Chapter 1
The pub was almost empty. Gone were the families, older couples, and tourists, all that remained were the degenerates who wanted to get off their heads on a Wednesday night: uni students, labourers, alcoholics, and him, Tyler Henderson, drunk, alone and watching Middleton peer into a rugby players’ mouth. She touched a finger to the piercing embedded in the guy’s tongue. “That’s so cool! Did it hurt?”
She sounded as breathless as if the stud were already fiddling with her clit, but then she sounded like that all the time. It was one of the many things Ty loathed about her.
The rugby player, whom Ty had privately dubbed ‘Buddy’, pulled his idiot tongue back into his head. “Not much. I can do all kinds of things with it.”
“Like get stuck on magnets?”
“Better.”
Middleton dissolved into a fit of trademark giggles, and Buddy beamed like he was the king of the fucking world. Ty glowered into his bourbon. For the past hour he’d been forced to listen to Middleton flirt with this guy. Was it annoying? Sure. Did he wish she and her barely pubescent lover would fuck off and have young person sex already? Yes. Was it unprofessional of her to be picking up students at the local pub? Very much so. Especially since she and the rest of Golden Glaze Solar were in Bendigo on a work trip. That’s what he couldn’t understand about this situation. Unprofessional sexual conduct suited Middleton about as much as a bald head would have.
If he’d had to guess ahead of time what she’d get up to tonight, he’d have said ‘brushing, flossing and climbing into bed with a stuffed animal,’ but Middleton had apparently left her ‘I’m so sweet it’ll rot your fucking teeth’ attitude back in Melbourne.
She was the youngest and only female engineer at GGS. Most female engineers Ty knew acted like the boys: drinking hard, swearing like sailors, wearing gender-neutral clothes as though baggy slacks might make men mistake them for one of their own. Others emphasised their femininity: high heels, tight tops, raunchy jokes. They took control of the flirting and perving before it was inflicted on them, or at least pretended to.
Middleton, on the other hand, never swore, she never drank, never said a mean word about anyone. She baked chocolate chip cookies and wore floaty pink blouses and headbands with ribbons on them. Once, while babysitting his nephews, Ty had watched a kids’ TV show. The host was a curvy brunette who by all the laws of biology should have been smoking hot. Instead, she projected such brightly-coloured asexuality he felt guilty just trying to picture what her tits looked like. That was the frequency Middleton operated on. Ty wouldn’t be surprised if she too was sewn into her outfits so she wouldn’t accidentally show cleavage or stomach.
The week she started at GGS, Ty had run into her in a hallway. He was hungover and wearing a three-day-old suit. Middleton was in a pink dress and what looked like yellow tap shoes, her waist-length brown hair was pinned back by a silver clip shaped like a hummingbird. A fucking hummingbird.
“Hi, Mr Henderson!” She held up the huge pink cake tin she was carrying. “Would you like a lemon-curd meringue?”
Ty thought she was going to be eaten alive by the other engineers. He was wrong. Within six weeks all the guys were chatting to her in the break room, sponsoring her roller derby team, begging her to make them chocolate éclairs. They never said anything sleazy about her and admonished outsiders who did. Somehow this Shirley Temple caricature had gotten every bozo in their office to not only tolerate, but like her.
Just a few hours ago Johnno—the big boss—had slung his arm around Ty’s neck. “Middleton’s a proper little lady, isn’t she?” he said. “Pretty as a picture, gets along with everyone. Just a great girl.”
Ty didn’t think Middleton was a great girl. He thought Middleton was a pain in the ass. Waltzing around with her shiny hair and long legs and her throaty voice, being cuter than a fistful of buttons. Where did she get off?
On Buddy, apparently. When he glanced back at the bar, he saw the younger man tickling Middleton’s sides. She slapped his hands, giggling madly. “Stop it!”
“I can’t!” Buddy told her. “It’s your fault you have such a cute laugh.”
Ty drained his glass. He was leaving. At least, he would be leaving if there was anywhere else in Bendigo where he could get a drink. The small inland town wasn’t exactly known for its nightlife. He caught the eye of a passing bartender, a glum woman in her fifties. “Excuse me, is anywhere else around here open?”
“No.” The woman collected the glasses in front of him. “Just us.”
“Bugger.”
On the other side of the pub, Middleton’s hair caught the light and gleamed like a fishing lure. “Are you sure there’s nowhere else?”
