In the evening, instead of going home, he knocked on a different door. An orange door he'd helped paint a few years back. It didn't open until the thrice knock.

Jo stood there, pale-faced and red-eyed, sniffling into used tissue and looking like she hadn't showered in days.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" He walked in, barely kissing her cheek. "You sick or something? Don't get any on me."

"Geez, thanks, Chad, I'm fine, Chad. Thanks for asking," she grumbled, not making a move to close the door. "If you're gonna be this sour, leave. I'm not in the mood for your drama."

"Oh, ouch!" Chad took one quick look at her and then the dark house. "Where's Tom?"

"How the hell should I know?" She slammed the door loud as Chad moved into the house, turning lights on as he went. "Do you mind? I like the dark."

Chad ignored his sister and continued on until he reached the kitchen. Jo followed him, turning off the lights as she did. He ignored her, filled the kettle and put it to boil.

"You're not gonna ask what happened?"

"Don't need to," he replied. "You broke up with Tom and from the looks of it, it's been about two, three days."

"Four days."

"Even worse. Go take a long shower, and I'll do something about dinner. You reek."

"He left me, by the way," she grumbled, turning her tail and sulking to her room.

Chad hadn't expected to hear Tom was the one who broke it off. From what he'd seen a few months ago, the two were inseparable and very much in love. In Jo's life, a lot usually happened in a small period as opposed to his. Jo fell in love and out of it easily, while he struggled to keep the one relationship he had ever managed. Three years, all gone.

He raided Jo's fridge for something to cook. Here they were, almost thirty-four, with broken hearts and footprints of several failed relationships trailing behind them like confetti. In Jo's case, this trail was longer than his, a lot longer than his. Chad didn't fall in love easily. He kept all his romanticism for his books and their characters. Love wasn't for him, and if it was, he usually fell hard, as with Setal. Jo, however, regularly and swiftly fell in love, but as the magic weaned, and the magic always weaned, she'd freak and bail, before it became a 'forever' thing. Jo was averse to a 'forever' thing.

"You've got that face again." Jo, freshly showered, and hair hanging like a sheet of silk, slithered onto a stool on the other side of the benchtop.

"What face?" he asked, continuing to chop the bits of random vegetables he'd found at the bottom of her crisper. "I'm making soup. You got any fresh bread?"

"I haven't been to the shops." She pulled the chopping board from him. "Drop in some pasta or something and pour us wine. I need wine."

Chad did as he was told, sliding a glass of Moscato towards her and watched as she methodically chopped veggies as finely as she could. "So, why did you break up?"

The knife stopped chopping and hovered ominously over the carrot. "He did, remember. It wasn't me this time."

"What did you do?"

"Why do you assume it was me, that I must have done something?"

"With our history and track record?" He threw her a look. "You say it yourself that when things really get going, you freak out. Did you freak out this time too? Tom was a wonderful man, Jo."

Jo sniffled. "I don't think so."

"Then why did he do it? Last time I saw you two, you were doing so well."

"You and I are cursed at love."

"Bullshit."

"Ha!" Jo grunted. "Says the man in love with his flatmate but won't admit it?"

"I'm not!"

"Keep telling yourself that." She resumed chopping the veggies with a lot more gusto than required. "And maybe one day, she'll tell you she met someone and that they are moving in together? Then I'll see what you say." When she looked up, he had gone serious. "What?"

"I have to tell you something. Something about June, but you have to promise this stays strictly between you and me. No mum, and especially no Jackson!"

"Have I ever broken a promise?"

Chad glared at her. She had. Frequently.

"Okay. Okay. No mum. Now spill. What is it?"

♡

Jo sat there in all her glory, shocked. They'd stopped cooking. In fact, what they were talking about was far more important. Jo had dumped everything in the bin and ordered takeout. With a barely touched pizza slice still in her hand, she turned to him.

"You did what?

"I had to, Jo. You should have seen her. I couldn't leave her there, not after that."

"Why not? Oh my God, Chad. Are you completely out of your mind?"

"Jo! You said you would not freak out."

"No. I promised to keep mum out of this, but oh my God, Chad, bringing home a homeless girl? Seriously? What if she was another Cassie? What if she'd killed you in your sleep?"

"Then you and I wouldn't be having this conversation?"

