Hard Tail (25 page)

Then a pile-driver punch slammed into my side, just above my kidney.

Winded, I staggered a few paces, then spun around gracelessly. If I’d been in the mood to be scared of Pritchard, I’d have been bloody terrified. His face, in the twilight, was purple with rage, and his teeth were bared, his lips pulled back in a ferocious snarl.

“Come on, you coward. Fight me, you fucking poofter!”

It was the last insult, more than anything, that made me punch him back. He was such a piece of filth. I don’t know if I was fighting for me, for Matt, or for all the other poofters he’d slagged off—and probably beaten—in the past. Perhaps it was the reminders of World War Two I’d seen earlier, spurring me on to fight for what was right. Maybe I was just fighting what I could see of myself in Pritchard: the cowardice; the hypocrisy; the wanting to have all the benefits with none of the responsibilities.

Maybe it was just because he was such a hateful piece of shit.

As I leapt past him, catching him on the ear with a backfist strike, a warm drizzle started to fall. “Call that a fucking
uraken
? There’s girls with white belts who could do better than that.”

Casual misogyny apart, he was right. My knuckles didn’t hurt as much as they should have—I was still pulling my punches.

“Think you’re so fucking special, don’t you?” Pritchard sneered. “You and that fucking slag Matt. Think I’m stupid?”

It was probably just as well he didn’t leave a pause for me to answer.

“I know you were fucking him in that bloody shop,” he snarled.

What?
“Look, Matt and I aren’t—”

He lunged at me again, feinting with a jab punch and following it up with a side thrust kick that could have knocked several internal organs clean out of my body had it connected. I retaliated with a kidney punch of my own. It landed a little off target, and I felt my knuckles bruise against his ribs.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt a rib cracking under the force of my blow.

Pritchard swore and came straight back at me, feet flying in a series of kicks. I dodged and blocked instinctively—not thinking, just reacting. The ground was getting slippery, and I had the vague impression of people around us. I thought I heard a police siren in the distance.

As a roundhouse kick came in, I made a sweeping block, putting him off-balance. I danced out of reach and retaliated with a textbook
uraken
to his temple.

He dropped like a stone.

I stood there, panting, staring down at him as he lay on the ground in the rain—and then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Sensei was there.

For the first time since I’d met him, he wasn’t smiling.

Chapter Nineteen

It felt like a lifetime later when I pushed open Jay’s front door. Matt was on me before I’d even kicked my shoes off.

“Tim? What the hell happened? It’s two o’clock!” He caught sight of my face—and of my gi, now crumpled and stained with blood and dirt. “You didn’t go to see Jay, did you? You went to karate. To fight Steve…”

“You should see the other guy,” I said weakly, trying to smile.

“Are you hurt?” he asked urgently, his hands reaching out as if to check me over for broken bones.

I shook my head and immediately wished I hadn’t as pain flooded me behind the eyes. “I’m fine. They had a doctor look me over—there’s nothing major.”

“They?”

“Um. The, er, police.”

“Shit, are you in trouble?”

“Um,” I said again. “Probably. Sort of depends on your Steve.”

“He’s not my Steve!” Matt’s tone was furious, and I stared at him. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “What happened?”

“Well, ironically enough,” I said, untying my belt, “I decided I didn’t want to fight him. So I left the dojo.”

“He came after you.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded, hanging my belt over the stair rail. “Threw a punch at me before I’d even noticed he was there. The girl on reception saw us fighting and called the police before she told Sensei what was up.”

“What happened?” Matt took a deep breath. “Did you—was Steve badly hurt?”

I’d known he would ask, however much it galled me to see his concern for the bastard. He’d been living with him up until a couple of days ago—of course he still had feelings for him. “Concussion, I think. Maybe a couple of cracked ribs. I think I must have lost it a bit. Sorry.”

“What? He attacked you! You don’t have to apologise for hitting back.”