The woman gave him a scathing look. “It’s a Wednesday. In Bendigo.”
“Right.” Ty’s words were coming out in that blurry, distorted way that said he was drunk, but not nearly drunk enough. He wanted to go to bed without a single thought in his brain. “Can I have another drink, thanks?”
The woman looked as unimpressed as Ty felt. “You come here with that sustainability convention?”
“Yeah.”
“You going back tomorrow?”
Ty knew what she was saying; don’t you have work in the morning, dickhead? He dredged up his best smile. It felt gummy and insincere. “Just having a night out.”
Ty already knew he was far from the man he’d once been, but if he hadn’t, the proof was written all over the bartender’s highly unimpressed face. “You felt like having a night out alone?” she asked, sounding suspicious, as though this might just be a cover for a murder plot.
“The rest of my colleagues tapped out early. Wives to call. Kids to talk to.”
She scanned his left hand. “Hmm.”
“I’m single.” Just twenty-four months, eight weeks and nineteen hours, but who the fuck was counting?
“I can see that.” The bartender looked him up and down. “Bourbon, was it?”
“Yeah, no ice.” Ty handed her twenty dollars. “Keep the change.”
That got him a smile. Another glance at the bar and Ty prayed the woman would bring his drink back fast. Middleton, it transpired, had found a new way to inspect her friend’s tongue ring—by making out with it.
Ty watched her and Buddy writhing against the karaoke machine in disgust. This was a girl who covered her ears when people swore. How was she tongue-fucking in a public bar? In fairness, no one else was paying them any attention. Maybe because almost everyone else in the pub was a student, too busy trying to get their own genitals rubbed to give a shit about Middleton’s. Ty scanned the room and with a jolt of unease, realised he was the oldest person there. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. He was the oldest guy in the gym, the restaurant, the cocktail bar, the cinema. There was a reason for it. Most of his generation stayed in on Saturday nights, selected gyms with childcare centres and cafés with aisles big enough for prams. Meanwhile, he stayed in the same circles he’d always been in, not quite out of place, not quite in it, either.
He thought of Veronica, wondered if she’d bought a pram yet, and his alcohol buzz flattened. He knew he should clear out of the bar and go back to his hotel room, but then he’d have nothing to do but lie on his hard yet somehow also spongy mattress and watch the bedroom fan rotate. At least here there was loud music and cheap liquor, and he could distract himself from his life by hating Middleton. Middleton with her husky voice and perky tits. Middleton, who was twenty-five but looked about seventeen. Buddy, Ty could see, was attempting to pull her t-shirt from her skirt and get up her bra.
Good luck, mate I bet she’s sewed in. By the way, Middleton, I’m your boss. You’re really gonna get felt up in a public bar in front of your boss? And how old is that kid? Nineteen?
However young, he was a good looking little shit. Shaggy blond hair, clear skin, broad shoulders. His arm muscles were almost comically swollen, bulging inside his t-shirt sleeves like hams. They made a pretty picture, him and Middleton. People would pay serious money to watch them fuck, the porn tagline something like; ‘big brother nails sister’s friend at sleepover.’
Ty pictured himself, blond hair that was getting too long, blue eyes bracketed with lines. Firefighting had left him with bad knees and his back ached when it was cold. He looked forty-five because he was forty-five. In the porn scenario, he’d be Buddy’s dad, home early from a business meeting. He’d spot what his son was up to and—
Guilt rose up inside him like bile. He squashed the thought before it could expand into a full blown fantasy. Creep, he told himself. Sicko. Pervert.
Middleton kissed her way across Buddy’s cheek and Ty felt invisible lips ghost across his jaw. Middleton was going to suck that boy’s cock tonight, he’d bet his right hand on it. She had the perfect lips for blow jobs, pale pink and pouty. Perfect hair, too—thick and grabable. He bet she moaned while she sucked, her tongue humming so the guy could feel it in his balls.
That was Ty’s favourite thing. A girl’s head in his lap, his fingers running through her hair as her wet mouth bobbed on his dick. He sat back in his chair, trying to remember the last time he’d been blown. A year ago, he guessed, maybe more. Hookups rarely included blow jobs; when a woman took a man home she wanted a ride, not to suck all the stiffness out of his dick. That was understandable, but still, Ty missed head. Veronica never swallowed, but she’d always been happy to suck him dry if he returned the favour. Diminishing thrill-factor aside, the sex was so much better when you were in a relationship. Getting it regular two or three times a week from someone who knew how you liked it beat fumbling around with strangers by a country mile. Still, he had no plans to find himself a girlfriend—no matter how many of his friends insisted he go out for dinner with their cousin’s best friend’s wife’s doctor’s sister. He was no good on dates anymore. No good with expectations of romance or nervous, hopeful smiles. The very idea of being set up made him want to leave whatever room he was sitting in.
