Tigers on the Way

by Sean Kennedy

  That sounded suspiciously like a threat, but a threat by proxy. “Do you speak to her?”

  “No, like I told you, I just sense it. Anyway, enjoy your liquor tonight. Don’t choose the raspberry cruisers. Pineapple are the better ones. But I know you’ll go with the raspberry anyway.”

  Wait, was the pineapple reference some kind of sexual innuendo?

  “Everything changes when you have kids,” she threw back to me over her shoulder as she walked away.

  “Who was your new friend?”

  Roger’s sudden appearance in front of me made me flinch, and once again my wine headed for the floor. Showing surprising agility for once in his life, Roger managed to catch the errant bottle and returned it to me.

  “I thought you were going to wait in the car?” I asked.

  He bumped me with his shoulder. Fuck, his bones were sharp. “And make you walk home by yourself? No way.”

  I grinned at him. “You’re not still pissed at me?”

  “Nah. Kids do suck, sometimes. Even Fran would be the first to say it.”

  “Everybody sucks sometimes.”

  “Gross. Don’t tell me about your sex life.”

  “I wasn’t, but if that applies to your love life, I’m surprised Fran’s still with you. Anyway, she claimed to be a psychic, and she totally vindicated me on the ghost thing.”

  “Not that again!” Roger peered out the window to make sure Fran was still in the car park.

  “You’re just scared of coming over if it’s true.”

  “I don’t like ghosts. They can see you going to the toilet if they want to.”

  “Yeah, that’s the main thing to fear if it all starts going Amityville on you.”

  “I don’t even let Fran see me going to the loo.”

  Dec and I kept some things private from each other as well, but Piedimonte’s really wasn’t the place to discuss them.

  “Is that all we’re getting?” Roger asked, wrinkling his nose at the two paltry bottles of wine in my arms. “I’m going to get some beer.”

  I remembered the vodka cruisers I was craving and followed him to the fridges. Before the selection of overly sugary and much maligned “girly” drinks, I hesitated for a second. By choosing raspberry, was I dooming myself to the truth of my psychic friend’s warnings? Would I conjure this “ghost” into reality?

  Carrying a carton of Crown, Roger came up beside me and rolled his eyes. “Come on, get your usual.”

  Of course! My usual! That woman could have seen me in here a hundred times, buying the same thing. She could have been a slick con woman, like those American TV psychics that google you before you appear on their show.

  But still….

  “I was thinking of trying… watermelon,” I told Roger.

  He snorted. “Fuck, breaking the cycle.”

  But as I reached into the fridge, I automatically drew out two packs of raspberry. I wasn’t going to be drinking watermelon-flavoured sugar water when I could actually drink what I wanted. Even in the face of dire warnings.

  I was as stubborn as fuck. I didn’t need a psychic to tell me that.

  “SIMON’S GETTING stalked by psychics in supermarkets,” Roger announced as soon as we got into the car. He had jumped into the front, desperate to tell Fran before I could.

  She turned her head so fast she could have taken us out with her hair. “I knew I should have come in! I’m always missing out on something!”

  “That’ll teach you not to have a sad and sulk in the car.” Roger shrugged.

  His wife stared him down with the intensity of a thousand suns. I expected his skin to run off his skull like wax.

  “Not that, er, you were having a sad or anything,” Roger quickly added.

  The little men activating the lasers in Fran’s head stood down but remained on alert. They were always on alert.

  I filled her in on the story before Roger got into any more trouble.

  “I think stalked is right,” Fran said. “She’s obviously been watching you for ages.”

  “We haven’t even lived here that long,” I reminded her.

  “Sounds like a scammer to me.” Fran finally put the car into reverse and started backing out of our space. A car waiting to take it from us honked their horn impatiently. Fran threw the brakes on, rolled her window down, and yelled at the other driver. “Hey, fuckhead! Wait like a normal person!”

  She rolled her window back up and Roger gazed at her, his mouth open slightly.

  “What?” Fran snapped. “That shit stain had it coming.”

  “I love you,” Roger said, his face a combination of love, admiration, and blatant lust.

  “I love you too,” she said and kissed him passionately while the horn honked behind us again.

  I peered out through the back window, and shrugged apologetically at the driver, even though she really didn’t warrant it.

  “Would you like me to walk home and leave you two alone?” I asked when clearing my throat didn’t work.

  Fran pulled away from her husband and wiped away a smear of lipstick from the corner of her mouth. “Sorry.”

  She sure didn’t sound it. And judging by the dazed smile on Roger’s face, he didn’t care a whit either.

  I HAD no idea where Fran and Roger were at the moment, and I didn’t really care to know. Instead, I was staring at Dec’s image on my phone as I FaceTimed him in Auckland.

  We had gone through the usual minutiae of catch-up. The implantation of the donor egg and Dec’s swimmers had gone smoothly, and now he and Nyssa were waiting to see if they had taken. Not for the first time, I thought of the strange reality of one of my best friends carrying my partner’s DNA—I was reluctant to see it as sperm, as that seemed so uniquely personal—within her own body. Was I wrong in thinking it was akin to carrying a used condom in there? (Of course I was wrong. But it was a thought that occasionally crossed my mind.)

