Tigers on the Run

by Sean Kennedy

  “You’re no John Lennon,” Abe agreed.

  “You’re not even a John Mayer,” Fran said. “And nobody wants to be John Mayer.”

  I sniffed. “My genius is unappreciated here.”

  “I appreciate it,” Dec said.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “He always went for the underdog,” Abe told me.

  “Well, lucky for me,” I said.

  HOURS LATER, with Abe and Lisa back in their own apartment and Fran and Roger flaked out in our spare bedroom, Declan emerged from our en suite clad only in his boxers. They slid off his hips tantalisingly, threatening to fall completely as he crawled into bed beside me.

  Lucky me, indeed.

  He propped his head on his elbow, which dug into my chest.

  “Ow,” I said. “Are you right?”

  “Get off your phone.”

  I guiltily closed my game of Jewels and put it down as he continued staring at me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Y’know, I think it’s too warm for you to wear a T-shirt tonight.”

  “Actually, it’s a bit cool—”

  “Simon,” he chided, “you’re being seduced.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Try and act like you’d like it.”

  “I always like it.”

  His warm hands slid under my T-shirt and pulled it up over my head. “That’s much better.”

  It thrilled me a little when he threw it into the corner of the room and it landed clumsily. No laborious folding and having to be neat tonight! Dec nuzzled into my shoulder, the palms of his hands rubbing my chest.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Are you really asking that? What do you think I’m doing?” He arched up and lightly bit my earlobe.

  “Playing with fire,” I said.

  “Am I going to get burnt?”

  I burst out laughing. “You are so fucking drunk.”

  “I think you’ll be surprised by how much I’m not.” He slid his leg between mine and I could feel him pressing up against my thigh.

  “Holy hell,” I squeaked.

  He stopped me with a kiss, and I curled myself into him, letting him know I was just as responsive even though it was with much trepidation.

  “This is going too far. We can’t do anything, Fran and Roger are in the next room!”

  “That didn’t stop us that time we went to Sorrento.”

  “We were drunk, and I could hardly look them in the eye the next morning!”

  “You survived,” he said, peppering my chest with kisses. “Besides, you just accused me of being drunk. I’ll stop if you want me to.”

  “Dec,” I moaned.

  “I like that. Say it again,” he laughed. Now his hands were wandering south. His warm, gentle hands.

  My next words weren’t even words, and Dec laughed even more.

  “YOU’RE GOING to be a great dad,” Dec’s voice came out of the dark. His hand idly stroked my thigh.

  “I hate to break it to you, Dec, but neither of us can get pregnant, even after those shenanigans.”

  “Stop being snarky for two seconds.” It seemed like the poor boy was forever having to say that. He rolled over to face me and, with an affectionate look, gently stroked my cheek. It was such a personal gesture it made it hard to keep eye contact.

  “Only two, deal.”

  He thumped his head against my shoulder, and kept it there. “I heard what Lisa said.”

  “You and Fran have the most extraordinary hearing.”

  “Fran heard it?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  I was almost about to doze off when I heard Dec again. “Si?”

  It was so rare that he used a shortened version of my name that I jerked awake. “Yeah?”

  “I mean it. You’ll be a great dad. Lisa… she’s just saying back to you what she thinks you want to hear. You say it all the time. Sometimes you even fool your friends. But they all think it. They’ve seen you in action. They know you’re not tough—it’s all a front.”

  “It bloody well isn’t,” I protested, and laid a kiss on the top of his head. “At least, not with you.”

  “You’re my world, Simon Murray.”

  “You are drunk.”

  He laughed. “Still, a little. But when I am, I can get away with saying things like that to you without you being dopey.”

  I could feel him slipping away into sleep. “You’re my world, too,” I whispered.

  “I heard that,” he said. “Score!”

  And four seconds later he was snoring.

  “I’M THE worst daddy in the world,” Roger said as he stumbled out of the spare room, barely covering his shame. He obviously wore short shorts to bed.

