by Renae Kaye
“You and Ambrose are a better fit than I imagined.”
I decided I’d think about that comment a bit more before asking questions, so I pointed to the row immediately in front of us. “Up the end, looking resplendent, is Tate. Don’t bother talking footy to him any more than you’d discuss the finer points of the ruck with Jamie. Tate is here because his boyfriend, Kee, dragged him along. I’ve known Kee since I was about twenty-two. I can’t remember how or why he joined our friendship group—probably Jamie and Vinnie. Then the others in the row are Vinnie’s dad, sister, brother, cousin, and cousin’s wife.”
The Dockers scored a goal, and people all around us who were paying attention to the game jumped to their feet and screamed their approval. Since Ambrose’s injured leg was resting on my lap, I didn’t move. Instead I looked over and smiled at him. He watched me with an expression I could only call contented.
“What?” I mouthed.
His smile widened. “It’s been a while since we’ve watched a game together.”
It had been. And if I was honest with myself, I’d missed it. Of course I knew I missed Ambrose, but I was fooling myself if I said I didn’t miss watching games with him too. Over the first five years since he’d been drafted, I’d managed to watch a couple of finals with him—they were the years Hawthorn didn’t make it to the finals and his season had ended early. The only games I watched in the intervening year had been games where he was playing or the amateur games John played in.
“I’m hoping that will change,” he said, and he held my gaze. I shivered visibly and saw by his smirk that he caught it.
I managed to keep my attention on the ball for the rest of the quarter. When the siren sounded to bring the game to a halt, Dockers were holding a wonky one-point lead. Many of the crowd around us, obviously seasoned spectators, stood to stretch their limbs from the cramped confines of the seating at Subiaco Oval.
“Dockers are playing well, right?” Jamie chirped, and Liam turned his back on his boyfriend.
“Kee. I need to swap seats with Tate. I knew it was a bad idea to bring him.”
“You were the one who insisted,” Jamie called, not offended in the least that his boyfriend didn’t want to sit next to him. Liam clambered over the back of the seats in Tate’s direction, but John protested.
“Oh no, you aren’t leaving me here with those two. Ben, you can swap with me.”
“In your dreams,” Ben replied without moving.
“Sandra? You’ll swap with me, won’t you?”
Sandra looked at him over her shoulder. “I’m sitting with Patrice. You can’t leave Patrice in among you men by herself.”
John started to look desperate. He fixed his eyes on Dan.
“Dan, you can move too.” Then he bossed him around and made Dan move, as though the famous Daniel Egan had been his friend for years. He shifted Tate next to me into Dan’s spot, moved Patrice and Sandra to between Jackie and Jamie, and then Dan and John took the seats between Ricky and Tony. Tony gazed up in awe at his hero sitting beside him.
Fifteen minutes into the second quarter, the suited man reappeared at Ambrose’s side and bent to whisper something in his ear. Whatever it was, Ambrose nodded agreeably and clapped Daniel on the shoulder. I frowned at him, and he said, “Duty calls. We’ve got to go and pay the price for being famous.” I had no idea what he meant.
“Will you be okay?”
He hauled himself to his feet and picked up the crutches. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry about me. Have fun with your friends.”
The moment he and Daniel were out of sight, Vinnie stood, exited his row, walked to my row, and sat down in the seat beside me.
“No one I need know about, huh?”
I remembered saying that to him the night he found the photo of Ambrose on my phone. I didn’t have an answer for him, so I stayed silent.
“I don’t actually remember you telling me who took that photo, Shane. I mean, it was a pretty intimate shot. Only someone who was completely trusted would be able to get that close to him.”
“Vinnie, please. Don’t make a fuss of this.” I was willing to beg.
He tapped his chin with his finger to appear to be thinking. “I remember you telling me you’d once converted a straight guy for one night.”
“And I remember Liam telling us the only straight guy who would give another guy a blow job was someone who wasn’t so straight in the first place.”
