BOYS ONLY.
He returns to the bar and is clearly aware we’re all gawking at him. ‘This is what this place is,’ he declares. ‘Boys only. If you have a problem with it, leave and don’t come back. If you like it, this is the place I built for you. Enjoy it.’
He marches into the back of the bar, Ahmed following him.
‘Holy shit,’ Tommo says. ‘That was fucking incredible.’
Everyone who was in the bar when Curtis shirtfronted Xander has nothing else to talk about all night. I’m not on shift, so I get shitfaced with Mason, Brayden and the footy boys. Everyone’s telling their version of the fight, how it feels like we all witnessed something big.
Everyone thinks Xander has finally gone too far.
So do I. I don’t know why I froze, except I saw my entire future go up in flames if I disagreed with Xander and he added me to his kill list. I wouldn’t just lose a shot at being famous – I’d be piled on and cancelled before I even tried.
Of course I’m on Curtis’ side. And support from the bar punters has naturally coalesced on Curtis’ side too; as Mason puts it, he’s a ‘bloody legend’.
But the Tool Shed has only a few hundred supporters. Xander has over a hundred thousand. When he tells his side of the story, that pendulum is gonna swing the other way, and it’s going to be a shitstorm for us.
‘Don’t think about it,’ Mason tells me, throwing an arm over my shoulder when I verbalise my fears. ‘I thought he was okay at first, but he’s a tool. You shouldn’t pay attention to tools.’
I’m happy to make myself forget about it. Being drunk with a hot guy helps.
‘Except tools themselves,’ I say, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively. ‘Tools need attention.’
‘Tools do need attention,’ Mason slurs, his arm still on my shoulder when it should have moved by now. I’m not complaining. ‘This is true, mate, this is true.’
The conversation is sloppily drunk enough to go in circles a bit.
‘Do you like your tool being given attention?’ I ask Mason.
Mason smiles and pulls me in towards him, pressing my head into the warmth of his neck. He kisses the top of my head. ‘I love it,’ he says.
I feel like the kiss is a green light for me to go full-blown slut mode. ‘There’s a glory hole in the dunnies,’ I offer.
‘I’d love that … but I thought you hated me?’ Mason says thickly.
I pull my head up off his chest. ‘What? Who told you that?’
‘Brayden did,’ he says. ‘He said you didn’t like me. He said you thought I was too dumb to go out with.’
‘That little SHIT!’ I seethe.
I look around for Brayden and spot him chatting up some German beefcake wearing a leather harness and a yellow hanky in his back pocket. I’ll kill him later.
‘No, Brayden got it wrong,’ I say. ‘I think you’re hot, Mason. I’ve got a crush on you.’
Mason lifts me up, clean out of my seat, and puts me on his lap before sticking his tongue down my throat. I fall limp withhis strong arms around my back and let it happen, his coppery beard mashing and scratching my face. Someone heckles us to get a room, but I don’t care who sees me suck face with Mason or what it makes me look like.
Kissing him makes me happy, the way I was the summer I was in love with a farm boy.
12
BAD GUY
HAMMER
The way I get reamed, you’d think I’d murdered football itself.
After my shitshow interview on Fox Footy, Tessa bundled me onto the flight back to Perth and ordered me not to make any further comments, no social posts, no doubling-downs, no apologies, no interviews.