  I was being all clinical and detached when I really shouldn’t be. Nyssa had been one of the few who had known about Dec and me from the very start, in the surreal early days of our relationship when Dec was still closeted. Why shouldn’t she be here now, helping us achieve something we wanted so badly, given of her own generosity and free will? It was a gift we could never repay her for, and I was jealous.

  Yes, jealous. It was going to create a bond between her and Dec, one that I really wasn’t a part of no matter how much they tried to include me. So I just had to suit up and not act like a baby who wasn’t getting the attention they wanted but didn’t deserve.

  I only wished I was there with them.

  Dec frowned when I started telling him about the Piedimonte’s Psychic. I tried to tell it as a harmless, wacky jape, but his frown had only deepened by the end of it.

  “Maybe it is a con artist,” he said. “I don’t like the idea she’s making these claims. She hasn’t offered to do any private readings or anything, has she?”

  “Usually I’m the paranoid one,” I said. “This is quite the role reversal. Do you really think this old woman is watching our house, shimmying up drainpipes with binoculars and a notepad?”

  “Okay, it sounds silly when you say it like that,” Dec agreed. “But, still. I’m glad Roger and Fran are with you tonight.”

  “Oh no, how could I fight off an old lady all by myself?” I said with my best Scarlett O’Hara. I wished I had a fan to wave around dramatically. “Maybe mah man should come home and protect little ole me!”

  Dec smiled, and I couldn’t help but feel it looked a little sad. “I’ll be home soon. No matter what.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “And what’s so bad about having your man protect you, anyway? You’ve been needing it lately; you’re your own worst enemy.”

  “My balls agree with you.”

  “We protect each other. That’s what we do.”

  His words only made me ache for him more. “As long as you don’t fall in love with a sheep while you’re over there, I think we�
��ll be fine.”

  Dec sighed, although obviously trying not to laugh. “You have got to stop with the sheep jokes.”

  “As long as Nyssa doesn’t give birth to one.”

  A voice sounded on camera, although muffled as if not in the same room as Dec. “I heard that!”

  Dec shuddered. “Maybe it’s not the Piedimonte’s psychic you should be worrying about.”

  Nyssa could be brilliantly scary when she wanted to be. I made Dec laugh again by kissing the screen and giving him the most unflattering angle of me, and signed off.

  “Were you talking to someone?” Fran asked from the doorway. She was smoothing her hair down, as it was looking pretty wild.

  “Good sleep?” I asked.

  She gave me the finger and walked in the direction of the bedroom.

  It was then I noticed that the picture of Dec holding the AFL premiership trophy back when he was in the Devils was askew. Had one of the hooks broken? I stood and lifted the corner of the frame to inspect the back of it. Both hooks were fine, it was just that the picture had come off from the right one and was only hanging on the left. I manoeuvred it back onto both and sat down again, frowning. Was it possible for a picture to only come off one hook by itself? Maybe Fran and Roger had thumped down the hall too heavily on their way to showing their love for one another.

  That thought made me shudder, and I realised I was hungry, so I went downstairs to start preparing dinner. And drink heavily until Dec was home again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “HONEY, I’M home!” I bellowed through the cavernous house.

  No answer, of course. Dec was still in New Zealand; Fran and Roger were long gone back to their own house and own life with their beautiful babies.

  I had just gone to get my stitches removed and was relieved there was no longer any strange sensation of them pulling against my skin, as it always made me feel like I was becoming undone again.

  The air felt heavy.

  That was another thing I wasn’t used to. It felt like somebody had been through the house while I was away. Someone had walked through the kitchen, into the hall, and up the stairs leading towards our bedroom.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Stupid, you stupid fuck! That’s the last thing you do in this situation!

  True. Now they knew I knew I wasn’t alone. They would be hiding behind my door, ready to brain me with my heavy SteelBook complete collection of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Maybe not; they’d probably have brought their own weapon. Preparation was key in home invasions. And who were they? Hopefully there weren’t two of them. I doubted I could even fight one off.

  Unless.

  Maybe it wasn’t even a corporeal human being.

  I wasn’t sure which option actually freaked me out more.

  The bedroom door was slightly ajar; had I left it that way, or had I shut it?

  No, I wouldn’t have shut it. All the doors were left open so Maggie could have the run of the house. Her house. So it was probably just wind. From the windows that I never left open when the house was empty.

  Stop shitting yourself and go back down and make a coffee.

  Coffee sounded good. But I had to check the bedroom was empty.

  I leapt through the door, fists at the ready—or as ready as I could ever make them—and kicked it shut to make sure there was nobody behind it. Which really didn’t make sense, as a ghost probably wouldn’t bother hiding behind doors. Why would they need to?

  Not that I was entertaining the idea it was a ghost, of course.

  Maggie was lying on our bed, and her tail swished dangerously as she glared at me for disturbing her rest. She was usually my red alert informing me something was up—such as a knock on the door—but she looked fine. I was the one causing a ruckus, in her opinion. I scratched her behind the ears, and she preened a little before laying her head back down and going to sleep.