Vinnie conceded this point. “True. Some guys are really afraid of admitting to their bisexual tendencies for fear of appearing less than men.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Micah Johnson get tackled. He managed to hang on to the ball long enough to handpass it off to his teammate. I thought what Ambrose’s life would be like if he were to come out during his career. Look what happened when Declan Tyler was outed.
“I don’t think it’s that at all. That’s not how he thinks of gay men. It’s more what other people think of gay men. Then you add the layer of bisexuality, and people are complete arseholes about it.”
Vinnie was still stubborn about it. He scowled. “But that’s the point. The more high-level players and actors and such come out about it, the better it is for those in the public who are queer. There needs to be representatives for them in high-profile positions.”
“I agree. But that’s not your decision to make, is it? You don’t label someone contrary to what they feel about themselves, and you don’t out them against their wishes. You don’t tell a transman he’s really a woman, you don’t tell a gay man he’s really bi because he was married to a woman, and you don’t insist that you know better than someone when they label themselves. You have no idea about other influences in someone’s life that stops them from coming out. When you do that, you become the arsehole.”
Vinnie stared at me wide-eyed. Okay, maybe I was a little defiant there.
“You’re right,” he said eventually with a large sigh. “I am an arsehole for thinking of only myself and my own label instead of allowing someone else to discover for themselves.”
“Sometimes it’s clear that you’re gay, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” To illustrate my point, Jamie screeched “Oh my gawd!” at something he and Tate were discussing. “To the others, like Aaron, you just let them move at their own pace.”
Vinnie went puppy-eyed at the mention of his boyfriend and looked over to where Aaron and Ben had their heads together and were furiously debating a call by one of the umpires. “He’s come a long way, hasn’t he?” he asked softly.
Aaron was clearly in love with Vinnie. They didn’t do public holding hands or passionate kisses, but if you knew Aaron, you could see the care he had for Vinnie.
“He has.”
But then Vinnie turned back to me. “Enough of my man. I want to know about you. I get that there should be no labels, but you’re my friend. I want to know if this is okay with you? What are you going to do? What do you think you’re doing? Where is this going?”
I checked to make sure no one was listening, but I needed someone to confide in.
“He’s asked me to move to Melbourne with him.”
Vinnie’s eyebrows rose so high it was almost comical. “In what capacity?”
“Friend.” I waited a heartbeat. “And more.”
“A secret more?”
I winced. “More like don’t ask, don’t tell. No one’s business but ours. Cross that bridge if someone decides to blab.”
“And? How do you feel about this? Do you want to do it?”
I looked at my friends surrounding me. Aaron was in the front row, and Vinnie was in the third. Liam was sitting next to Kee while Jamie sat next to Tate. Even John and Jackie and Sandra and Ricky were separated. It didn’t matter to them who they sat next to in public, but it would matter to them who they went home with.
I raised my chin and said with a conviction I didn’t know I had, “I don’t need fireworks. In fact I think I would be uncomfortable with that. I�
��ve loved him for the last nine years he’s lived in Melbourne. I loved him for several years before that too. That love hasn’t dimmed due to distance or even through lack of contact. Every other person I’ve tried to love just hasn’t stood up to what I feel when I’m with him.”
“Will love be enough?” Vinnie asked softly. “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
My eyes were wet when I whispered, “He buys me books and then lets me read them without complaining that I’m not paying attention to him. He listens to my opinions and watches dumb movies because I want to. He keeps coming back to me. Despite everything, we seem to gravitate toward each other. He gets me, Vinnie. He gets who I am. He doesn’t want me to change into someone else.”
“But… Melbourne?”
I shook my head. “Melbourne won’t be forever, just for a couple more years. And it’s not like I’m doing anything critically interesting with my life here in Perth. I’m stagnating at best.”
“But does he love you?”
I felt my face go slack. That was the question, wasn’t it?
Interview Nine
Jackie
SILENCE.
“That’s rather a personal question, don’t you think?”
