Liam? Who the h.e.l.l is Liam? Who the h.e.l.l am I? What is the name of this planet again? "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" Jay's voice was quiet and hesitant. I realized that no matter how wasted I felt, he needed rea.s.surance that I was mentally fine with what just happened.

"I think so. I'll let you know when my brain starts working again, okay? I think you fried all my inner circuitry." He t.i.ttered next to me, rolled toward me, and curled up at my side-not on me, but just touching my arm and side with his forehead and knees. "Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm superlatively okay. I'm outstandingly fine. I am unparalleled in my joy. I think I could easily become addicted to you doing that to me about three times a day."

"Three times!" My sluggish brain turned over and died at the thought. I would be dead in two days if I had to suffer through that sort of ecstasy three times a day! We fell into amused silence as our heartbeats and breathing returned to normal.

"Liam?"

"Yeah?"

"How was it?"

I snorted. "Dude, there are no words in the English language to describe how frickin' great that was!"

"Really?" Jay sat up and looked at me with hopeful eyes. "So you liked topping? You like a.n.a.l s.e.x, now? We can do it again?"

I pulled him down for a long leisurely kiss. He melted onto my chest, resting there while I gathered my thoughts.

"Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"I have something I need to tell you."

The smile died on his face as he looked at me with solemn eyes. "Yeah?"

"Babe, I think I'm gay."

He burst into laughter, almost rolling off the bed. "Liam? Guess what? I think I'm gay, too."

I pretended to mop at the sweat on my brow. "Oh, thank goodness. Because this could've been really awkward if you weren't."

He collapsed into giggles, so I pushed him off the side of the mattress. He thumped to the floor and kept on with his laughter. I shook my head and headed to the bathroom, leaving him with his mirth.

Chapter 12.

IN THE tradition of every good wedding, the groomsmen had planned a buck's night for the weekend before the groom lost all his freedom. Naturally, we all knew this was just an excuse to get completely p.i.s.sed, but there was always the chance of someone paying for a stripper if it was billed as a buck's night, so Cameron had declared there would be a party at his house on Sat.u.r.day night and no women were allowed-apart from the stripper of course.

In response to this, the women had their own hen's night organized and I was a little jealous to think that their stripper would be better than any that turned up to Ben's party.

Sunday Roast at my parents' house was therefore brought forward a week as not to clash with the antic.i.p.ated hangovers we all expected to have the weekend preceding the wedding.

I accepted that I was now unquestioningly gay, but I still needed to make the whole announcement to my family. They deserved to know upfront, and not to find out from my high school princ.i.p.al, who saw me on the train and told my brother's footy coach, who told Mum's best friend, who told my mother. Jay was wholly supportive of my decision to keep it quiet for a couple more weeks until the wedding was over. I knew my dad would take it badly, and it pained me to think that it would mean the end of any sort of relationship between us.

Dad would never talk to me again. And if by some miracle he did, it would be strained and uncomfortable. I wanted to save Dad the pain of my queerness, but at the same time I was fed up with living a lie. I loved Jay. I couldn't ask him to live in the closet with me, even if people did somehow swallow the lie that we were only friends. I wanted to live in the open with Jay. I wanted to be with him every day. I wanted to ask him to move in with me. I wanted to make a life around him.

And at the end of the day, if it came down to giving up Jay or giving up Dad, I wanted Jay in my future. Dad had been in my life for twenty-four years; it was Jay's turn for the next twenty-four-or hopefully sixty-four.

It would also mean the end of Sunday Roast for me. I knew that. I accepted that. I hated that. I knew Mum and my brothers would accept me as gay. They would be a little weird around Jay for a while, but they would soon come to love him, too-of this I had no doubt. But I wouldn't be able to join the family anymore for meals. Our meetings would be away from Dad, perhaps at my apartment or at restaurants, carefully planned around Dad's absence, and forever shadowed by his nonattendance.

So for the last time, I walked up the hill to my parents' house and let myself in the front door. It was all completely normal-Mum cuddled baby Isaac; Dad chatted with my brothers, beers in their hands; smells of roasted lamb and crispy potatoes wafted from the direction of the kitchen.

"Liam!" Mum called me to her side. I slapped backs on the way to her, greeting my family for the last time with Dad looking on.

"Hi, Mum. Are you planning on feeding us today, or did you get distracted by the baby?" I hugged her gently, placing my customary kiss on her weathered cheek.

"Oh, go on with you. If the rest of you kids would hurry up and present me with some more grandchildren, I wouldn't have to spoil this one baby!"

Cameron's voice floated over from the other side of the room. "I'm having too much fun practicing the conception, Mum!"

We all laughed. "Well don't look at me!" Alison scoffed. "I have two weeks to my wedding and I still need to lose another pound. The last thing I need is morning sickness on top of all the stress."

I felt hollow at the thought of grandchildren. There would be no grandchildren from me for Mum to spoil.