Jo smacked him hard on the arm. "Asshat, I'm being serious! She could have."

"But she hasn't."

"That's beside the point!" Jo shouted, jumping off the sofa and pacing back and forth in front of him. "Oh, my God. My mother is a glutton for punishment, getting back together with a pathological, lying, cheating, slut-of-a-husband. My father is a bloody creep who dates women younger than me and has been off doing who knows what for decades and is probably riddled with STDs. I can't seem to hold on to a relationship no matter how hard I try, and there's my little bro, out-doing us all and bringing home a homeless person, then going ahead and fantasizing about sleeping with her. And I was thinking he was the normal one out of us."

"I do not fantasize about sleeping with June," he protested though he felt his voice waiver and heat rise up his collar.

"Bet you've stood outside her door at night at least once, wondering if she sleeps in the nude." Jo stopped pacing, half-angry, half-mocking him.

Chad's eyebrows rose and his jaw fell. "Maybe once or twice, but that doesn't mean I've fantasized."

Jo gave him a look. "You've fantasized, mate. Even at the barbecue, every time you looked at her, you fantasized. It's in those eyes, those beady fucking eyes," she pointed at her own with her hands. "Those creepy, creepy eyes you got from dad."

"Hey!" Chad rose to his feet and squared off with his sister.

"My bad, I'm sorry. I went too far." Jo surrendered. She resumed pacing, this time not as urgent. "How did you even do it, after your history with strange women?"

Chad shrugged. "I got to know her, and she was no longer that homeless girl who attacked me on day one. She was just a girl lost, scared and angry."

"And you thought you had to help her?"

Chad landed back on the sofa. "It felt right."

Jo dropped beside him. "Are you sure you can trust her?"

For the first time since the start of the conversation, Chad smiled and nodded. "And she can deal with Setal."

"Get out!" Jo laughed. "They've met?" Chad nodded once more. "When did they meet? I thought you only met June a few months ago, but you broke up with Setal ages ago?"

Chad sheepishly smiled. "She dropped in on me the other day."

"Tell me you didn't, you moron?"

"What?"

"You realise she's toying with you, yeah?" Jo asked, and Chad remained silent, perhaps a little guilty that somewhere deep down, he knew it too, but part of him had loved being desired. "She's getting married, you bloody idiot."

"What?"

"Guess she didn't tell you that bit then," Jo scoffed, pushing off the sofa. She disappeared into her bedroom only to reemerge with a shiny red envelope in hand. She handed it over. "In a few months."

Chad quietly pulled the card out; it's beautiful white, gold and red gleaming at him. It was the design they had chosen on a drunken night of pretend-we-are-getting-married. Inside, however, was some other fool's name. Chad felt something rip open in him again and hurt pour out. "It's the card we chose if we were getting married."

Jo took the card from him. "Sorry, I thought you knew. I don't even know if I want to go, but I have to."

Chad shook his head and went straight for the fridge. "I want another drink, how about you?"

"Sounds good," Jo yelled.

An hour later, Chad slumped against the couch, scoffing a handful of chips into his mouth between swigs of some drink Jo handed him. It didn't matter what it was as long as the alcohol buzzed in him.

"What has become of us?" Jo mumbled, lying on the couch staring up at the ceiling. "Mum and dad are getting married again. Setal is getting married. Tom left me when I yelled at him to leave like a good little boy. I think I might be pregnant, and you're in love with a girl you barely know."

Chad sprayed a mixture of chips and drink all over his front in a panic and slapped away the bottle from Jo's grasp. "Are you crazy? You're pregnant and you're drinking? What the hell is the matter with you?"

Jo eyed him, bleary-eyed. "Does it matter? Tom left me, Chad."

"And you're an asshole taking it out on a kid."

"One of those stick things was negative." She shrugged, struggling to sit up on her own.

"And how many sticks were there?"

"I don't remember."

"You're a mess." Chad felt all trace of alcohol vanish from his system. "Go to bed. I'm taking you to the doctor's tomorrow."

He watched Jo grab the walls as she made her way to bed, already half asleep. Then he rushed to the bathroom and threw up all his nausea. What was Jo thinking, drinking?

He couldn't even remember how many drinks he'd had and Jo was usually a heavier drinker than he was. Shit.

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