Big Man Read online

  By the end of the two hours, Max was shaking all over. He limped out of the changing rooms half an hour after going in, only to find Cian sitting on the bench in the foyer, draining a water bottle like his life depended on it.

  “Wanna talk?” he asked and held out another towards Max.

  “Um…okay.”

  Not really, but…

  But Cian looked…great. His hair was wet and ruffled up in short, sharp spikes. He was wearing a T-shirt again and looked like…like a boy. Flat-chested. Wiry. The jeans—denim, but with combat-style cut and pockets—were seriously helping.

  He looked like a boy.

  Still, Max wanted to push his top up and have a look at the abs he’d felt through those kicks all session.

  Cian looked like a boy, and Max still fancied him, and—okay, so Max wasn’t bothered about the whole maybe-bisexual thing. His mum was bisexual, and his stepmum was a gold star lesbian or something, so who cared, but—

  But…

  But he also knew that under the jeans was—you know. Not—

  How did this work? If he wanted Cian, and Cian said he was a boy but was physically a girl—what did that make Max?

  “You can sit down,” Cian said.

  “Oh.” Max sank into another chair. The tired leather squeaked and groaned under his weight, and he felt his face beginning to flush.

  “Is this going to be a problem?” Cian asked.

  “Um…is what going to be a—?”

  “Me being trans.”

  It hung in the air between them.

  “I—no,” Max said. “No.”

  “You’ve been skirting round me.”

  “You did threaten to kick me every time I called you a girl.”

  “So don’t call me a girl and I won’t; it’s not that hard.”

  “But earlier you said you were a lesbi—”

  “Good God,” Cian muttered. “Yes, because your dickhead mate—”

  “He’s not my mate!”

  Max shouted it. It rang around the empty foyer. And then Cian sat back with a grin.

  “See, there’s someone in there,” he said, gesturing vaguely at Max, “that I’d like to get to know. The guy who pulls faces at Lewis and mumbles that I’m a dick for throwing in a body kick when he expects a push kick and thinks I can’t hear him.”

  For the umpteenth time, Max felt a heat rising in his neck and face.

  “But that guy is buried under this—”

  “Flab?”

  The icy look Cian threw at him was withering, and Max shrank back in his chair a little.

  “Fear,” Cian said.

  “Fear? I’m not afra—”

  Cian snorted.

  “Fine,” Max ground out. “Maybe I am. But I have Tom Fallowfield on my arse, and—”

  “And you’re taller than him.”

  Max blinked. “Um, no, not the mouthy ones. Tom’s the one who didn’t say anything, the one with the boots. The tan boots.”

  “You were taller than all of them.”

  Max frowned. “No, I’m not.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Cian persisted. “You only look shorter than Tim—”

  “Tom.”

  “Whatever. You only look shorter because you hunch up. Your posture’s awful.”

  The “Gee, thanks,” escaped before Max could stop it, and Cian sniggered.

  “See?” he said. “There’s someone awesome in there. You need to let him breathe.”

  Max bit his lip, unsure of what to do with that declaration.

  “And for the record,” Cian added, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees, “I’m really not as prickly as I seem. But if you call me a girl, and you treat me like a girl, I’ll not be nice about it. And for the next four months, you want me to be nice to you.”

  “Yeah,” Max agreed.

  “But if you want to ask questions, go ahead. Take the risk.”

  “The risk?”

  “Well, some questions just aren’t appropriate.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like whether I have a dick.”

  Max’s eyes flicked down to Cian’s jeans before he could stop them, and Cian laughed.

  “You like me?”

  Max’s face exploded in heat, and the next laugh was louder and slightly incredulous.

  “Seriously?”

  Max groaned and covered his face with both hands.

  “You like me,” Cian repeated, and when Max peeked, he was grinning. “Well. I’m flattered.”

  “I’m going to die now,” Max said.

