Tigerland (19 page)

“You were… romantically involved with Declan Tyler?” Lachie asked.

Heyward nodded. “Yes.”

“
The
Declan Tyler?” Suki asked, still in shock.

Heyward nodded again.

I sat on the bottom step, aware that some of the crew were still staring at me as if waiting for a reaction. Maybe they thought I didn’t know, and was having a nervous breakdown.

“You heard it here first,” Lachie said, addressing the camera. “Greg Heyward and Declan Tyler. After the break, we’ll see if we can get any more revelations out of Greg Heyward about the life of a closeted football player.”

The lights dimmed again as they went to commercial, and I found I still couldn’t move.

F
ROM
there on, I don’t remember anything, really, about the rest of the interview. I sat on that step, wondering if Dec was watching this at home, and how he was going to react. I also stressed myself silly by imagining what the media would be saying in the morning. Even if it didn’t make the papers at this late hour, it was bound to be on the morning television shows and all over the net. My phone was buzzing in my pocket, and I looked at the number to see that it was private. I let it go to voice mail, knowing that it was probably the start of the media press, wanting to get access to our footage to use as part of their own packages. Or fuck, maybe even wanting a quote from me. Declan was probably already receiving calls.

Best to let Coby deal with it all. I was toast.

I don’t know how long it was until Fran and Roger joined me on the stairs. It could have been minutes; it could have been hours. Okay, it couldn’t have been hours, or else the show would have been over, and as far as I could see, Heyward was still being grilled by my employees on air.

“Shit, Simon, are you okay?” Fran asked.

“Yep,” I lied. And they knew it was a lie but didn’t push it.

I watched Heyward shake hands with Suki and Lachie; the interview was over. I stood up and wiped my sweaty hands on my pants.

“Simon, you’re not going to do something stupid, are you?” Fran asked.

“Who, me?” I said, walking away.

“Roger, stop him,” I heard Fran say.

I couldn’t hear Roger’s reaction, but I could guess it was him asking what she possibly thought he could do.

Heyward was stepping off the stage, and Coby was meeting him to take him back to what we laughingly called our “green room.” I brushed aside Coby’s questions, grabbed Heyward by the arm (and was actually surprised when he let me, as he could have thrown me off easily), and shut the door of the green room behind us.

“You know, if that had happened on the field, you would have been on the ground. I don’t let anybody touch me,” Heyward fumed.

“That must make your sex life difficult,” I said, trying to stay calm. “What the hell was that crap you pulled out there?”

He feigned surprise. “It was my interview! The one you wanted, remember? Well, I don’t think
you
wanted it, but you know what I mean.”

His cockiness was infuriating. “You planned this from the very start, didn’t you?”

“Now, why would I do that?”

“Because it’s
my
show. Because you knew the fuss that will probably come from it. That it will just get you the attention you’re obviously craving. What, are you pissed off that Declan went there first?”

“You obviously care a lot.” Heyward grinned. “It kills you, doesn’t it? That I was there before you. And by
there
, I mean Dec.”

I hated hearing him say Dec’s name, but I wasn’t going to give him the response he craved.

My silence irked him. “You’re pretty good at keeping quiet, aren’t you? You must have learnt that from Declan.”

“I think he had to learn it to protect himself when going out with you.”

Heyward now looked genuinely surprised. “You think
I’m
the one who closeted Declan? He wasn’t exactly out and proud when we first hooked up, you know.”

It just showed how little he knew Dec. “No, he’d be the first to admit he did that himself, but you were part of it. You took advantage of it.” There was a knock at the door, but I ignored it. “You used it to make sure you could manipulate and treat him whatever way you wanted.”

“Does he know you think he’s so weak?”

He obviously didn’t contradict the theory that some jocks were dense meatheads. “Weak? You think that makes him weak? He did it because he thought he loved you! That makes him a hell of a lot stronger than you!”

“Whatever you reckon.”

“Dec may have been outed, but at least he didn’t try and hide when it happened. He stood up to them all. You fed him some bullshit over three years ago about how he was an inspiration, and you were thinking of doing the same. And then you locked yourself back in the closet.”

He remained impassive, and I had to give him kudos for his acting as if he just hadn’t fed me and Dec to the dogs. My hands were balled up so tightly that my knuckles were even paler than the rest of my skin. Like, fluorescent. It had been years since I wanted to hit somebody and abandon my self-proclaimed pacifist streak, but the urge was there.

And that was when I remembered the last person I had hit, and the world of trouble it had caused. It had led to mine and Dec’s limbo of “separation,” and there was no way I was going through that shit again.

Heyward apparently wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t see the emotion playing upon my face. “Go on. I know you want to hit me. My agent would love it. So would the press. What a fucking story it would be!”

He might as well have been stroking an impressively cartoonish moustache. And hadn’t that guy I had hit said something similar to me after I had not-so-impressively hit him? I couldn’t even remember his name now. Had I ever mentioned that whole sorry mess in an interview, and Heyward was playing on it, or was it just something every arsehole with an overload of testosterone and a need to swing his dick in public pulled out of their “One Liners for Social Situations” manual?

It was amazing how much that realisation calmed me. I looked back up at Heyward, my face as composed as his. “Your fifteen minutes are almost up. You’re not getting any extensions from me.”

I threw open the green room door just as there was another knock upon it. Coby was standing there, his hand raised. As I exited the room, Heyward yelled something after me, but I didn’t hear it, especially as Coby was now following me and yelling in my ear, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I had no idea he was going to do that!”

