Tigers & Devils (46 page)

322 | SEAN KENNEDY

Any escalation of their sniping was halted when their coach, Scott Frasier, approached the table and nodded to Declan.

Dec pushed his chair out, muttered “Excuse me,” and went off to the side to talk to his coach.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I told Abe and Lisa.

“You okay?” she asked.

I nodded and made my way to the toilets. I didn’t need to go, but I did need a semiprivate place where I could just hide for a moment and try to collect myself. There were only a couple of guys at the urinals when I entered; I locked myself in a stall and stared dismally at the door.

I heard the door swing open and shut again and assumed that the other guys must have left. I unlocked the stall so I could go and splash water on my face and just try to cool down the sudden heat I felt building from my neck upwards. I wasn’t alone.

Geoff Hendricks stood near the door, with some of the other Devils players flanking him. I didn’t want paranoia to instantly overwhelm me, so I nodded at them and continued on to the sinks.

“You happy with yourself?” Hendricks asked.

I took my time washing my hands and stared back at him through the mirror.

“About what?” I asked steadily.

“About costing Tyler his medal.”

I turned off the tap and headed for the dryer. “I didn’t cost him anything,” I yelled over the sound of the blower.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Hendricks yelled back, and his voice faltered as the dryer’s cycle ended, and he had to lower it again. “But we all know you did.”

“What, he’s not allowed to have a social life like the rest of you?” It was funny how now I wasn’t paranoid or feeling threatened, I was just angry. “It’s okay for you lot to have girlfriends, but not for him to have someone?”

“Our girlfriends don’t cause the shit you do,” Jack Hanley piped up.

“I’m not causing shit, everybody around me is. Even now,” I pointed out. “You followed me in here, not the other way around. What are you hoping to achieve? Do you think Declan is suddenly going to see the light if you do something to me?”

I noticed from the expressions on some of their faces that they weren’t actually planning to do anything to me; it was more than likely that they just wanted to vent at me over the perceived injustice against their team. And now they were recognising just how bad it was looking for six men to gang up against one in a public toilet. Hendricks opened his mouth to speak again, but the main door banged open. Abe barged through, and he erupted at the sight before him. “What the
fuck
is going on here?”

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“Nothing,” I said immediately. “We were just having a chat. Weren’t we, boys?”

Too much time hanging around Declan meant I could take on his mannerisms easily. Nobody really answered me, so I continued.

“Well, that’s that, then.”

They filed out, a couple mumbling apologies to me. Hendricks remained unrepentant. None of them could look Abe in the face.

“Simon, are you okay?” he asked, concerned, when we were alone. I leaned against the sink, my legs finally becoming rubbery. “Yeah, cool.”

“What happened?”

I looked up at him. “How did you know to come in here?”

“They weren’t very subtle. They practically got up a minute after you did, and I saw them heading here. I would have been here sooner, but I got waylaid by Scott.”

“It’s okay. I think I had most of them shamed before you came in.”

“You don’t look so good now.”

I felt like I was going to throw up. “I’ll be fine.”

Abe sighed. “Declan’s going to lose it when he finds out.”

I turned around so fast I felt like the walls continued spinning long after I had stopped. “You can’t tell him!”

“Why not?”

“Because he
will
lose it. And he can’t be on the outs with his whole fucking team.”

“You can’t expect me not to say anything. Because when you eventually tell him, he’ll take it out on me, not you.”

“No, he’ll be pissed at both of us. You should have just let me handle it, Abe.”

And it was then that I knew why Declan was best friends with Abe. He drew himself up and gave me a look full of scorn. “You know, you might not care, Simon, but I think of you as my friend now. And friends look out for each other. I came in here to back you up, just like I would if it were Declan. And if it were Declan in this situation, you’d be fucking kissing my arse for coming in here after him.”

We stared at each other for a long moment before I admitted, “You’re right. And thank you.”

But Abe wasn’t done with me. “Just a bit of friendly advice. I know you’re not telling Declan everything that is happening to you. And that’s because Lisa tells me, and she’s worried about it. It puts me in a fucked position because I know something Declan should. You have to be fair with him.”

I nodded. “Okay. But I bet you hide things from Lisa sometimes because you don’t want to hurt her.”

“Yeah, and she knows it anyway. Which is why I eventually break and tell her. You should do that sometime.”

324 | SEAN KENNEDY

I moved past him to the door. “Thanks, Abe.”

“If you don’t tell him soon, I will.”

It wasn’t something I wanted to happen, but I had to concede. As we left the toilet, I was reminded of something he had said before. “Hey, you said you were stopped by Scott earlier. I thought he was talking to Dec?”

Abe momentarily faltered, but quickly said, “Oh, by that stage Dec was talking to other people about the medal.”