He studied the couple by the bar. If Middleton blew him, Buddy was young enough to get it up again. Hell, maybe he’d get it up three or four times. Middleton would probably roll into the breakfast meeting tomorrow exhausted and Ty would have to watch her yawn and know she’d spent the whole night getting screwed.
He closed his eyes. “Where the hell is my drink?”
As though she was waiting for him to ask, the bartender reappeared with his bourbon. She had, despite his request, put three ice cubes in it. Ty wasn’t surprised. It was that kind of night.
“Here you go.” She placed the glass in front of him.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. I’m, erm, Sandy by the way.”
Ty’s stomach panged a warning. Looking up, he saw she’d put on lipstick, and her dark red hair was fluffed around her face. No. Not a fucking chance.
Her age didn’t bother him—far as he was concerned, consenting adults were all the same age in the dark—but she had a wide, earnest smile like this was a high school disco and he was the teacher she’d had her eye on all year. He didn’t have the fucking energy. He just wanted to get drunk enough to go back to his hotel room and pass out. If he was horny, he could always crack open the complimentary moisturiser and wring himself out. It wasn’t as good as a blowjob, but it was a lot less messy. Metaphorically speaking. He picked up his drink without meeting Sandy’s gaze. “Nice to meet you.”
“Are you staying across the road?”
“Yeah, I am.”
Sandy rocked on her heels. “Is it a nice room?”
“Nice enough.”
Part of him felt guilty about how he was acting. There were better ways to do this. A few years ago he’d have told her he had a physically demanding job and needed sleep, or that he had a girlfriend. Then again, a few years ago he did have a physically demanding job and a girlfriend. Now he was just some mid-level, middle-aged corporate asshole with a borderline drinking problem and an unfinished manuscript, of all the fucking clichés. So he waited for Sandy to read his near-silence as a complete lack of interest and leave him alone. The moment never came.
She leaned closer, her thick purplish perfume surrounding him like an eighties miasma. “I finish up in twenty minutes. Want some company?”
Across the pub, Middleton had her hand in Buddy’s hair and was kissing him so deeply she looked at risk of falling into his face. Ty genuinely considered Sandy’s offer. He could bed her and make her scream so loud everyone in the hotel block heard it. Then tomorrow when the guys were ribbing him in that half-admiring, half-jealous way, Middleton would know she wasn’t the only one who could pull on a work trip. She’d have to look at him and wonder how he was in bed, see him as a guy who could get laid instead of some old man she offered meringues to at work.
For a second Ty was sold, then the stupidity of the idea sank into his bourbon pickled brain like water soaking into soil. Unprofessional, inappropriate, and not to mention tacky. He raised his glass again, downing half the too-cold liquid inside. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m headed to bed as soon as I finish this.”
Sandy raised a heavily plucked eyebrow. “I’m saying I can keep you company in bed.”
“I heard you.”
“Well, you’re not gonna turn me down, are you?”
Ty closed his eyes, feeling the dirt and grit that had collected there. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy? “Sorry, I’m not interested.”
“Why? You got a better offer?”
Ty’s gaze jumped to where Middleton stood sucking face with her teen paramour. “No.”
“Then why—”
“You a mum?”
Sandy frowned. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t do mothers.”
Her mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious?”
“I am.”
For a moment she stared at him in confusion, then the reality of what he was saying seemed to hit her right between the eyes. “You’re an asshole!”
“I know.”
“You don’t know it enough.” Sandy’s palms found her hips, her elbows sticking out like the handles on a premiership cup. “Finish your drink and get out of here, or I’ll chuck you out.”
“Not a problem.”
She shot him a look of pure venom and stormed away. Ty felt a twinge of remorse, but the relief was much, much greater. He didn’t need a fly-by-night fuck, he needed to start sleeping off what he hoped would be a manageable hangover. He finished his drink, stood and pulled on his jacket. It was a nice coat. A double-breasted wool affair Veronica had found in a boutique store when they were staying in Dublin. He almost choked when he saw the price tag, but she’d insisted he buy it. “You look like such a catch in it, Tyler. Like a handsome stranger you fall in love with on the train.”
