Tigerland

by Sean Kennedy

  Well, that was an exaggeration. I am Eeyore, after all. I could imagine much worse.

  Trying to distract me, Declan leaned in and kissed me, his laugh bouncing against my skin. Glad that he was out of his funk, I decided to get out of mine. Dec moaned with approval as I set our beers down, all the while still kissing him, and began to steer him towards the bedroom.

  “What about your work?” he said, his voice thick with desire.

  “Fuck work.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty. At least, your version of dirty talk.”

  “Doesn’t my dirty talk sound a lot like my normal talk?”

  “Funny that.”

  Maybe we were trying to prove something to one another. Or to ourselves. But the thing was, we had nothing to prove or justify. As usual, we were holding onto each other while the world seemed to go crazy around us.

  It had worked for us before. And it would keep on doing so.

  DEC and I were in a weird sort of limbo when I left to go to work the next morning. Things were fine between us, but there was an unspoken rule that Greg Heyward was not going to be mentioned in any way—at least not until we knew whether he was the one holding the press conference later in the afternoon.

  As soon as I stepped out of the lift onto the third floor that housed our production offices, I could tell there was something in the air. In fact, it seemed to be buzzing. The research assistants had already drawn up on the large whiteboard their most likely suspects for outing. Most were plausible—some were just wishful thinking, like the popular pinup boy of the moment, Trent Mars. Someone had even written Dec’s name down for a laugh, with a question mark beside it. When I walked in, one of the younger assistants who was actually on prac from RMIT jumped up and rubbed it out hurriedly, blushing the whole time. I gave a small smile so I wouldn’t be thought of as the big bad boss. Even after almost two years working here, I still tried to be the boss that was a friend, often with disastrous results when I had to be the boss that chucks a shit because work needs to be done. I knew a boss could never really be a friend, but I kept thinking I could be the one to break that rule and actually succeed at it.

  So I fled to the safety of my office.

  It didn’t take long for me to be found. Coby threw open the door, bearing coffee.

  “Good,” I said. “Give it.”

  “Hello to you too, sir,” he replied.

  I grunted as I took my first sip. Coby did make good coffee. It was one of the first things that made me start warming to him, in the early days when I held a grudge against everybody for not being Nyssa. “They all look busy out there.”

  Coby stared out into the room beyond my glass wall. “You know what they’re like. This is gossip just as much as it is news.”

  I grunted again, more unhappily. “Not for some of us. I wish it was just gossip I could lap up without it being so close to home.”

  “How’s Declan?” Coby asked.

  I glared at him over the rim of my mug. “Are you looking for a quote, or asking as a friend?”

  “Jesus, Simon! How can you ask that?”

  I unsuccessfully tried to raise an eyebrow. The gist of what I meant wasn’t lost on him. I guess it was my turn to start throwing around accusations without any basis in fact.

  “As a friend!”

  Poor Coby. I always seemed to make his life more difficult. As Nyssa’s replacement, he had spent a long time living under her shadow. He had been painfully aware at the time that, to me, he was a poor man’s replacement of my friend.

  Coby knew that Nyssa’s absence in my life was still a sore spot, no matter how much time had passed—I missed her as a friend and a workmate. He had pretty big feet, but he would forever be trying to cram them into Nyssa’s shoes.

  “No comment,” I said, just to harass him.

  “You can be such an arsehole.”

  “Can be?”

  “Fine, always. And believe me, it doesn’t surprise me.” Nyssa had made sure to fill him in on all my quirks, but sometimes I could still go too far. Like now.

  “Dec’s just waiting to find out who it is,” I said. “Confirmation. Then he can worry.”

  “Does he have something to worry about?”

  “Would you want an ex of yours to start spilling details about your relationship to the press?”

  Coby actually shuddered.

  “There you go.”

  “Point taken. So, will you be nicer to me if I get you a pineapple donut to go with your coffee?”

  “My temperament may improve.” As he left, I yelled after him, “Slightly!”

  Pulling out my mobile as I unpacked my bag I noticed Dec had called, but I wouldn’t have heard it over the car stereo. I did like keeping the volume at maximum to cover my atrocious singing voice.

  He picked up almost immediately when I rang him. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. What’s up?”

  “I know I should have told you this before you left the house, face to face.”

  Ugh, this didn’t sound good. “Uh, sure, continue.”

  Yes, I sounded strangely formal. Could you blame me?

  “I’m really nervous. I guess more anxious than anything. You know, if it is him.”

  I sat down heavily in my chair. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting him to say, but I was expecting it to be worse. “You should have told me.”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to do it over the phone.”

  “What exactly are you worried about?”

  There was a long pause. “I’m not sure. Everything?”

  Uncertain Dec was a worrisome Dec to me. It meant he was totally floundering. “Come here and meet me.”

  “I have a production meeting at ten.”

  “After it, then.”

  “I don’t want everyone in your office watching me for a reaction.”

  “They won’t,” I said, staring out at my colleagues as they ran around in eager expectation of the afternoon’s press conference. They probably would, so I added, “I’ll get Abe to beat them up if they do.”