We stepped back into the venue, and by now I could sense something secret and alive, charging itself between us. I looked across to our table and could see a wellknown footballer crouched beside Dec. Dec was laughing at something he had just said and then leaned in closer to him to say something.

“Oh,” I said feebly to Abe as it dawned upon me.

“What?” Abe asked. Too fast.

“It’s the ex.”

Abe didn’t say anything.

“Just say so, Abe.”

“I—”

“Thanks a lot, after everything you said in there about secrets.”

“Simon—”

“Don’t tell him what happened.” I walked off, and I could feel him watching me. I turned a corner and found a small alcove with a couch. I burrowed in my pockets for my mobile and called Roger.

He answered after a few rings, and I asked him where he was.

“We’re still in the casino. Sorry about Dec losing.” He sounded as aggrieved as if it were himself who had lost. “That was rigged!”

“I’m coming to meet you guys.”

He told me which part they were in, and I said I would be there in five minutes. I then put on my best composed face and headed back to the table. The ex saw me coming and left before I could be introduced, and Dec didn’t say anything about him as I sat down. Abe and Lisa watched me closely; from the look on Lisa’s face I could tell she had already been briefed by him on the events in the toilet and my discovering the identity of my predecessor.

“Hey, where have you been?” Declan asked. He looked innocent enough, and I hated that for a brief moment I couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“The loo,” I shrugged. “Look, Roger and Fran just called me. They’re still in the casino. I thought I would go and meet them while you finish up here.”

“Need a debriefing session, huh?” he laughed.

I couldn’t believe he was acting like this when I knew what I did. “Something like that.”

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“I won’t be much longer,” he told me.

“Take your time.”

I said a terse goodbye to Abe and Lisa. Lisa looked like she was going to come after me, but she probably didn’t want Dec to catch onto something having happened. I got out of the venue as quick as I could, not able to avoid the looks some of the players and WAGs at other tables were giving me. Before I hit the lobby I pulled off my tie, unbuttoned the top of my shirt and carried my jacket so I didn’t stand out too much. I skirted around the assembled media and took the back way into the casino. I found Fran and Roger pretty quickly, and they could immediately tell the night had not been a success. At least I felt like I was back among my own people again.

ON the way home, Declan was just as quiet as I was. Even though he had assumed the reasons he had lost out on vital points was because of the scuffles he had on and off during the season, he had never been suspended for it, and that should have really been the only reason for the exclusion of his votes for those rounds. I think it had finally hit him that it was unjust, but he was too tired to let himself care right now. And he probably assumed that I was quiet because he was.

At least Roger and Fran were excited by the fact that they got a lift home in a limo. Roger was quickly becoming jaded by the fact that he now hung out with celebrities and wasn’t doing his star-struck routine anymore. And Fran and Lisa seemed to have found an initial bond in their affection for me, which had quickly gone beyond that into the beginnings of a proper friendship. I also think they had quickly figured out that each knew the happenings of the night and conferred in a corner, claiming it was “secret women’s business” whenever they were questioned about their conversation. I just kept waiting for Dec to tell me about his reunion with his ex. Although I guess it was pretty stupid of me to assume that their paths hadn’t already crossed within the past year. It made me wonder how many times they
had
talked. But of course Dec couldn’t say anything to me while the others were with us. When we were the final ones in the limo, I expected him to finally tell me. When he didn’t, I expected him to tell me when we got back to my house.

We undressed for bed, and as usual, once we were beneath the sheets he reached for me to snuggle against. I lay stiffly beside him.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“No. Is anything wrong with you?” I asked.

“I guess I am disappointed about the medal in a way.” He shrugged. “But I can whine about it to you in the morning once we’ve slept on it.”

I waited for him to bring up the other topic, but of course, he didn’t. Eventually I heard his breath deepen, and knew he had fallen asleep. I stayed awake for ages.

I AWOKE with a headache and sleep trying to chase me back down, but Declan must have been waiting for me to open my eyes.

“Morning.”

I mumbled a reply. I may have been half asleep, but not enough to stop everything about last night come flooding back with stunning clarity.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Can it wait for after coffee?” I groaned. I had a feeling only coffee or hard drugs could sustain me through whatever was coming.

“Nope. Otherwise I might lose the guts to tell you.”

Okay. This definitely didn’t sound good. I sat up, but Declan remained propped up on his side with his elbow. With his free hand he rubbed his thumb over my kneecap.

“Shoot,” I told him unhappily.

Declan gave a small sigh and then bit the bullet. “My ex approached me last night.”

I decided to put him out of his misery. “I know, I saw you with him.”

His hand dropped away, and he shook his head. “I
knew
you were acting weird about something.”

“Is that the only reason why you’re telling me?”

“No!” he said with such vehemence I knew I couldn’t doubt him.

“So why are you only telling me now?”

“It threw me, that’s all. Plus, you didn’t seem very talkative last night.”

