fix his eyes on the horizon. First, he needed to check in on Indi.
---
Tony had a house in the outer suburbs with a big front lawn and a trampoline. The house was in an older style, solid brick with a concrete driveway and a small porch over the front door. Aidan walked up and knocked. He could hear sounds of music inside, a discordant babble of notes, and voices. He knocked again.
The door eventually opened, and Aidan found himself facing a girl with a baby on her hip. No, not a girl, but petite and lean, like Indi, with dark skin and black eyes, regarding him warily, frowning.
"Uh, hi," Aidan stammered, "I was wondering, is Indi in?"
The girl's face cracked into a sudden grin.
"Ah, g'day, you're Aidan, right?"
"Yeah, I'm...."
"Yeah, no worries, Aladdin told me," she interjected, "At last we meet. Come in."
The girl stepped to the side and Aidan entered the house.
"Uh, Aladdin?"
"Come through to the back, I'll see. Aladdin, yeah. Don't ask, I think his Mum was a little loopy on the epidural still. Tony, right?"
"I don't understand."
She turned to him as she walked. "Tony in the club, not his actual name, no-one uses their actual name. That'd be stupid. I'm Kora. Real name."
Kora led them through to the back of the house, into a large open room filled with furniture and toys.
"And this is the iwi," she announced, coming to a halt at last.
Aidan saw Indi at a keyboard against the far wall with a young girl, sitting side by side on a bench. At the interruption, she turned and Aidan was greeted with a wide smile. There was a younger boy playing with a truck on the floor, making engine noises to himself.
"Eldest over there, she's starting school next year. Can't bloody wait, eh. I mean she's pretty keen, but I can't bloody wait," Kora continued, "Al's out hunting and gathering but he should be back soon. Do you want a brew?"
Kora set the baby down on a mat and went into the kitchen.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Aidan called after her.
Indi had turned back to the keyboard and was running through a simple scale, letting the girl play along, repeating the sequence of notes. Aidan watched them together, Indi's delicate fingers on the keys, her patience with Kora's daughter, the little encouraging smile when she completed the scale. She was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt that Aidan suspected were Kora's, hair tied back with a butterfly clip.
"Milk?" Kora called from the kitchen.
"What?"
"How do you take it, Aidan? You prefer white?"
"Sure."
Kora laughed. "I prefer black."
"The coffee?"
"Yeah," Kora replied, "The coffee. What did you think I meant?"
Kora returned with two mugs and handed one to him.
"So, Indi tells me you did a stint in West Island."
"I did?"
"Yeah, Sydney, Australia. There's North Island, the Mainland and then West Island across the ditch."
Baffled, Aidan locked onto the part that he understood. "I was in Sydney for a while, yeah."
"Heard you met a movie star," Kora murmured over her coffee, conspiratorially.
"Uh, okay."
She raised her eyebrows. "Indi told me everything."
Aidan drank his coffee without responding. Everything?
"Hey," Aidan began, switching topics, "Look, thanks for helping. We're really... we had nowhere else to go."
"No worries. She's been a blessing, really. She's so good around the place."
Kora's attention was on her daughter now, deep in conversation with Indi. Aidan followed her gaze, watching as Indi stood up and took the young girl's hand.
"Like this," Indi said, going up on tiptoes in bare feet, ankles together.
She held her hands out to her sides, poised gracefully as she raised a foot.
"There are positions, see?" she continued, as her smaller companion attempted to copy her stance, wobbling on her tiptoes.
"You learn each one until you've got it. Then you can put them together."
Indi grinned and suddenly launched forward, spinning around and around, toes up on point, her body flowing across the room to come to rest, knees bent and arms wide, facing the young girl.
"She moves like an angel," Kora murmured, "I don't know where you found her, but she's something else. I think I'm in danger of losing my daughter to a white chick."
Indi relaxed and patted the young girl's shoulder. She came over to Aidan, smiling.
