Page 1 of Taste Test
Be one, be one, be one.
I chanted the words internally as I watched the drunken decadence around me.
It was actually a mantra-like chant my flatmate sometimes used before big games, something about “be one with the ball,” but tonight I was using it to pacify my rage at seeing our flat get trashed by a bunch of pissed rugby players who had no respect for other people’s property.
Sure, there was no ball in sight, and it seemed unlikely I’d develop zen-like calm from repeating sports mantras, but I didn’t really know any other meditation techniques.
Something told me focusing on Jared’s routine chant was better than the alternative running through my head: punch the cunts, punch the cunts, punch the cunts.
And I’d have been a fool to try punching any of these ‘cunts.’ I was probably the weediest guy here.
That’s what happens when you’re the token gay academic at a house party full of rugby players who could bench press my entire body weight without breaking a sweat.
I’d learned early in life that when you’re five foot nine and built like a scarecrow, your best weapons are sarcasm and strategic retreat, not your fists.
I should’ve known better than to let Jared throw a party.
That thought replaced my ‘be one’ mantra just in time for me to catch some knobhead from Jared’s team doing a shoey with a boot that definitely wasn’t his.
Our trans-Tasman cousins have gifted the world many wonderful things: Kylie, Home and Away, the Hemsworth brothers.
But drinking beer from a sweaty Adidas boot was not one of them.
Rather than join in with the drunken revelry, I’d spent the last two hours playing damage control by moving anything valuable to my room, swapping out our good glasses for plastic cups, and physically preventing someone from using our bathroom as a vomitorium.
“Casey!” Jared’s voice boomed over the music. “Crank it up, bro!”
I looked across the room to where he was holding court near the speakers, a beer in one hand and his other arm slung around some guy in a turtleneck sweater I didn’t recognise.
Jared’s shirt was already off—because the moment he touched alcohol he seemed to develop a violent allergy to fabric—and he was wearing that stupid, cocky grin that could make every girl within five kilometres go weak at the knees.
“It’s already loud enough to annoy the neighbours!
” I called back, but he just cupped his ear and shrugged like he couldn’t hear me.
The music was loud but I knew he’d heard me.
Prick. Selective hearing was one of my flatmate’s many talents, right up there with leaving dishes to fossilise in the sink, dropping dirty socks on my clean laundry, and assuming every gay man alive was lining up to shag him.
I cranked the volume up another notch anyway. Pick your battles, that was my motto when it came to living with Jared. Some hills weren’t worth dying on.
The party had been his idea, naturally. “Just a few mates over,” he’d said three days ago, which in Jared-speak apparently meant “invite half of Hamilton and let them trash our flat.” Not that it was hard for him to gather a crowd.
Jared Sutherland, star fullback for the university’s Premier rugby team, could fill a room just by smiling at someone in the campus quad.
He’d already played several games for Waikato in the NPC when they needed injury cover, even snagging man of the match twice.
Proof, if anyone needed it, that he was more than good enough to play at the next level.
But his parents were old-school and had instilled in him a need to finish his degree before committing to professional rugby.
The uni magazine had just run a full-page spread on him last issue, all action shots and nauseating quotes about his “raw talent” and “future All Black potential.” His ego was already the size of a small planet; that article had basically strapped rocket boosters to it.
Usually his girlfriend Jess would be superglued to his side at any social event, running interference on the parade of girls who orbited him like horny satellites.
But tonight she’d done her fashionably-late entrance thing and then promptly vanished, probably off somewhere with her cheerleader squad planning world domination or comparing lip gloss brands.
Jess was what you’d get if you ordered “Generic Hot Blonde” from a catalogue—endless legs, teeth that could blind aircraft, and the kind of effortless confidence that came from never having to wonder if people liked you for your personality.
She was basically Jared with tits and better hygiene.
Jess had never been my biggest fan. She’d never come right out and said it, too well-bred for direct confrontation, but I could tell by the arctic eye-rolls and the surly glances she shot me whenever Jared wasn’t looking.
She’d pegged me as some sort of sexual predator lurking in the flatmate zone, just waiting for my chance to pounce on her man.
In her defence, Jared probably fed her just enough bullshit to keep her conspiracy theory simmering, always banging on about how I “totally had the hots for him,” which I absolutely did not!