  “Nah, you’ll live.” Cian chuckled and drained his water bottle. He got up off the bench, all long limbs and languid ease, and Max stared at the seeming shift from…

  From boy to girl to boy to girl. Max’s eyes couldn’t grip onto one or the other. Sitting with his knees spread and draining that bottle, he’d been a boy. Tossing the bottle in the bin with long, delicate fingers, he was suddenly a girl with a stylishly short cut. Picking up his bag and slinging it over his back, he was a boy again.

  Jazz had seen a girl at the bus stop, and Max had seen—

  Cian.

  “Do you mind?” he called after Cian, on a sudden, suicidal impulse. “That Jazz thought you were a girl, and you told him you were a lesbian?”

  “Of course I mind,” Cian said, glancing over his shoulder from the door.

  Then he grinned. The twisted canine showed. Max’s gut twisted, and his heart performed some kind of weird jump in his chest.

  “But it’s not like I need tossers like that to know their girls from their boys, is it?”

  Then he was gone.

  “BISEXUAL.”

  The word sounded strange on Max’s tongue. Not wrong, but strange.

  “I’m bisexual,” he told the ships sailing across his ceiling.

  Well, maybe.

  He fancied Cian. That much was obvious. Despite Aunt Donna’s intentions, Max fervently hoped he wouldn’t get any fitter at boxing, because if he had the energy to get inappropriate wood, he would.

  Pun intended.

  “Bisexual,” he tried again.

  Max liked girls. He’d always liked girls. Never done anything about it—what girl would want Fatso Farrier slobbering all over her, after all—but he knew he liked them. Didn’t have to have done anything about it to know that.

  But boys?

  Cian was a boy. He’d looked like a boy, sitting on the bench. Had a flattish chest and wiry arms. Wore boys’ clothes, cut his hair like a boy. Kind of…talked like a boy, even though the voice wasn’t a boy’s.

  And in those glimpses, when he looked like a boy, Max had still thought he looked kind of hot.

  So he might fancy a boy, too.

  Only, under the jeans there was still a—well, a girl. Wasn’t there? So, did he fancy a boy? Or…

  Downstairs, he heard Aunt Donna’s van start coughing and then rattle away into the street. Figuring the coast was clear—no way was he letting Aunt Donna overhear this—Max heaved himself off the bed and limped downstairs.

  “Hey, sweetie.” Mum was up to her elbows in pizza dough. “Making your favourite,” she enthused and winked at him. “Let’s not tell Donna, eh? She won’t be back ’til late. We’ll wash up proper when we’re done, and she’ll be none the wiser.”

  Max grinned, sliding into one of the kitchen chairs. Favourite meant triple-meat feast pizza with extra cheese and garlic bread on the side. All home-made, because between Dad and Aunt Donna there’d been a period when Mum could barely afford to feed them, and pizza had been a huge special treat when she got extra hours at work.

  Now it was a special treat for when Aunt Donna had been on at him about his weight.

  “Something bothering you, sweetie?”

  Max shrugged, content to just sit and watch. He’d sat and watched Mum cook for most of his life. She always looked pretty and happy in the kitchen, with all her hair piled up on top of her head and wearing something from her collection of aprons. Sh
e looked relaxed. Not like…

  Max’s earliest memories of his mum were her crying. Just—crying. The days Grandpa had had to come over and get Max ready for school, because Mum was too sad to get out of bed in the mornings. The week he’d had to go and live with Uncle Mike and Aunt Hannah in Exeter because Mum had gotten so bad she’d not bought any food at all, and Grandpa had had to break in because Max couldn’t reach the handle to open the front door.

  Those days. After Dad.

  Then Mum started to get better, and Max knew his mum was okay if she was cooking. So he got into the habit of watching. And then Aunt Donna started coming round, and Mum kind of went wild in the kitchen, trying all these new things to impress this newcomer, and then the newcomer became ‘Auntie Donna,’ and Max caught them being disgusting at the oven that one time.

  So he didn’t worry about Mum anymore, not since cooking and Aunt Donna, but the habit had never really faded away. The kitchen was a happy place.

  So it felt fitting to say, “Mum? Between you and me?”

