Chapter 23
THE ABC was quick to sign us on; we were scheduled to attend a taping the very next week.
“Now we’re doing media,” I told Declan, “you have to meet my parents.”
He laughed at the expression on my face.
“I’m serious. As much as the thought of it scares the shit out of me, if they see us doing publicity and they haven’t had the opportunity to slobber all over you they’ll probably kill me.”
“Well, I can’t have you being killed.” Declan grinned. “But do you have to try and scare me so much before I do it?”
“I’m just trying to prepare you,” I reassured him.
Tim had been trying to get a hold of me for over a week. Well, in his own Tim-ish way. Which meant he tried once a day, while I was at work, and then sounded surprised on the machine every time he had to leave a message. It didn’t occur to him to try my mobile or get my work number from my mother. When I finally did speak to him, I could hear the awe in his voice as he tried to accept that his weird wanker of a brother was going out with Declan Tyler™, who was a Gay Footballer Celebrity™ now.
“So, he’s really a fruit?” he asked.
“A tropical one,” I said, having promised my mother I wouldn’t be too harsh on the dickhead.
“One of what?”
I sighed. “Fruit. A banana maybe?”
“Are you on drugs?”
“No, but I thought you were.”
“Funny. No, seriously—”
“Well, he’s either gay or really good at pretending he is.”
“Gross. I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”
“And I don’t want you to hear about my sex life.”
“Glad that’s sorted, then. So, he’s really gay?”
I sighed heavily for his benefit.
Tim finally got the hint. “Anyway, I’m having a party this weekend.”
“Really?” The hairs on my neck began to rise. Tim had never gone out of his way to invite me specifically to any of his parties before.
“Yeah. It’s my engagement party.”
“Don’t you mean our engagement party?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “You’re not engaged.”
“Dickhead. I meant, it’s not just your… oh, forget it.”
“Anyway, are you coming?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound happier than I felt about it. “Can I bring Roger and Fran?”
“Yeah, okay,” he paused slightly. “But aren’t you going to bring him?”
I played dumb. “I asked if I could bring Roger.”
“Declan Tyler!”
“Oh, him! Do you want me to?”
“Well, he’s your boyfriend or your partner or whatever is it you call them these days, isn’t he?” That’s Tim, sensitive to the last drop.
“I’m not bringing him just so you can show him off to your mates.”
“Fine.”
I knew all this would get back to my mother, and I didn’t want the lecture which would result from it. Besides, it would be a public setting, Fran and Roger would be there for support, and we would only have to make an obligatory appearance for Dec to meet the family.
“I’ll ask him,” I said. Famous last words.
“Cool,” Tim said nonchalantly, although I knew he would be bragging about the celebrity coming to his party to all his friends the second it was confirmed, if not before. I hung up after exchanging good-byes and thumped my head against the wall.
IT SEEMED my house was at peace again. The camp of journalists had been absent for a few days, although they still called from time to time hoping to get some comment from me. They were starting to sniff out Declan was signing up for interviews and wanted to get in on the action. Dale Watson, however, was still acting as Neighbourhood Watch and making sure to glare at me whenever our paths crossed.
Dec emerged from the kitchen, carrying fresh drinks. He sat next to me on the couch, and I immediately swung my feet over onto his lap.
“Are you nervous about the interview?” Fran asked.
“Me?” Declan asked. “Not really.”
“Liar,” I challenged him, and he scowled at me.
Roger reached for a beer. “That guy is really good at getting people to open up. He’ll probably make you cry.”
“He will not!” Declan protested.
“I don’t know,” I teased. “You’ve been holding in all your secrets for so long, it’ll probably be like being on a therapist’s couch. That’s why he always has the box of tissues on set.”
Declan groaned and buried his face under a cushion. “This is such a huge mistake.”
“No,” Roger said. “The huge mistake is all of us going to Tim’s engagement party.”
I felt that momentary stab of family loyalty that made me want to lean over and punch Roger. I know I bitched my family out all the time, but I was family. Nobody else was allowed to bitch them out. Even if Roger was the closest thing to family.
Fran not-so-subtly nudged him, and he looked suitably chastened.
“Is it going to be that bad?” Declan asked.