“I’m a black belt. I’m supposed to have more control.” I realised I didn’t have a clue what happened to black belts who got convicted of assault—did they lose their karate licence? Get ceremonially stripped of their belts? All of which, of course, would pale into insignificance if I ended up in jail.

God. How would I cope if I went to jail? I’d never even been to boarding school.

Matt ran his hand through his hair again, looking as worried as I felt. “Have you been charged with anything? What did Steve say about it—is it his word against yours?”

All very good questions. “I’ve been released on police bail—no charge yet. They’re, um, waiting to talk to Steve. He sort of ended up unconscious.” I couldn’t look at Matt. “I’m sorry. He kept on coming at me, and I just sort of lost it—he was going on about poofs, and after what he did to you…”

“He had it coming,” Matt said so viciously I stared at him in shock. “Shit, Tim, I’m the one who should be saying sorry. If it wasn’t for me, he’d have left you alone.”

“Well, to be fair I think there was a fair amount of personality clash going on too—”

“It was my fault!” He spun away from me, then whirled back. “Monday night—I asked him about karate, about if he’d seen you there—I mean, if he’d known who you were. He said he’d known since the first time you went—that was the day we met, wasn’t it? He said…he said a lot of stuff about you too. That’s when we had the fight.”

“The fight?” I struggled to think—Matt hadn’t had any new bruises in the last few days, had he? After all, I’d seen him in just his boxers only this morning, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been paying attention to detail. “Did he hurt you again?”

“He…” Matt took a deep breath. “He didn’t hit me that time. He just sort of shook me, and then he slammed me into the wall. I hit my head a bit hard and blacked out—only for a minute,” he reassured me hurriedly. “But that’s when I realised…I had to leave him.”

“Matt…” I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to grab hold of him and never let him go—except for the hour or so I’d be spending beating Pritchard into a bloody pulp. Maybe I’d make it two hours. I was feeling generous. “Did you see a doctor?”

“Nah, just took a couple of paracetamol and went to bed in the spare room.”

“Matt! That’s incredibly dangerous. You could have had a concussion. Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

“It’s all right—I know what a concussion feels like.”

He probably did, but still… “Matt, just humour me, okay? Go see a doctor next time.” I let out a long, shuddering breath. “Let me see it.”

“There’s nothing there, honest. It didn’t even bleed,” Matt protested, but he still turned around and parted his hair away from the back of his head.

There wasn’t, in fact, a lot to see—just a bit of bruising. I prodded it gently with a finger.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry. Just checking.” It had seemed fine—no ominous squashy bits. I reluctantly conceded Matt’s self-diagnosis had probably been correct—after all, it’d been forty-eight hours since the injury; anything bad that was likely to happen would probably have done so already.

“Anyway,” he said, turning back around, “if you need me to, I’ll go down the police station and tell them he knocked me around, okay? So they know what he’s like.”

“Thanks,” I said. As the last of the adrenaline drained away, I leaned back against the banisters and closed my eyes, weary to my very bones. “You know, I don’t understand why you didn’t go to the police before. When he hit you. Why would you just let him get away with it?”

There was a long silence. I opened my eyes, worried I’d crossed a line.

Matt was slumped against the opposite wall, his hands in his pockets. “I know. I—I just felt… I don’t know. He was always so sorry once he’d calmed down. Always swore it’d never happen again. And I just—well, it’s not a very manly thing to own up to, is it? That your boyfriend’s been beating you up.”

“Matt…” I sighed. “You’re not the one who should be ashamed about it.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But it still didn’t seem right, doing anything that’d out him. He was so paranoid about anyone finding out about us.”

“So why was he even going out with you?” I caught myself. “Um, that probably sounded a bit uncomplimentary—”

Matt managed a half laugh. “’S all right. See, that was the other thing. I mean, it was my fault—I mean, I was only supposed to be the lodger. It wasn’t like he went looking for a boyfriend or anything.”

