Ask Me to Stay Read Online Free

grunted and Ethan wondered if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Dean cast a suspicious eye over the page but he was too far away to read it.
    ‘Making a list.’
    ‘Useful. Listen, I’m going into work. I’m taking the kids.’
    Ethan looked from the ceiling to his brother and lowered his hands. ‘Still at the garage?’
    Dean crossed his arms. ‘Of course. We’ll be back around four.’
    ‘You don’t think you’re going back too soon?’
    ‘I don’t like the alternative.’
    Because the alternative was staying at home with him, Ethan couldn’t argue. ‘Leave the kids with me.’
    ‘No.’
    Ethan sighed. He eased down off the stepladder and hooked his thumbs in his shorts pockets. The page in his hand whispered against the fabric. ‘Just like that? No?’
    ‘Just like that.’
    ‘Don’t make them sit in your office all day. It may not be a circus hanging out with me, but it’ll be better than that dump.’
    Dean considered this as one would the choice between lemons and onions. At length he uncrossed his arms. ‘You got a mobile phone?’
    ‘Of course.’
    Dean withdrew an old model from his pocket and readied his thumb. ‘Number?’
    Ethan rattled it off, all the while wondering if it were sad that his brother didn’t have it already. There were dark circles around Dean’s eyes. His clothes were creased and he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. Ethan took this in and wondered where the line was. How much right did he have to care?
    ‘How’re you doing this morning?’ he asked tentatively.
    ‘My wife just died. How’re you doing?’
    Ethan flinched. He said nothing when Dean turned to leave.
    In the doorway, Dean paused. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Do you have a wife?’
    Ethan shook his head. ‘No.’
    And the strangers parted ways for the day.
    ‘You’ll find that horsepower is more than adequate. Anything faster and your wife will hunt me down, Buzz.’
    Jonathan ‘Buzz’ Franklin chortled. He nodded and slapped the steering wheel. ‘Too right, too right. I’m just thinking greedy now. It just needs to be better than Donny’s, Sam.’
    Sam leaned into the driver’s window and tapped the brim of Buzz’s football cap. ‘This one kicks arse,’ she said, referring to the latest model of laser-cut band saws, something they had been discussing for the last fifteen minutes.
    ‘Then get one of the boys to help me load it up.’
    ‘I’ve got it.’ She slapped the roof of the dual-cab ute and stepped off the running board. Walking ahead of Buzz’s car now, she indicated that he should follow, and got him to pull up alongside a collection of pallets full of power tools. Buzz leapt from the car to help, anxious that she would attempt to lift the large box herself, although Sam still carried most of the weight as they shifted it from pallet to tray. ‘Mum’ll ring it up for you at the front. See you round, Buzz.’
    ‘Catch ya, Sam. Cheers.’
    She neatened up the plastic wrap around the saws still on the pallet, checked her watch and thought it about time she went over to the pub for that beer-battered flake her brother had promised her. When she checked in with her dad everything was moseying along fine: he was tinkering in the workshed putting finishes on a display board. She left through the staff gates. It meant she’d have to circle the lot to get back to the main street, but it was still faster than walking out past her mother. Catherine O’Hara lived her life serenely oblivious to other people’s schedules. Apparently no one had anywhere they need be going when they could stop for a quick chat with her.
    Quick being the laughable word, there. Buzz wasn’t going to get out of the lot for at least fifteen minutes.
    Samantha tugged her cap off and tucked it into her back pocket. She tousled her hair and undid her work shirt, exposing her singlet top and sun-bronzed skin. It was warm enough that she was perspiring, and the forecast