Fran and Roger remained conspicuously silent. I sighed and took a swig of my beer.
“One, it’s my family, who can be trying at the best of times,” I told Declan. “Two, my brother’s friends will be there. Three, so will his fiancée’s family. Gabby, if you remember me telling you, asked me if I was ‘the gay one’. Four—”
“How long is this list?” Declan asked.
I ground my heel a little too savagely into his lap, and he yelped. Fran almost spat her beer across the room.
“Go on,” Declan said through gritted teeth.
“Four,” I continued. “Fuck… now I’ve lost my train of thought.”
“Stick another drink in him and shut him up,” Roger suggested.
“You’re just lucky his feet aren’t in your crotch,” Declan told him. Roger blanched at the thought.
“Four,” I said, ignoring them both. “Putting two and three together, combined with one, probably means that the apocalypse will finally occur, and we will be in the centre of it all. Nothing will save you, Declan Tyler. Which leads me to five.”
“Stop it!” Fran groaned.
“Five,” I said grandly. “Declan Tyler™ will be the focus of everybody’s attention. And even though he wants you there so he can show off his connection to you, my brother will probably end up resenting it if everybody there starts watching your every move. Tim hates not being the centre of attention.”
“It runs in the family,” Roger muttered, and Fran was unable to stop a second explosion.
“There isn’t a six, is there?” Declan asked.
“I’m sure I can think of one.”
“Don’t,” Fran pleaded.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I WAS trying to affect an air of grandiose nonchalance about it all and being pretty unsuccessful at it. As usual, my friends were quick to catch me out on it. Declan had already experienced his first exposure to backlash against his lifestyle through Jess’s father, and although I wasn’t expecting fisticuffs at Tim and Gabby’s engagement party, I wasn’t thinking it was going to be a barrel of laughs either.
Which I guess meant he did love me. He would have to, to put himself out like that. But I guess we were all going outside our comfort zones.
The interview on the ABC went perfectly, actually. The host of the program put Declan at ease and was compassionate, charming, funny, and extremely successful at managing to extract all the details the public was dying to know. Declan and I at times appeared awkward on camera discussing our private lives and our relationship, but this seemed to work for us as the media the next morning were all positive in their reports about the interview. Such is the power of media in being able to deflect the darker side of public opinion, because it meant Declan was still fooling himself slightly thinking it would always be like this.
Buoyed by the success of the interview, Declan agreed to do a couple of more, although I warned him not to overexpose himself. Too much of a glut in the media, and he could fall prey to tall poppy syndrome. He was already in the press enough before he came out, just because of his footballing. When the season started up again there would be double the attention on his return, both because of his playing and his recent revelations.
I didn’t want to be particularly overexposed in the media myself, despite the fact that my bosses would have loved it. I agreed to do one more interview with Dec in the meantime, as part of the Weekend Australian Magazine’s regular “Two of Us” feature, where they profile a couple about their relationship. We wouldn’t be the first gay twosome to be featured, but we were the most “famous.” The photographer made us pose in the stands of the MCG with the field stretching out behind, empty and unyielding. I’m not sure what he was trying to say, but I know Declan was stressing about the pose he wanted us to take, that we should look casual but affectionate, but not affectionate enough to scare the general public off their Saturday breakfast. In the end it was best smiles forward, and our hands firmly clasped between us.
The interview and photo session was practically all we got to see of each other that week. Nyssa and I were at battle stations, for the festival began the week after. Alice Provotna was pissed Declan didn’t seem to be around as much as she expected him to be; I had to remind her repeatedly that Declan didn’t work for the Triple F and he had his own life and job. I could tell on opening night she wouldn’t stray at all from our sides, desperate to capture us on every last frame of film she had in her camera.
Declan was still spending time with his family and shuttling back and forth between them and Etihad as his bosses were still figuring out a game plan for his media blitz and getting his career back on track.
“This operation better fix you,” I threatened him one day. “Otherwise everybody will be blaming me for your decline.”
“I’ll make sure I play well,” he said dryly, “just so you can save face.”
“Thanks.”
“Making you look good is what I live for.”
