"You should come, Jemaine. It'll be fun!" Bret smiled at him.
Jemaine scowled.
"It's my mum's birthday," he muttered
"Isn't your mum's birthday tomorrow?" Bret asked
"Well, here it'll be her birthday tomorrow, but it's her birthday today in New Zealand. I have to wait until she's back from her surprise party that aunty Sheila's throwing her at the bowling alley to call her"
"Can't you call her when you get back?" Bret asked with his eyes flicking towards the door.
He clearly was going out, Jemaine or no Jemaine. Bret had been starting to feel the need for a girlfriend recently. It came and went. Just the feeling that it would be nice to have someone around to write songs about and eat lunch together and cuddle and kiss. He needed to find a girlfriend fast, before he started getting antsy and annoying Jemaine by hanging around him all the time. Again.
"I'll get drunk and forget. If I forget, she'll never forgive me. When my first child is born, she'll tell it about the time I forgot her birthday when I was getting drunk in America," Jemaine ranted, waving his hands and knocking over a mug.
"I'll remind you," Bret said hopefully
"No you won't. You're looking for a girlfriend, how are you going to remember?" Jemaine replied bitterly.
That was odd, he hadn't told Jemaine he was going to look for a girlfriend. It must show in his aura or something. But Jemaine wasn't a pychic. He didn't think. Better ask to be sure.
"Hey Jemaine, are you a pyschic?" he asked suddenly
"Just leave, Bret," Jemaine sighed.
xxx
Dave was coming with him, at least. He wasn't the same as going with Jemaine, he wouldn't understand most of what he said for one, but it was better than going to find a girlfriend alone. Dave was wearing a leather jacket and a bandana. Maybe he should have asked him what he should wear before he came out.
"Dave, is what I'm wearing alright?" he asked seriously
Dave gave him a Look.
"Can you stop being a girl for five minutes?" he said after a pause
"Should I call about what to wear next time we go out?" Bret asked plucking at his tiger t-shirt
"Apparently not," Dave muttered under his breath, "You're fine the way you are. Chicks dig that awkward nerdy thing you got goin on," he continued
"I've got a thing going on?" Bret asked, puzzled.
And then he thought about Jemaine singing to him. His chest felt tight and his stomach dropped out of his trainers. Better get a girlfriend, quickly.
xxx
It wasn't going well. Most of the girls here weren't all that interested in him and the ones that were seemed to think that he was too cute to be good boyfriend material. This was why it was better finding girlfriends with Jemaine. He was somehow much more attractive to woman when he was with Jemaine.
Being with Dave threw them a bit. On his own, Dave worked the bastard-who-was-actually-just-really-lonely angle, but with Bret have a centimetre from his left elbow, this didn't fly with the savvier prospective belt notches. And when girls were taken in my Bret's open, innocent charm, they noticed that his friend was talking about women like pieces of meat, and thought that the it was an act. They just weren't compatable wingmen.
Bret sipped his fizzy water through a straw and daydreamed, when someone crashed into him. He coughed and half the carbonated water flooded his sinuses. The other half spilled down his t-shirt
"Watch it," he choked, before looking up at the guy who'd bashed into him.
He was wearing studded leather from head to toe and had enormous steel toecapped boots. Tatooed across his neck was "cut here" and he had "hate" and "shit" across his knuckles. A hell's angel. Oh flip.
"You watch it, you Australian faggot!" the biker snarled at him.
Bret cowered and found him self saying, with no prompting from his brain whatsoever,
"New Zealand, actually"
At the same moment, however, Dave came storming over.
"Hey! Shithead! That's my friend you're talking to!" said Dave, in that special American if-you're-lookin'-for-trouble-you-found-it-pal tone of voice.
With no further ado, he punched the scary motorcyclist in the ear and kicked him. He then grabbed Bret's hand and dragged him off, at a run.
