The buzzer sounded. Kate barely had time to register her amazement before the A-Bomb jammer slammed into her, wrapping her hands around her neck and pulling her to the floor.
As she struggled to fight the girl off, she heard Rapunzel bellow, “It’s fucking on!”
Kate had witnessed a few derby brawls, but she’d never been in one. It was similar to a scrimmage, but with a lot more hair pulling. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. A few staff members intervened and Kate found herself being hoisted onto her feet and hugged by her teammates in a manner that wasn’t so different from being choke-slammed.
“We did it!” Rapunzel shouted from somewhere behind her. “Peach did it! We did it! Suck my dick, A-Bombs! Suck it hard!”
“Rapunzel!” Tam scolded from somewhere to Kate’s left. “There are kids here!”
“I don’t give a fuck, we won!”
Kate suspected it was Rapunzel who flung herself on top of the hug pile, causing them all to collapse in a tangle of fishnet-coved limbs, but she didn’t care. Somewhere in her brain, it was starting to dawn on her that she’d led her derby team to victory right in front of Tyler Henderson.
After several exhilarating, sweaty minutes the hug ended and Kate scanned the crowd for Ty. He was leaning against a taco stand applauding and when she caught his eye, he smiled in a way that said she’d surprised him, maybe even impressed him, and it was like winning a second time. She was moving toward him when Maria tapped her on the shoulder. “Wait a minute Katie, the presentations are about to start.”
Her colour was still high but she looked calmer and maybe even a little embarrassed.
“I hope everything’s okay between us?” Kate asked, too happy to engage in any lasting animosity.
Maria smiled and patted her cheek. “Of course. I’m sorry for not putting you on earlier. You played beautifully.”
Kate smiled. “Thanks.”
The Barbie Trolls lined up to shake the losing team’s hands. Some of the A-Bombs were friendly, some sulky, but Thunderbox was the real surprise—she gave Kate a smile, albeit a strained one. “Nice work, even if it was a lucky shove.”
Kate shrugged and moved to shake the next girl’s hand when Thunderbox put out a hand to stop her. “I saw you kissing that guy at half time,” she said.
“So?”
Thunderbox stared down at her massive boobs. “So, I thought the tall blonde chick was your girlfriend.”
Several things occurred to Kate at once. “She’s not,” she said, trying not to smile. “I’m not gay or bi. Rapunzel is though, gay I mean, and she’s single. Want me to give her your number?”
Thunderbox’s eyes lit up, then she shrugged, feigning disinterest. “She wants it, she can come find me.”
The presentation went for much longer than anyone wanted, with speeches from the league president, then a stadium official, then a sponsor and then the medals were handed out.
Kate used the time to unpin her wig and wipe away the worst of her makeup, cheering loudly as Casey was announced as the league Best and Fairest. When the presentation was over, she was just about to attempt to duck into the crowd when Tam seized her collar. “I don’t think so, Macca. We just won the fucking grand final. We’re going out for a drink.”
“I’ll come out for a drink, I just need to find Ty!” Kate protested.
“So you can run off and canoodle? I don’t think so. This so-called Ty will come with us.”
“Tam!” Rapunzel shouted as she whizzed past. “Have you got her? Is she coming?”
Tam shook Kate by her collar as though she were a poacher with a successfully snared ocelot. “I got her!”
Rapunzel shot them both a thumbs up. “I’m gonna find Dexter and bring him with us,” she told Kate. “Meet you at the bar!”
Chapter 17
Kate was frog-marched—frog-rolled—out of the stadium by Tam who refused to let go of her until they were inside Rumba. The bar staff had put up streamers and balloons in honour of the final and Kate had barely pulled off her jacket before someone forced a bright red shot into her hands. She downed it, wincing at the cherry cough syrup flavour and looked around the bar. She couldn’t see Ty anywhere. Tam squeezed her arm. “He’ll be here. No one gets the better of Rapunzel. Let’s get another round.”