The talk turned to the upcoming wedding and then moved on to the planned buck's night. Alison shook a finger in our direction. "No strippers! You guys can get as drunk as you like but if I hear one whisper of a stripper at the party, then you are all toast!"

I groaned in mock annoyance at her. "You could've said something earlier! I've already booked and paid for three girls to come and shake their naked ta-tas in Ben's direction! Ow! Hey! Ben, control your fiancee. She pinched me!"

Ben just raised a brow at me. "You deserve to be pinched. Only three strippers? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. How stingy."

Cameron interceded for me. "Now, now, Ben. No teasing Liam today. I have a big surprise for everyone instead. Now that John has finally arrived, I can unveil it."

"Surprise?" Mum's voice was hopeful as she turned toward Cameron with a bright smile. I could see where her mind was taking her-grandchildren, where else?-but Cameron soon dashed her hopes.

"Yep! I found it a couple of days ago and it's great. We all need to go in the lounge room to see it, though."

So we all trailed into the room and took twice as long as a cla.s.s of first graders to all find a spot on the sofa or floor. Cameron was fiddling with his laptop-a cable ran from the machine into Mum and Dad's brand-new super-size flat-screen TV. Once everyone had settled down, Cameron announced, "I got this a couple of days ago at work. It was a great laugh and it was doing the rounds over e-mail. Someone loaded it onto YouTube."

"You what?" Dad asked.

"YouTube," Dale answered. "It's a site on the Internet where people can load their videos and everyone can see it."

Dad was still confused so I said, "It's just a short movie, Dad."

I watched as Cameron pressed play on the laptop and the short clip began to play on the TV, complete with sound. The clip's name was "Kung Fu Fighting." It became immediately obvious to the younger generation in the room that the clip was recorded on someone's mobile phone. The camera work was shaky and the resolution not the best. I tried to focus on what was happening on the screen. The person filming had been taking the shot over another's shoulder, and that person's ear and hair were visible on the screen until the camera moved a bit more, showing the subject of the filming.

"Hey!" said Anita. "Isn't that your train station, Liam?"

It was and I came over all cold as I realized what the clip was about. My palms began to sweat and I felt dizzy, unable to get up and make Cameron turn the d.a.m.n thing off, unable to do anything but stare at the oversized screen and the subject of my continued nightmares.

I heard the audio. The sound was tinny, the voices far away, but amazingly clear.

"You poofters are revolting."

"You shouldn't be putting your p.r.i.c.ks where you do."

I opened my eyes, not realizing they had fallen closed, and focused on the picture. Thug Number Three and Thug Number One were pushing Jay between them, laughing loudly as Thug Number Two watched.

"Please, don't...." I heard Jay's feeble voice coming through the speakers and my stomach turned over with nausea. Jay's face was visible in the film, fear and distress obvious. I was immediately able to identify Jay, his bleached-blond hair shining like a beacon under the station's lights, his hot pink shirt and skintight pants exactly the same as they were that awful night. He was the man I loved, and he was about to get hurt.

Memories warred with the present as the clip brought it all back. I could smell the chill in the air that mingled with the faint smell of stale cigarettes. I could feel the pain in my leg I was experiencing that night as I got off the train, and I could even hear the dull roar of the cars on the nearby freeway. The events on the TV were so accurate, yet somehow different. Suddenly I realized that it was because the camera was recording the incident from a different angle from what I remembered. The person who'd filmed it was standing ninety degrees to where I had been. They must have been standing at the bus stop. With a sinking feeling, I realized that if the camera was capturing it from a different angle, then I was about to appear on my parents' TV.

Thug Number One once again swung Jay in a large arc and Jay once again smashed into the wall with a loud cry. His cry was echoed from near the camera by witnesses in the watching crowd as they exclaimed their horror and fear. I didn't remember that bit, because in my memories I was already running.

And there I was.

"You f.u.c.kheads!" I didn't remember yelling that, but I must have, because it was captured there on-screen as Thug Number Two viciously kicked Jay. I saw me running, suddenly appearing on the screen from the left, hardly limping at all on my bung leg, my jacket flapping as I charged at the men. I saw my shoulder go down and catch Number One in the solar plexus, actually lifting him off the ground and sending him crashing into Number Two before they both went sprawling on the pavement.

"You leave him the f.u.c.k alone!" I remembered yelling that.

I could feel my family's surprise and it was Candice who said what they all must've been thinking, "Is that...?"

But the tape rolled on. Thug Number Three turned and growled, "Who the f.u.c.k do you think you are, motherf.u.c.ker?" before swinging a wild roundhouse punch at me. The camera had captured a couple of yells and exclamations from the crowd as I leaned back out of range of the fist. I knew what was coming and I watched myself on the TV, standing calm and cool as Number Three's leg came up, and I followed the upward movement with my arm, caught his ankle, and once again flipped him backward like I was a ninja master and he was a disposable extra in a movie.

