by Sean Kennedy
He hesitated before replying. “I wonder how Roger knew.”
I sat up, finally, sensing we wouldn’t be sleeping for a while. “Knew what?”
“He made that comment… about how crowded the closet was.”
It dawned on me. “She’s gay?”
He motioned for me to lie down again. “Yeah.”
I slid back down, and we recommenced cuddling. “So it’s a relationship of convenience?”
“It’s not a relationship. We just help each other out.”
“But doesn’t that make her family think that you’re a couple?”
“It’s amazing what people won’t ask when you act deliberately vague about it all.”
I just thought they hadn’t crossed the right people. I seemed surrounded by those who wanted to know everything about you in excruciating detail as soon as they were formally introduced.
“But it’s been two years since you won the Brownlow—”
“Jess gets the feeling we’re considered to be an on-again, off-again couple. It helps I live in another state.”
I dug my chin into his shoulder. “So you’re on again for the Brownlow?”
“You can’t go there alone. That would be a hell of a way to stand out.”
I thought of the blue carpet ceremony, which had been introduced in the past decade, a crass offshoot stolen from American award shows, where the footballers and their girlfriends had to parade like cattle. The girls would have to name-drop their designers, and the boys would be stumped when it came to remembering where they hired their suits. Turning up without a girl would be tantamount to career suicide and endless speculation. “Yeah, it sure would.”
“In a better world, I’d be taking you.”
I laughed. “And I’d be taking advantage of the free booze.”
Declan lifted my chin so I could see how his eyes were pleading his case for him. “You’re not pissed off?”
“At the world maybe,” I admitted. “But not you.”
He kissed me, and his hands began wandering south. I threw back my head and moaned softly as his mouth travelled down to the hollow of my neck.
“Dec….”
He looked up. “Yeah?”
“These favours you and Jess have… how far do they go?”
“Huh?”
“Like in a few years, you’re not going to be harvesting your sperm for her children are you?”
“Simon,” he said tiredly, “you’re really going to have to learn to be quiet when someone is trying to seduce you.”
My body agreed, because in a few seconds Jess and her possible future spawn were the last thing on my mind.
Chapter 15
“I WAS thinking….” I heard Declan murmur through some fuzzy part of my brain.
“And I was sleeping,” I groaned.
I felt my head shoved down into the pillow, and I struggled out from under his hand. “Okay, okay, I’m awake! Now.”
Satisfied, Declan rolled over, half onto my chest, which he tapped with his finger.
“Oww,” I said pettily.
“Baby,” he said, and it wasn’t a term of endearment.
I yawned and tried to give him my full attention. “What were you thinking?”
He looked a bit apprehensive, which I didn’t like at all. It usually means bad things are coming your way. “I was considering… buying some real estate.”
Huh. Okay, I certainly wasn’t expecting that revelation. “You already own an apartment.”
“Yeah, in Hobart. I was thinking of buying something here.”
My own mortgage was crippling me; I couldn’t even comprehend how someone could get or even want two. “How can you afford it?”
Declan suddenly was extremely interested in a button on the doona cover as he said softly, “Well, I’ve already paid off that apartment.”
I tended to forget he was Mr. Moneybags. “Ooooookay.”
“Look, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs—”
“Are you sure you’re a professional footy player?”
“Simon,” he said in all seriousness.
“Sorry. Continue.”
“So I’ve always been good with my money.”
“Please don’t tell me you have investments and stocks. I can’t go out with somebody who has that.”
A little smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “I have investments and stocks.”
I began pummelling him with the pillow. “That’s it! We have to break up!”
He defended himself easily by grabbing the pillow and whacking me soundly. “My brother-in-law is an accountant! They know how to do these things!”
“Okay,” I said. “But why here?”
“Because I don’t have an anywhere here. I split my time in Melbourne between here, my folks’ house, friends’ houses, and hotel rooms paid for by the club. I have enough money that I could get a mortgage and buy a second place. I mean, I’m going to need one when my contract ends.”
“But that’s a while away.”
“Only one more season. It was a three-year contract.”
“So you want to come back and play in Melbourne?”
He nodded. “It’s always been my plan.”
“But will the Devils let you go?”
“After the amount of money they paid for me, and the little return they got for it?” he said, sounding for a moment like one of the many whiners who wrote in to the papers or called talkback radio to rant about his injuries. “I think they’ll be glad to get rid of me. Especially as they’ll then be able to tell the press it was a mutual understanding.”
I leaned my forehead against his. “After the op, they’ll be singing a different tune. They always do. Then it will be about how they saw you through the hard times, and it was all worth it.”
He gave me a sweet kiss. “Thanks. But I still want to come home.”
I imagined Declan here permanently, and it was a nice prospect. We wouldn’t be continually split and doing a part-time long-distance relationship. I pushed away Roger’s nagging voice with all his doubts from the night before. “Any other reason?”
He smiled ruefully. “I have to admit, you have a bit to do with it.”
“How?”
