Side Character Energy by OLIVIA TOLICH is a hilarious new romcom about all kinds of love – romantic, platonic and toxic. Read on for an extract.

ABOUT THE BOOK

After a series of Mr Wrongs, Bee has finally found her Mr Right. Attractive, mature – William is everything she’s been looking for.

Gertrude is Bee’s best friend since forever (and also her flatmate, workmate and Insta content videographer). She’s happy for Bee – just as she’s been sad for Bee during those romantic missteps, and supportive of Bee in everything else. Actually, now she thinks about it, Gertrude isn’t sure there even is a Gertrude that isn’t determined by what Bee wants or thinks or feels.

Panicked to realise she’s not the main character in her own life, she turns to William’s best friend, Arthur. He isn’t the obvious choice for life coaching – apart from anything else, Gertrude doesn’t really like him – but everyone else is…Well, there is no everyone else. Just Bee.

Arthur’s mission is to find out whether there’s more to Gertrude than she thinks, and if so, what it is. The problem is, that might throw up some hard questions – about her life, her choices and above all, her friendship with Bee.

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EXTRACT

Note: This is an edited extract from Side Character Energy by Olivia Tolich, where Gertrude is at a catering job at an AFL Event.

It is darker now. Dinner has come and gone; wine is just gone and the dancefloor is pumping. I have bruises on my ankles from the unsupportive ballet flats, and the bass pulsing through my entire body is making me jittery. The cream carpet is now a marbled grey. This event, like all of them, started off extremely respectful and dignified but the restraint ended the moment the formalities did.

Bee is still here, which is confusing. I saw her flitting effortlessly through the crowd well after nine o’clock, and who stays at work on a Saturday night when they aren’t getting paid? Being surrounded by hot people and free drinks probably has something to do with it, but it is weird that Bee is acting like it isn’t weird. I see her again just after eleven, leaving the dancefloor; she waves and goes over to the bar to get a glass of water.

From behind me: ‘Having a good night?’

I turn around to say something sarcastic to whichever co-worker it is, because none of us are having a good time, but it’s a guy in a navy suit and paisley tie. I look him up and down. From his build (average) he’s not a footballer, but he paid to have that suit tailored, and there isn’t much that is sexier than a man in a well-fitted suit. He has a nice head of thick dark hair that I have an inappropriate urge to run my fingers through – it flops to each side in a nineties-boy-band way, which is apparently a thing I’m into now. And he has kind eyes. Or at least, they don’t scream ‘loves to sexually harass the help’, which is why I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I smile – my real one, not my customer-service one. ‘Not too bad.’ Original. Interesting.

‘I love your pearls,’ he says, pointing at them like I don’t know where they are. Pointing at my tits, if I’m being ungenerous.

‘Thanks,’ I say, running them (the pearls, not my tits) between my fingers. ‘They’re the best dodgy work practices and drop shipping can provide.’ He laughs, eyes bright, no artifice. I might be fucked here. I hope so.

‘So, what brings you here?’ I ask.

He gasps. ‘You don’t recognise me?’

Oh shit, is he some VIP I was meant to be coddling all night?

He gestures at his body. ‘I’m an All-Australian full forward.’ Oh, it’s a joke. He’s funny.

‘Sorry,’ I say, fluttering my eyelashes for extra effect.

‘Truthfully I’m not much into the football.’

‘That must have made the formalities tonight a bit of a trial for you.’ Before I can say that money can make anything supremely interesting to me, a guest bumps into me as they pass, and I stumble. The strange, funny man catches me, his hands grasping my arms. We’re close enough that I can smell the beer on his breath, see the golden dots in the brown of his eyes. Those eyes flicker to my lips, so quickly I might have missed it if I weren’t just as shamelessly staring at him. We straighten up and he lets go. It feels reluctant. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

I have no idea what we were talking about before The Touch. ‘So, what brings you here?’ I ask.

He chuckles. ‘You already asked me that.’

Oh, yeah. ‘I don’t think you answered though.’

‘I did, just facetiously. I actually have no connection to this at all. I work in advertising sales, and we don’t even advertise with the AFL. But I scored a ticket, and I’m not one to turn down free catering.’

‘That’s very thrifty.’

‘Well, when you’re a millennial on your third cozzie livs crisis…’

I laugh, and that seems to be that, so I wait for him to leave.

Then his head tilts to one side, eyes dancing with childlike enjoyment.

