For half a second everyone held their breath, but if Tarelli had hoped to escape without his remarks being repeated, he had reckoned without the great Australian bluntness – a general tendency that, in Macca, had been fine-tuned to a staggering degree.
“Well, hestartedby asking ‘which one of our pillow biters do you think takes it up the arse’,” Macca said. “And when I told him to shut up, he did not. How much more do you want to hear?”
“I was just joking!” Tarelli cried.
Just joking. Pillow biters.Such pathetic words. I wanted to hear no more, but Miles stood his ground in the centre of the room, all molten fury as he lifted a warning finger to his trainer. “Unless you’re going to tell me the rest, Tarelli, don’t interrupt.”
“There isn’t any more! That was it, and I’m sorry, it was just meant to be a bit of fun.”
“No more?” Macca laughed. “What about when you said ‘Russo’s got to be a screamer, right?’ or ‘we’ve all seen the pictures Callahan bought when he got snapped sucking cock in Miami, looks like he swallows damn good,’ or ‘I’m no queer, but I’d let him suck my cock if he wants it so bad’.That, for reference, is when I punched him.”
Long before he’d finished, Miles’s team had erupted into denials, Leo Mannering leading with, “They’re just making things up.” While Tarelli cried that he would never say such a thing because he wasn’t gay.
It was a trainwreck. An actual, honest-to-god trainwreck and there was nothing I could do because this wasn’t about Macca at all. It wasn’t even about me. We were merely the catalyst for something that had been brewing for a long time.
For a full minute, Miles stood silent in the eye of the storm before he pointed to the door. “Out,” he said, the word not loud but so vehement it resounded through the small function room with its sea of plastic chairs. “You’re all fired. I want every one of you gone by morning.”
“You can’t fire my team,” Mannering said like he was explaining something simple to a child. “I need them to—”
“No, you don’t, because ‘all’ included you. We’re done, Leo.”
Mannering dared a step closer in the sudden silence. “Now, don’t be a fool, Miles. Your parents hired me to make you the bestplayer you could be. Don’t throw away your chance at being world number one on something as foolish as a few poorly chosen words.”
“Oh, you mean words like fairy? Or nancy?” Miles asked, the question deceptively quiet. “Is that what you think about ‘people like us’?”
A look full of accusation flicked my way, but Leo Mannering kept his tone smooth as he replied, “I don’t think anything. I just don’t appreciate other people trying to coach my player.”
“So, it doesn’t bother you that I suck dick? Or that I take it up the ass?” Miles glanced around at the rest of his team as he spoke before fixing his gaze on his coach, seemingly calm while my heart slammed into my ribs. “Doesn’t bother you that I beg for it? That I like being held down and fucked? That I get off on having a cock deep in my throat?”
“This is hardly appropriate conversation for—”
“Hardly appropriate for me to find out if the people I work with every damn day have a problem with me being a big nelly bottom who likes getting railed before matches?”
Words I’d never heard him use about himself. I couldn’t but think of how hesitant he’d been the night he’d first told me he preferred to receive, and wonder if he was challenging his own preconceptions of what it meant about him, not only theirs. But if he was hoping for a reaction, he was to be disappointed. Leo met the question with a blank stare and a calm, “So long as you work hard and play well, it’s none of our business, is it boys?”
Mannering looked to the team as he spoke and got a chorus of murmurs and headshakes. They were the right words in the moment, but they were also manipulative and disingenuous and I wanted to tear the triumphant little smile off the man’s face. “Feel better now you’ve gotten all that out?” he went on when Milesdidn’t answer. “To make things easier, Tarelli won’t press charges, but it’s only reasonable that Russo keeps his team—”
“Mat has an amazing dick, you know?” Miles interrupted, sending heat flaring into my cheeks. “Huge. And I let him use me however he likes. Multiple times a day even because I’m his bitch.”
He was stretching the truth now, trying to get a rise from his coach, but though Leo Mannering’s jaw tightened, he wasn’t fool enough to be goaded into a retort. I looked at Tina, silently begging her to do something and she stared back, equally shocked, equally silent. Beside her, Miles’s physio was staring at his feet, his assistant coach had his lips pressed tight like he was trying not to laugh, and his strength and conditioning coach shot me a disgusted sneer. But Miles had eyes only for Mannering.
“I ride it,” Miles said, eyes bright as he took a step closer to his coach. “I suck it. I take it. I beg him to come inside me.”
I ought to say something, ought to save him from himself, but who was I to speak? I was just the safe fuck, not someone with any right to interfere. Besides, what could I say that wouldn’t undermine him? Wouldn’t be telling him he was going too far and being too much, when he was the one hurting.
“And you know what people will wonder the day they find out all this about me?” Miles went on in the face of Mannering’s growing scowl. “Whether the great Leo Mannering only came out of retirement because he got offered my amazing ass.”
“Miles.” Mannering’s jaw set hard like his teeth were damming his anger.
“You watched for a long time when you caught me with that guy in Dallas. How long have you wanted to fuck me, Leo? Teach the brat a lesson. Is that why you put up with coaching a queer? In the hope one day I’ll be very grateful and let you have me?”
The slap connected like a whip, the weight of it snapping Miles’s head to the side in a sweep of dark blond hair. “Shut your fucking mouth, you little faggot,” Mannering snarled, his fingers curling into fists like he would follow it with a punch. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had. He’d already lost.
As Miles turned slowly back, the smile that stretched his lips was frighteningly cold for something so triumphant. “There, was it really so hard to admit I disgust you? Goodbye, Leo.”
When no one moved, the whole room seemingly frozen, his furious gaze swept over the rest of his team and for the second time he pointed to the door. “Go! Now!” Miles shouted. “Why do I have to repeat myself? You’re all fired!”
Turning silently on his heel, Leo Mannering strode for the door, sweeping past Tomas and Macca as though they didn’t exist. The rest followed, Tarelli in silence, his assistant coach with a mumbled apology. Only his physio dared to stop and speak. “Sorry, Miles,” he said and genuinely looked like he meant it. “I should have spoken up whenever they . . . or told you . . . Sorry.”