I had to give him that.

“I just… had to mull it over, that’s all.”

“What did he say? It looked pretty intense.”

“It was,” Declan admitted. He pulled himself up to sit next to me properly and rearranged the doona over us as it was cold. “He told me he wanted to say how much he admired me for coming out, and he wished he could have done it back when we were together.”

That was what I dreaded hearing. But I couldn’t say anything. My throat had seized up.

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“Anyway, he’s thinking about doing it now,” Declan continued. “He’s been miserable the past couple of years, and I guess he wanted to kind of apologise for everything. You know, without really saying sorry.”

There was an edge of bitterness in his last sentence, and I wondered if you were ever really over someone if they still could cause you to have so strong an emotion.

“He wants to get back with you,” I said woodenly.

“Maybe.” Declan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if he does.”

“Why?”

“Christ, Simon, don’t be so dense.”

“Just look at it logically, Dec. He broke your heart because he couldn’t live the way you wanted to or at least try to compromise. Now he’s seen the error of his ways and he’s considering coming out—”

“Yeah,
considering
.”

“—you said that when the board offered you that deal where you cover everything up and blame it on me, you thought about it. So don’t tell me you didn’t think about the possibility of getting back with him—”

“Are you just looking for a fight?”

“No, I just want to know the truth.”

The words rang out in the space between us, and Declan reached for my hand.

“Of course it crossed my mind. And you should be glad I tell you the truth. Because even though it occurred to me, I also knew that I wouldn’t act upon it.”

“But how do you know? He said he’s only considering it, if he actually
did
it—”

“Because I’m with
you
, Simon! Because I love you! Not him. You wanted me in spite of who I was, and what you had to do in order to be with me. How many times do I have to fucking say it?”

Any therapist would have told you the obvious, that I couldn’t accept it at times because I didn’t understand why anybody would prefer me over the seemingly perfect football player who Dec would have much more in common with if the guy could get over his issues.

“I love you too,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound desperate. “And that’s why it did my head in last night. I could just see the history between you… the way he looked so comfortable with you. Do you think I
want
to be paranoid about it?”

Declan shook his head. “But sometimes, I just think you push me away deliberately because you think I’m going to do it one day by my own choice. And it could just happen if you keep doing it.”

I stared at the lumps my knees made under the doona.

Declan waited for me to say something, but I couldn’t talk. Mostly because I thought I would break down there and then.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said finally.

328 | SEAN KENNEDY

When I heard the water start, I threw on a T-shirt to add some decency to my boxers and headed out into the kitchen to feed Maggie. Once she was munching away happily, I watched her for a while and wished I was a cat so that my biggest problem in life was whether my human was going to open a tin for me as promptly as I wished. I gave her one final scratch behind the ear, and she jerked away as if she thought I was going to steal her food. I smiled and walked out to get the paper from the front lawn. As the paper unrolled from its plastic wrap, the photo on the front page caught my attention straightaway. It was Francis Bevan, holding his medal up for the camera. But next to it, in a separate box was a photo of Declan and I. I had the stunned-rabbit look, and Declan looked perfectly at ease; the headline above us read
DID HE COST TYLER

THE MEDAL?
Of course, the article was by my old friend Peter van Niuewen, the man who had broken the story of the kiss in the hospital grounds. That was the last fucking thing that I needed. I quickly skimmed the article; van Niuewen had to have been hanging out at our table last night and dictating everything Geoff Hendricks had said. I was a liability, a controversy, a distraction that resulted in Declan losing his cool on the field and rendering himself ineligible for vital points that would have won him the Brownlow.

I turned to the Letters to the Editor page; fans had already e-mailed in their opinions on the subject. Not surprisingly, van Niuewen’s opinion seemed to be the universally accepted one. I
was
the Devils’ Yoko Ono.

I slammed the paper into the bin, thinking it was best not to let Declan know until I had had enough time to get over it and be able to act like I was unaffected by it all. The shower had stopped running when I stepped back inside. Declan was towelling himself off in the bedroom.

“Where were you?” he asked.

“Feeding Maggie.”

“I thought I heard the front door.”

“I was putting the can in the bin.”

“Oh.”

I crossed over to him and kissed him. He was surprised, but kissed me back. I rested my forehead against his, and we stood holding each other.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“Because I wanted to.”

“Good enough reason for me.”

I wanted to hold onto this moment forever, but they can never last that long.

LUCKILY the thought of the newspaper didn’t even cross Dec’s mind, as he was meeting his brothers for lunch and had to rush in order to get there on time. I was invited, but I thought brotherly bonding should win out, and I had to go shopping for

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Nyssa’s birthday present. Presciently, I had arranged a mental health day for the Tuesday after the Brownlow, so I had that pleasant feeling of wagging as I made my way down Brunswick Street. Fran and Roger were meeting me at The Hideaway for coffee after work, and I could almost convince myself that I wasn’t Yoko for a few hours… at least until Dec read the papers or saw the news. More than likely his brothers were already telling him right at this moment.