As he buttoned up, he cast a last glance at Middleton, who was still making out with Buddy by the jukebox, oblivious to him the way she’d been all night, the entire time he’d known her.
Outside, the winter air was sharp as a knife. Ty breathed it in, feeling pleasantly warm and cold, sober and drunk. He lingered by the beer garden, inhaling deeply, wishing he could smoke like the kids around him. He had dropped the habit when he joined the MFB. You couldn’t be a firefighter who voluntarily gave yourself smoke damage, but years later he still craved the taste, the smell.
“Have you seen Trigger?” a stringy-haired kid shouted, audible even over the crowd. “He’s, like, two seconds away from fingering that chick right at the bar.”
Ty paused as all the kids in Stringy-Hair’s gang—teenagers far gawkier and more acnefied than Buddy— turned and looked at Middleton through the window.
A Burmese kid with a nose ring groaned. “Fuck me, who is she?”
“No idea.” Stringy-Hair sounded wistful. “Trigger just walked up to her and asked if she wanted a drink. I hate that cunt sometimes.”
A doe-eyed kid in a beanie laughed and held up his phone. “Don’t be jealous. Did you get Trigger’s snapchat?”
“He snapchats me twelve times an hour,” Nose-Ring complained. “What’s this one about?”
“He said if he can get that chick back to his dorm he’s keeping his laptop open.”
Several boys hooted and Stringy-Hair downed the last of his pint. “That said, we should head back and get comfortable before the show starts.”
“Solid plan.” Beanie-Baby began tapping on his phone. “I’ll tell Trig we’ll be ready in a halfa.”
Drunk and a member of Gen X, it took Ty a few seconds to realise what was going on. When he did his pleasurable drunk-cold sensation vanished. Buddy was going to cam himself and Middleton fucking, and let all his friends watch. Ty’s hands balled into fists. For some unfortunate reason, watching porn with your mates was a male rite of passage, like doing a burnout in your mum’s car or discovering soap made terrible lube. But this, what they were planning to do to Middleton, was completely fucked up. He needed to do something. The kids were busy finishing their beers and arguing if there were any chips in the dorm kitchen. None of them noticed Ty enter the beer garden or walk up behind them. He cleared his throat. “Having a good night, boys?”
The group turned, their expressions hostile until they caught sight of him—six-two and built like the metro firefighter he no longer was—their facial features became neutral real fast.
“Uh, yeah.” Stringy-Hair gave his friends a sidelong glance. “We’re, uh, having a good one.”
“Glad to hear it.” Ty walked over to where Beanie-Baby was lighting up a big-boy cigarette. “Can I grab a smoke?”
“Sure.” Beanie-Baby handed him a Winfield Blue along with his lighter. It was purple and had a topless chick on it. Ty was one hundred percent sure it was meant to be ironic. Kids these days had no fucking taste. He lit up and took a swift drag, relishing the hot prickle in his throat.
“Thanks.” He tossed the lighter to Beanie-Baby then stepped back so he had all the little assholes in his line of vision. “I think we should have a chat about your plans after you leave this pub.”
The boys looked at one another in drunk confusion. Beanie-Baby laughed. “We’re going back to our dorm, y’wanna join us?”
He was expecting his friends to laugh, but they just nudged the ground with their sneakers and looked at their phones. Ty was sure some of them already knew what was happening. He locked eyes with Beanie-Baby. “If you wanna go back to your dorm and have a circle jerk, that’s your decision, but you’re not gonna do it watching your mate fuck one of my employees.”
It was satisfying, watching their faces fall. The most satisfying thing Ty could remember experiencing in weeks. Maybe months. He smiled at the mortified boys. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re gonna swear on your sad little lives you’re not gonna do what I heard you say you were gonna do, then you’re gonna run back to your crusty dorm room and jack off to Porn Hub like good little boys, understood?”
There was a spatter of mumbled consent but Beanie-Baby scowled at him. “And if we don’t?”
Ty pointed at the CCTV camera fixed to a nearby brick wall. “Then I’ll call Senior Sergeant Gerry Handler down at Bendigo Police Station. He’s a friend of mine. I’ll tell him what you were planning on doing. I’m sure he’ll be able to ID every one of you rapey little fucks from the security video.”