When Friday came around I was feeling burnt out, even more than usual, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the damned engagement party. What I wanted was to fall asleep on the couch with Declan and wake up to a blissful Saturday morning of breakfast and sex. In any order.
Nyssa was upset the traditional Bog-off-to-the-Pub excursion was cancelled, and could only be mollified when I told her that the rest of us would all be firmly ensconced in the first circle of hell. I told her she could come along if she wanted to, but she was smarter than the rest of us.
“You look exhausted,” Declan told me when I came home and collapsed on the couch.
“Just prop me up if I pass out,” I replied.
He studied me worriedly. “Did you look like this in the lead-up to the festival last year?”
“Probably worse.” I closed my eyes, even though I knew it could mean I would fall asleep within seconds.
I felt the warmth and pressure of Declan’s lips, which was the only thing at that moment of time that could rouse me out of my wannabe coma.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty.” He grinned as I opened my eyes to find him standing over me.
“Funny.”
“Seriously, you were snoring enough to shake the walls.”
“I was asleep?” I jerked into a fully upright position.
“It’s eight o’clock, we’ve got to go and pick up Fran and Roger.”
“What the hell? You let me sleep?”
“I didn’t let you do anything. But you looked like you needed it.”
I pulled him on top of me and began kissing him again. He gently levered me up, even though I tried to resist.
“Wouldn’t it be nicer to stay here?” I asked.
“You know we have to go.”
“I’ll let you do anything to me you want.”
“Nice, prostituting yourself to get out of seeing your family.”
“You’re not tempted?”
“Nope.”
“Liar. Not even a little bit?”
“You have dried drool on your chin,” he said, matter-of-factly. “It’s pretty gross.”
I pushed him away, and he laughed, watching me as I stomped off to the bathroom. I would have preferred to have a shower, but I had to make do with washing the drool off my face and putting on fresh deodorant and cologne. It was only my family, anyway.
Declan was being so cheerfully annoying it wasn’t like I had to make a true Friday night effort for him. Although truthfully, what I was doing now wasn’t that far removed from my usual effort.
“Shame you couldn’t wash that grimace off your face,” he remarked as I walked back into the lounge room.
I threw a cushion at him. He caught it easily and handballed it back to me. I, of course, missed, and it flew into the study.
“Nice,” Declan said. “You’re a natural.”
I headed straight out the door and left Dec to lock up as he continued guffawing at my expense.
THE four of us stood outside my parents’ house like we were about to storm the castle gates, battle-weary as we were.
Music was blasting away, some generic rock I didn’t recognise. Man, was I getting out of touch with the youth of today? Maybe I was, especially if I used phrases like “youth of today.” There was also a lot of yelling over the music, the clinking of beer bottles, and general rabblerousing. The smell of barbecued meat floated about, and Roger’s stomach grumbled in anticipation.
“Do you smell that?” I asked. “It smells like teen spirit.”
“Even Tim’s too old for teen spirit,” Fran said, burrowing herself further into her coat. “Can we go in? I’m fucking freezing.”
“There’s still time to run for our lives,” I pleaded.
“He’s like this before every party,” Roger told Declan.
“Yeah, Simon,” Fran butted in. “Remember that last party we forced you to? Where would you be now if we hadn’t done that?”
“Desperately lonely and unhappy,” Roger answered for me.
“Too right,” Declan said smugly.
“All of you… suck,” I said lamely, and I trudged off ahead of them, probably to my doom.
A few people milling in the hallway stared at me as I walked in, probably trying to figure out which side of the engagement party I belonged to. Like I said, Tim and I didn’t tend to hang out much. But when Roger, Fran and Declan appeared behind me there was an instant look of recognition in their eyes. Well, only in regards to Declan.
We pushed through into the kitchen, where Mum was bossing Gabby and some of her friends around. Mum squealed when she saw me, showing more excitement about my appearance than social etiquette would have normally allowed.
“Hi, Mum,” I said, dealing awkwardly with her exuberant hugging. “You been into the sherry already?”
“Only a nip or two,” she replied, eyes glistening. “Hello, Roger, Fran.”
“Hey, Mrs. M,” they replied in unison.
“And who’s your friend?” she asked me, playing dumb.