“But it got to be a bit much for him, seeing you wandering around the house in your boxer shorts?” For the first time, I felt a sneaking sympathy with Pritchard. For, oh, about a nanosecond or so. “Okay, so he was confused about his sexuality. That still doesn’t give him the right to take it out on you.”

“No, but…” Matt shrugged. “And it wasn’t like I was even his first or anything… But it still didn’t seem right, giving him away when he didn’t want anyone to know about us.”

“He was an idiot,” I said without thinking. “If I was your boyfriend, I’d want everyone to know about it.” I pushed myself upright and took a deep breath. “Look, don’t worry about work, tomorrow. The shop’s doing fine—the business isn’t going to fail if we don’t open up for a day. I think we could both do with catching up on our rest. I’m going for a long, hot bath. You get some sleep.”

Matt nodded, his face hidden by his hair.

I trudged upstairs, ran the bath water as hot as I could stand and lay in it until it went cold. My mind was blessedly blank, too numbed by tonight’s events to muster a single thought. When I finally climbed out, I craved a coffee and went downstairs in my dressing gown to see if I could dredge up some of Jay’s decaf.

“Matt?” I asked, blinking at the figure leaning on the kitchen counter, his hands wrapped around one of Adam’s cans of lager. “You should be asleep.”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t feeling like it. Not just yet.” He looked up at me with a twisted smile. “And anyway, Adam’s hogging the sofa.”

“Adam’s still here?” I realised guiltily I’d completely forgotten about Adam.

“Yeah—he said he’d stay till you got back, but he was asleep by then, so I didn’t want to wake him.” Matt put down his lager, the thud of the can on the counter suggesting most of the contents were still inside.

“Why didn’t you say? Look, you’ll have to share the bed with me.” I could feel my face heating up. “There’s plenty of room.” And I’d probably end up lying awake all night, just to make certain I wouldn’t molest him in my sleep.

Matt looked up, his face pale in the harsh fluorescent light. “Are you sure? I mean, if you’re injured…”

“I told you—there’s nothing serious. Just a bit of bruising.”

“Bad?”

“Not sure—but that kidney punch left its mark.” I opened my dressing gown to try to have a look, but the twisting involved was a bit too uncomfortable right now. “Can you see anything?”

Matt gave a sharp intake of breath as he stepped toward me. “Just a bit.”

“Make a right pair, don’t we?” I said without thinking. Matt’s face fell so far it was practically in Australia.

“’M sorry,” he said, turning away.

I grabbed his arm. “Sorry for what? Matt, none of this is your fault.”

“It’s my fault Steve had it in for you.” He ran a hand through his shaggy curls as he stared at the fridge. “I—well, I said some stuff about you, the day I met you—and he… I think he kind of got the idea I, well…that I liked you.”

Everything went so still I thought for a moment time had stopped altogether. “Was he right?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

Matt didn’t speak for a moment. “Adam…Adam said you two’d split up,” he said, turning back to face me at last.

Maybe it wasn’t an answer to my question—but God, I hoped the
yes
I’d managed to read between the lines wasn’t just wishful thinking. My heart was beating so hard I worried for my ribs. “Yes,” I said managing not to let my voice crack on the word. “You know…you know there was never anything serious between me and him, don’t you?”

Matt nodded slowly.

“And you know I… If it hadn’t been for Steve, and then Adam—you know I, well…” That time my voice did crack. I hadn’t known how to finish that sentence anyhow. “Matt…” Failing for a second time, I gave up on words and put my hands gently around his waist. He didn’t immediately shake them off, which I hoped was a good sign. “Do—” I cleared my throat. “Do you think you might…?”

Empires rose and fell. Stars burst onto the night sky, then fizzled out to nothing. A whole season of
X Factor
came and went, the winner rocketing from obscurity to number one, gabbling excitedly about living the dream, then disappearing to stack shelves in Tesco.