“It’s not rape—” Beanie-Baby began, but Nose-Piercing elbowed him in the ribs. “We were joking,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, the sincerity in your voice is heart-warming.” Ty ground out his barely smoked cigarette on one of the wallets sitting on the picnic bench. Beanie-Baby gave a hiss of outrage but was elbowed into silence again.
“C’mon, let’s go.” Stringy-Hair picked up his phone and shoved it into his pocket. The rest of the gang followed suit, muttering under their breath. Ty watched them go, his anger thrumming like a live wire. From the way they were talking, he’d bet money they’d done this before, the perverted little shits. He breathed deep, telling himself he shouldn’t follow them and give them a more physical taste of his fury.
He turned to the pub window and found Middleton still getting warmed up by the boy who planned to exploit her. If he didn’t help, no one would, but god he didn’t want to talk to her. Not now that he was drunk and alone and had spent so much of the night thinking about sex. Maybe he could just wait till Buddy went to the toilet and king-hit him? Maybe he could text her. Something like ‘your boy’s an amateur pornographer and he wants to make you a star, so go to fucking bed’ should do the trick.
As he shoved his hands into his pocket, he considered doing the lowest thing of all—nothing. Middleton was a savvy girl, surely she’d notice if the kid started fucking around with his laptop? And if she didn’t, that was none of his business. This wasn’t a burning building, and he wasn’t a firefighter. Not a hero, not a good guy, just a drunk moron who’d singed a kid’s wallet and insulted a woman who wanted to shag him.
So leave. Leave.
He couldn’t. He couldn’t move an inch. Ty sighed and allowed his feet to carry him toward the pub door, his guts twirling like spaghetti through fork tines. Middleton and the kid were still making out when he tapped his employee on the shoulder. She unstuck herself with some difficulty and turned to face him.
When Ty was a kid, he and his brothers had set off a whole crate of fireworks at once. A blistering rainbow had exploded inches from his face, and even though his mum burst out of the house screaming for them to move, Ty hadn’t. He’d stayed still, drinking in the colours, watching them burst through the air and set pineapple trees ablaze. Looking at Middleton was kind of like that. It burned, stung, made him immune to his own stupidity. Every time he saw her face, with its upturned nose and lightly freckled cheeks, he wanted to do terrible fucking things to it. Up close he was powerless against thoughts of tearing her out of her high-necked, knee-length clothes and keeping her naked in his bed for a week. Transform her from a good girl into a writhing animal who lived to pleasure his dick.
This was why he never fucking talked to her.
“Um, Mr Henderson?” Middleton said in her throaty voice. “Can I help you?”
Why did she have to sound like that? Like someone was perpetually stroking her to an orgasm? Why couldn’t she have a girly, high-pitched voice to match her girly, high-pitched personality? Ty unclenched his teeth. “We’ve gotta be up early for the seminar tomorrow. Time to go to bed.”
Middleton blinked at him. The whites of her eyes were pure milk, the irises a chocolate brown, sweet as her godawful personality. “I understand, Mr Henderson, but I kind of want to stay up. I promise I’ll be on time tomorrow no matter what.”
She took Buddy’s hand and smiled at him. He smiled back at her like he wasn’t planning on showing all his friends what her pussy looked like. Ty gritted his teeth. Again, why couldn’t anything ever be easy? “That’s great, but GGS isn’t paying for you to get poked on the company dime. Wrap this up and go to bed. Alone.”
Middleton’s plaything, whom Ty had been resolutely ignoring, cleared his throat. Up close he had a meathead’s face, a broad nose and a thick mouth. “Who are you?” he asked.
Ty straightened his shoulders. “I’m—”
“Oh, sorry, introductions!” Middleton beamed at both of them. “Sam, this is my boss, Tyler Henderson. Mr Henderson this is—”
“I don’t give a shit, Middleton. Say goodbye to your friend and—”
“Wait up…” Buddy’s dopey expression grew dopier. “Why is he calling you Middleton? Isn’t your last name McGrath?”
She beamed at him. “You remembered! All the guys I work with call me Middleton.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the only girl and I have brown hair, and my name’s Kate.”
Buddy continued to look confused.
“Middleton.” She enunciated the word as though to a two-year-old. “Kate Middleton. Get it?”
Buddy stared at her, demonstrating he very much did not get it.
“The Duchess of Cambridge? Prince William’s wife? The future queen of England?”
Ty had heard enough. He gripped Middleton’s upper arm, ignoring the jolt of electricity that shot up his hand. “We’re leaving now, okay?”
