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.
Ahmed brings me a Sprite and puts a puke bucket between my legs, before kissing me on the forehead. ‘You need to start taking better care of yourself, silly sausage,’ he says. ‘Can’t keep doing this every weekend.’ He turns the TV off – he was watching a British sitcom calledVicious– and tells Curtis he’s off to bed.
As I sip at my lemonade, Curtis gets up, his hulking form moving into the living room. He tosses a coaster onto the table and gestures for me to put my cup on it, which I do.
The couch sags as Curtis sinks onto it beside me. Unlike Ahmed, he smells of sweat. He’s been setting up the bar all day and hasn’t stopped to have a shower. ‘I worry about you, son,’ he says, placing a heavy arm over my shoulders. I smell his scent and a part of me wants to bury my face in his armpit.
‘I’m fine, Dad,’ I tell him.
‘Know somethin’, son, I don’t think you are,’ Curtis says. ‘Gonna tell me what’s eatin’ ya?’
We only talk like this when Ahmed’s not around. Ahmed hates me calling Curtis ‘Daddy’ and him calling me ‘son’. Was it sexual when we used to fuck? Sure. But now it’s – I don’t know – platonic. A big daddy bear protecting his cub. It’s probably fucked up, but Curtis cares about me more than anyone, and I’d do anything for him.
‘Just falling for the wrong boys again,’ I mutter, flopping back onto the couch. The lemonade has eased my guts, but I’ve got a bitch of a headache now, like a pickaxe.
‘Straight boys?’
‘No, even the homos are rejecting me now,’ I sulk.
Curtis chortles. ‘You are a romantic fool, son.’
I grimace. ‘I fucking am not,’ I say. ‘I’m a punk.’
Curtis snorts. ‘You think I ain’t met punks before? I used to run with them in New York, in SF. I know punks.’
‘You trying to say I’m not a punk?’ I snap.