“I… ah… I’m not asking how or why. Just how long before you knew that John was someone special for you?”
Silence.
“About twenty-four hours. Now can I go?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE OTHER question—where did Ambrose and Daniel have to go?—was answered a few minutes into the halftime break. The Dockers, trailing Geelong, left the field for the clubrooms, probably to be yelled at by their coach, and the junior-league kids ran on to play their little games as part of the experience of playing “on the big oval.”
Football commentators began to gather in front of TV cameras to give their opinions on how they thought the game was going, while mascots cartwheeled on the sideline and danced to the music.
The giant screens on each side of the oval flickered with images—replays of marks and tackles that had been made. Then some of the sideline commentators’ voices came up, and the screen cut to a known figure with a microphone.
“Yes. Thanks for that, Tony. I agree, the Dockers have their work cut out for them today if they want to bring down the Cats. Geelong have really fired up in the last fifteen minutes. But before I get into that, I have some opinions I want to ask. Because joining me here on the oval today are some surprise figures—Hawthorn player Ambrose Jakoby and former player Daniel Egan.”
The camera zoomed out to find Ambrose leaning on his crutches and Daniel standing beside him. Next to the commentator, they looked big and fit.
“So tell me, Bro-Jak, who do you think has the upper hand in the game at the moment?”
For a moment Ambrose clenched his jaw. Then he put on his genial smile and answered pleasantly. “The scoreboard obviously shows Geelong in charge of the game, but as you would know, the scoreboard doesn’t always show the full picture. Fremantle still have half the game to play, and with the hometown advantage, things could change really rapidly.”
I laughed at his nonanswer.
The commentator shoved the microphone Dan’s way, and Dan grinned his trademark devilish grin and was happy to take the stage. He mentioned Fremantle’s strong back line that Geelong couldn’t penetrate and said some stuff about how they needed to move the ball around more. Then he said that Geelong should keep the ball off their opposition and continue to win those center bounces.
There was a little bit more discussion between Dan and the commentators back in the box, but then the conversation turned.
“So, Ambrose. What brings you to the game today? A possible trade to Fremantle? Or are you checking out the opposition?”
No, he was tagging along with the guy he’s recently asked to move in with him.
Ambrose laughed. “No. Nothing so sinister. As you know I’m recovering from my ACL operation, and I’ve come home to spend some time with my family. My mate, Shane, thought it would be a great idea to support the Pride Round, so we’ve put together a party up in the stands.” He pointed to his T-shirt. “Equality’s the way to go.”
There was a huge cheer from my friends, obviously following on with the interview. To my surprise the camera cut to the stands where we were sitting and showed a wide shot of the group, with Vinnie standing and waving his banner and all my friends in their various rainbow uniforms. It was encouraging to hear an echoing cheer from around the stadium.
I waited with bated breath for the interviewer to ask Ambrose why he was supporting marriage equality and hanging around with a bunch of gays. But instead he asked if the operation had been a success and what sort of recovery period he was in for.
Then Dan grabbed the microphone, waved at the camera, and sent a big hello to his wife and daughters back home. They wrapped up the interview soon after, and Vinnie patted my leg.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it? Even though it was my idea to come today, not yours. And that he called you his mate.”
I leveled a stare at him. “No matter what else happens, he is my friend, Vinnie. The friendship comes first and last.”
Vinnie frowned. “It does? For me, the love comes first, and the friendship grows from that.”
I shook my head. “No. For me, the love comes from the friendship we have.”
He smiled. “Then when do you move?”
THE THIRD quarter hadn’t started when Daniel and Ambrose returned. Most of us had taken the opportunity of the break to use the toilets and buy overpriced pies, chips, nachos, and drinks. We were standing in the aisles, loudly debating a new seating arrangement—Liam insisted on sitting behind Jackie, and we all knew that would be a disaster. Jamie was sitting next to me in the third row and placing bets on the proceedings.