“Okay.” Middleton pulled out her phone. “Just let me find a picture of Kate Middleton to show Sam.”
“We don’t have time for this, you need to go to bed.”
“Hang on a minute.” Sam moved toward him. He was tall enough that he and Ty were eye-to-eye. “Just because you’re Katie’s boss, doesn’t mean you can tell her what to do.”
“Yes, it does.”
Buddy’s forehead wrinkled. “Well, yeah but, like, not when you’re not working.”
“We’re on a work trip.”
“Yeah, but like, she’s at a pub. She’s not at work.”
In other circumstances, this might have been funny, but the last of Ty’s patience was waning. He tugged Middleton’s arm. “You done?”
She shook her head. The fruity scent of her hair washed over him like a strawberry haze. “Hurry up.”
“I will, I’ll just be a sec!”
Sam looked from her to Ty. He flexed his sinewy upper arms. “Why don’t you get out of here? I can look after Katie.”
Ty released his hold on Middleton. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, why don’t you fuck off?”
For all his big words, the kid looked uneasy. Just like his mates, he was all talk, too green to hold his own, too young to shut his fucking mouth. Ty got a nice firm grip on the kid’s neck, one that could be mistaken for paternal comradery. “From what I heard, the only ‘looking after’ you were planning on doing involved your friends and a webcam.”
Buddy’s face contracted. He didn’t look like a big man anymore, he looked like what he was—an overgrown kid with more hormones than sense. “You didn’t…I wasn’t…how d’you know…?”
“Your mates are drunk, Trigger, and something tells me they’d be shit at keeping secrets even if they weren’t.”
The kid’s gaze darted toward the beer garden. “That was a joke.”
“Ha-ha-fucking-ha.” Ty tightened his grip on the kid’s neck. “Think Middleton’d like to hear your joke Trigger? Think she’d find it funny?”
Buddy glanced at Middleton, who was thankfully still doddering away on her phone, completely oblivious to their conversation.
“Don’t look at her,” Ty said. “Look at me. Explain to me why you were going to violate a woman for no other reason than it would entertain your fucking friends.”
“Come on, man, I wasn’t going to do that. We’re not even going back to the dorms, we’re gonna go back to Katie’s hotel room.”
“No. You’re leaving, and you’re never coming near Middleton again, understood?”
Sam looked like he wanted to protest. Ty squeezed his hand, compressing the nerves in the kid’s neck, feeling his spinal cord go taut. “I said, understood?”
The kid scowled at him, then nodded.
“Good.” Ty let go of his neck. “Now fuck off.”
But before the kid could leave, Middleton shoved her phone in their faces. “Here we go, royal wedding!”
Startled, Buddy jerked his head, making Middleton drop her phone on the floor. “Shit, sorry, Katie.”
“It’s okay.” Middleton got down on her knees and began looking for it.
Ty rolled his eyes. “I reckon that’s your cue to leave, Trig.”
“But—”
“Found my phone!” Middleton thrust the device into the air. Ty looked down to see her beaming at him from her knees. His first thought was of her smiling like that before going to town on his cock. The second was that something about her was off. Her pupils were blasted—big as black holes and shiny bright. “Middleton, are you on drugs?”
“No!” She looked shocked at the suggestion.
Ty believed her, but her voice was blurry and her eyes were gleaming like wet tar. What could she be on? He hadn’t seen her drink anything tonight, all throughout dinner she’d sipped raspberry lemonade like a nine-year-old.
A dark thought occurred to him and he grabbed Sam’s upper arm, too furious to make it look like anything but a threat. “You give her something?”
“No!” Buddy looked as shocked as Middleton. “Never! I wouldn’t even know where to get stuff like that!”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Buddy.”
“I’m not! I swear!”
“You know…” Middleton knelt up a little straighter. “You know, it’s weird, Mr Henderson, but sometimes when I drink and take Ritalin, I have blackouts. I look normal, but I’m checked out inside. I once ordered a pizza, ate half, wrapped up the leftovers and when I woke up, I thought someone had broken in to my Aunt’s apartment and left a thin crust Mexicana in my fridge.”
Both he and Buddy stared at her.
“You’re on Ritalin?” Buddy asked, echoing Ty’s thoughts.
“Yeah, totally. Yeah.” Her voice had the dreamy, checked-out quality of the stoned.
Ty released his hand from Buddy’s throat. “Why are you on Ritalin?”