  “Very funny.” I could hear him thinking over the phone. “Actually, I will bring him.”

  “I was joking!”

  “No, it’ll be good. It’ll prove to him that I’m not holding a grudge.”

  I wasn’t sure if this was the right situation to try and kill two birds with one stone, but I shrugged it off. Dec needed support this afternoon, and apparently mine alone wouldn’t suffice. The more of us, the better—why not make it a party?

  “See you at one,” Dec said.

  “Cool,” I replied, sounding breezier than I felt.

  I repeated it to myself after Dec hung up, the word sounding foreign on my tongue and lingering in the air like stale cigarette smoke.

  I HAD sent one of our reporters and a camera team off to the press conference, and was on the phone getting an update of the setup when Dec arrived. Not only was Abe with him—so was Lisa.

  “She was already with him,” Dec whispered to me as he passed by me into my office, knowing that I was probably desperate for an explanation.

  “Hi, Lisa,” I said sweetly. She kissed me on the cheek as she followed Dec in. Abe was hanging back a little, his hands shoved deep within the pockets of his jeans. “Oh, hey, it’s Cassius Clay.”

  “Don’t,” Abe implored. “I’m really, really sorry. Really.”

  “You probably should have added another ‘really’,” Lisa said.

  “Do you know what says sorry like nothing else?” I asked Abe. “A bouquet of beer.”

  I was caught up in a hug that I think encompassed both affection and apology. “It’s a deal.”

  “I don’t think the punishment is fitting the crime,” Lisa said, her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.

  “Come on, Lisa,” Dec said.

  “Oh, it’s such a stupid man thing.” She kicked off her shoes and sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her. “Violence being forgiven with
a back slap and a ‘she’ll be right, mate’.”

  “I think it was actually a hug and some promised beer,” I pointed out. “I’m not sure what Dec’s getting.” I turned to him. “What are you getting?”

  He shrugged. “Some of your beer?”

  I sat next to Lisa. “Now you see, that’s not fair. I was the one who suffered.”

  My phone rang again, and I left them to continue the charade of “everything is just like normal between all four of us” that had me perplexed and overeager to return to work. Which in itself was a concern—like, I mean, really, who wants to do their job when they have friends to stuff around with instead? Not that this was the kind of occasion that called for “stuffing around.”

  After all, I couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of déjà vu—waiting for this press conference to unfold was just like Declan’s big day four years ago. I had that same heavy feeling in my gut, and I missed Nyssa. She had been there that day to try and keep me sane—but the one person who should have been the best at it was making me feel even more on edge. Declan looked calm sitting across from me in my office, flanked by Lisa and Abe, but I knew he wasn’t. I didn’t know exactly what his reaction would be—in the past Declan had shown himself to be very good at closing himself up, running away, and hiding out when things went bad. He hadn’t been like that in years, but I was scared of a possible relapse. In effect I was hoping that the press conference would be about anybody other than Greg Heyward.

  A terse conversation with my team at the press conference, Rita and Hamas, about their set-up was cut short by it starting. Hamas terminated the call without a good-bye, already focused on his work; I turned on the television, and everybody else’s attention was instantly captivated, their disjointed small talk stopping midsentence for Abe. Looking out my office window, I could see my colleagues gathering around the television in the laughable area that passed for our lunch room. My attention back on the screen, I watched the small form of player manager Darren Fiord taking the stage in front of the packed press gallery.

  I didn’t want to be here. And we all knew at that moment that the player about to be revealed was sure to be Greg Heyward. Fiord was his manager. It would be a massive coincidence if it was anybody else. I sneaked a look at Dec—he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. Good times, good times.

  A collective sigh of surprise arose from the press gallery as Heyward emerged from behind the blue curtain and took a seat next to his manager, although the possibility of it being him must have already crossed a fair few minds there.

  I couldn’t help myself—thoughts of him and Dec together sprang to mind straight away. It wasn’t like I hadn’t idly wondered about it before, especially when I first found out they had been together. But now a movie montage of their “special” moments, recreated especially for me, played on the torture screen of my mind. Dec, my Dec—as much as anyone could belong to somebody else—naked and sweaty, their two perfect athletic bodies as they were in their prime, Dec writhing in pleasure with Heyward below him, on top of him, behind—

  If I could have picked up a hammer and smashed the television right then, I would have. Or if I couldn’t destroy an innocent telly, perhaps I would bash in my own skull instead. Or maybe I would have marched down to the television studios at the Docklands and appeared at the presser like a deranged slasher movie villain, inflamed with fury to take out my next victim.

  Now that would be a coming out party, even though my alleged pacifism would prevent me from murdering my boyfriend’s ex and a room full of journalists. No, that would be the old Simon Murray. The new and more mature model would grit his teeth and not allow this to get to him.

  Much.

  Even now I can’t really remember what Heyward said in his grand coming out speech. Fran would later tell me that he seemed to have plagiarised quite a bit of Dec’s. I think her exact wording of it was “Copy and paste, then find and replace with the appropriate names.” But she may have been a bit biased for our side. Roger just got a panicked look in his eyes when I glanced his way for confirmation or denial, and disappeared to make coffee.