  “Secrets, sweetie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it about that boxing club?”

  “Uh. Maybe.”

  She turned to glance at him. A stray curl was bouncing around by her cheek, flour white instead of its usual deep brown. “Do you not want to go? I told Donna this isn’t the solution. It’s not your fault those stupid boys have nothing better to do than—”

  “It’s not that,” Max interrupted. “It’s, um. Hypothetically to do with the gym.”

  Mum raised her eyebrows. “Hypothetically?”

  “I…hypothetically like someone.”

  “That—Cian, was it?”

  “The…person I like,” Max said very slowly, “who may or may not have anything to do with the boxing club…”

  Mum dragged out the chair opposite and sat down.

  “I like them,” Max said. “And I thought they were a girl, but…they said they’re a boy. And sometimes they do look like a boy. And I…still like them.”

  “As in, you’re attracted to them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, honey, you know it doesn’t matter to me who you like.”

  “No, I know that,” Max said. “I mean…does that make me bisexual? If he’s a—”

  “Is he transgender?”

  She said the word very softly. Gently. Almost like it was something secret and shy, not the flat, matter-of-fact way Cian had rolled ‘trans’ off his tongue.

  “Yeah,” Max said.

  “And ‘he’ is definitely the right word?”

  “Yeah. He, uh. He was pretty clear about that.”

  “But he still…looks feminine?”

  “Sometimes,” Max said. “I mean, I thought he was. It was only when he told me he wasn’t and said—said that. I mean, he looks…boyish. But not.”

  “Okay,” Mum said. “Well, I think it’s up to you to decide what to call yourself. Does he like you back?”

  Max snorted. “Come off it, Mum.”

  “I’m perfectly off it,” she replied. “If he doesn’t, he’s not very clever, is he?”

  Max shrugged awkwardly.

  “If he’s not interested in you, then it doesn’t really matter to him what you call yourself, does it?” Mum asked finally, pushing herself up from the table and getting back to the dough. “If he is, and you decide to have a relationship with him, then maybe that’s something you’d need to talk about. He might not like the idea of having a straight boyfriend, but then if you don’t think bisexual fits you, that’s up to you.”

  Max squirmed at the idea of being in a relationship with Cian. Yeah, right.

  “What if Dad had been a woman? Like—a trans woman?”

  Mum bit her lip.

  “Would that make you a lesbian?”

  “No,” she said and then shrugged as if rolling the mention of his father off her shoulders. “Your father might have been my only man, but he wasn’t the only man I ever liked, honey. You know why Donna hates my boss?”

  “Because he makes you work Sundays when she’s off?”

  “Nope. I once admitted to having a tiny bit of a crush on him.”

  “Ew, Mum!”

  “Oh grow up,” she tittered. “He’s sweet!”

  “He’s old. He could have gone out with Grandma.”

  “Mm, well, I’m a lady and he’s a gentleman,” she said, preening a little and scattering more flour over her hair. “So, no. Even if your father had been a woman, I’d still be bi. Maybe that’s the way you need to look at things. Maybe this boy is the first boy you’ve ever liked, or maybe he’ll be the only boy, and as—well, if—he becomes more masculine, your interest will stop.”

  Max chewed on his lip and pictured Cian in those jeans and nothing else. There was a sort of blank space across his chest, because he really was so wiry Max wasn’t sure if he had breasts or if they were just, like, super-pecs or something…

  And he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “Maybe I’m bisexual,” he said.

  Mum glanced over her shoulder again, and her face softened.

  “You okay with that, honey?”

  “Yeah,” Max said slowly. “I think so.”

  What did it matter anyway? Bisexual, straight…hell, he could go right out the other side and end up gayer than a Middle Earth elf, and he’d still be in the same position. Because maybe he liked Cian, maybe he only liked girl-Cian, maybe he could fancy every blonde girl in the world—but it didn’t matter.

  None of them would ever fancy him.

  Chapter Eight

  CIAN TURNED UP in a skirt.

