Prologue
The Moon Also Rises
Fifteen Years Ago
New Year’s Eve, Sydney, Australia
Jake
Somebody’s bollocks should get pickled for this.
Like, seriously. It’s a shambles. The sound is off, the lighting is giving me a headache, and don't even get me started on the potential health and safety implications of the over-crowding situation we have thanks to a photobooth far too close to the main entrance to the dancefloor.
But what do I know? I'm just a lowly under-employed assistant manager of a hotel restaurant gate-crashing the New Year’s Eve dance event in the hotel's top floor nightclub because he shamefully didn’t get a better offer.
The only thing making up for the evidently poor organisation are the views of the harbour from up here.
And the music. I crane my neck to try and get a better look at the DJ, because whoever it is, they're kicking out some stonking tunes.
"Yeah, it's banging," Steveo shouts back. Oh, did I say that out loud?
"Want another drink?" He asks me while his mouth is close to my ear.
"Sure," I say and knock back the last beer in my bottle.
Before I can ask him to get me a white wine spritzer instead of another beer that will make me bloat even more than that first one did, he's off, heading to the bar.
I find my eyes naturally fall to his backside.
It's still just as pert as I remember from last night. And still just as married to a woman.
"When will you learn?" I ask myself out loud, turning my head back to face the front stage. The crowd is as busy and as much of a fire hazard as it was a moment ago and again, the poor lighting set-up means that all I can see of the stage are flashes of light so I still can’t see who’s DJing.
I probably should have read the set list in advance, but it was a rash decision to come, mostly prompted by Steveo's late announcement that he would be in Sydney for a few days, thanks to his wife getting a last-minute deal on a girls’ holiday in Bali.
The greatest surprise of all had come when he announced he wanted to go out rather than watch the fireworks from my apartment.
Steveo hardly ever wants to be seen out in public with me.
However, ‘public,’ is sort of stretching where we are now considering it’s a dark nightclub overpopulated with people at least ten years his junior. Kind of like I am.
"Seriously, Jake," I mutter to myself again. "When will you stop being someone's bit on the side?"
I should never have called him when he left his phone number on the back of his receipt that evening he dined in the restaurant a few months ago. But it seemed so… romantic? That just goes to show how low the bar is when it comes to me and romance.
Regardless, I should have done what I always promise myself I'm going to do; wait and meet a nice man who doesn't hide me away. A man who is proud of who he is, and proud of who I am. I mean, I would like to be proud of who I am too, but I know better than to ask for too much.
I sigh and try to think of Steveo’s redeeming features, besides the one in his trousers. We do have fun, I think to myself as I watch him walk back balancing four drinks. Wait. Four drinks?
"Got us a little shot to keep our beers company," he shouts at me as he spills drops of all four drinks on my shoes. Shoes I polished for half an hour this afternoon, like the idiot I am for thinking he'd notice. That someone would notice.
"Great. Thanks," I say with gritted teeth as I take my drinks.
Steveo nods at me to down the shot and begrudgingly, I do, wincing as the vodka burns my throat and churns my stomach. I’ve barely rearranged my facial features back into something normal when Steveo nudges my arm with his surprisingly pointy and hard elbow.
"Come on, let’s dance!" He yells.
I’m not entirely sure why I agree, but I do.
I let him take me to the dancefloor and for the first few tracks we dance like awkward straight white men, our drinks being thrust out into the air in various directions, more often off the beat than on it.
But after ten minutes, Steveo spins me around and lines up his chest against my back.
His arms don't circle around me but I feel the warmth of his body, and the outline of one particular part of his anatomy, push up against my backside. I lean back against it, and him.
The music has an air of Seventies disco to it and I sway my hips to the rhythm.
It’s the kind of song I feel I should know and it’s easy to close my eyes and feel the music pump through my body, my veins, my mind as I start to forget all the many problems with Steveo.
Maybe tonight will turn out alright. Maybe tonight will mark the beginning of a better, brighter year.
Encouraged, I turn around and slide my thighs around Steveo’s leg, interlocking our groins closer together.
He straightens up a little, pulls back and I watch him glance around the dancefloor.
I ignore how that elongates my spine and makes my jaw clench.
I need to help him forget. If he just dances with me like this a little more, rocks that beautiful big cock into me a little, and maybe, brings his arm around my waist and. ..
"What are you doing?" I hear him shout in my ear just before he pushes me away, a hand on my chest.
I step back, a little dazed and very confused. Except I'm not. Not at all. I know exactly what’s going on. And I’ve had enough of being treated like this.
Pushing my own hand against Steveo’s chest and moving him back, I turn and storm off the dancefloor.
"Jake! Wait up!" I hear him call out, even over the music and noise from other revellers, people who probably aren't with someone who's ashamed of dancing with them.