  Even though the footage from that presser would be run on various news programs and morning shows, and be watched by huge numbers on social networking sites, I just let myself blank out at that moment. It was undoubtedly some stupid self-defence mechanism that I employed, because it was repeated ad nauseam for the next week at least, but I couldn’t recall a single word of it. For all I know he could have been announcing his mission to climb the Himalayas and finally prove the existence of the Yeti.

  I would have preferred that. Especially if the Yeti ate him.

  But right at that moment, I only hoped that I projected an outer sense of calm so Dec didn’t have to worry about my negative reaction. That really shouldn’t have been a major concern, because even with the four of us crowded into my office, all I was thinking about was Dec and how he would be taking it.

  “Well….” I remember Lisa saying, desperate to break the silence, but trailing off before she could think of anything else to add.

  I switched off the TV so we didn’t have to hear the inane analysis afterwards by the reporter. Nobody objected.

  Dec cleared his throat, and we all self-consciously found ourselves leaning in towards him, wanting to know what his reaction would be. Instead, we were interrupted by his mobile going off. Dec stared at it for a moment. “Silent number,” he said.

  “Someone from the media,” Abe guessed. I knew he was right.

  “It didn’t take them long.” Dec shrugged.

  “They probably just want a general sound bite from you,” Lisa said. “All they know is that you’re the only other out footy player. All they’re thinking at the moment is you’re the expert, and they want an expert opinion.”

  Dec grunted to himself, staring at a stain on the floor that was a remnant from a glass of red spilled at an office party.

  Abe latched onto her comment, trying to set Dec’s mind at ease. “Yeah, they probably don’t even know that you two were together.”

  Mission: Failed.

  Dec caught my eye, wanting me to say something.

  “You’re the highest profile gay player in the league, even if you’re retired,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “Of course they want to know your thoughts. But you just tell them you’ve got an exclusive with CTV, and you can’t give a statement.”

  That got a smile out of him, and I was glad that my feeble attempt at a joke worked. His manager would be apoplectic if he knew he was giving away exclusives to a crappy community station, even if his partner worked for it.

  The smile faded when his phone rang again.

  “Turn it off,” I told him.

  As he did so, mine started ringing. I looked at Dec, and he signalled that I should take it. I hated doing so, but I did have a job to do. Being a responsible adult sucked, especially when it made you feel like you were letting your partner down.

  Rita and Hamas informed me they were on their way back to our building, and no sooner had I hung up than Coby approached me, although a trifle warily.

  “How is everything?”

  “Super!” I replied.

  Coby stared over my shoulder into my office. “Uh, any chance we could get an interview with Declan?”

  I didn’t even say anything. He could tell by my eyes that he should back away fast. Oh, and that was probably helped by the fact that I growled and invaded his personal space in one quick step.

  The door to my office opened, and Dec stepped out behind me. “Sound only,” he said, in the tone he reserved for professional settings—especially in his role as Mr. Football Commentator. “We can discuss a follow up with vision later.”

  Coby escaped to grab equipment before I could put a stop to it.

  “How did you know that was what he wanted?” I demanded.

  “I work in media too, you know.”

  I pulled him down the hall into an alcove. It didn’t offer much pri
vacy, as my colleagues were trying to stare at us without being too obvious, and my office still had Abe and Lisa ensconced in it (and frig knew what they were saying to each other). “You don’t have to do this,” I said, holding him by the shoulder.

  He shrugged my hand off and held it between us. “I’m doing it for you.”

  “I don’t want you to do it for me.”

  “I know. But I want to do it for you.”

  “This would sound better in a much different context.”

  Another laugh from him—I was on fire today. “Like I said, sound only. That’s all I can cope with at the moment. I know I’m going to have do more—a hell of a lot more, and with lots of other media than you guys—but I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Scarlett O’Hara.” I gave him a quick kiss. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  He pulled me back in to him and kissed me again—slower, deeper, longer, with a slight taste of worry and a need for comfort. I hugged him tight, and even though I knew the whole office was watching, I didn’t let go for a long time.

  IN THE end, Dec released a brief, congratulatory statement through CTV, praising Heywood for both his time on the field and his potential to become a role model for the LGBTQ community. It went viral within an hour, with all the news stations and websites picking it up—which also got us some great publicity for CTV, and some snide commentary about the obvious nepotism involved in gaining the exclusive that everybody else in the industry would have killed for.

  Declan left not long after recording his piece, with Abe and Lisa in tow. When I got home later that night, he was alone and on our balcony. A couple of empty beer bottles sat next to him, and I shoved them aside to climb on the banana lounge and rest my head on his shoulder.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  He swigged down what was left in the beer he was holding, and I heard it clink as he set it down. “Fine. What exactly do you think is going on with Abe and Lisa?”

  His attempt to steer the conversation away from himself was transparent, but I thought I’d play along for the moment. “You got me. You hung out with them today. What do you think?”