Read Online Walking the Line by Nicola Marsh - Free Book Online

bloody
amused.”
    Kye’s chuckles petered out. “Sorry, mate,
it’s not surprising Ellie shot you down. But don’t give up. I’ve
never seen her the way she is around you so she’s doing her usual
putting-up-barriers thing. She’ll come around.”
    Hope made me sit a little straighter. “You
think?”
    “Absolutely. Where is she now?”
    “Holed up in her room, not answering the
door.”
    “At midday on a Sunday?” Kye tsk-tsked.
“That’s what she used to do when she first came to Sydney. Go on
benders in her room, sleep ‘til two.”
    “Shit,” I muttered, feeling more of a bastard
than I did last night. “What should I do?”
    “As someone who was on the receiving end when
Mum sent me round one arvo to wake Ellie up, trust me, you don’t
want to go there.”
    Great, so much for Kye helping me out. “I’m
in love with her,” I blurted, feeling like an idiot.
    Guys didn’t talk about this stuff but I had
to do something proactive. I’d had enough of sitting around doing
nothing. I’d been up the whole night, alternating between pacing
and mulling and staring blindly at the hotchpotch crowd milling
along Darlinghurst Road in the wee hours.
    “Listen, meet me out the front in an hour.
I’ll help you find your balls.” Kye sniggered. “Because the very
fact you mentioned the L word to me suggests you’re in way over
your head, Irish.”
    “Okay,” I said, and hung up.
    Getting out of here for a while would do me
good. Hopefully Kye would help me come up with a strategy to win
Ellie over once and for all.
    Though ninety minutes later, I questioned the
wisdom of entrusting Kye to give me advice as I sat in a crowd of
red and white-wearing fanatics at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
    “Nothing like a good game of Aussie Rules
footy to get the blood pumping,” Kye said, handing me a beer in a
plastic cup. “What do you think so far?”
    “It’s a poor imitation of Gaelic football,” I
said, sounding petulant and not caring. “Though I always root for
the underdog so the fact the blue and white team, the North
Melbourne Kangaroos are thrashing the locals, is a good thing.”
    “Don’t let anyone in this parochial crowd let
you hear that.” Kye pointed to the Swans emblem on his cap. “Sydney
Swans rule.”
    “What are you, five?”
    Kye raised his beer in a mock toast. “Come
on, man, I’m trying to get your mind off things. Surround you in
testosterone. Make sure you don’t turn into a wuss.”
    “Just because I love Ellie doesn’t make me
any less manly.”
    “Just because I love Ellie…” Kye imitated in
an exaggerated falsetto. “Heads up, Irish, talking mushy shit does
make you sound less of a man.”
    I placed my plastic cup filled to the brim on
the concrete under my chair. “Listen, this was a bad idea. I’m
leaving—”
    “I thought telling Ellie how you feel might
make a difference.” Kye shook his head. “Guess I was wrong.”
    I paused. “What do you mean?”
    “Ellie’s…flawed.” Kye hesitated, downed the
rest of his beer, before continuing. “I’ve known her a long time
and she’s buttoned up tighter than a nun’s habit. She won’t let
anyone in. She doesn’t trust easily.”
    He poked me in the chest. “So if you told her
how you feel and she still shut you out? I don’t think you’ve got a
hope in Hades.”
    But I did have a hope.
    If what Kye had just said was true, Ellie
didn’t trust anyone. So why did she trust me with the truth?
    “You don’t know anything about her past?”
    Kye shook his head. “Don’t think she told Mum
either. She just arrived one day, they became friends and Ellie
became a Kings Cross fixture.”
    That sealed it. If I was the only one she’d
told about not being able to have kids and her guy running out on
her because of it, she did feel something for me. And she’d used
the truth to push me away before I got any closer.
    For the first time since last night’s
confrontation, I felt like punching the air in