As Bret sprinted out of the club, hand in hand with Dave, he found his insides squirming and his adreneline pulsing through his veins. Somehow, he forgot completely about wanting a girlfriend.
xxx
"You should have been there, Jemaine, it was fantastic! This guy called me an Australian faggot and then Dave just took him out. He was incredible!"
Bret's excited rendition of the evening was getting more and more dramatic as the evening went on. And Jemaine wasn't sure he liked the awestruck way Bret was looking at Dave.
"It was nothing," said Dave with false humility, "Nobody talks shit about my boy, Bret."
Did Bret actually blush at that? This was ridiculous!
"So how big was he, this guy?" Jemaine asked sulkily
"Enormous. He was at least five foot eleven," said Bret in that stupid simpering voice.
Dave was taping up two of his fingers with sellotape and leaning against the wall with arrogant nonchalance. Stupid Dave, with his stupid cool American accent. Huh. Jemaine would have hit that guy if he'd been there. Or maybe thought mean thoughts about him. But still, it was hardly fair Dave getting all this attention, when Jemaine hadn't even had a chance.
"Six three. At least," said stupid Dave.
Jemaine wasn't sure why he was so annoyed by this. Possibly because no one called them Australian faggots more than Dave did, and yet here he was acting like he was a hero for punching someone else who called Bret one. He probably thought it was demarcation or something.
xxx
After Dave left, Bret still wouldn't stop talking about it.
"This guy just came up to me and said, 'Hey go back to Australia, you faggot!' and then Dave, he was wonderful Jemaine, Dave just hit him and kicked him in the knee and ran off. It was just like that one scene in Top Gun..."
Jemaine tuned out of Bret's enthusiastic monologue. This would all blow over by tomorrow. Right?
xxx
"All right band meeting. Bret?" Murray opened his note pad with unnecessary zeal
"Present"
"Excellent, Jemaine? Well I can see you're there. Now I heard that you went out with David to a bar last weekend, Bret?" Murray looked into Bret's eyes, concerned.
Why did he have to say it like that? It's not as though they went on a date
"I heard that there was some sort of an incident?" Murray's voice went up sharply on the last syllable,
"Jemaine, why weren't you there? You're supposed to look after each other," Murray scolded.
"Oh, it's all right, Murray. Dave saved me!" Bret said brightly, sitting up in his seat.
Jemaine groaned quietly.
"Really?" Murray replied, hastily scribbling this down in his notes, "You know, I've always been fond of David. He has an excellent character."
"Maybe for a Noddy book," Jemaine muttered under his breath.
Bret gave him a sharp glare. Jemaine sullenly looked at the wall.
"Yeah," said Bret, looking back at Jemaine before continuing, "what happened was, we were at this club, and Jemaine wasn't with me, and there was this gigantic hell's angel-"
Murray let out a concerned "Goodness!" at this point
"-pushed me over and said that America was no place for Australian faggots-"
"Oh, did he not realise that you were from New Zealand? Is that what the problem was? You know, I'm writing a letter to their embassy about this. I cannot allow New Zealand citizens to be hassled in the streets because of Australia's international reputation"
"It wasn't in the streets though, Murray, they were in a night club," Jemaine said helpfully, "and I don't think that was his problem."
Jemaine received another death-glare from Bret.
"So anyway that's when Dave came-"
Jemaine sighed and fidgeted in his seat. By this retelling, Dave had probabley arrived in a fiery charger and lanced the guy off his Harley.
"I've got a dental appointment," he said standing up
Bret stopped midsentence and looked at him again. He wished that Bret wouldn't twist his mouth that way.
"I don't have anything written here about an appointment," said Murray, looking through his extensive paper trail
"I made it this morning, it just came through now on my blue tooth," Jemaine said flatly.
He had no idea what he was talking about, but he was fairly sure that Murray wouldn't pick up on it. He'd worry about Bret later. Without waiting any longer, he walked out of Murray's office and left the New Zealand consulate.
He kept walking, staring at his feet until he slowed and stopped. His feet had taken him to Dave's pawn shop. Traitors. Jemaine stared at the door for a second and went in.