Squirming with embarrassment that she was trying to pull that worn ploy off, I replied, “This is my friend, Vincent van Gogh.”
She glowered. “Very funny.”
Declan stepped forward to rescue the situation, his hand extended. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Murray. I’m Declan.”
“Of course you are,” she practically purred. “Let me tell you, Declan, you have your hands full with this one.”
Fran snorted; Roger dug her in the ribs.
“I think I can handle him,” Declan said pleasantly.
This time, Roger snorted and tried to cover it up with a coughing fit when he saw me eyeing the ashtray on the table as if I were going to pick it up and belt him with it.
Gabby and her friends rushed forward now, and I was shoved aside as Declan was surrounded with those wanting to make his acquaintance. Fran and Roger looked horrified and scuttled over to join me just as Mum pulled me into a deeper corner of the kitchen.
“He’s lovely,” she said approvingly.
“Uh, thanks.”
“Really lovely.”
“Um, okay.”
“Have you two—”
“Simon!” Fran interrupted. “Drinks!”
I wanted to kiss her, I was so thankful. “Coming right up!”
Roger began to make small talk with my mother while I crossed to the fridge, opened it, and wondered if I could fit inside. If it weren’t for all the people who would be opening it looking for drinks, it could have been an option.
Mum was distracted by the microwave beeping. “Your brother’s out the back,” she announced as she sailed past me.
I handed Roger and Fran their drinks; Declan was still surrounded so I held onto his.
“Shouldn’t you rescue him?” Roger asked.
“I think he’s used to being accosted on a regular basis,” I replied with a shrug.
“You are the worst boyfriend,” Fran admonished me.
“Yep.” At the moment all I was thinking about was my own skin.
Gabby broke off from the group and ran outside. She hadn’t said hello to me yet. Fran raised her eyebrows and calmly swigged beer from her bottle.
My future sister-in-law ran back in with her fiancé in tow. They swept past me to rejoin the Declan brigade.
“Nice to see you, Tim,” I sang out, receiving no answer.
“Nice,” Roger commented.
I pulled the engagement present the four of us had sprung for out of my bag and placed it upon the kitchen table with the others. With Declan and most of my family preoccupied, I slipped away to my old bedroom to put my bag down and hang my coat up for the brief amount of time we would be staying here.
You couldn’t tell that I had once lived here; I managed to strip away most of my presence and take it with me when I had moved out. It wasn’t that I was trying to cut myself out of the house; I just liked my stuff being with me. The room was now more of a storage area, although an old single bed stood in the corner for anybody who might happen to stay over.
The door opened, and Declan slipped in. “You hiding already?”
“I would have thought you had more reason to hide than anybody else.”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.” He looked around. “This is really your bedroom?”
“My bedroom’s in my house,” I said pointedly.
“You know what I mean. I just can’t really imagine you living here. There seems to be nothing of you left in here.”
“Yeah, because it’s at my house.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. He moved over to me and slid an arm through the crook of mine. “You’re really not comfortable here, are you?”
I sighed and let myself become more malleable against him. “I can handle it.”
“So it’s me you’re so tense about, then?”
I nodded reluctantly. “I just don’t want anybody to be a fuckwit to you.”
“If they are, they are.” He shrugged. “But you can’t give yourself an ulcer stressing about something that hasn’t happened.”
“I guess not.”
“You’re a prime candidate for a heart attack before you’re forty, Simon,” he murmured. “In case you haven’t noticed I’ve had enough worry with my dad, and I don’t want to have to start looking for warning signals in you.”
Great. A guilt trip on top of everything. “You don’t have to worry.”
“But I will, because you will.”
“So I’ll put you in an early grave as well?”
He laughed, but gave me a kiss as an answer. I responded a bit more enthusiastically than I should have, but I guess I wanted to feel reassured.
And, of course, Tim walked in.
“Oh, gross!” he cried and childishly slapped his hands over his eyes. “The goggles, they do nothing!” he said in a heavy Austrian accent, mimicking Radiation Man from The Simpsons.
Dec gave me a sympathetic look.
Tim peeked out between his fingers. “If you’re finished, Declan, I want you to meet some of my friends.”