The camera shook a bit but managed to capture his inelegant introduction to the concrete floor before swinging around to secure footage of Number One's encounter with the vicious handbag lady and Number Two's surprisingly easy apprehension by a man older than my father.

I heard some laughter in the watching audience, both on the screen and in real life, but I was too busy watching the top left of the TV where I could see my figure gathering Jay into a protective embrace, rocking him slightly. The recording spun around again, leaving our figures and showing flashing lights of an approaching vehicle. The police had arrived and two uniformed men rushed from the car, one chasing down Thug Number Three, who was attempting to flee, the other dashing to save Number One from concussion-by-Prada.

The screen froze and blurred as the camera stopped recording, and the witness brought an end to the worst night of my life. However, the silence in my parent's lounge room was deafening. The timer on the bottom of the screen showed that the whole thing had taken forty-eight seconds. It seemed a lot longer to me.

It was Cameron who broke the stillness. "Cool, huh?"

"Was that Liam?"

"That was amazing!"

"Show it again."

"Liam, why didn't you tell us?"

"When did that happen?"

My family was all talking at once, asking and commenting, but I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I pushed Ben aside and raced from the room. I barely made it to the toilet bowl in time as my breakfast reappeared for further inspection. I vomited until there was nothing left, my stomach ached, and my mouth tasted worse than camel dung. Dale was waiting for me in the hallway with a concerned look on his face.

"You okay, mate?"

I nodded, but the nausea threatened to come back again as I heard the distant replay of my voice, "You leave him the f.u.c.k alone!" My family was watching Jay get attacked again and again.

"Tell 'em to turn it off, can you, Dale? That stuff gives me nightmares and I don't want to have to hear it again."

"Sure, mate." He hurried back to the lounge, and I heard the tape stop abruptly. In the bathroom I rinsed my mouth out and splashed water on my face. I knew they were waiting to interrogate me and I was right-nine pairs of eyes swung my way as I entered the room. I tried to catalogue their expressions-surprise, admiration, concern, astonishment, alarm, amazement.

Mum rushed to my side, a mother hen clucking over her chick. "Oh, sweetie. Are you okay? Here, sit down. Anita, can you please get him some water? Cameron, move back and give him some air, can you? Liam, sweetie, do you need something to settle your stomach? Antacids or milk or food?"

"I'm okay, Mum."

"Are you sure, sweetie? You look awfully pale."

"No, Mum. I'll be fine." Anita returned with the requested water and an unnatural stillness returned to the room. I saw Dad whisper something to John, and Ben elbow Alison, but no one spoke. It was worse than Chinese water torture.

"What?" I finally burst out.

Mum simply rubbed my arm up and down, saying, "Nothing, sweetie. We are just all waiting for you to tell us about what happened. You didn't say a thing. You saved that poor man all by yourself and didn't bother to tell us at all. Although I am not sure that I was impressed with your language on that tape."

Ben snorted. "Yeah, Liam. Next time watch your mouth, okay?"

Several people snickered and Mum shot a dirty look over my shoulder. "Oh, hush up, you! I want to know why you didn't tell any of us, Liam."

"Dale knew." The words were out before I could think the better of it.

Candice swung around and glared at her hapless spouse. "You knew?"

Poor Dale backed up and put his hands out in defense. "Thanks, mate. Just drop me in it next time. Yes, I knew that Liam had been in a fight, but he didn't want me to say anything. Of course, I didn't know he'd taken out the guys with so much style. That was totally awesome, mate."

But Candice wasn't finished with him. "So when exactly did this happen that I don't know about?"

"A couple of months back. You remember when I had to pick him up from the hospital that night?" Dale replied.

"Hospital?"

I closed my eyes as it was Dale's turn to dump me in deep manure. Mum looked at me in alarm. "You had to go to hospital? Dale took you to the hospital?"

"No, Mum. The ambulance took me to the hospital. Dale just picked me up." Whoops! Note to self: engage the brain before speaking. We shouldn't have mentioned the ambulance.

Mum's voice rose in volume. "You needed an ambulance?"

"No, no. Jay needed an ambulance. I just went along for the ride. Didn't you see the clip? Those idiots didn't even touch me. I wasn't hurt. It was just my leg. Just a couple of torn muscles, truly, Mum!"

Mum sank down onto the chair next to me. "I think you'd better start at the beginning, Liam."

"There's nothing to tell." Liar! "The guy in the clip is my friend." Liar, liar, pants on fire! That guy in the clip is more than your friend. He is your world. "His name is Jay and a while back in July I was coming out of the train station and I saw those jerks pushing him around. And you saw, Mum. I raced in there to help him, but they crashed him into the wall before I got there. He was hurt-he needed st.i.tches and was concussed something bad. So I rode to the hospital with him."

Mum was rubbing her head as if there were a pain behind her eyes. Maybe it was some sort of parent-child telepathy and she could tell I was lying. "So why didn't you say anything?"