  “I know I said you were good-looking last night,” I said, my mouth full of vegemite toast, “but at least put a shirt on.”

  Roger stroked his chest. “You like?”

  “No, ugh, go away.”

  He moved closer. “Seriously, you like? You can’t resist, huh? Protesting too much?”

  “If I wanted to psych you out, I’d so kiss you right now.”

  “Wouldn’t work.”

  “What about this?” I threw down my toast and bounded over to him.

  Roger screamed as I twisted his nipple.

  Fran and Dec rushed in to find Roger holding his man boob (which I’m exaggerating; Roger actually had a very acceptable chest for someone I was not at all attracted to, least of which because he was my brother from another mother) and wincing.

  “Play nice, boys,” Dec said. “Or else it’s twenty laps.”

  Fran stared at us. “I always knew I would eventually lose him to you.”

  “As if,” Roger said.

  “This is the father of my children,” Fran told Declan.

  Declan looked at me. “This is… the….”

  “Keeper of your heart?” I suggested.

  “I was going to say more like the keeper of my PIN numbers, because I can never remember them.”

  “That’s not what you were saying last night,” I mumbled.

  “What was he saying last night?” Roger asked.

  “He said I was his world,” I said, not even bothering to disguise the smugness of my tone.

  “Oh, please,” Fran said. “Like Dec would be that cheesy.”

  How little they knew. Dec gave me a secret smile above the top of his mug, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Careful, they’ll fall out,” he said.

  “Then you can be the keeper of them.”

  “I’d be honoured.”

  A mobile rang out, and everybody scrambled to see if was theirs.

  “Oh, crap,” I said, as I saw Coby’s face upon my screen.

  “He’s obviously trying,” Dec said.

  “He is trying,” I said, using a nice bit of literary humour through homonym. “I just don’t feel like talking to him. Can’t I go one day without having to talk about Jasper Brunswick?”

  “You couldn’t even get through one night,” Fran reminded me.

  I gave her the finger.

  “Answer it,” Dec said.

  “Later.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m a grown man who can make his own decisions. And I choose not to answer the phone right now.”

  Dec sighed, and moved into the kitchen to rinse his mug.

  Fran gave me the thumbs up. “Nice adult decision-making.”

  “Don’t you have some babies to go and look after?”

  “I don’t know how you put up with him,” Fran told Dec.

  “Because he’s a good and loyal friend,” said Roger.

  “You look really good without your shirt on,” I said. He deserved a compliment after that.

  “I know,” he said with an entirely self-satisfied smile. “But thanks for saying so.” He looked at Fran. “It’s nice to hear that kind of thing every now and again.”

  Fran shook her long-suffering head; Dec tried to hide his
grin.

  SATURDAY AFTERNOONS meant Dec usually worked, either commentating a game for the TV broadcast, or working in some capacity with GetOut. Sometimes I tagged along to the latter, but not today as I felt there was work I had to do.

  That work mainly involved staring at my phone and trying to decide whether to call Coby or not.

  When I finally did, it went to voice mail. I can’t say I was disappointed. Playing phone tag could make this drag out for far longer than I hoped.

  It wasn’t that I was trying to punish Coby—a good night’s sleep had helped me realise that there was nothing I could do about the whole situation except make it worse. And I liked to think that I was far more mature now and past all that shit, especially when it came to Jasper Brunswick. I should take Declan’s lead and go forth with dignity and strength.

  No matter how much it fucking annoyed me.

  The real reason I was avoiding Coby was because I dreaded just having to talk about it. It was out in the open now, there was no going back; did we have to endlessly debate it? It seemed unnecessary, and quite frankly, boring.

  But he shouldn’t expect an open invitation to dinner anytime soon. I’m not that forgiving. The thought of Jasper Brunswick in my home—my sacred space with Dec—was too much to contemplate.