I would have been tempted to tell him to fuck off after that display, but Declan nodded with much more effort than I would have given.
“Hi, brother,” I said pointedly.
“Yeah, hi,” he said dismissively. “Come on, Declan. Haven’t got all night.”
Now it was my turn to give an apologetic look. But Declan didn’t even have a chance to see it as Tim whisked him away.
I stood in my empty room and slowly gathered up the courage to brave the maelstrom once more.
I BARELY got to see Declan over the next hour. Any attendees of the party would have been hard pressed to believe we were a couple, as we were hardly seen in the same circles. Especially as my circle consisted of Fran and Roger, hiding in a dark corner. It wasn’t like I thought couples should be glued to the hip, but let’s face it, my date was more popular than I was, even amongst people I knew.
Declan’s presence was certainly the talk of the party, but I got my share of unabashed stares and certain whispers as well. At one point when Roger disappeared to get more drinks and Fran followed him to go the loo, I was left standing stupidly in the corner by myself, hoping the shadows hid me well enough. Basically, it was my usual position in any large social situation (unless it was work and I was forced to sally forth in order to earn my pay check), and believe me, it brought back memories of the party where I first met Declan. Once again, I was hiding, and he was in the limelight, uncomfortable in the middle of people who laid claim to him but didn’t know him at all.
A small group of Tim’s friends, who I vaguely recognised, sauntered up to me. The usual small talk pleasantries about the engagement and the party were exchanged, but they soon got around to what they had really wanted to know.
“I know I’ve seen it all over the TV,” one said. “But are you really going out with Declan Tyler?”
It really was that difficult to believe, it seemed.
“If it’s on television, it must be true,” I said, forcefully cheerful.
“Really?” number two asked.
I sighed. “Yep.”
They giggled, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I had the feeling they weren’t secret slashers of RPF let loose from the Internet for a night out.
The guy with them, whose name I hazily remembered as being Brian, eyed me narrowly. “So are you responsible for the fact that his playing’s gone to shit?”
Apparently I was Yoko-freaking-Ono now. “He had his knee injury long before I came along.”
“Are you sure it’s not a groin injury?” girl number one giggled.
I shook my head sadly. She was the dumbest thing on earth. “Yeah, that was funnier last week when they said it on The Footy Show, and even then it wasn’t that funny.”
You would have thought they might have gotten the message after that, but they didn’t. They mustn’t have gotten enough out of the interviews we had done with the media or didn’t think we were asked the pertinent questions.
Girl number two sized me up and asked slowly. “So, you know how Declan is like this really hot, good, footballer player?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard something about it,” I replied, hoping I looked as bored as I sounded.
“And you’re like some guy in theatre or something.”
“Film.”
“Same thing.”
Well, no, not at all. But I let that slide.
“Does that make you, like, the woman?”
You know, you kind of forget every now and again that people can be so dumb. Or if not dumb, just ignorant. And then you get slapped in the face with it, just to remind you. And I know you’re meant to turn the other cheek and try to be the helpful educator or whatever, to let them see in a kind way the utter stupidity that they spew, but it was beyond me tonight.
“Are you for real?” I asked.
“What?” she replied, her eyes wide.
“Seriously, how old are you? You must be the same age, or round about, as my brother, right?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Okay. Then you’re old enough to have gained some life experience by now to know that was the stupidest fucking question you could have asked me. Maybe you should know what you’re talking about before you go shooting your mouth off.” With my cheeks burning and definitely no sense of class, I stormed into the house.
But I could still hear her saying to the others, “Fags can be so bitchy.”
Yeah. We sure can.
Fran was still in the line for the loo, and I pushed through it to get to my room. I put on my coat, grabbed my bag, and left to push back through the line as I made my way out the front of the house. I heard Fran calling after me, but I ignored her. I also ignored Roger as I passed by the kitchen, where he had been waylaid by my mother.
Out on the front lawn, I took a deep breath and ended up inhaling a mouthful of secondhand smoke. I turned around to see my father hiding away and sneaking a cigarette.
“Dad?”
“You caught me,” he admitted.
“Hey, they’re your lungs,” I said.
“I talked to your….” He trailed off, unable to say the word. “Declan. He seems like a good guy.”