Turned out that meant another round of shots, and not a soft option like Cowboys or Skittle Bombs—straight tequila. Tam gleefully ordered chasers and Kate made a mental note to sip it slowly. Rumba had that tangible kamikaze feel of a party about to go off. She couldn’t get too drunk tonight. If Ty had to carry her out of a bar again, he might think she had a problem.
Ten minutes passed without a glimpse of him and Kate’s vodka sunrise vanished. People kept pounding her on the back, telling her how amazing her last play had been, but she could barely concentrate. She ordered another vodka sunrise.
Twenty minutes later and she was drunk. She was just about to tell Tam she was leaving and stagger out into the night to find Ty, when everyone in the bar cheered. Rapunzel appeared in the doorway beaming from ear-to-ear. Propping her up was a red-faced Ty.
“What the hell?” Tam shrieked. “Where have you two been?”
“I fell over on the road and did my ankle,” Rapunzel said gleefully. “If this cunt hadn’t picked me up, I’d have been run over!”
Everyone within earshot started laughing and Tam nudged Kate’s side. “That’s good he’s helping her. I was worried Rapunzel brought him here as part of a hostage situation. Let’s go give them a hand.”
It took the combined strength of Kate, Tam, and Casey to ease Rapunzel off Ty and into a booth. She refused to take off her roller skates (“We just won the fucking final!”) and instead propped up her leg and started icing her ankle with a bag of frozen cherries.
“I’m fine,” she kept shouting. “Someone get me a drink!”
Kate dutifully headed for the bar and Ty came with her. She was relieved to see that he was grinning.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, once he’d ordered a beer and a cranberry martini.
“A bit out of it,” Kate said. “Thanks for coming.”
“Glad I could make it, you were incredible. Here, this is for you.” He handed her the purplish martini. “The beer’s for…what’s her real name?”
Kate laughed. “Jacinta. Jacinta Smith-Bentley. But she gets angry if you call her that.”
“But I feel stupid calling a grown woman Rapunzel.”
“You get used to it.”
“Right.” Ty looked her up and down, his gaze suddenly hungry. “Drink your drink, Middleton.”
Kate took a sip of the martini. It was strong, tart and sweet. “It’s nice.”
“Good.” He kissed her right on the mouth, his tongue sliding between her lips to flirt with hers. When she moaned he pulled away. “Wanted to taste that on you.”
Kate was dizzy, drunk on his lips—and about six standard drinks in the space of an hour. “Was it nice?”
Ty rubbed a thumb over his lips. “Yeah.”
She decided to throw caution to the wind and tell him how insanely happy she was that he had come to see her tonight. “I’m so glad you—” Her skate connected with something squishy and she tipped backwards. “Whoa!”
“Katie!” Ty pulled her tight against him, breaking her fall.
Kate exhaled. “Thanks for saving me.”
“I seem to be doing a lot of saving at the moment. Can you please take off your bloody roller skates? It was hard enough watching you roll around in them when you hadn’t been drinking.”
Emboldened by the alcohol in her blood and the fact he’d been worried for her, Kate pressed her body against his, rubbing her hips along his suit pants. “I thought you said my roller skates were sexy?”
Ty’s smile was feral, a starving dog pacing behind a chain mail fence. “You need to be careful about what you say to me, Little Miss Middleton. I’ve gone too long without your body a
nd I’m in no mood to be a gentleman.”
The implicit threat in his words made Kate’s heart skip a beat. “I wouldn’t mind if you weren’t a gentleman.”
Ty smoothed his hands down her back, resting them on her hips. To anyone else, it might have looked like a sweet gesture, but his grip was hard and his cock was now flush against her stomach.
“Feel that? The way you’re going, you’re going to spend the night sucking it until your jaw aches.”
Kate shivered. “Is that a promise?”
“Disrespectful little thing tonight, aren’t you?” Ty bit her earlobe, sending shivers down her spine. “Let’s get out of here and find out.”
She was just about to agree when one of her nicknames was shouted across the bar. She turned to see Rapunzel pointing at her. “Don’t even think about running off with Dexter until we’ve had a drink! Bring my beer over!”