  I couldn’t help but inspect the picture of Dec that had hung so unruly only days before. It was exactly as I had left it.

  So, everything seemed fine.

  The large crash from downstairs told me otherwise.

  My heart racing again, I peeked out into the hall.

  It was empty.

  I really needed a weapon. Why couldn’t Dec have been a baseballer? A bat would have been handy. A Sherrin football wasn’t much of an armoury.

  Off the last step and standing before the kitchen door, I hesitated.

  No sound from within.

  I stepped through and immediately saw the sliding door leading out to the pool was open.

  My first step was the knife block next to the stove. I pulled out the butcher’s knife, telling myself to shut up when I remembered that most homeowners have their choice of weapon turned against them by the invader. Look at what happened to Drew Barrymore in Scream. Wait, that wasn’t right. The killer brought their own knife. Was I going to be stabbed by Ghostface and my body put on gruesome display for Declan to find when he came home? I just hoped he survived the killer’s onslaught to become the Final Girl. Although we could be reunited for eternity if he didn’t; I just hoped heaven took the bloodstains out of your clothes if you had to live in the ones you died in.

  No serial killer awaited me on the patio. But Declan was in the pool. His eyes widened at the knife in my hand, and I dropped it, running over to him. I leaned over and kissed him. His wet hand caressed my neck, sending rivulets of water down my spine. I shivered, but truth be told, it was more from the extreme joy I felt at seeing him in the flesh again. And not being murdered by Ghostface.

  When I pulled away, I whacked him on the shoulder. “You scared me, you dickhead!”

  “I could tell by the knife,” he said dryly. “But I did think the suitcase in the hallway might have been a giveaway.”

  “There was a suitcase in the hall?” I would have passed it twice. I really wasn’t the most observant person in the world.

  “I’ve missed you.” He pulled me in for a kiss again.

  His other hand snaked around and started unbuttoning my shirt.

  “Hang on,” I pulled away. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

  “I wanted to surprise you. Nyssa told me there was no use waiting around for the results, and she said next time we had to come over together because it felt weird without you.”

  Bless that woman. “Did you feel weird without me there?”

  He drifted back and sat against the wall of the pool, his arms hanging over the shelf. “I always feel weird without you.”

  Declan Tyler was the smoothest-talking bastard in the world. The good thing was, he actually meant every word he said.

  “It was a long flight. We were delayed on the tarmac when we landed. Some problem with the doors at the terminal, and the aircon wasn’t switched on so we were sweating. When you weren’t here, I thought I’d cool off.” He sliced through the surface, swimming towards me, and as his legs kicked up, I saw his bare butt breaking the water.

  “Uh, you’re naked,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Aren’t you scared the neighbours might see?”

  “That’s why I put up the shade cloth.” He nodded towards the sail above our heads that afforded some privacy.

  “And when you get out of the water?” His audacity amused me, as it was very unlike the reserved Dec I knew and loved.

  “We have high walls. We also have towels.”

  “Why are you naked?”

  He gave a sly grin. “The question is, why aren’t you?”

  Dec was now treading water, and like a virgin school girl, I was fastidiously averting my gaze from looking at the obvious. But my blood was rising.

  “Because I have a fear of public nudity?”

  “Why are you answering as if it is a question? It’s not a question.” To prove it, Dec kicked up his feet and floated on his back with all of his glory to see. “This is a private residence.”

  “Anything outside
our closed doors is public to me.”

  Dec groaned and submerged his body again to face me. “Simon,” he said impatiently. “Take off your clothes and get in here.”

  “Bossy,” I grumbled. I didn’t even know why I was arguing. There was nothing I wanted to do more than what he asked.

  “I don’t know why you’re so bashful,” Dec goaded me. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

  I winced as the cool air hit my chest. The sun was going down, and the night was beginning to take hold. Dec looked very hot in the pool, though, in more ways than one. He must have switched on the heating.

  My shirt hit the floor.

  “Nice.” Dec nodded in approval. “Now the pants.”

  I almost fell over as I pulled off my shoes and socks.

  Dec laughed but put on a straight face when I glared at him.

  I hurriedly shucked off my pants and boxers and jumped into the pool before any peeping tom got a free show. The water was colder than I expected, and as I emerged, I yelped.

  Dec’s strong arms pulled me into him. “Don’t worry. I’ll warm you up.”

  His body pressed against mine. I was feeling less self-conscious already. “Hello.”

  “Hi.” He kissed me, and we glided back against the shelf, still entwined but with our feet now on solid ground, which made it even easier to hold on to each other.

  “I missed you too,” I murmured, running my hand down his back and resting it upon the curve of his arse.

  “Finally, he said it.” Dec grinned.

  “I really, really missed you.” And I kissed him to show how much I meant it. Our kisses became sloppier and more heated. I was so fucking glad my stitches were out.

  That must have crossed Dec’s mind too. He glided a short distance away. “Shit, I’m so sorry!”

  “Relax.” I swam back over to him. “Relax, they’re out. I’m a free man again.”

  The glint appeared in his eyes once more. “Good.”

  “Really good.”

  “Come here.” He let go of me and produced a bottle of champagne from where it was lying on the shelf, kept cold by the pool itself.