I pick up my pace and the music changes to match this, leaving that soulful swinging disco beat behind for a hard thump of an EDM rhythm, my least favourite kind of music. Good. I'm ready to go home now.
I pause briefly when I realise we haven’t even seen the new year in yet, and I glance at my watch. Thirty minutes to go.
Rolling my eyes at nobody, I start walking again when I realise how pissing perfect it will be that I see the new year in while walking home completely alone.
How bloody brilliant it will be that the world-famous fireworks will paint the sky hundreds of different colours as I am slipping into my PJs.
How fucking fantastic it will be that when I call my sister to wish her a happy new year, she will only just be starting to get ready for her own celebrations.
Jesus. When did my life become such a tragedy?
But before I dive head first into this wallowing, I need a piss.
Not wanting to risk seeing Steveo in the nightclub toilets, I dig in my wallet for my staff pass and head to the personnel-only doors near the stage that leads to the backstage rooms and the facilities back there.
I keep my head down as I walk past people rushing around back there, some of them drunk, others anything but - all clipboards and headsets and stressed shouting - and I go to the gents’ toilets.
Inside, I quickly relieve myself at a urinal and then wash my hands and splash my face with cold water before taking a good look at my reflection.
I don’t hate what I see – I have a nicely put-together face and a jawline many should be jealous of – but I don’t love what I see either.
My chestnut eyes reveal the sadness and dejection I feel, my dark blond hair is no longer holding the same shape I spent far too long putting it in earlier, and my cheeks look a little hollow, no doubt because I didn’t eat a decent meal all day in order to fit in the Armani jeans I stupidly bought a size too small in the sale.
"Jesus, Forester. You're too good for this," I say to myself.
"Yeah, you are," a voice says and then I hear a toilet flush. I hear the click of a lock opening on the nearest cubicle and a striking man walks out. He’s tall – roughly the same height as my five feet eleven - and he's wearing black trousers and a black woollen turtleneck, which I find mind-boggling considering it’s been 30 degrees for the last few days.
He must be crew and here with one of the DJs on some whistle-stop tour.
"Sorry," I say to him via the mirror as he comes to wash his hands. "I talk to myself too much."
He gives me a side smile before bending down to wash his hands, like really washing his hands with soap and water and lots of scrubbing. Maybe he's actually hotel staff. I should keep my eye out for him, I think as I take in his light brown skin, dark hair, and sexy stubble.
"Most people don't talk to themselves enough," he says with a smile that has my eyes glued on him. That’s when I see the colour of his eyes, a grey so light and ethereal it’s practically silver. I have to blink to remember to speak but still I can’t find words worthy of a witty reply, which is not like me at all.
"Ha," I say eventually and quite pathetically. "Maybe."
He starts to rinse off the soap's bubbles. "Well, whatever it is, or whoever they are, I hope they don't ruin your night," he says and that's when I realise he's from England, like me. There's even the soft lull of a West Midlands accent.
"Oh, it's too late for that," I say.
"The night is yet young," he steps around me to reach for paper towels. "And so are you."
He looks up and down my body then, a very open assessment. His lack of subtlety prompts me to be just as direct.
"Are you accosting me?" I ask, putting a hand on my hip.
"God, no," he says with a grin that would suggest otherwise, or maybe that's the godawful shot I just did blurring my vision and interpretation of curious looks.
"Don't sound so horrified!" I put my other hand on my other hip. He scrunches the paper towel into a ball and we both watch as he throws it towards the bin and it lands.
"I'm not horrified, but let's just say I’m probably not the answer to your problems," he folds his arms across his chest. A nicely solid chest, I believe.
"You're from the UK," I say, deliberately changing the subject away from my problems. I'm quite good at that.
"Birmingham," he says. "You?"
"Surrey, originally," I say. "Now a citizen of the world."
"Yeah, me too, I guess," he says, and I have to look away from those eyes again.
I hear a buzzing, and I move to put my hand on my phone in my pocket but there’s no vibration. Of course Steveo isn't even trying to contact me.
The man in front of me is looking at the screen of an expensive-looking Smartphone by the time I look back at him.
"That's my cue to leave," he says. "Got a plane to catch, unfortunately." As he looks at the phone's screen I see him cringe, very noticeably.
"Whatever it is, or whoever they are, I hope they don't ruin your night," I repeat his words to him, nodding at his phone.
He looks up. "The night is yet young for that," he says with that mirthful smile again. "Goodbye, handsome stranger."
"Ha!" I can't help my laugh. "Goodbye, man who is very inappropriately dressed for an Australian summer."
"You're not wrong," he says as he pulls at the neck of his jumper. "And hey?"
"Yeah?"
"Nice shoes," he says with a lingering look at my feet, and then he's gone.