I stared in the window of a store where I knew Nyssa liked to shop. There was a pair of gaudy earrings in the shape of miniature bird cages with a tiny parrot hanging on a branch inside them. They were just on the right side of ironic kitsch; therefore, perfect for her. Five minutes later I was walking out of the store, sticking them in my bag, and I accidentally ran into a guy trying to enter.

“Sorry,” I said automatically, and I made to swerve around him. I was blocked by a hand on my chest, and I peered at the guy to see what the problem was.

“Hey, I know you,” he said.

I stared at him, but he didn’t seem familiar. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he grinned nastily. “You’re that poof in the papers.”

Great. “Yep, that’s me,” I said, and I tried to move away. Once again, the hand on my chest.

I tried to control my voice, but I said with a tone full of venom, “I would really move your hand if I were you.”

He scoffed. “What are you going to do about it?”

I whacked his hand away. “Fuck off.” I began walking off, but he was dogging me. A couple of people on the street began to take notice of us. All I could think of was getting back to my car, which was only a block or so away. I had a feeling if I tried to seek refuge in a shop he would only follow me, and things would get worse in a confined area.

“Hey, tough guy,” he said, “where are you running to?”

I could feel my face burning. Most people who were watching us had sympathetic looks on their faces; I think maybe I was more recognisable than I ever thought. Of course it didn’t help that I was on the front page of the paper today.

“I’m talking to you!”

Just don’t fall into replying to him. You’ll make it worse. Just get to your car and
keep your trap shut.

“They should run your fucking faggot boyfriend out of the league! There’s no place for people like him in it!”

Now, I was in no way the tough guy when I turned on him. It was a fluke, really, I just caught him by surprise when I pulled my fist back and landed it on his cheek. He stumbled and fell backwards onto his arse, while my fist pulsed with pain. Later, Roger

330 | SEAN KENNEDY

would inform me that only amateurs go for the face when in a fight. That was me, of course.

But he returned the shock of surprise. He looked up at me and licked the small trickle of blood coming from the edge of his lip. With a grin, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile. “That’s assault, I’m calling the fucking police!”

By now a small crowd had formed around us. I felt a small surge of panic and pulled my wallet out of my bag. I had never thought I would have use for it, but I knew it was probably my best bet.

I called the number on Ed Wallace’s business card. It was time to bring in the big guns, and there was none bigger than the CEO of the Devils.

“WHAT do you mean, it’s all sorted?” Declan asked.

“I told you, Dec, we took care of it,” Ed replied smoothly. I sat silently across from Dec, staring at the surface of the table. We were in one of the boardrooms at the Dome. Ed had sent a lawyer down to the station for me, and talks had taken place between her and my “victim”, whose name turned out to be Jason Terne.

“Simon?” Dec asked.

I continued to stare at the table.

My lawyer—fuck, I had a
lawyer
now—spoke up for me. “Declan, I’m Nancy Hersh. I met Simon at the station and managed to speak with Mr. Terne—”

“Who?” Declan asked.

“My victim,” I told him. It was the first thing I had said to him since he came into the boardroom looking tense and worried.

“Don’t use that word, Mr. Murray,” Nancy instructed me. I could feel Declan’s gaze burning through my skin. I looked up and our eyes met. He had a thousand questions to ask, I could tell, but he wanted to ask them while we were alone.

Nancy turned to him. “There are six witnesses willing to come forward for Mr. Murray and state that he was harassed by Mr. Terne, and that when the alleged punch was thrown—”

“Punch? There was a punch?” Dec asked.

I lifted my hand. The skin on a couple of knuckles had split, and there was a butterfly bandage covering them. There had been some worry that I might have fractured one of them, but one of the on-call doctors at the Dome had looked at it and declared me fine.

“
You
punched
him
?” Declan demanded.

“Allegedly,” Nancy said quickly.

“No
allegedly
,” I said softly. “I did it.”

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“You can only say that in this room,” Nancy reminded me. Ed watched this with some amusement. “As soon as the guy heard that the other people would testify against him, he dropped any threat of making charges. And just to make sure it would stay that way… well—”

“You
bribed
him?” Dec asked.

“Not a bribe,” Nancy jumped in. She always liked things to be worded her way so there was no chance for recriminations later on. “We paid him for the exclusive rights to his story. That way he can’t tell it to anyone else.”

I started staring back down at the table again.

Declan sighed. “Unbelievable.”

“You can’t afford the controversy, Declan,” Ed told him. “There’s been enough already. Have you seen the papers today?”

Still not looking up, I awaited Declan’s response while forgetting to breathe.

“Yes.”

“Then you understand.”