“Ten-to-one that Vinnie gets upset when Ben won’t give up his seat next to Aaron.”
“No bet,” I whispered. Ben never let Vinnie boss him around. It was some sort of “older brother versus older brother” thing. Vinnie was the oldest brother in his family, and Ben was the oldest in his family. They often butted heads.
“Twenty-to-one that Sandra manages to avoid Jackie. She sat next to her for a quarter. That’s probably her limit.”
“No bet,” I whispered again. Half a game was a quarter more than any person should have to sit next to Jackie.
“Ten-to-one Tony ends up next to Aaron.”
I wasn’t sure on that one.
“Fifty-to-one that Patrice tries to sit next to Ambrose. I think she fancies him.”
I’ll tear the bitch’s eyes out.
“You reckon?”
“What odds would you give me that Vinnie’s going to start bossing everyone around in the next minute?”
I chuckled. “No bet. You know what he’s like. Organizing is his forte.”
Vinnie managed to maneuver Liam so he was at the opposite end of the row from Jackie, Tony scored the seat next to Aaron, and Vinnie got pissy when Ben refused to give up the seat on the other side of Aaron for Vinnie to sit next to his boyfriend.
“Ben, come and sit next to my dad. Tate, you’d better not be flirting with my sister. Hiram, I know Frankie looks scary, but he’ll behave if you promise him some sort of chocolate bar. It worked when he was three. It still works with him now. Lachie, if I see you do that again, I’m telling your grandmother. Oh, hi, Dan. You can sit over there with Kee. I left you a seat. Jamie, you move down here next to Ricky and let Ambrose sit with Shane. Ben, please? I just want to sit next to Aaron for one quarter. Lachie, I saw that and I’m so messaging Nonna. Jamie, move it!”
Jamie heaved a sigh and obediently stood in the aisle so Ambrose could take his place. Instead of sitting one chair over from me, he sat right next to me and placed his thigh over mine so his knee didn’t have to bend. Luckily no one was on the other side of me.
Jamie whined. “I was talking to Shane. Where am I meant to sit now?”
Vinnie heave
d an exasperated sigh. “Since Ben won’t move, you can sit between Ricky and Dad.”
Poor Jamie’s eyes went wide. Sit between two football-mad men for a quarter? “No. Oh my gawd, Vin. What are you trying to do to me?”
“Shuddup and sit down.”
“I wanted to sit next to Shane.” Jamie gestured toward me and pointed. “Why does Ambrose get to sit next to Shane? Why can’t—” He broke off suddenly, and his gaze flew to mine. Then he flicked his eyes over to Ambrose, sitting next to me, and back. He widened his eyes dramatically.
“Oh. My. Gawd.” His hands went up to his cheeks. I felt myself getting red. “Oh. My. Gawd,” he said again. He wasn’t shouting it, and I don’t think anyone was paying him much attention, but Vinnie poked him in the ribs and whispered something.
Jamie’s eyes got even wider, and then he scrambled over Liam and Ricky to sit in the spare seat. I wanted to hide under my chair. With Jamie in his place, Vinnie grumbled something and went to take the only spare seat—the other side of Ambrose, but Ben stood up and said loudly, “Here, Vinnie. Why are you sitting up there? You should sit down here next to your boyfriend. I don’t mind sitting next to Bro-Jak.”
I bit my tongue as Vinnie muttered something about Ben needing a swift kick, but he stood and swapped seats.
We all settled down to watch the game, and Jamie didn’t once complain about his position.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
TRACY INSISTED on Daniel coming over for a meal, so I drove us there with only a brief warning to him as we got out of the car.
“Our mums don’t know anything about us. Okay?”
He didn’t appear shocked at the news.
Tracy welcomed Ambrose back “home” as if he’d been gone for a month, not eight days. My mother was already tucked into a chair at the kitchen counter with a glass of white wine in front of her. I’d had the whole day to ponder the “did my father help buy my house” scenario and was still unsure what I was going to do about it.