Chapter 5 #3
I’m about to make a move when a new guy joins the table.
Unlike Xander, he doesn’t announce his arrival, but shuffles up beside Brayden awkwardly, like he’s uncomfortable to even be here.
He instantly gets my attention. He’s a hot bear cub with a scruffy, coppery beard.
He’s tall and looks like he used to be muscular but has gained weight: he has a bit of a belly under his red-and-black checked flanno shirt.
His bulky arse is in tight faded blue jeans.
He’s wearing wheat-coloured Mongrel work boots and a green-and-white John Deere trucker cap.
He looks like he should have tattoos, but I can’t see any.
I want him to fuck me immediately.
‘Ay, the Ginger Ninja!’ the bear cub says to Brayden.
Brayden looks excited to see him. ‘Firetruck! You came! I love that for you. See, gay bars aren’t scary, are they?’
The bear cub, Firetruck, looks bashful and gives an embarrassed half-smile.
Brayden’s comment must mean he’s straight, which blows.
The way half the guys at the table are sucking their drinks from their straws suddenly, he could have any one of us.
Abs are hot but there’s nothing like a blokey dad bod to rev up a boy’s engine.
‘Got this for ya,’ Firetruck mutters. He hands Brayden the worst-wrapped present I’ve ever seen. The shiny paper is cheap and ripped and there’s more sticky tape than paper. It’s like a five-year-old wrapped it.
Firetruck is also the only guy who bought an actual present for Brayden, which makes me crush on him even more.
It’s understood if someone does their birthday at a bar, the last thing they want is to lug around gifts all night.
Firetruck missed the memo, which means he’s not a party boy and definitely not on the scene.
Please be at least bicurious.
I have fallen arse-over-tits for so many straight boys. Ahmed now jokes if I ever meet a straight boy again, I have to tell him so he can slap some sense into me before I waste my time.
But I can’t help it. I have a type. I’ve always had a type.
I knock back the rest of my Heineken and charge up to Brayden.
‘Another drink for the birthday boy?’ I ask, standing between him and Firetruck. ‘Oh, hey, dude, I’m Charlie.’
Firetruck nods, looking me up and down just long enough for me to develop some suspicions.
‘Hey, mate, I’m Mason. Nice to meet ya,’ he says, shaking my hand. His grip is firm and blokey.
I fucking would.
Brayden’s narrowed his eyes at me: he knows exactly what I’m doing. ‘Get me a birthday cocktail,’ he says. ‘Something fruity.’
‘That’s a given with you, Bray, isn’t it?’ I joke. I tap Mason on the shoulder; it’s like granite. ‘Can I get you a drink, dude? Beer?’
‘Aw, don’t go to any trouble,’ Mason says.
‘No, I’m happy to!’ I insist. ‘What’s your poison?’
‘Wouldn’t go past a Bush Chook,’ he says.
He drinks bloody Emu Export. He might as well box a kangaroo in front of me. Marry me, Bloke Man.
‘They don’t stock the Chooks here,’ I tell him. ‘We have Great Northern, though.’
Mason shrugs. ‘Yeah, that’ll do. All piss, isn’t it?
’ He whips out a chunky Quiksilver wallet, rips the Velcro open and hands me a ten-dollar note.
I don’t know what’s more endearing: that he has the kind of wallet a sixteen-year-old has, or that he still uses cash, or that he thinks ten dollars will cover a drink at a gay bar.
I refuse his money. ‘Dude, this is my shout,’ I offer. ‘Be right back.’
I head to the bar and join a tightly locked throng wasting away in the drinks line. Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ comes on the speakers, which makes half the guys ahead of me abandon their quest for alcohol and head to the dance floor. Cheers, Madge. I step closer to the bar.
‘I’m onto you, Charlie Roth,’ a voice says.
I turn. Brayden is beside me, skinny arms crossed over his chest.
‘Huh?’ I say innocently.
Brayden pokes me in the ribs. ‘Oh, please, you drooled like a Doberman at the sight of Firetruck. I know a hungry bottom when I see one.’
I try to catch the barmaid’s attention. ‘Takes one to know one, Bray,’ I say.
‘Mason’s as dumb as two planks,’ Brayden says seriously. ‘He’s my housemate and he’s sweet. I’m protective of him. He gets into situations that end up hurting him.’
‘And you think I’d be a situation that hurts him?’
‘Would you?’ Brayden probes. ‘What are your intentions with my Firetruck?’
‘Uh, I’d let him hurt me,’ I mutter. ‘In one place, very specifically. He’s hot. Lemme chat to him. If we vibe, we vibe. If we don’t, we don’t.’
Brayden peers at my black Billy Talent T-shirt and studded wristband, squinting. ‘Look, I don’t see it,’ he says. ‘It’s a mismatch. So, fine, shoot your shot. It won’t go anywhere. And if you hurt him, I will hunt you down and kill you.’
