Free Butterfly Hunter 01 by Julie Bozza Page B

already drunk enough to not even bother with Dave , then
they were well ahead and no doubt closing in on the finish line.
“Hey,” he greeted the little knot of boozed–up blokes off to the
right of the bar. “How ya goin’?”
    “ Day
maaaaate!” was the response, and “Taaay!” Someone managed his full
name: “Day Taaay …”
    “ That good,
then?” Dave queried, glancing back apologetically at Nicholas – who
was looking unimpressed, and also a bit weary, as if he’d seen it
all before. And surely blokes were blokes the world over, when they
were stupid, young and drunk. “What ya’ all up to?” Dave
asked.
    “ Celebratin’, Daaay! Ce–le–brate– in ’!”
    “ Excellent.”
He didn’t see any point in asking what, if anything, had been the
excuse for such a session. No doubt he’d get the whole story later.
“Right, well, don’t let us interrupt you. I’ll see ya
later.”
    Unfortunately, however,
one of them was still capable of adding two and two together and
saying something coherent about it. “Day,” the bloke said urgently.
“Dave mate.”
    Dave turned back with a
discreet sigh. “Um, yes?”
    “ Is this –”
the man indicated Nicholas, with a wild gesture that slopped beer
everywhere. “Is this the English poof, then?”
    “ Um, earl ,” Dave promptly supplied.
“I’m pretty sure I said English earl .”
    “ For heaven’s
sake,” Nicholas muttered at his shoulder.
    Dave was dying a little
inside.
    “ Semantics,”
the drunk bloke observed dismissively.
    “ My, what big
words you know,” Dave returned, trying to turn it all into a bit of
harmless banter. Because he knew these morons would only take such
things so far. They might be obnoxious, but they weren’t
dangerous.
    But it was too late. The
mood had gotten edgier – and Nicholas had already walked
away.
    “ Thanks,
guys,” Dave said flatly. “Thank you so much. Apart from anything
else, he’s a
client .”
    “ Awww, poor
Day squiring around his English poof …”
    “ Not to
mention he’s a human being, you Neanderthals!”
    They were too far gone to care,
of course. Dave turned away, and followed Nicholas to the bar,
relieved that at least Nicholas still seemed willing to have a
drink there.
    Although he might soon
change his mind, given that the guys were calling after them,
“Sorry, we don’t serve iced Chardonnay here!” and, “Maybe there’s
some sherry put by for the laaa–dies.”
    Nicholas was tense with
anger, but he had both hands on the edge of the bar, all lined up
to order, and when Dave reached his side, Nicholas half–turned to
inform Dave with a terse politeness, “They have Cascade on
tap.”
    “ Great.
That’ll be great, thanks, mate.” Dave cleared his throat, and
before the barman got close, he offered, “Look, those idiots
–”
    “– are idiots.
I know. Forget it.”
    And maybe that would have
been that, if the drunken mob hadn’t gotten it into their sodden
heads to serenade Dave and Nicholas with a rousing chorus of
‘Tiptoe Through the Mulga’.
    “ Right,” said
Nicholas. “I’ll put up with five minutes of that, but not a whole
evening.”
    “ They won’t
last long. Short attention spans.”
    But Nicholas shook his
head. “I’ll see you back at the motel.”
    “ Nicholas
–”
    But the man was already
walking out, deliberately ignoring the idiots who were now going on
about someone getting his knickers in a knot. And Dave, of course,
followed Nicholas out, which prompted hoots about lovers’
tiffs.
    And then it was over,
thank Christ, and Dave was out in the cool night air, with Nicholas
striding on ahead with those long legs of his which obviously had
far more power to them than Dave might have supposed. Dave didn’t
call out, but simply followed the man, and finally caught up with
him as Nicholas’s long pale fingers stuttered with the key at his
motel room door.
    Nicholas was furious and
rightly so, but Dave could see that under the anger there