“Oh, I need it for my brain!” Middleton wrinkled her delicate nose. “Oh, I shouldn’t have told you that, Mr Henderson, please don’t tell any of the other guys?”
Ty compressed his eyelids together as tight as he could, hating everything and everyone, primarily himself. He opened his eyes. “Middleton, can you please just get up so we can leave?”
His employee looked down at herself, as though puzzled to find she was still on the floor. “Oh. Maybe.”
Ty watched her struggle for a few seconds, then against all his better judgment, extended a hand. She took it, her skin unnaturally soft, the bones in her fingers as delicate as a bird’s. Ty knew he was filing that information away for unsavoury purposes and hated himself a little more. As soon as she was on her feet he dropped her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Middleton turned to Buddy, wobbling slightly like a newborn foal. “Want to come back to my hotel room with me?”
The kid beamed as though he’d just been handed a free pint. “Sur—”
“No, he fucking doesn’t!” Ty snarled. “You can’t fuck someone if you’re off your head on pills!”
She gave him a sugary ‘I’m a good girl’ smile, the kind that haunted his jerk off sessions. “I’m fine! The fuzziness goes away pretty fast.”
“That doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Besides, Buddy has a big exam tomorrow. He needs to go home and study, don’t you, mate?”
Buddy glared at him. “My name’s…yeah, yeah I do have to study. Sorry, Katie.”
Middleton sighed prettily. “That’s bad luck, good night kiss?”
He smirked. “Sure.”
They moved toward one another and the awareness that Middleton was going to suck face with her would-be webcam predator in front of him snapped something inside Ty.
“Okay, we’re done here.” He bent down, grabbed her around her middle and threw her over his shoulder. Buddy made a noise of outrage but Middleton merely tapped his back. “Mr Henderson, can you please put me down so I can kiss—”
“No. Say goodbye to Buddy.”
He felt her body turn in Buddy’s direction. “Goodbye, Buddy. Good luck with rugby!”
“I…but…?” The younger man caught sight of Ty’s face and fell silent.
“He’s really nice,” Middleton said as he strode toward the front door.
“No, he isn’t.”
The remaining patrons were so drunk they barely noticed a man carrying a girl out of the pub but behind the bar Sandy let out a theatrical snort. “You did get a better offer then? Bit young, isn’t she?”
Ty thought it better not to respond.
“Who was that?” Middleton asked, as he walked them down the mercifully empty street toward the hotel.
Ty ignored her. “Can you walk?”
“Um, maybe?”
He groaned and hefted her a little higher on his shoulder. He couldn’t put her down only to have her collapse, but carrying her like this was a long way from professional; the sooner he dropped her off at her room, the better.
She tapped his back again. “Mr Henderson, I’m not what that woman said. I know I have freckles, but I’m twenty-five. That’s super legal.”
Ty clenched his teeth and willed himself to walk as fast as he could on footpaths still slick with afternoon rain. Why did she have to call him ‘Mr Henderson?’ Everyone at work called each other by their nicknames. To the other staff at GGS, he was ‘Hendo,’ ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Ty.’ He didn’t want her calling him those things, but hearing her say ‘Mr Henderson’ in her sexy little girl lisp was worse.
Middleton tapped his back in a line, like she was playing itsy bitsy spider. “Mr Henderson, why’re you helping me? You don’t even like me. I’m pretty sure you hate me.”
Ty stayed silent.
“You know how I know? You never talk to me. You won’t look at me. You always schedule jobs, so we never have to go out to sites together. Sometimes I see you glaring at me like you’re trying to give me cancer with your eyes. Is any of that ringing a bell?”
Again, Ty said nothing. He had an arm slung across Middleton’s thighs, and he could feel the muscles twitching beneath her skin. She had good legs, as far as he could make out through her endless pairings of thick patterned tights and knee-length skirts. Maybe she got them from roller derby. He entertained himself for a second, picturing what she wore when she played. He’d never seen a game, but he’d always had a thing for girls wearing roller skates. Sometimes when he was cranking one out he imagined sitting on a chair and having a girl ride him with nothing but skates on, the wheels spinning uselessly in the air as he fucked her…
“Are you carrying me like this because you used to be a firebag?”
That got Ty’s attention. “What?”
“A firebag,” Middleton repeated. “Shoot, I mean a firebag.”
He heard a soft smack that told him she’d slapped her own forehead. “Fireman,” she gasped. “I mean fireman, sorry, I feel weird.”