It must have killed him to say that about a footy player who wasn’t from Essendon.
“Yeah. He is.”
“He always seemed kind of stuck up in the press and in the games. But he’s not.”
“No. He’s not.”
Dad finally noticed my bag. “Are you going already?”
This was the most we had spoken in quite a while, so I suddenly found myself not that eager to leave. “I was thinking about it.”
“They haven’t served the cake. And either your brother or mother will make some speech that will embarrass us all.”
“All the more reason to leave, then.”
“Why do you think I’m hiding out here?” My father laughed, and began coughing.
I tactfully avoided the smoking lecture, and I could sense he was grateful for it. “So why aren’t your friends leaving with you?” he asked.
“I don’t think they knew I was going. I just had to get out.”
“Why?”
“Some of Tim’s idiot friends.”
“What did they say?” Dad sprang up immediately, ready to go to my defence.
Funny how family can be so funny about something themselves, but if anybody else showed it they got their dander up.
“Nothing, really. I just wasn’t in the mood to hear that crap.”
“You sound rattled. That’s not like you.”
“Well, Declan’s in there and they’re all over him, which is fine. But I’m fair game, so they think they can ask me all the stuff they’re too scared to ask him.”
“Like?”
I sighed. I wasn’t even sure if my dad would understand. “They just asked me if I was the woman.”
My dad was quiet. He cleared his throat. “Are you?”
I couldn’t believe he was doing the exact same thing. My dad was usually gruff, but pretty smart. I would have thought he would know better. “Yes, Dad. I’m the woman. When we go home I hand Declan his pipe and slippers, put on my apron, and bake biscuits for him to take to training the next day.”
“I’m only asking a question,” Dad said, sounding genuinely puzzled.
“And it’s a dumb one. I’m a man, and he’s a man. We’re gay because we like men. Neither of us is ‘the woman’.”
It was the most I had ever said to him about the issue since I had first come out. At least I hadn’t used the word “cock.” But I didn’t get to hear what his response would have been, because Fran came out of the house.
“There you are,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Can you go and get Declan for me?” I asked. “I’m going.”
“Roger’s already doing that,” she replied, wanting to ask me more but being restrained by the presence of my father.
“See ya, Dad,” I said casually.
“Bye, son,” he replied, equally casually.
I began walking down the street to where Declan had parked his car. I knew it would be a few moments before Declan and Roger got out of the house and then say good-bye to my father, as they were infinitely more polite than I. And I found myself thinking of Declan’s father, and how his heart attack had come out of the blue, and how I was a prick to leave while being in a shit with him, because how would I feel if something happened to him? But my eyes stung, and my throat was sore, the usual trademarks of someone upset trying to keep it all in. I leaned against Dec’s SUV and waited for them to join me.
“ARE you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Dec murmured.
We had just dropped Fran and Roger off. I had given Fran a short rundown when she had joined me at the car, but since then I had been pretty quiet.
Declan pulled his shirt over his head, and as usual I couldn’t help but stare, glad that even after months of going out he could still have that effect on me. And be pissed off at myself that when I had this hot, kind, funny, patient, and smart man wanting to be part of my life I could still obsess over people who really shouldn’t even be a blip on my radar.
“Was it the party?” Declan continued, turning down the covers and jumping into bed. “I thought it went pretty well myself.”
I couldn’t help but snort derisively. “Of course it did. For you.”
“What?”
“Everyone was in awe of you. They wouldn’t dare say anything to you.”
Annoyed with the fact that he left his pants and shirt lying on the floor, I scooped them up and put them on top of the chest of drawers—even though I was always guilty of doing the same thing myself.
He scratched at the bottom of his lip. “I take it someone said something to you?”
“Quite a few things.”
“Will you stop doing that and get into bed?”
I threw my clothes on top of his and did so. Declan tried to spoon into me, but I lay rigid.
“What did they say to you?”
“Nothing,” I murmured. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like it that you’re upset about something and you won’t tell me.”
“Just, they got to me, and I hate they did.”
“How did they?”
“By insinuating that because you’re the big footballer man, I must be the woman.”
He breathed deeply and tried unsuccessfully to bring me in closer to him again. “People can be fuckwits.”