“Princess Rapunzel has spoken,” Ty said drily, and Kate was sure he was going to suggest he leave and meet her at her place. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and walked with her toward the booth where her teammates were sitting.
“One drink with your friends,” he muttered into her ear. “Then we’re getting out of here so I can pound sixteen days’ worth of frustration into you while you beg me for mercy.”
Kate was so full of conflicting emotions she could only stare. “You don’t have to do this. Meet my teammates like this. Right now.”
He smiled. “I want to, Middleton. I promised things would be different and I meant it.”
“Okay, well you should know the girls can be a bit full on. They’re nice but, um, a bit intense.”
Ty smiled in a way that said she was being silly, that he’d never felt out of place anywhere, never had any trouble getting anyone to like him. Yet for all his confidence Kate’s stomach wouldn’t unclench.
Please let this go well, she prayed. Please let everyone like everyone.
When they reached the crimson faux-leather booth around which most of the team was packed, Ty placed Rapunzel’s pint in front of her. “How are you doing, girls?”
“Good,” her teammates said in a flirtatious chorus.
“Glad to hear it.” Ty squeezed Kate’s shoulder. “Have you got enough room for us to join you?”
“Hell yeah,” Tam said. “Everyone bunch up. And someone go get some more tequila.”
And so, against all Kate’s expectations, she and Ty settled into the booth, his hand clasped around hers. The next forty minutes passed in a blur of conversation and alcohol. Ty laughed and told jokes and listened attentively when anyone talked. He asked thoughtful questions about derby and whatever jobs the person he was talking to worked. It was a full-scale charm attack, so all-encompassing Kate was sure the devil would have been left starry-eyed and woozy. Her teammates were easy fodder, compared to that. Soon they were hanging on his every word. Casey, in particular, kept tossing her hair and laughing a strange laugh Kate had never heard before. It sounded like helicopter blades shredding through a bowl of lipstick.
Rapunzel, who for obvious reasons was completely unaffected by Ty’s charisma, shoved herself closer to Kate. “How are you doing, Peach?”
“Good,” Kate said, swirling a straw around in her martini. “You?”
“I’m all right.” Rapunzel jerked her head at Ty. “He’s a bit charming, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Kate said, her belly tightening for some reason. “You should see him at work.”
“I can imagine. He’s a good choice for you, though. You make a good match.”
Kate nodded, then the vodka made her ask, “You don’t think it’s weird he’s older than me?”
Rapunzel snorted. “No, why the fuck would that matter?”
“Maria thinks it’s weird.”
“Look, Peach, about Maria…” Rapunzel broke off and stared up at the ceiling. She’d been drinking steadily since she arrived at the bar, but Kate had a feeling something else was putting the glassy look in her eyes, something that probably wasn’t legal in the state of Victoria.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh fuck yeah.” Rapunzel yawned. “What was I saying? Oh that’s right, old or not anyone can see why you’d wanna hump that breeder. He’s a good looking bloke, charming like we said. Casey’s beyond moist just breathing his air.”
“I know. She keeps laughing weird.”
Rapunzel’s brow furrowed. “You’re not pissed at her, are you? She doesn’t mean anything by it. She just hasn’t had sex in ages.”
“Oh no, I totally get it! Everyone stares at Ty like that. I stare at Ty like that.”
“Cool.” Rapunzel put an arm around Kate’s shoulders. “You’re a good partner for a beautiful person, Peach. Sometimes people can’t handle it. Or they like it at first, but then they get jealous and take it out on their girl—or man, or whatever.”
Rapunzel let out a long, low sigh.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kate asked.
“Nah, it’s all good, I’ve made my peace with it now. Older and wiser, you know? But I wish I’d had a little more self-respect back then. Understood that Amy couldn’t help people falling in love with her left, right and center. She was beautiful, that’s just what happens.”
Rapunzel tapped Kate’s sternum. “You won’t do that. You know it’s not personal just because his light shines a little brighter than yours.”