Sure, he was objectively attractive in that generic rugby-god way, all broad shoulders and bulging biceps.
And yeah, maybe I’d snuck the occasional glance when he wandered around in just a towel.
But having functioning eyeballs didn’t mean I was harbouring some tragic unrequited love.
He was just another pretty jock who happened to be my flatmate.
Some might accuse me of living on Planet Denial, but I beg to differ. Then again, I suppose someone living on Planet Denial would say that. Which I wasn’t. At all. In the slightest. Dude was a dick and I was never going to be that cliché—the desperate homo lusting after straight cock. Hell no!
After granting Jared his wish of turning up the music, I headed to the kitchen to check if our food supplies had survived the locust swarm.
On my way, I got intercepted by some gangly guy with a shaved head and a penchant for badly drawn tattoos.
Barbed wire and spiderwebs painted his forearms, and something was scrawled across his neck in Gothic lettering that I couldn’t quite make out, probably “DAMAGED” or “BORN TO DIE” or whatever nonsense try-hard bad boys were branding themselves with these days.
He wore a white singlet under a baggy, unbuttoned shirt—half falling off one shoulder—and his jeans were so low I could’ve posted him a letter down the front.
Every bit of him screamed “tagged in at least three council CCTV footages,” but honestly, it worked for him in that shifty hot bogan vibe kind of way.
“Oi, you know where the bottle opener’s at?” he said, holding up a Tui.
I took a moment to respond, momentarily derailed by the fact that he was kinda cute if you ignored the poor taste in tattoos and the likely accompanying criminal record.
“Yeah, drawer by the sink,” I said.
“Shot, bro.” He looked me up and down, gave me a grin, revealing a broken incisor. “Are you Jared’s flatmate?”
“Yeah.”
He lingered, gaze flicking over me one more time like he was weighing something up. But then he just shrugged, mumbled something under his breath, and went to dig through the drawer. Found the opener, popped his beer, then stalked off.
For a moment there I’d thought he might be keen on me, but nah. This was Jared’s crowd, which meant wall-to- wall breeders. Even if this guy did suck dick on the downlow, he’d hardly be interested in the antisocial flatmate playing party police.
Still, that didn’t stop me perving as he swaggered his way back towards the lounge, those tragic low-riders showing off cheap red polyester boxers stretched over his bony arse.
I let myself fantasise for a moment—grabbing him by the neck tat, bending him over the kitchen bench and yanking his jeans down to his ankles.
I’d totally give you a night to remember, thug boy. Bet you’d be begging for it once I got my hands on you. Wonder if you’re as rough as you look, or if you’d turn into a whimpering mess the second I—
My dirty daydream was ruined when Jared suddenly materialised beside me, swaying like a tree in a decent breeze.
“Casey, my man!” He threw an arm around my shoulders. His breath was hot and boozy. “Did you know you’re my favourite flatmate? You know that, right?”
“I’m your only flatmate, dipshit.”
He squeezed me tighter, ignoring my attempt to wriggle free. “You’re still the best, though. Even if you are...” His words got lost to a burp.
“Even if I’m what?”
He wobbled on his feet and gestured at his crotch. “In love with my dick.”
“Wow, strong words from a guy who tried to have a thumb war with his own fly last Saturday.”
“You wish you were my fly. All that up-close action.” He poked my chest, almost missing. “Bet you’d crawl in there if I let you.”
“Yeah. Dream come true. Hold still while I write a sonnet about your nutsack.”
He burst out laughing, leaning into me again. “You’re a crack-up, bro. That’s why I keep you around.”
I didn’t bother shrugging him off this time.
He straightened up like he’d just remembered something important. “Shit, I need a piss. You coming?”
“I’m not holding it for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You’d love to, admit it!”
He stumbled away and I went back to surveying the damage.
The shoey guy had moved on to attempting some sort of drinking game that involved a lot of shouting and spilled beer.
Two girls were taking selfies in front of our bookshelf, which they’d apparently decided made a good backdrop.
Over by the couch, one of Jared’s rugby mates was flat on his back while another poured shots into his belly button and lapped them out, cheered on by half the team.
For a bunch of supposedly straight men, they sure had some interesting ideas about masculine bonding.