Death is Only a Theoretical Concept (11 page)

It might just be
the near-death experience: they’re often said to provide
perspective. Steve’s fairly sure, however, the perspective comes
from the kissing and dancing that preceded it—and the realisation
that he doesn’t want to waste another minute on avoiding awesome
experiences because of one broken man.

So the
near-death thing might’ve helped.

Greg raises his
eyebrows. “So, about that...”

Steve glances
back at him and tries to sound as innocent as possible. “About
what, mate?”

Mum and Chichi
dropped hints and suggestions about the problems involved, because
apparently Steve isn’t a millennial able to Google safe-sex
practices, but Mum must have said something to Chichi, because
neither have said as much as a single word about Steve’s sexuality
to Steve once they got past that awkward moment of gaping in the
ED. The fact they both like Abe helps, although it’s kind of hard
to dislike a vampire who brings cupcakes as well as blood to a game
day, polishes his shoes, expresses a genuine interest in Japanese
literature and apologises repeatedly for putting their son’s life
at risk.

He figured
everything will be okay when he caught Chichi telling Soba over
Skype that his son is what they call ‘pansexual’ and, no, that has
nothing to do with the English sense of kitchens.

The regret of
his life, Steve thinks, is knowing he might not get the chance to
experience that kiss and the dancing that followed without being
distracted by the bloody
itching
. Still, as long as Abe
keeps his lips to himself they can go dancing again, and it’s not
as though Abe’s lips and fangs are connected to all the parts of
his body. Why can’t they hit Feeders that evening and burn up the
dance floor?

He knows what he
wants, he thinks. He didn’t know he wanted it until his annoying
friends pushed him in the right direction, but he knows what he
wants.

Greg’s piercing
look says he knows Steve’s being an arse. “So? What are you doing
about your pretty-boy vampire?”

Stocking up on
condoms, dental dams and Glad Wrap, so that when Abe is less
worried about killing Steve—right now he’s still not comfortable
touching him, although Steve hopes that will pass given enough
time—he can present an action plan of his own.

“
What am I supposed to do? I can’t make him not
venomous.”

Greg pushes a
curl off his olive-toned face as though hesitating before asking
for something more specific, but he doesn’t have the chance to
speak: Jack’s dual-cab, ever adorned with fishing rods, pulls up
across the street.

Phil slams the
passenger door hard enough to rattle the windows in all the
surrounding houses and disturb the resting dead. “Hey!
Steve!”

He waves back.
No-one besides Johanna, who mentioned it in passing before curling
up on the foot of Steve’s bed and demanding every detail about Abe
and what Steve means to do about him, said anything about Steve’s
failing his dare; Steve just resigns himself to his radio. Maybe he
can talk his boss into more hours. At the very least he knows he’s
given it a shot worthy of Jack’s gossiping to half the town about
the kiss, and that’s good enough. As birthdays go it is certainly
memorable: he made a new friend, discovered a few new things about
himself and ended up with a new handgun and a watch he is probably
going to smash sooner or later.

Breathing in a
world of theoretical death, Steve decides, counts as a good
birthday.

“
You
going somewhere, Akira-san?” Jack wears his battered,
hook-and-sinker-studded hat, a tangle of fishing line coiled around
one wrist and a dangerous, evil grin. Phil, at his side, is just as
geared up for fishing in a many-pocketed vest and his lucky
barracuda-print T-shirt. He waves a hand at Greg—Steve and his
mates have become quite well acquainted with Port Carmila’s
paramedics over the years—and both men saunter up to the
ute.

As always, Steve
pretends he doesn’t hear that abomination of a nickname fall from
Jack’s lips. “Darrensford. Rock climbing.”

Jack rolls his
eyes in much the same way Steve wants to every time Jack mentions
fishing. “Well, we got something for you. I mean, mate, we feel so
guilty about this. We put your life at risk. That was an awful,
horrible thing for us to do, and we are so fucking sorry. We’re
just so lucky that you didn’t die, man.”

Steve stares
with a great deal of incredulity, but he says nothing, quite sure
that everyone here knows that there is no way Steve could have
known Jack’s dare might prove as interesting as it did—and quite
sure he doesn’t want to know why Jack is laying it on quite so
thick. It’s not as though he didn’t put Johanna’s life at risk with
the zombies, after all, even if everyone stood by with assault
rifles at the ready in case something went wrong.

