The Reluctant Wag Read Online Free PDF

to perform, especially now that he was leading the club. She wondered if he felt weighed down by that pressure; if that was why he seemed so intense? It also might explain why he’d be likely to avoid serious relationships. Cal McCoy just didn’t have time for romance. Not that she cared either way, she told herself.

Chapter 3
    Although Merise and Erica could rarely afford to eat out, their funds stretched to an evening drink in Lygon Street, Carlton’s famous Italian precinct. It was a balmy night and they were seated outside the University Café, drinking blood-orange mineral waters and watching the families and young lovers saunter past.
    ‘Are you going to the Yarraside game on Saturday?’ asked Erica.
    ‘Me? No. What game? I thought the footy didn’t start until March?’
    ‘The season proper doesn’t, but there’s a preseason competition in February and it starts this weekend. Barrackers can’t wait until March. They need their footy fix now.’
    ‘Well, I’m not going. I knew nothing about it. Why would I go anyway?’
    ‘But you’re supposed to be the face of—’
    Merise threw a screwed-up paper napkin across the table at her friend. ‘Don’t you start! Anyhow, I wasn’t invited.’
    ‘I suppose the preseason comp is just a series of practice matches. The teams don’t take it very seriously. Just thought it would give you the chance to see your boys in action.’
    Merise clasped her hands under her chin in mock enthralment, and cried, ‘Be still my heart!’
    ‘Okay,’ said Erica, throwing the napkin ball straight back at her, ‘be like that. But if you change your mind, it’s on Channel Seven at two-thirty.’
    ‘Thanks for the info, but I won’t be changing my mind,’ Merise said. ‘Now, are we going to the theatre or not?’
    The girls sometimes called in to the Half-Price Tiks office at Town Hall and snaffled low-priced seats. That night they managed to get tickets to a new play that had received rave reviews, and were seated well up in the gods as the audience started to trickle in.
    Both girls had brought binoculars to serve as opera glasses, and as Merise scanned the programme, Erica studied the patrons as they arrived. ‘Nice outfit!’ she commented.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘The dress circle, third row back. Red dress. Imagine being able to afford seats like that.’
    Merise raised her binoculars and focused on the stylish woman in the good seats. ‘Yeah, fabulous!’
    But Erica had already moved on. ‘Hey – no. It can’t be. Is it?’
    ‘What? Who?’
    ‘Front row, dress circle, right in the middle. Could that possibly be—’
    ‘Cal McCoy!’ Merise finished. ‘It’s him all right. I can’t believe it!’ And that was the end of her quiet evening at the theatre. She felt instantly unsettled.
    ‘Oh, Merise, doesn’t he look smart! Who’s he talking to?’
    Merise adjusted her binoculars. Were her hands shaking just a bit? ‘Um, that very grand-looking older couple? No idea, but they seem to know him pretty well.’
    ‘Looks like he knows the guy behind him, too.’
    ‘Yep, and two women a few seats up are talking to him as well.’ She was trying hard to sound chatty, matter-of-fact. He was just your average mega-celebrity that she’d just happened to meet, and was now . . . thinking about a lot.
    ‘He seems to be holding court, doesn’t he?’
    ‘Yeah. Odd. I wouldn’t have picked him for a theatre-goer at all, but he looks as if he’s a regular here.’
    ‘Cal McCoy,’ said Erica with a flourish, ‘man of many parts!’
    Merise had really been looking forward to the play, but now she found it impossible to concentrate on the drama onstage. Her attention kept straying to the front row of the circle, to the tall figure who sat head and shoulders above those around him. He seemed to be following the action as intensely as he did everything else. Merise was beginning to be troubled by the fact that she seemed to be preoccupied by him. What was wrong with