The Bastard Takes a Wife (16 page)

“I could have done more. I’m so sorry I
dumped this on you Mill’. And I shouldn’t have left my mother to
you. It wasn’t fair.”

My eyebrows shot to the top of my head. Was
that an apology? Oh my God, the ‘s’ word had just come out of Sam’s
mouth.

He must have sensed the change in my body
because he continued, “And yes, that was an apology. And don’t you
go telling all and sundry or my reputation’ll be ruined.”

He hugged me for what seemed like hours then,
at last, he pulled away with a kiss to both of my eyelids.

“So, we’re okay?” I asked.

“Yep, as long as you stop this ridiculous
ordering of over the top things. Right now.”

“You’ll back me when your mother starts
hounding again? You know she will.”

Sam paused, putting a finger to his lips in a
mock thinking pose. “Hmm. I guess so. On one condition.”

“What?”

“That you run through Hyde Park with me in
your knickers after the wedding.”

God. I was never going to live that down.

He pulled away from me. Inside the box, the
girls were whooping and cheering. The boys, of course, had given up
on the entertainment and were back to the task of drinking as much
of the free booze as possible before the game started.

Sam picked up the plastic bag with my Western
Force jersey in it. “The game starts in about five minutes,” he
grinned. “That should give you enough time to race to the loo and
put this on.”

“Ta,” I said. I opened the glass door, walked
through the box and promptly tripped down the stairs.

I got back to the box in double time, I think
it was the quickest I’d ever gotten changed in my entire life but I
was so happy now that Sam and I were back on track that I don’t
even remember whipping off my dirty top, shoving it into the bag
and putting on my new Force jersey. The only thing I remember
thinking as I walked back up the stairs to the box was that Sam
must know more about me than I realised. The shirt was a perfect
fit.

I turned to knob on the door to the box and
entered. The mood had lifted and everyone was laughing and joking.
It was as if everyone seeing Sam and I making up through the glass
of the viewing window had changed the group dynamics. They were
being so nice to each other.

As I reached the spot where Sam was standing
and edged into my place beside him, he looked down at me and
smiled.

“Nice shirt. We’ll make a rugby girl out of
you yet.”

I looked down at the jersey, doing a little
Kirby twirl so he could admire it some more. “How’d you know my
size?”

“When I got to the Merch’ stand there were
two chicks serving so I gave them the old ‘girlfriend test’ while I
was waiting.”

“The what?” I could tell by that cheeky glint
in Sam’s eye that I didn’t want to hear this. But it was too late
to take back the question now I’d asked.

“You put your hands up like this.” His hands
rose in two claw-like shapes as if he was pretending to growl or
something. “Then I measured them against the size of each of the
girls tits.”

Seeing my blank look, he reached across the
circle and gave Kirby’s boobs a squeeze to which she, of course,
pretended to be ‘like totally’ offended and slapped him off with a
giggle.

The realisation dawned on me. Sam had gone
for the grope on the merchandise girls. My fiancé was a groper. Oh
my God.

“You didn’t.”

“How else was I s’posed to judge your size?
Merch’ Girl B was just right by the way. Bit thicker in the hips
but the boobs were spot on.”

I was appalled. “You felt up the girls on the
Merchandise Stand?”

Sam began to laugh. “Of course, I didn’t. I
did it by sight. You know, like painters do with a paintbrush?
Jesus, Mill’, what’d you take me for? As if I’d go round touching
up other chicks now we’re engaged. And anyway, I didn’t know them
from Adam.”

I exhaled a bit of a sigh and went back to my
drink. Sam appeared to be putting the things I’d been trying to
teach him since we started going out into practise. A year ago he
would have thought nothing of giving a quick squeeze to a stranger
in the name of research and it had taken months of careful tutelage
before I could trust him to be out alone in public and know he
wouldn’t comment on anything he thought was funny but others would
be offended by ~ like bum size, nose size or even the odd hideous
outfit.

In fact, now that I thought about it, he
hadn’t said anything inappropriate for months. He must be growing
up.