“Well, if I have my own place, people will expect me to be there. No more keeping up the pretence of staying with friends or having to fulfil expectations of being on tap at a big, fancy hotel. It means we would see each other more often.”
But there would still be pretence involved. I couldn’t say that, though. “Sounds good to me. Where would you buy?”
“Somewhere you’d hate,” he grinned. “The Docklands.”
I did groan slightly. The Docklands were even worse than where he was currently living in Hobart. Once again he would buying into a waterfront that had been yuppified out of its previously sleazy state into a preprepared secure community with no charm.
“Oh come on,” Declan protested. “We all can’t be bohemians like you in North Brunswick. Which, you do know, is becoming more gentrified every year.”
“I guess you need the security,” I admitted grudgingly.
He scoffed at this. “I’m not being mobbed on the streets.”
“No, but I could imagine why the Docklands would be more appealing to you.”
“Nice views too. You liked my view in Tassie.”
“It was the view inside that sold me more.”
He shook his head. “Nuff-nuff.”
I laughed, but conceded defeat. “Hey, if it means I’ll see you more, I’m not complaining.”
He whacked me again with the pillow. “Come on, it’s too nice a day to stay inside. Let’s go out.”
Out? Into the fresh air and sunlight and… outside?
“We’ll go for a run on the beach. Perfect cover.”
A run? He was thinking of making me exercise?
He laughed at the horror obviously etched across my face. “Surely you must have something you could wear?”
I DIDN�
�T think I looked the part of jogging companion. True, I had trakkie daks, but those combined with my Cons and a faded “No Blood For Oil” longsleeve from a protest during my uni days didn’t exactly sell me as someone who would be out running with Declan Tyler.
“You’ll do,” he said, trying not to laugh.
I left him to finish dressing as he continued to towel his hair dry. I fed Maggie, and on my way out of the kitchen was reminded of the light flashing on the base of the phone. Roger’s message. Or it could be Fran. I sighed dramatically and pressed the button to listen to it.
“Hey, Simon, it’s me,” said the life of the party himself. “I just wanted to ring and apologise for what I said. You know I meant well, although Fran says it isn’t an excuse. Can you call me back? Oh, and if Declan is still there, I’m sorry, mate. Hope you don’t hold it against me.”
“You have to call him back,” Declan said, coming up behind me.
“No, I don’t.” I pushed the delete button a little more firmly than I intended. “It’s not that simple.”
“It would be if you called him now. Leaving it will make it worse.”
“Later,” I told him. “We’re going for a run.” I almost shuddered; I couldn’t believe I could say that so casually and still live.
Declan shook his head sadly. “You are such a stubborn shit.”
He sounded like Fran when he said that. She sure didn’t kiss like me like he did, though.
DECLAN looked the part at least. His trakkies were formfitting and tucked neatly into his four hundred dollar sneakers. He wore a singlet under his lightweight longsleeve, ready to be discarded once he worked up a sweat. A baseball cap was pulled low on his brow, and large wraparound sunglasses were in place to hopefully obscure his features.
Together, we were one of these things is not like the other one.
We drove a little further down from St Kilda Beach, where there would be fewer people and the sand wouldn’t be a minefield of discarded syringes. Declan grinned at me easily before he started stretching to loosen up. I stood still, wrapping my arms around myself to try and ward off the chill winds, watching him perform some arcane sacrificial rite.
“You have to loosen up first,” he instructed me. “Or else you’ll feel it more later.”
There were so many places one could go with that comment, but I asked, “You’re not seriously expecting me to run, are you?”
“I thought that was the point,” he said amiably.
“I thought I would just find a café and read the paper while you got your jollies pounding the sand,” I replied.
“Then you thought wrong,” he said sternly.
Declan had suddenly gone from boyfriend to the PE teacher from hell in all of twenty seconds. Cowed, I began imitating his stretches. My muscles began protesting almost immediately. He swung his leg easily over a park bench so he could bend over and flex his toes. I struggled to do the same move and almost fell over.
“You’re just acting up,” he scoffed.
Unfortunately I wasn’t, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit to it and shatter his fantasies.
Declan clapped his hands together. “Let’s go!”
I could hear the blood pounding louder in my ears than the actual crash of the waves against the sand. I thought of strokes and heart attacks, of the medics being summoned to the beach and being mentioned in the papers as “and friend” again, with a photo of Declan looking concerned, but distant. Immediately I was panting, and wishing for a shark to suddenly grow legs and waddle out of the surf to eat me and put me out of my misery. In fact, I would have willingly thrown myself into its mouth.
Declan jogged easily, not having even broken a sweat at this stage, his long lean legs propelling him forward with seemingly no effort. I had to yank at the waistband of my trakkies as they kept threatening to slide down and trip me over. The sand, damp with the tide, kicked up divots as I ran. Declan’s feet skipped over the surface: Jesus walking on the water.
“Time to pick up the pace!” he called over his shoulder.
Pick up the pace? I was already at full speed.