  In our home—amongst all our things—it would be the perfect opportunity—

  I hurriedly texted Dec.

  Maybe this is some elaborate scam dreamed up by JB in conjunction with Heyward again. Think of all the stuff he would have access to through Coby about us. Enough for a sequel to that crappy book they wrote together.

  Dec’s response was faster than I anticipated. The poor guy was probably shaking his head, wondering if there was any peace from me.

  I doubt it.

  That was it? Dec was taciturn at the best of times, but this was brief, even for him.

  The only flaw in the plan, I typed, is that they had to rely upon Coby falling for JB in the first place.

  It took a little longer for Dec to respond. I think you just have to face it—they like each other. Build a bridge.

  Build a bridge? Build a bridge? I was sick of that phrase, especially as I was apparently more well-known for chucking Jasper Brunswick off them! I was about to type that when Declan responded:

  Just don’t throw Jasper off it.

  I smiled; damn that man. He knew me like no other.

  I DIDN’T hear from Coby for the rest of the weekend, but that only made Monday loom ahead like a dangerous curve on a wet highway. On a moonless night. With an easily destructible barrier leading to the edge of a cliff.

  “Be good,” Declan pleaded, seeing me off with a kiss at our door.

  “I always am.”

  He made a noise not unlike a disapproving Marge Simpson as I waved good-bye.

  As I rode the tram down Collins Street, I mulled over the possible receptions I might get from Coby once we saw each other. He could be frosty when he wanted to be, and he knew how to make communication between a boss and his assistant perfunctory and civil while undercutting it with a healthy dose of self-perceived moral superiority. It was all very tiring. It was so Coby!

  There was a coffee and a pineapple donut sitting on my desk. Coby was nowhere to be seen. I approached it with some trepidation, like Brad Pitt with the Gwyneth Paltrow gift box in Se7en.

  It all looked normal.

  Removing the cup lid, I sniffed at the contents. No bitter smell of almonds, so I was at least safe on the cyanide front. The pineapple donut smelled of fake chemical pineapple, so all was good there.

  “If I was going to kill you, I’d at least try to make it look like an accident,” I heard Coby say behind me.

  “And I’m sure you’d be able to sweet-talk a judge into believing you accidentally poured garden fertiliser or something into my coffee. The daddies always did like you.”

  “Is that a dig at Jon?”

  “Who’s Jon?”

  “You know who fucking Jon is!”

  “Fucking Jon is you,” I said, Yoda-like.

  “Is this the way it’s going to be from now on?”

  “Depends how much he’s going to be hanging around here.”

  “I think I liked it better when you were quiet and all business. If this is what working here will be like from now on, then maybe I should just quit.”

  He would quit? Over Jasper Brunswick?

  He took my silence as assent. “Oh. Well. I guess I should start looking for a new job.”

  As much as there was an evil part of me that wanted to continue this, I broke the donut in half and offered it to him. “Pour vous.”

  “Because I’ll need sustenance in my job hunt?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not going anywhere, you drama queen.”

  “It was you who said something about the pot and kettle last time, right, boss?”

  I waggled the donut at him again. “Pour vous, mon petit complet débile.”

  “I’m not sure what you were saying there, but I’m sure it was nasty,” he said, taking the half donut from me. “And, really, I paid for the fucking thing anyway, so it’s not like you’re being nice. You’re giving me back half of a thing I bought the whole thing of.”

  “It’s a gesture!” I said, my mouth full of donut.

  “You could have made a grander one.”

  “You want a grand gesture?” I asked.

  “Something better than a donut,” he said.

  “Okay. We’re knocking off at four.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No. Just wait and see.”

  Of course, I had absolutely no idea what we were going to do.

  “WHERE AM I? I’m at work!” I yelled into my mobile.

  I had to dig my finger into my other ear to hear Dec properly. “You are not! Which bar are you at?”