  “Say a word, I’ll smash your teeth down your neck,” he snapped at Max before he’d even closed the training room door.

  “Um. Wasn’t going to,” Max said warily.

  “I hate visiting my nan,” Cian snarled—and stripped.

  “Oh,” Max said.

  And—

  He ought to turn away, but—

  Cian just…took off all his clothes. Right there in the training room. In front of Max.

  Okay, not all of them. He was wearing briefs. And a…bandage thing around his chest. But everything else came off. The skirt. A pair of tights. The top that Max vaguely recognised as the brand of clothing designed to be acceptable to stuffy old relatives without actually being too offensively horrible to wear.

  And then there was just miles of that pale, lightly freckled skin, and those abs, and—

  The Muay Thai shorts were pulled up mile-long legs, and Max cleared his suddenly very dry throat.

  “Um, shouldn’t you…use the changing rooms?”

  “No, thanks. I get yelled at in the girls’ and side-eyed in the boys’.”

  “Um—but—”

  “If you’re that much of a prude, you can wait outside,” Cian said and turned his back.

  “Holy hell,” Max mumbled, turning his own when the bandage thing was ripped off, and Cian’s completely naked back was exposed to him. Which meant on the other side, there’d be…

  Max hadn’t warmed up yet. And the sudden tightness in his underwear said that his body was totally okay with that lapse.

  “I’m going to start warming up,” he said, his voice absurdly loud in the echoing room, and he broke into a desperate run for the other side of the mats.

  “You’re a wuss!” Cian shouted after him, but by the time Max had staggered to the end of the room and turned round, the sports bra strap flashed a brilliant white across the room, and an army green tank top had been slung over those abs.

  “You’re—cruel,” Max puffed when he got back, and Cian snorted.

  “Cruel would be training in my bra.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Would. Have. Don’t tempt me. It’s hot in here.”

  “About to get hotter!” Lewis boomed as he crashed through the door. “You two look far too composed. Ten for ten—go!”

  Max hated ten for ten. It was all ten warm-up exercises, eac
h done ten times. Ten laps on their own killed him. Add ten burpees, ten squats, ten jumping jacks, and all the other torture methods to that?

  He scowled at Cian, who just flipped him off and started jogging.

  “You’re also too happy,” Lewis proclaimed. “Cian, you’re grading next week.”

  “Dad said—”

  “Your dad’s not here. And you don’t need to start competing just because you hit advanced.”

  Max frowned as he turned at the end of the mats and started to lumber back.

  “I’m not competing for the women’s titles.”

  Ah.

  “I’m not going to make you.” Lewis’s voice was even. “And if you can backchat me, you’re not running fast enough. That’s an extra five runs for the both of you.”

  Seriously? Max groaned. It would take him the whole session to finish just the warm-up at this rate.

  “I need you advanced if you’re going to do the instructor’s course,” Lewis continued blandly, leaning against the closed door. “You don’t have to compete if you don’t want.”

  “They’ll ask why I’m instructing anyone if I’ve never fought.”

  “And then you can show them your elbow strike, and they’ll shut up.”

  “What’s—an—elbow—strike,” Max heaved as he turned for his fifth shuttle run. Cian was jogging backwards, the bastard.

  Lewis laughed. “All right. I guess that sorts today’s lesson plan.”

  Cian’s face lit up.

  “Not you. You don’t get to break the private clients.”

  “What if I—”

  “Five more!”

  “Cian,” Max groaned. “Shut—up!”

  Cian laughed but dutifully shut up, lowering his head, turning to run the right way round, and beginning to sprint.

  The warm-up dragged the blood back out of inappropriate places, and by the time Max had finished the tenth push-up, his arms shaking like blancmange in an earthquake, the sweat was literally dripping off him and onto the mats.

  Cian, wordlessly, chucked him that pink hand towel again.

  “Okay,” Lewis said, clapping his hands and wandering casually onto the mats. “Elbow strikes. Efficient. Painful. Good way to stop a fight before it even starts. What happens if you smash someone in the head, Max?”