I am no brawler, but Brayden is a twig and even I could take him. ‘Deal.’
We get our drinks and head back to the table. I hand Mason his Great Northern and clink it against my Heineken.
‘Cheers, mate,’ Mason says. ‘Real good of you.’
‘So, how do you and Bray know each other?’ I ask them both, but with my eyes on Mason.
They exchange this knowing look, both smirking as if sharing some big secret.
‘We call it trauma-bonding,’ Brayden says. ‘I told you what happened at leavers years ago, right?’
Brayden is one of the unluckiest guys I’ve ever met, and he’s had a LIFE.
Two years ago, he was bashed in the Perth Cultural Centre, needing stitches.
Two years earlier, he was electrocuted by a frayed power cord at a Fringe event.
And back when he finished high school, his mates ditched him when he came out and he ended up at a leavers party on Brink Island where two people died.
It was this huge thing in the news. Brayden doesn’t talk about it much anymore, but the experience messed him up.
‘I remember, yeah,’ I say. ‘The Brink stuff.’
Mason flinches slightly at the mention of the island.
‘Well, Firetruck was there with me,’ Brayden says. ‘We’re survivors.’
‘That musta been hard,’ I say. If Brayden wasn’t watching, I’d rub Mason’s arm sympathetically.
Mason stares at his beer and takes a long swig. ‘It’s in the past,’ he says gruffly. ‘No point dwelling on it.’
I nod slowly, but it’s like looking at a distorted mirror reflection.
Curtis and Ahmed have tried to get me to talk about Gero and why I left.
I always fob them off with some version of Mason’s answer.
It’s in the past. I’ve never told them about Matt.
It would feel like a betrayal. And it would make me face stuff I buried, to survive.
I see the same survival strategy in Mason’s blank expression. Some things are so painful you can’t dive into them, no matter how much people want you to.
I get talking with Mason. He’s a truck driver at a quarry up at Neerabup.
He works long hours and doesn’t party much, preferring quiet drinks at home or with his footy mates – he plays amateur footy for the ECU Jets.
Outside that, he doesn’t have much to say.
I tell him about my music and all he replies with is ‘That’s cool, man. ’ A conversationalist, he isn’t.
The only moment of genuine connection is when I mention the Tool Shed.
‘Pool tables and sports on TV is way more my speed than here,’ Mason says keenly.
‘We have our opening next Friday,’ I say. ‘Want an invite? I can arrange it.’
‘Oh, and what am I, chopped liver?’ Brayden pipes up. ‘Where’s my invite, bitch?’
‘I’ll put youse both on the list,’ I say. ‘Easy done.’
I head to the toilets for a slash, feeling a radiator glow in my chest.
I piss like a racehorse at the urinals while two straight guys rack up cocaine in the cubicle. It’s been a long time since these dunnies were used for guys to hook up in.
When I get back to the table, Brayden’s standing with his mates – but no Mason.
‘Where’d he go?’ I ask, more urgently than I mean to. ‘Bar run?’
Brayden shakes his head. ‘He took off, babes. This place really isn’t his scene.
He only came because it’s my birthday.’ He gestures to the badly wrapped present on the table.
‘Honest to God, bless him, I’m too scared to open it.
Last birthday, he bought me a toolbox from Bunnings. Like, thanks, but I’m gay?’
I glance around the beer garden, hoping for a glimpse of Mason’s flanno somewhere, waiting for Brayden to tell me he’s kidding – but he’s not.
Mason’s gone.
I sit there deflated for the next hour. Bitter. Angry. Hurt.
Brayden’s birthday descends into shots of Galliano, which I use to drown my sorrows. Of all the shots, I always think of tequila as my nemesis and Galliano as a friend. It’s sweet and vanilla-tasting and goes down so smoothly you never feel like it’s going to hit you too hard.
Which is why I end up doing six shots of it, then puking on the shoes of a horrified drag queen, who, probably fairly, slaps me in the face with her rings turned out.
Brayden puts me in an Uber and sends me home.
It takes me a few goes to get my key in the front door, to the point where Ahmed ends up opening it. He clicks his tongue when he sees me.
‘Silly boy,’ he says, wrapping an arm around me. He smells like his oat and jojoba face cream. ‘Off your face again.’
Curtis calls out from the living room. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Just drunk,’ I blurt out. ‘No drugs this time. I’m a good boy now.’
‘Good boys don’t have puke stains all over their shirts,’ Ahmed quips, steering me into the living room and plopping me on the plush white leather couch.
Curtis is at the lacquered mahogany dining table, tapping at his laptop, surrounded by piles of invoices and paperwork, peering at me over his reading glasses.
‘Stay sitting up,’ Ahmed says. ‘I’ll bring you some water.’
‘Got lemonade?’ I ask.