Kate thought about Ty’s ex-fiancée. She had been miles prettier than her but it still hadn’t worked out. “I’ll try.”
“Shit!” Rapunzel shouted. “Not that you’re not hot! Sorry if it sounded like I was saying you’re not hot! You’re such a sexy nun, I just mean your boy’s got that Jason Statham charisma thing happening—”
“It’s okay, I totally understand,” Kate said loudly, because Gilly and Jenna had turned to look at them.
Rapunzel nodded, relaxing back into the booth. “Good. That’s very good. And don’t worry about the age gap either. When you’re gay…” She stared up at the ceiling again, as though something fascinating was happening up there.
Kate nudged her side. “Um, you were saying something about age gaps and being gay?”
Rapunzel gave a little start. “Oh yeah, I was trying to say that when you’re gay, those things don’t matter the same way. I’ve dated nineteen-year-olds, and I’ve dated fifty-three-year-olds, and there are differences, sure, but there isn’t this shame or power shit because there isn’t a history of old women forcing hot chicks to marry them and lick their wrinkly old balls.”
“Ergh.”
“I know, but you need to listen to me, Peach.” Rapunzel gripped Kate’s chin, her water-blue eyes boring into hers. “I don’t get called a cougar because I date young chicks and people don’t say I’ve been taken advantage of when I screw older women. Why should it be different for you?”
“I don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I guess there’s a history of older men dating young women without any social kickbacks. Like they’re allowed to upgrade, but women only get grosser with time. Maybe I feel like I’m a part of that, especially, because I like it when Ty—”
Kate clamped her mouth shut. Discussing her and Ty’s age difference was hard enough without bringing up their daedalean labyrinth of a sex life.
Rapunzel hiccoughed. “Okay, so men have been shitty and used their power to attract women who’d never fuck them normally. But does that mean old men and young women can’t fall in love, get married and go down on each other forever?”
Kate felt like this would be a bad time to tell Rapunzel that Ty didn’t go down on her. “No?”
“Right. You’re not helping the cause by telling your fancy little man that he can’t be your fancy little man. Just be with him and be happy, I say.”
Kate smiled. “Thanks, Rapunzel.”
“Anytime. Now, are you sure you don’t wanna sell me some of your Ritalin?”
“No.”
; “Fair enough.”
Despite Ty’s claim they’d stay for one drink, they ordered another round, then another. As it neared midnight Kate felt totally justified in ‘accidentally’ brushing her hand across his thigh. She had barely touched him, when he gripped her wrist. “Middleton,” he said in her ear. “We’re done here. Finish your drink.”
Kate obliged, then realised she desperately needed to pee. She extracted herself from the booth with some difficulty and stood, wobbling slightly, but refusing all offers to accompany her to the bathroom. “I’m fine you guys, really.”
“Be careful, Middleton,” Ty said. “If you fall I won’t be there to catch you this time.”
“Why’d you call her Middleton?” Casey demanded.
“Because…”
Kate skated away before she could hear him explain. She felt like a semi-badass tonight with her derby win and her hot date, and Middleton was the girly girl from work.
She was a foot from the Rumba bathroom when someone called her name. She turned to see Maria sitting with a group of women Kate had never seen before. “Katie,” she said. “Come over here!”
Kate was desperate to pee but figured a quick hello wouldn’t hurt. She skated closer. “Hi. How’s it going?”
Everyone at the table said some variation on the word ‘good.’ Their mouths were red with wine and from the empty bottles in front of them, Kate guessed they were as drunk as she was. “Okay, well nice to meet you guys but I’ve gotta…” she gestured to the bathroom.
“Just a second.” Maria said, her accent even thicker than usual. “I wanted to ask if your boyfriend wanted to come sit with us? He might feel a bit more comfortable here with people his own age.”
Everyone laughed, which meant everyone knew. Kate’s cheeks burned. “I think he’s okay.”
“I bet he is,” Maria slurred and Kate decided to leave. Maria said something and the women burst into laughter behind her.