Greg’s eyebrows
reach his hairline, but he too doesn’t speak.

“
Because of that, and because you did your best to carry out
the dare—we saw you give it everything you’ve got, man. Fuck, did
we see! So, we’re going to give you the chance to attempt another
one. This time, we’re going to make sure that it’s safe, that there
is absolutely no risk to you at all, because we’re just so cut up
with guilt over this.” Jack draws in a deep breath; beside him,
Phil just nods, his tanned face so innocent Steve knows there’s got
to be a punch coming. “So. The community sewing group’s running
classes again this summer down at the library. We’re going to dare
you to sign up for the embroidery class.”

“
Embroidery,” Steve says slowly. “That’s it?” No fucking
punch?

“
Mostly.” Jack shrugs. Phil, though, breaks into a broad,
shit-eating smile. “All you have to do is complete the six-week
embroidery course. By that time, you’ll get old Sian MacGillycuddy
to help you embroider a tapestry thing—you know, those embroidered
things you hang on the wall?—of the Lord’s Prayer. Then you enter
your marvellous embroidered creation in the handcraft division at
the Ag Show. Along with all the wonderful, old scone-baking ladies
of the CWA, of course.” He grins far too broadly—and his dare is
already bad enough as it is. “After the Ag Show, and the whole
municipality has admired your oh-so-devout creation, you win. See?
Perfectly easy and perfectly safe. All you have to do is avoid
pricking your finger with a needle around the vampires. There’s no
way you could fail to pull off this one!”

Learning
embroidery is one thing, although certainly not on Steve’s list of
needed skills. He can already sew buttons onto his blazers and hem
his own jeans, thank you very much. Learning to embroider the
Lord’s Prayer—which will make his atheist parents become quite
concerned about his mental state—is another thing. Displaying that
embroidered religious monstrosity before everyone at the Port
Carmila Agricultural Show?

No one will ever
let him forget it.
No one
. Every year it will come up, just
as every year the town talks about Aggie Skipton’s hideous
hand-sculpted clay pigs from 1976. They’re town legend, those pigs,
and Steve can see whatever woeful attempt he makes at embroidery
going the same way. That’s if he survives a couple of hours a week
with the gossiping old ladies who flock to the community sewing
group. He can see it now: the incessant questions about his
allergies, his sexuality, his career path, his life as a university
student in the city, and whether or not he thinks their
great-grandchildren are cute in hand-knitted beanies. Complete with
wallet-sized photos, probably.

Yes, he’s
generalising, but he thought makes his legs shake.
Great-grandchildren. Wallet-sized photos—or, fuck, what if a few of
them have smartphones? Smartphones and Facebook and
great-grandchildren.

He’d rather do
another round in the ED.

Greg starts
snickering so hard he all but lies across the fence for
balance.

Jack and Phil
just grin at him, both of them looking so innocent Steve feels like
contemplating murder. Does he really need to attempt this one? The
eight AM Saturday morning call-in show might cover allergies or new
innovations in immunotherapy. Who knows what kind of awesome
talkback radio he might be missing out on? Isn’t a journalist
supposed to keep up with the media, anyway?

“
I
think,” Steve says with as much gravitas as he can muster, “that
I’d rather kiss a vampire.” He pauses just as he hears the sound of
flesh smacking against wood. “Um, Greg? You can stop banging your
head against the fence right about now.”

Greg snorts. “If
I catch you lip-locking with that greyskin, I’ll leave you for the
zombies to devour. Can’t you find some breather pretty-boy to
fuck?”

“
I’ll use a dental dam first. Last thing I want is you giving
me shit all the way to the hospital,
again
.” Steve shrugs
just as Abe’s little silver hatchback pulls up and parks behind
Jack’s ute. “Hey, mate! Get over here. These morons are just
going.”

Jack’s eyes
widen for the briefest of moments before he breaks into a grin
broad enough to show the majority of his teeth. Steve told Johanna,
of course, that he’d been going out with Abe, but he hadn’t hurried
to tell anybody else. “You going rock climbing with the
vampire
, Akira-san?”