“Ritalin does that to you?” Ty asked, unable to help himself.
“No, I had a couple of vodka raspberries, it’s been a while since I’ve been drunk.”
“I didn’t see you drink anything.”
There was a short pause. “How do you know? Were you watching me?”
Ty clenched his jaw and vowed not to speak again.
“Anyway, back to my original point about you hating me.” Middleton’s voice was as bright as if they were discussing newborn puppies. “I kind of get why we never talk. I mean, we don’t have anything in common. I’m a girl, and you’re all ‘I’m Tyler Henderson. I’m from Regional Queensland! I never smile!’”
She said all this in a gruff attempt at a man’s voice, her body stiff as though she was flexing her muscles. “Or maybe you’re just like all the other guys on the crew, and you hate having a girl around because you can’t rearrange your testicles in front of everyone anymore.”
Ty was so surprised she said ‘testicles’, he almost dropped her. “That’s not true,” he told her. “No one resents you being there.”
Though they did tend to adjust themselves more freely when she wasn’t.
Middleton made a soft clucking noise with her tongue. “You still hate me. Admit it!”
I do, Ty thought. I hate working with you. I’d love for you to get another job. Just take your long hair and jiggly tits and sweet smile and get the fuck away from me. I had enough problems before I started panting after your ass like a stray dog, and after tonight I’m only gonna have more.
Silence fell between them as Ty cursed the distance between the pub and the hotel; it hadn’t seemed this fucking far when he walked over. Middleton’s fingertips traced his back once more, making the hairs on Ty’s neck stand on end. “This is a beautiful coat. Where did you get it?”
Distracted by her touch, he said, “Ireland, my ex picked it out for me.”
“Is that your ex-fiancée that no one is allowed to talk about?”
Ty said nothing.
“Hmm, well, either way, it suits you. It makes you look like, I don’t know…”
A stranger you fall in love with on the train, Veronica’s voice whispered in his ear. My perfect gentleman, Tyler.
“Sherlock Holmes,” Middleton concluded. “Like the Benedict Cumberbatch version of Sherlock Holmes. Only you don’t have a sly badger face.”
“Right.”
They were silent after that. Ty walked as fast as he could and after a few minutes spotted the lights that marked the main street hotel. He congratulated himself on a job well done and patted Middleton’s foot. “We’re close to the hotel now. I’m gonna put you down, okay?”
There was no reply.
Ty shook her a little. “Middleton?”
No response.
“Shit.” He slid her off his shoulder and held her in front of him. Her eyelids were closed, her breathing was even. He groaned. “You can’t do this to me, you just can’t.”
But she had, she’d passed out less than ten meters from her hotel room, and she didn’t have a handbag on her. He couldn’t rummage through her clothes for a keycard. He couldn’t call anyone to take her off his hands. He recalled that quote about how saving a man’s life made you responsible for him. He’d already saved Middleton from becoming an involuntary pornstar, he couldn’t abandon her to the freezing cold. As far as he could see, he had only one option.
He raised a palm to his forehead and hit himself a couple of times, then he hoisted Middleton back over his shoulder and walked toward the hotel. His room was as cold and bland as he’d left it, the bed made, his leather overnight bag on the side table. He dumped Middleton on the hard navy couch and studied her for a moment. Her dark hair was spread around her like a mourner’s veil and her eyelids were flickering with the telltale signs of REM. She had very long, dark lashes. Ty stared at her for a beat too long, then walked away shaking his head. Hopefully, she’d wake up after a couple of hours, realise what she’d done and sneak back to her room to avoid embarrassment. If not? Well, maybe waking up in his hotel room after blacking out would finally motivate her to seek employment elsewhere.
Ty flicked on the light, took a piss and brushed his teeth. He made as much noise as possible, hoping to wake Middleton up, but she dozed on. Unable to sleep naked the way he normally did, he pulled a fresh t-shirt and underwear from his bag and changed in the bathroom. His cock was heavy against his thigh, throbbing with an unwelcome eagerness. Bad thoughts swooped through his head like the fruit bats he could hear chattering outside. He ignored them, dressing and climbing into bed, pulling the cold sheets over his chest. When he closed his eyes it occurred to him that a gentleman would have let Middleton have the bed. He sat up, prepared to change places, then grimaced and fell back against the mattress. No matter what Veronica said, he wasn’t a gentleman. Not anymore.