  Sprung. It wasn’t like I could have kept up the pretence for much longer. “The Lounge. They have some really shit music playing. I brought Coby here.”

  “So things are okay between you two, then?”

  I looked over at Coby, who was standing at the bar and engaged in conversation with a dark-haired beauty (as far as I could see, from behind). “For now. As long as we don’t say the ‘J’ word, we’re fine.”

  “It’ll have to come up sooner or later.”

  “Eww, don’t tell me about their sex life.”

  “I—wasn’t! Now you’ve grossed me out.”

  “I like to think of Jasper Brunswick as a Ken doll, except in no way pretty, and like Ken he just has a mound down there that does nothing at all.”

  “You’ve thought about Jasper’s genitalia? You’re disturbed, Simon.”

  “Anyway, that whole Jasper thing may not be a problem for much longer.”

  “It won’t?”

  “No, I think I’m in the process of getting Coby a new boyfriend.”

  “Simon, stop right there, this is the stupidest idea—”

  “Gotta go! Love you!” I said, hanging up.

  My mobile immediately rang again, but I switched it to silent and made my way over to Coby and his faceless companion. Coby had thought him cute from the moment he sighted him; I still hadn’t seen him properly.

  “Where’s my drink?” I demanded. “And who’s your friend?”

  The guy in question turned around, and we both had equal expressions of horror on our faces.

  “Coby!” I cried, grabbing his arm and pulling him away. “Get away from the underage boy!”

  “Yell that a little louder, will ya?” The boy in question scowled at me.

  Coby actually jumped back. “What?”

  “He’s just turned seventeen!”

  “What?” he repeated stupidly.

  Micah Johnson glared at me. “Hey, arsehole! Do you want to get me kicked out and lose my fake ID?”

  “Forget the drinks,” I grumbled. “The night’s over.”

  Coby was too stunned to protest, but it didn’t matter as Micah was doing enou
gh of it for him.

  “You can’t do this!”

  I pushed him along the corridor, heading for the stairs. “Do you want me to turn you over to the bouncers? Or do you want to come quietly?”

  “You have watched way too many cop shows,” Micah said.

  Maybe I had. But at least they had prepared me for dealing with a juvenile delinquent.

  So I called my boyfriend.

  “I WAS flirting with a sixteen-year-old,” Coby groaned.

  “I’m seventeen,” Micah reminded him. “And legal.”

  “Barely!”

  “And you’re definitely not legal for drinking,” I reminded him, and turned to Coby. “It’s not like you were going to do anything with him, right? I mean, aren’t you dangerously in love with Jasper Brunswick?”

  “Oh, you just have to start in on that now!” Coby said, folding his arms.

  “I’m not starting anything. Well?”

  “Have I walked in on a lover’s tiff?” Micah asked. “Because I can leave.”

  “You stay right there!” I grabbed him by the shirtsleeve and resisted the urge to cuff him over the ear. “You’re waiting for Declan to pick you up!”

  “You wait till your father gets here!” Coby mimicked.

  “You’re not helping,” I told him.

  “Look, he was just some dude I thought was cute,” Micah said. “I didn’t know I was stepping on your turf.”

  “He’s not my turf!”

  “He certainly isn’t mine,” Coby sniffed.

  “Coby’s taken by a regular Prince Charming,” I said.

  “He wasn’t acting like he had a Prince Charming,” Micah continued over Coby’s protestations.

  “Well, that’s because Jasper Brunswick really isn’t one.”

  “Jasper Brunswick?” Micah asked, before Coby could retaliate.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That dickhead who keeps writing stuff about me?”

  “He’s not a dickhead.” Coby was itching for a fight.

  “Eh, potayto, potahto,” I said.

  “I’m warning you,” Coby hissed.

  “Calm down, ladies!”

  “Shut up, you little shit.” I turned to Coby. “He’s trying to set us off against each other. Oldest trick in the book.” I turned back to Micah. “Don’t forget, I know you.”