“They just don’t get it, I guess.”
“You shouldn’t get upset, Simon.”
“I know I shouldn’t. But I still did. Because of what you do, it’s like you get this free pass.”
“I’m not getting a free pass,” Declan said heavily.
“You know what I mean. See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Simon…,” he murmured.
I finally let myself relax against him.
“You’re my man, Simon.”
“Yeah?”
“You know that, I know that. All the rest can go to hell.”
Calmed, I closed my eyes. Sleep came quickly.
AT SOME point during the night I stirred awake and realised by his breathing that Declan was as well.
“What’s the matter?” I asked groggily.
“Just thinking,” he replied, sounding more alert than me.
“About?”
“Everything.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Well, more specifically about you meeting my siblings, now that I’ve met yours.”
“Should I be worried now?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, they might give you a bit of shit, but they won’t mean anything by it.”
“Then why are you wide awake, thinking about it?”
“Just because.”
I yawned. “Makes sense.” I rolled over to face him and draped my arm over his waist. “Do you ever wish you could swap with them?”
“Swap what?”
“Lives.”
“Like Freaky Friday?”
“The Jodie Foster version, yeah.”
“No. I like my life. Everybody has their problems.”
“Sometimes it seems that others’ problems aren’t as tough.”
“It’s all relative,” Declan replied. “You can’t dismiss someone else’s pain so easily.”
“I guess.”
“Are you telling me you would want to swap lives with Tim?”
I shuddered. “No. But I can’t help but think about it sometimes.”
“You?”
I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to admit the next thing I would say. “It’s just that sometimes I envy Tim.”
“And you don’t think he envies you sometimes?”
“Come off it.”
“Seriously. He’d look at you and see university educated, working in a job with a lot of responsibility, in the media, supporting himself—to him, you’re probably some superconfident guy who gets everything he wants in life. And now you have the hot celebrity boyfriend—”
I shook my head. “Now, seriously, get your hand off it.”
He laughed. “I’m just saying it can go both ways. Why do you envy him?”
I sighed. “Because he knows what he wants, and he never seems to question it. It’s like he’s known all along what he’s destined to do, and he just does it. And now he’s about to get married, and sooner or later they’ll pop out some kids—”
“So it’s the traditional dream you want?”
“No,” I retorted. But I had to be honest. “Maybe. Well, the thought crosses my mind sometimes. Doesn’t it with you?”
“Of course. I always think about the future.”
“But it’s not so easy with us.”
“Which explains probably why you don’t like to think about the future.”
“It’s scary enough dealing with life day to day without taking into consideration the hugeness of the future.”
“There’s nothing to say we can’t have that kind of life. Just it will come differently.”
“How much do you think about it?” I asked.
“As much as anybody else does.”
“The home in the suburbs? The kids?”
“Yeah.”
“With me?”
“No, with the guy I’m going to dump you for.”
I yawned, sleep wanting to take me again. “Do you think about the logistics?”
“Dreams aren’t meant to include logistics. This is where you think too much.”
“Somebody has to in a relationship. For example, how do we get kids? Do you and Jess enter an arrangement where she has a kid for us and then a kid for herself?” Lost in trying to imagine such an arrangement, I continued, “but then if she’s using your soldiers, that means the kids are split up, which isn’t fair on them.”
Humouring me, Declan grinned. “We’ll use your soldiers, then.”
“Same problem. Or to try and ensure we get something resembling a child from both of us, maybe your sister can bear us a kid.”
“Now you’re making me scared.”
“See, this is why you should think day to day.”
“You’ve convinced me for now.”
“I guess we could always buy a baby.”
Declan winced and tried not to laugh. “I’m so glad you’ve never said anything like this in your interviews.”
“What?”
“Well, your humour is pretty selective.”
“It’s what most celebrities or rich people do, isn’t it? We could buy a little African toddler and call him Senze-tonguecluck-niña.”
“Simon, shut up!” Declan was now holding his stomach.
I rested one of my hands over his and whispered, “I’d love to have a family with you one day. One day far away. Far, far, away. But one day.”
“Got it,” Declan said. “It’s good to hear, though.”
It sounded good to me too.