At that moment, the door burst open and Simmo
entered, dragging that-slut-Courtney along behind him. She was
looking rather smug though I don’t know if it was because she’d
managed to weasel her way into our little gang yet again or because
she’d squeezed herself into a Western Force singlet that was
clearly two sizes too small. Her boobs looked like an out of
control ride at Wet ‘N’ Wild spilling out the top of as they were
and her blue belly button ring poked from the under the hem.
Seriously, a bikini top would have covered more.

With a roll of her eyes and a heavy groan,
Sasha dove into her handbag for a cigarette even though she hadn’t
had one for a week and the box was non-smoking. “I thought they’d
broken up?”

“Looks like he, like, changed his mind,”
Kirby whispered, giving the new arrivals a view of her back.

“Hi everyone,” Courtney cooed, tossing her
auburn locks over her shoulder to reveal a bit more skin and
whacking Johnny in the face. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“We didn’t.” Sasha blew a puff of smoke in
Courtney’s direction. “So why don’t you take your kiddie top back
to the cheap seats where you belong? There’s a big bunch of bogans
down there looking for their lost dogs. You’ll fit right in.” She
flung her hand in the direction of the ‘standing’ shed, where
indeed there were hoard of men wearing blue witches hats adorned
with similar coloured fairy lights, singing bawdy rugby songs.

Courtney bent into the mini bar and pulled
herself out a beer, twisting the cap off. She tilted the neck to
her red stained lips, took a sip that could only be classified
pornographic and ran her tongue over her lips slowly. Very slowly.
“Nice to see you, too, Sasha. From that aggressive outburst, I’m
guessing you still haven’t had a shag since Alan dumped you?”

“Sex with Alan wasn’t a shag, Courtney. It
was a trauma.”

“Probably ‘cause you had no idea what you
were doing.”

Sasha’s eyes widened. She flicked her
cigarette on to the concrete outside, her foot reaching over to
stub it out. Then she turned back to Courtney. “At least I don’t
shag anything that walks. It’s a wonder you can get your slutty
legs together. And FYI, seeing as how I’d never go for your sloppy
seconds, there’s no one left for me to shag in the whole of Perth,
so it’s no wonder I can’t get any.”

“Like, more like Australia,” Kirby muttered
from behind her.

“Oh my God.” Alex attempted a polite snort
that turned into a splutter of laughter behind her hand.

Mel pressed her lips together.

Johnny just outright laughed which set
everyone else off. Everyone except Simmo. His face went a queer
shade of blue that matched his jersey. Being sandwiched in between
the two women in his life while they fought was clearly not his
idea of a fun Saturday night.

“
Sash’
,” he whined.

Sasha swung towards him. Her eyes sparked
with pent up annoyance. “What? Did you expect me to be nice to her?
She’s a man-stealing cow and you’re a bloody great fool for keeping
her around.”

Simmo’s lip wobbled.

“And don’t pull that face on me. It won’t
make me change my mind and take you back. Even if I hadn’t already
had the papers drawn up, I wouldn’t be changing my mind. Not when I
can’t trust you to keep your penis in your pants.”

“But…”

“No! I don’t want to talk to you. Or her. And
don’t dare sit near me to watch the game. The thought of you two
makes me nauseous and I’ve run out of Maxalon.”

Courtney took Simmo’s hand. “You sound quite
bitter. You should get some help with that.”

“Oh shut up. I’ve had enough of you. We’ve
all had enough of you. You ruin every event with your strutting and
preening and trying to hook up with our men. You’re nothing but an
insecure no-friend loser. We don’t like you. We’ve never liked
you.”

For once, Courtney had no quick reply.

“Don’t be so mean,” Simmo replied.

“Mean? Simmo! Have you even stopped to
consider that other people have feelings apart from you? You fucked
her. You flaunted it around the club. You ruined our marriage! Yet
all you can say is ‘I’m being mean’? You broke my heart and you
just don’t get it.”

Simmo frowned. For the first time, he looked
contrite. “Sash’.”

“Please, can you leave me alone? If you want
to be with her, be with her, but can you do it somewhere other than
in my face.”

“S’pose I have been a bit of a prick.”