‘Maybe I could get you a drink?’ he asks, and that’s a bit of a mind-fuck because it should definitely be the other way around. Is it romantic that he wants to get the waitress (sorry, food-and-bev attendant) a drink? Can I get fired for saying yes? Bee might make an exception under a horniness clause.

‘Sure.’ We turn towards the bar.

‘Is that your friend over there?’ He is pointing over to where Bee is standing, now talking to a suited man of her own. The bubble of something (not hope, never hope) in my chest pops, deflating with a small squeal. He wants to ask about Bee. Of course he does. He must have seen us together earlier. I’ve played this game before; I know how it goes. He acts coy for a moment, pretends he is interested in talking to me, then subtly turns the conversation to Bee and whether she is available and whether I can introduce them. Or pass on her number. Or give her this drink he offered me (like I’d hand over a drink of unknown provenance, buddy).

I remember one time Bee and I were at this club we went to every Thursday night because a guy we’d gone to school with was a promoter and gave us drink cards for the five-dollar Jaeger bombs. We were on the dancefloor and a guy came up behind Bee and started doing that thing men do where they dance closely behind you, then if you don’t object, they put a hand or two on your waist, then they’ll wrap around to pull you into them so you can grind your ass against their dick, and then they flip you around for a pash…

And then a hand reached around my own waist and started doing the same thing, and I could not have consented more enthusiastically. Then, a bit later, Bee went to the toilet and I saw the two men we had pulled. They were by the bar, and Bee’s was buying mine a drink to say thanks for ‘jumping on the grenade’.

Bee went home with that guy that night. I went home and exploded into tears.

So maybe for a moment in my fatigue I forgot what this is and thought that he might want to talk to me. I’m tired and don’t feel like playing tonight.

I hate myself slightly for sounding bitter, but I don’t owe him Bee’s time. ‘The one talking to the finance wanker? Yep, that’s my friend, Bee.’

He frowns. Judgy. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No.’

I can hear the judgment too. ‘So why do you think he’s a finance wanker?’

I wave a hand in his general direction. ‘Look at him! The perfect blond hair, the pocket square, the tie clip that matches the cufflinks.’ I know I am absolutely nit-picking supposed flaws in a complete stranger, but I can’t stop myself. ‘He’s giving off big-wanker energy in waves.’

He’s looking at me differently now, the smile in his eyes long vanished. I hear the cogs turn in his brain; he’s deciding just how far to lose it. I am reminded once more that I am not, in fact, a guest at this event but an easily replaced waitress, so I hope he isn’t a talk-to-the-manager type…even if it might be fun to point to Bee when he asks.

‘I’ll make sure to let William know how he comes off to others,’ he says drily. Oh, shit. This is way worse.

‘William?’ I ask. I definitely do not want an answer.

‘Yeah, William, my best mate. He met her earlier tonight and I thought I’d help him out by asking you about her. But on reflection I don’t really care what you think.’

Distaste drips from every word. He watches as Bee and William smile at one another; William holds out a hand, and she lets him lead her back to the dancefloor. ‘Thankfully, your friend seems to have better taste than you.’

Well, I was interested in you for a hot second, buddy, so congrats on the self-burn.

I wish I was gutsy enough to actually say that.

Nicole, blessed Nicole, best of people, then walks past with a dangerously full tray of glasses. ‘Hey, Gertie, give me a hand?’

A precarious tray being one of the best known ways to move past a mortifying moment with a disgusted hot man, I help Nicole get back to the bar with the tray. He has followed me, leaning over the bar to get closer. I start to rip off the stupid gloves. My hands feel itchy, like they’re swelling and I will be trapped in the gloves forever if I don’t get rid of them quickly.

‘You work here?’

I’m done with him now. I need to remove him and his stupid eyes and hands and suit from my brain.

‘No,’ I say sarcastically, gesturing around the bar. ‘I just decided to wear the same hideous outfit as half a dozen other guests, and then we all banded together to help out because it seemed like a nice thing to do.’

I turn to go into the glass room, but at the door I turn back to spit at him, ‘And by the way, my friend works here too, so if not-wanky Billy over there is going to have as much of a problem with that as you obviously do, you should probably go rescue him.’

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olivia Tolich is an emerging author based in Melbourne (Naarm). She has made books her entire personality from a young age and has terrible eyesight to show for it. She works as an educational publisher and has a dog named Poppy who really hates that her human’s main interest involves sitting around staring at a computer.

Her first novel, Side Character Energy, was released in Australia in 2026.

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