Steve nods and
looks at Jack. “Mate, I know what you did, you know.”

Jack gives him a
wide-eyed, rather wounded sort of look and blows away a droning
blowfly with one hand. “Whatever do you mean?”

“
You’ve been thinking all these years that I’m not straight—I
like girls, but that doesn’t make me straight—but I’d never
actually admit it because of fucking Swanston. So you use the
birthday dare as an opportunity to make me figure it out.” He
shrugs and stands. “You’re right. I’m a probably bit of a fag.
Thank you for being a conniving arsehole of a good friend. Now fuck
off, because I’m going on a date.
Second
date. Or third—no,
fourth. Do I count Feeders as the first? Is it our fifth, now? And
yes, I’m packing condoms and epinephrine, so don’t lie awake at
night worrying over my health, right?”

He opens the
driver’s-side door and waves at Abe as he heads up the driveway.
He’s dressed as well as he can for a day in the bush: bright white
runners, crisp jeans and a long pale-blue T-shirt under his
trenchcoat. Sunglasses and a broad, floppy hat shadow his face; a
cooler bag rests under his arm. Not exactly great for rock
climbing, but Steve will get Abe there eventually, because that’s
what friends are for. “You ready, man?”

Abe nods and
looks askance at Phil, Jack and Greg, all grinning like evil,
possessed schoolchildren. “Uh…”

“
Ignore them,” Steve says as he slides behind the wheel and
slams the door shut. Abe stands still for a moment before following
suit, closing the passenger door just as the grinning trio on both
sides of the fence burst into ridiculous, cackling laughter. “I
just told them I’m dating you and blew their tiny minds. And Jack
wants me to embroider the fucking Lord’s Prayer for the next dare,
which he thinks is just hilarious. We’re stuck listening to
talkback from here to eternity, because seriously, like fuck. So.”
He turns the key in the ignition, which starts both the motor and a
radio presenter droning on about thrips. “What are your thoughts on
gardening?”

Abe’s eyes
widen. “
What
?”

“
Okay, no thoughts on gardening—”

“
Dating?”

Steve pulls out
of the drive and onto the road. “Feeders, game day, abseiling, the
day you took me into your office to photocopy the action plan,
today. I’m pretty sure that if you were a girl, they’d be
dates—it’s really not different with a guy, right?”

Abe takes off
his sunglasses and hat and gives Steve a desperate, horrified look.
“But, you, uh—”

“
So
we don’t kiss,” Steve says. “Plenty of other things we can be
doing. Like dancing. Want to go out tonight and dance? I’m sure
it’s much more fun when you’re not wanting to rub out your own
eyeballs.”

It seems to take
Abe a long minute to blink, swallow, rub his hands against his
knees. “Don’t you want to be dating someone to whom you’re not
allergic?”

It’s cute that
he cares so much, Steve thinks, but he seems to be missing the
point. They’re not friends. They’re two guys attracted to the other
and trying to figure out how to be around the other without one of
them dying from want of breath, and why deny that just because it’s
difficult? Why waste time pretending that Abe doesn’t want to fuck
Steve and Steve doesn’t want to let him do it? Why waste another
breath on the delusion that Steve wouldn’t gladly park the car,
jump on his lap and kiss him if he could? He glances at Abe out of
the corner of his eye, because, fuck, a perplexed Abe is just
fucking adorable, especially when he’s running his hands through
his hair and looking as though he wishes to be anywhere but
here—and wants to be nowhere but here.

Especially when
he can’t take his eyes off Steve’s face.

“
I’m
already dating you,” he says as he turns the Toyota out onto the
main highway towards the yellow-and-black “beware zombies” road
sign. Phil had, for his second-last birthday dare, crossed out
“zombies” and spray-painted “tourists” instead; the council
apparently hadn’t bothered to tell Roads and Maritime Services
about it. “So we find a way to figure it out. No kissing—well, you
can’t kiss me, but I bet I could certain venom-free bits of
you
. Incredibly safe sex practices. Other things we’ll learn
on the way. Because—well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not
spending the rest of my life pretending I don’t want to fuck you.
Or that I won’t be staring at your arse while you climb, today.
Because I will be.”