“I know,” I said, still sounding calmer than I felt. “It’s just his way of getting more attention.”

“Heyward!” Coby yelled, pushing past me, about to go after him. I appreciated his loyalty, and also recognised that it was partly due to his professional pride as well, but I wasn’t going to let
anybody
give Heyward the ammunition he wanted to then go on and start playing the victim.

“Don’t bother,” I said, yanking him back. “It’s what he wants.”

And it was lucky that we were on a commercial break, so our whole conversation hadn’t been broadcast to the—admittedly, small—viewing audience. But knowing that the show would probably go viral tomorrow, it was best not to take chances. As it was, there was probably some bastard already uploading it to YouTube.

Suki and Lachie had now moved to the panel table, and were being joined by a haughty Emcee Gee. All three laboriously avoided looking at me.

I made my way back to the stairs, where Roger and Fran were waiting. Wordlessly, we climbed up to the production office.

“So what happened?” Fran asked as soon as I shut the door.

I felt like I was going to cry just out of pure anger, but I refused to do it. There’s nothing like holding in a shit load of repressed emotion to make you want to let the dam waters finally flow.

“Where were you?” Roger asked.

I took a deep breath. “I just had to go somewhere where we wouldn’t be heard. It ended up with him being smug and trying to goad me into hitting him so he would have even more of a story to sell.”

“Please tell me you didn’t,” Fran said.

“Yeah, remember what happened last time you hit someone?” Roger asked.

“I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t. It would be ineffectual and totally disadvantageous to Declan and me.”

“He’s really stressed,” Fran murmured to her husband. “He’s speaking like he’s trapped in a BBC period drama.”

“Did you have any idea that was going to happen?” Roger asked.

“Does he
look
like he knew what was going to happen?” Fran came up beside me and hugged me. It was nice to stay in her warm embrace, even though I really would have preferred Declan’s, especially in this situation.

“He must have been planning it,” I said. “Why else would he come onto the show?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s a prick,” Roger fumed.

“I feel so humiliated.” It hurt to admit it, but who else could I say it to if not my friends?

“You have nothing to be humiliated about.”

“If I had been my usual cynical self I would have been better prepared. But no, I thought maybe there was a part of him that did want to be of some worth to the gay community. But it was all just to cause more publicity for himself, and get back at Dec in the process.”

“Why would he want to get back at Dec?” Roger asked.

“Maybe because Dec went on to do everything Heyward wanted, but never had the guts. He’s always going to be second to Dec, and he used to think he beat him in every way.”

“Then why bother coming out at all?” Fran asked.

My Bluetooth was buzzing slightly in my ear. It was easier to be forthright when I could be easily distracted immediately after saying it. “Because it gets to the point, no matter how long for some people, that you just can’t stay in the closet any more. Or else you feel like it’ll suffocate you.”

Normally it required full drunkenness and darkness to be so open with my friends, who had years of flippancy and standoffishness from me to deal with. But I always had an escape clause. I took the call from Coby, as Fran and Roger mulled over my explosion of frankness.

“Simon, you better get down here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Dec’s at security chucking a shit fit, wanting in.”

“Why aren’t they letting him in?”

“They’re saying he’s too agitated.”

“Tell them to let him in!”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Coby, what did I just say?”

There was a pause. “Okay, boss.” He thought I was doing the wrong thing, of course.

But I was going to head them off at the pass.

“Trouble?” Roger asked.

“There could be,” I said. “Dec’s downstairs, and it sounds like he’s hulking out.”

“And to think I thought you two were settling into that respectable old-marrieds stage,” Fran said.

“I’d be happy if we could rewind the past month,” I agreed.

We got to the lift doors just as they opened, and Dec strode out, followed quickly by Abe and Lisa.

Abe shot me an apologetic look. “We tried to stop him, but you know what he’s like.”

“Where is he?” Dec demanded, and that was when I realised he was drunk.

I hesitated, and Dec wasn’t impressed.

“Where is he, Simon?”

Coby came up behind me. “He’s already gone. He hightailed it out of here just after your fight with him, Simon.”

“A fight?” Dec asked, jumping over to me and grabbing my hands, inspecting them for any signs of wounds.

I pulled my hands away. “Not
that
kind of fight. How much has he drunk, you guys?”

“I kind of lost track after the second six pack,” Lisa said.

“I better get him home,” I told Coby. “I leave this all in your capable hands. Don’t let the show hit any icebergs.”

“I think it already did,” Coby said.

“Okay, just… don’t let it sink, then.”

Dec was leaning up against me, unsteady on his feet. “Is he really gone?” he asked Coby. “You’re not hiding him?”

“Believe me,” Coby said, “if he was still here, I’d give you a map and a weapon.”

“Coby had his own run-in with Heyward,” I explained.

“He’d sleep with anything,” Dec said.

“He means Heyward, not you,” I told Coby.

“I figured,” Coby replied.

Everybody was standing around uncomfortably, except for Declan, who was leaning uncomfortably. “Let’s go home,” I said brightly.

And never leave it again.

F
RAN
and Roger decided to ride back with Abe and Lisa, leaving Dec and me alone in my car. Dec was leaning his head against the passenger side window, his breath fogging it.

“It’s not like you to get so drunk,” I said.

“I’ve gotten drunk plenty of times.”

“Not as a way to deal with stress.”

“So I wanted a drink! You’ve done it before too.”

“Yeah, I guess. But then you worry about me when I do it.”

Dec sighed. “I just wanted to forget he was even going to be on. But I switched the TV over anyway. And then he dropped his bombshell.”

“I know. I was there.”