‘It was that night years ago at the Mercurial Winds Hotel,’ he tells me. ‘Robbie Calogero’s wedding. Remember, I came back to our hotel room for my phone charger? I heard you having sex inside the room. Way before I knocked at the door. You lied, saidit was with some waitress. I was pissed at you for leaving Richelle at the wedding. She was down in the hotel lobby alone, trying to find you. I waited at the end of the corridor for the waitress to come out. I was gonna tell her what kinda dog you are, so she’d never root ya again. Got a hell of a shock when the door opened and Zeke Calogero walked out, didn’t I?’
Holy shit. How dumb was I to let Zeke out only a few minutes after Doug left?
‘So you knew, this whole time?’ I ask. ‘Why didn’t you just say something instead of being a psycho?’
‘I was gonna tell you the next day,’ Doug says, ashing his dart. ‘Well, actually, I was gonnatortureyou the next day. You gave me shit my whole life for my pimples. Shoe was on the other foot now, bitch. But then I heard Matt Jones from cricket necked himself and I was too wrecked to go after you. I remember worrying Zeke or Charlie might do the same, cos they were going through a lot.’
I hold my tongue. I don’t think Doug has a clue why Matt killed himself, and I won’t let him in on it, for Matt’s sake.
‘You were so bloody homophobic when I mentioned Charlie,’ Doug goes on. ‘I told you I didn’t have a problem with faggots, but you didn’t hear it. Then next day, you’re back flirting with Richelle, and it never came up again. Maybe it was a phase. But it was always in the back of my mind, all this time. The way you could never commit to Richelle. The way I never physically saw any of your one-night stands. The way you’d look at fit blokes in the pub. Nobody else could see you the way I could. Then this Pride shit came up, and I knew why you were so mad – it hit a nerve …’
‘You coulda just said something!’ I nearly shout. ‘You shoulda been nice to me. You’re my fucken brother!’
‘Oh yeah? We’re fucken brothers, are we?’ Doug shouts back. ‘You shoulda been nice to me too. Me whole life, you been a cunt to me. And Mum and Dad let you. I’m the older brother but youwere the one whose arse the sun shone out of. I was Pizza Face and you were a bully, Kade. You don’t know what it’s like to be bullied. You always been the one kicking shit in people’s faces. So yeah, the one time the world gave me a bit of power over you, I took it. I’m not even ashamed. D’you know how good it felt to make you shit your pants that I was gonna out you? It was the most satisfying revenge. Now you’ve ruined the ending.’
‘Were you really gonna tell everyone today?’ I ask.
Doug flicks his cigarette butt to the ground. ‘Course not, fuck knuckle.’ My body tingles with a shiver of relief. ‘I was gonna watch you choke. The camera woulda zoomed into your panicked little face every time you shanked a goal. Wouldn’t be the Big Dog anymore once you were playing badly, would ya?’
‘Why torture someone like that?’ I mutter. ‘It’s cold-blooded.’
‘It didn’t need to go on this long!’ Doug says hotly. ‘Why wouldn’t you just bloody admit you’re gay?!’ His cheeks are suddenly red, eyes overflowing. ‘I know I went too far. Sorry. But that revenge felt like justice. Honest to God, the first time I messaged you, I wanted you to face who you are so you didn’t do something stupid.’
Seeing my older brother cry makes me cry, too.
I put my arm around Doug’s shoulder and press my head against his forehead.
‘You won’t remember, but when we were really little, we used to be close mates,’ Doug says through tears. ‘We played backyard cricket and footy together. You looked up to me. If I had an Eagles cap, you wanted an Eagles cap. If I had a toy lightsaber, you wanted one. Once you got good at sport, Dad tore us apart. But I remember how it felt to have a little brother who looked up to me.’
‘I remember the lightsaber,’ I tell him. ‘It was green.’
‘Yeah, it was green,’ Doug confirms. ‘Qui-Gon Jinn’s lightsaber.’
‘Do you think it’s Mum and Dad’s fault?’ I ask. ‘Like, for not being there for us? Did it make me the way I am, and you the way you are?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’ Doug clears his throat. ‘And can we not talk about my thing? It’s just a fetish, man, no big deal.’
‘I don’t wanna talk about it,’ I say. ‘It’s weird, but you’re not hurting anyone. Sorry if I overreacted. I don’t hate you for it.’
Doug swallows. ‘Orright,’ he says. ‘And I don’t hate you, either, for your thing.’
‘We don’t hate each other,’ I say. ‘That’s not bad.’
‘Not bad,’ Doug agrees.
25
MASCHIO
ZEKE
It’s hard to feel good about surviving the night when Curtis didn’t.
When I wake up in the quiet ward, I have another big cry. It comes over me like a rampage of tsunamis. Every time I think I’m done, another tsunami hits, and I’m a mess again. I think about Ahmed, losing his husband. Charlie, losing a father figure. Me and Rex, losing a protector. Curtis seemed so tough you’d think nothing could kill him.
I ask my nurse where they take the bodies. She says Curtis’ll be in the morgue and I can’t see him. It feels cruel to be in the same building and not be able to tell him I am here.
Nobody is exactly sure how Curtis died. Rex had mopped the kitchen so there was no mess when Ahmed got home from Kayla and Tenille’s. Curtis came home, kissed Ahmed in bed, went into the kitchen for his night-time protein shake and walked out into the courtyard to drink it in the moonlight in front of his favourite bonsai tree. Ahmed and Rex were startled by the thud of that big man’s body hitting the wooden deck, and nothing they or the paramedics did could save him. We do know it was a massive heart attack, but what triggered it might never be known: the stress of being attacked by Xander, or the panic of bankruptcy from the boycott, or the hate crime and harassment. Then again, Curtis abused steroids for decades andhit stimulants like a fiend. And he’d had a hard life, fighting against the grain.