He sprinted away, his firm arse acting as a beacon to lure me further. I stopped, bending over with my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath back. Declan quickly blurred to a vague shape in the distance while I hacked my lungs up. Once I could breathe again, stars still shimmering in my vision, I began walking, so that if he returned he could see that I hadn’t given up completely. A few other joggers passed me by in both directions, and I was embarrassed by an elderly couple who had to walk around me as I was slowing them down. Their extremely fat golden retriever still breathed far easier than I did.
After some time, a jogger in the distance revealed himself to be Declan. He was sweating a bit now, as he ran back towards me. I smiled at him sheepishly; to show off, he continued to run backwards in circles around me as I walked.
“Didn’t have to worry about this undercover thing too much, did we?” he asked. “I turned around, and you were nowhere to be seen.”
“All part of my master plan,” I said innocently.
He shook his head. “Why don’t you go and get coffee, and I’ll meet you back there? I’m just going to run a bit further.”
“Sure.” Anything to get me out of the exercise regime.
Declan started sprinting off again, and this time it was my turn to shake my head at the thousand and one better things that could be being done with this time. I headed towards the café across from the car park. After ordering two lattés to go, I headed back to the beach, a little way down from the main thoroughfare of people and parked my butt on the sand with a dune as my backrest.
The natural athlete that was Declan Tyler™ didn’t waste any time in covering the ground that had taken me a good while to cross. And instead of plonking himself down next to me, he took a few moments to stretch once more.
“You’re so fucking professional,” I teased. “When are they hiring you to do a workout DVD?”
“Piss off,” he ragged back, stripping off the longsleeve and throwing it in my face. “You have the stamina of a chronic invalid with emphysema, and you don’t even smoke. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
As he finally sat beside me, I asked in a low murmur, “Would you rather have a jock boyfriend who could run with you?”
He took his coffee and shook his head. “If it’s not you, no.”
I tried not to be distracted by his golden shoulders, even when relaxing they were bunched with toned muscle that I could never hope to achieve. These were the same arms that held me when I slept, I marvelled. “Would you rather I became a jock?”
Declan laughed. “Then you wouldn’t be Simon.”
That was a scary thought.
“Would you rather have an arty wanker boyfriend?” It was now apparently Declan’s turn to play the game.
“No,” I said honestly. “I like the differences between us.”
We watched the waves, and their wake inched closer towards us as we sat in comfortable silence. I could tell he wanted to put his arm around me as we watched the ocean, sitting there like any normal couple. I wanted to put my arms around him as well, and let his head rest in my lap. The few people that passed us paid little, if any, attention to our presence. Maybe we were too paranoid, but Declan’s celebrity helped foster that. Mind you, we were sitting on the beach on a typical Melbourne’s winter day—it wasn’t like we were sitting al fresco at a café on Brunswick Street where all the sensible people would be.
As it always was with us, our time together ended too quickly. Before we even realised it, it was time to drive back to my place and for Declan to shower and pack before heading out to the airport.
“Call Roger,” Declan said as he kissed me good-bye.
“You call him,” I said childishly.
He shook his head and kissed me again. “Speak to you soon.”
The house seemed empty without him in it. I turned on the stereo, loud, to fill the leftover sp
ace.
I DIDN’T call Roger back, of course, although he tried three times that afternoon. I did answer when Fran’s mobile number displayed on caller ID, but it was Roger’s voice through the earpiece so I hung up immediately. A few minutes afterwards I received a text from her saying that she hadn’t put him up to it, and would I please call her at work tomorrow?
I had an early night after checking in with Declan, who had arrived home safely and was preparing to go out to dinner with Abe and Lisa. “Wish you were here,” he said breezily, and I found myself feeling horribly lonely.
So I was determined that I wouldn’t be stupid and shut Fran out again just because Roger was being a dick. She sounded surprised when I called her at exactly a minute past nine.
“I haven’t even gotten a coffee yet,” she said ruefully. “Have you?”
“Yep, and it’s wonderful.”
“Bastard. You must have gotten in early.”
“I did.”
And then the awkward pause. I slowly turned in my chair to watch the crowds still streaming out of Flinders Street Station below me. It was always surprising how many people seemed to be late for work every day. Of course, I was making a gross generalisation—maybe they all didn’t start at nine. But I was sure a fair few of them were late.
“Simon?”
“Sorry, I was distracted. What did you say?”
“Just, I’m not sure if I should bring up Saturday night or whether we should just pretend that nothing happened.”
“I don’t think I can pretend nothing happened.”
“Meet me for lunch?”
It was a busy day for me, but I had to agree so she wouldn’t think I was pissed with her. “Sure.”
“Great.”
“Fran?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not going to try and bring Rog, are you? In some misguided attempt to set things right?”
She took a deep breath. “Hon, I’m not stupid.”
I shouldn’t have doubted her. It was dim-witted of me. “Okay. See you at one.”
“YOU’RE lucky I didn’t turn up with a camera crew,” I said easily as I sat before Fran.