Taking Sasha’s hand, Mel led her to the
seating area. “That’s a fucking understatement.”

Out on the field, the teams were running to
their positions. The man on the loud speaker was telling everyone
to cheer ~ possibly because the Force needed all the help they
could get. The referee was checking his watch and noting the start
time for the game.

“If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going
to get that bitch back,” Sasha muttered. “Don’t ask me how but I
will.”

“Ignore her,” Mel soothed. “It’s Man Candy
time. Now where’ll we sit?”

“Who needs Man Candy when you have me?”
Johnny chuckled, as he pushed past to go down the stairs, giving
her bum a not-so-subtle rub as he did so.

Mel jumped. She glowered. “Oh my God, when
will you get it into your skull that I don’t fucking want you?”

“When you get it into yours that you do… Come
on, Mel. You know it’s true. And seeing my dick the other week only
confirmed it for you.” He gave her a lascivious wink and took his
seat next to Sam.

The blush on her face said more than words
ever could.

We took the few steps down to our seats. As
usual, with the promise of rugby to be watched the boys were
already seated together in the front rows, leaving the back seats
to the girls and Simmo. I sidled along until I came to the only
seat left. Unfortunately, it was the one next to Courtney but I
supposed it was better that I sit there than one of the other
girls. She didn’t appear to be baying for my blood this time.

The whistle went and Dave Harvey took the
kick off for the
Force
. It went straight down the field with
the players chasing and was taken by a member of the other team. I
crossed my legs and placed my drink on the ledge in front of me. I
relaxed into my seat and attempted to concentrate on the game. It
wasn’t easy. On one side of me, that-slut-Courtney had recovered
from her moment of normalcy and now had her hand on Simmo’s crotch
and her tongue in his ear. She was whispering rather loudly over
the din about what she was going to do to him when they got home.
On the other side, Kirby, Alex and Mel were eyeing off the players
and giving them marks out of ten while Sasha was throwing her hands
in the air and swearing about the missed calls by the referee. In
front of me, the boys had leapt to their feet to applaud a
brilliant tackle by their hero, Nathan Sharpe. They were doing some
strange sort of dance that looked like the Chicken Dance.
Seriously, sometimes I wondered what I’d done for entertainment
before I met these people.

It was the following Saturday. Fourteen days
until D day. The girls, Paige and I sat in the reception area of
Bodybliss Day Spa waiting for our group appointment. The day had
been Kirby’s idea and I had to admit it sounded like what I needed
after the week I’d had. The flowers I’d picked for my bouquet
couldn’t be sourced anywhere in Australia and had to be flown in.
Angus wasn’t sure if they would arrive in time. The guest list had
increased yet again. Along with the other two hundred people I’d
never met, we were now going to be entertaining the members of some
secret society Sam’s father had been a member of even though he
hadn’t seen them for over a decade. The last straw had been the
cake. After Patricia had berated me for twenty minutes over the
cost, she’d taken a deep breath and calmly informed me she’d added
an extra tier to the top ~ to accommodate the extra guests. I
couldn’t win. All I could do was take another migraine tablet and
lay in a darkened room, hoping it would all go away.

I was trying to put it behind me, to remain
calm and unemotional. Really. I was trying to remember that other
people had worse wedding experiences than me, horror stories, in
fact, that you would never get over. I tried not to let my blood
boil over the little things that had the potential to become
earth-shattering if I thought about them for too long but it was
very hard when everything seemed to be imploding and all I wanted
was to explode. And the thing that made me the most stressed was
the fact that I wasn’t normally like this. I’d never been the girl
who became distraught over shoes and hairdos. So why was I doing it
now?

Pushing that thought from my mind, I looked
around the assembled group, grateful for each one of them and all
they were doing for me. Next to Paige, Kirby was flicking through a
magazine and on the other side of the room the remainder of the
girls were looking at something on Mel’s phone. I smiled to myself.
It was nice that Alex was fitting in. I wanted them to be
friends.

“Can you believe this email Angus sent us?”
Mel asked, tossing her phone across the reception area at me. “It’s
five pages long. We’re not going to have time to scratch our bums
for the next two weeks.”