Number One Fan. Narrelle M Harris
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Upton.’
‘Sorry Lachie, but I have to go. I don’t want them start lunch without me. Frank scoffs all the garlic bread.’ Keep it light, keep it friendly.
‘Oh, you’re having lunch with them?’
‘Yep. Celebrating the end of a hard week singing, like you do.’
‘I thought they were… you know.’
Milo tried hard not to stop, he really did, but his feet nevertheless stopped. ‘Were what?’
‘Nothing, nothing. You and Frank, you’re solid, yeah? Still, you know.’ He gave Milo a meaningful look.
‘Still what?’
‘Boyfriends.’
Milo regretted ever stopping. He regretted ever leaving the office. ‘Yeah. Still boyfriends.’ His expression added like it’s any of your business. But Lachie had relaxed considerably.
‘That’s great. Great. Really. Like. You’re still wearing that bracelet he gave you, yeah.’
The fan forums really had a breathtaking level of detail in them. Milo had no idea how they knew Frank had given the bracelet to him, though he was pretty sure they didn’t know why. He and Frank were the only two who knew that part.
Lachie flinched slightly at the look on Milo’s face. ‘I’m not a stalker,’ he blurted, and then blushed red to the roots and looked ready to cry. ‘Oh, god, I’m fucking this all up.’
‘Nah, it’s fine,’ Milo said. The starstruck ones were rare but most were just a bit overwhelmed. If Milo understood anything, it was feeling overwhelmed.
‘It’s just. You guys. You mean a lot to me. When you outed both of you on the MacMillan show, it was the greatest moment in my life, you know? Well, you wouldn’t, but when you guys did that, and my folks were watching, and my mum thought it was sweet, and Dad said he thought that was pretty brave, that’s when I came out to them. It went pretty well, really. So. Um. Thanks. I just. You’ve been quiet for a while and I was worried you’d… you know. Split up.’
Milo blinked. ‘We’re good, ah,’ name, name, oh yes. ‘Lachie. Solid. I’m glad it went well with your parents.’
‘I think you guys are the best.’
‘Thanks. Ah. So. Lunch. I gotta go.’
‘Oh yeah, sure. And. Um. Tell Frank I’m sorry I got snitty, yeah?’
Milo did just that when he joined Frank and Gabey at the table. A beer had already arrived for him.
‘That MacMillan business made us his romantic heroes,’ Milo announced, rolling his eyes but charmed anyway.
Gabey frowned. ‘That explains why he looked at me like I’d stolen his puppy.’
‘Don’t you steal my man, Ms Valli,’ Milo warned her. ‘He’s the only one who knows where the spare house keys are kept.’
‘Seriously, though,’ she said. ‘Do the fans get to you?’
‘No,’ replied Milo earnestly. ‘They’re a bit awkward sometimes, but not a single one of them has ever tried to murder me.’
‘Me either, I guess,’ said Gabey.
Underneath the table, where Milo was fiddling with his bracelet, clack-clack, clack-clack, he felt Frank’s hand slide over his wrist. He turned his hand palm up, and Frank laced their fingers together. Milo squeezed and held on until the waiter came to fill up their table with plates, pizza and salad.
Chapter Three
‘Are you going to tell everyone you cooked dinner?’ Frank leaned against the door frame and watched Milo decant steaming hot Indian takeaway into fancy ceramic dishes, then into the oven to keep warm.
‘Thought about it,’ Milo confessed, swiping up a drip and sucking the sauce from his thumb. ‘But Mum can tell when I’m lying from a mile away. I made the rice, though. Open the wine to breathe, would you?’
Frank unhitched himself from the frame and opened the shiraz on the sideboard.
‘The pinot too, Frank?’
‘On it. The sav blanc’s in the fridge?’
‘Chillin’ like a jazz saxophonist.’
A chime sounded.
‘Daft beggar,’ Frank laughed, kissing Milo on the cheek before he went to answer the doorbell.
‘Look who we found looking for your street number!’ Milo’s mother Olivia ushered a young woman through the door ahead of her, while her husband of nearly five years – former West Australia Police Detective Peter Crowther – brought up the rear.
‘Angie!’ Frank scooped his sister into a happy hug then held her at arm’s length. ‘You’re looking great. Feeling good?’
Angela patted her swelling belly. ‘Less morning sickness with this one, anyway.’
‘Milo’s in the dining room, he’ll be right–‘
On cue, Milo swept down the hall to hug his mother and kiss Angie’s cheek. He slung an arm around Pete’s shoulders. ‘How you doin’, Stepdad?’
‘Coming to claim that bottle of Glenfiddich you still owe me from last year, Stepson.’
‘I still can’t believe Geelong lost the Grand Final to your lot.’
‘Go the Mighty Haaaaaaawks!’ roared Pete cheerfully.
Frank ushered everyone down the hall. ‘Listen to you, Milo, all… blokey.’
Milo countered the accusation by prancing into the dining room. ‘I speak English, Italian and the language of Melbourne football, my friend. Those of you who grew up in Western Australia weren’t steeped in a century of Aussie Rules tradition. You’ll never know the true calling.’
‘I kicked a ball around with my dad,’ protested Frank.
‘Frank, I love you like the devil, but you are pitiful with ball games.’
Frank’s mouth pursed in a moue as he bit inside his lip. He’d never normally let a fantastic straight line like that go, but it was against all laws of nature to make ball jokes with your sister and practically-mother-in-law in the room. Milo, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, was not helping.
‘Who’d like a shiraz?’ Milo broke the moment with a cheeky grin. ‘Who’s designated driver for the night? Let’s toast our new house!’
Milo was bright and chatty all through dinner, though he only picked at his meal. Angela, visiting Melbourne on company business, showed off photographs of her husband Matthew, their four-year-old daughter Isabella, and the progress on repainting the nursery.
‘Mum thinks we ought to paint it sage green. She said it was dad’s favourite colour.’
Frank’s eyebrows rose. ‘Was it?’
Angela snorted inelegantly. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think Dad might have just about known there was more than one kind of green. I can’t imagine he’d have known sage was one of them.’
‘She just likes to feel like he’d be expressing opinions if he was still with us.’
‘He was never short of an opinion,’ agreed Frank.
‘You got that from him, all right.’ Angela said, a slight edge to her tone.
‘And his rakish good looks,’ suggested Milo, who was the one who looked like a Renaissance pin-up boy. ‘Who’s up for dessert? I’ve got gulab jamun or rice pudding.’
Olivia