Page 19 of After the Siren

Chapter Ten

Theo’s phone buzzed insistently on his bedside table. He ignored it.

He knew he should get up and face the day, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look at this phone. He didn’t want to see the posts he’d been mentioned in, the messages everyone was sending. It had been a bad game. There wasn’t any more to be said. One bad game.

Another fucking bad game.

The first pre-season game, too, so people had been paying attention to his debut performance as a Falcon. He’d been so determined not to fuck it up. He’d thrown up beforehand and run out still tasting vomit and choking down the nausea of anxiety, focused on do better, be better.

It just hadn’t clicked. Part of his brain – the rational, analytical part – knew it hadn’t all been his fault. They’d been playing the reigning premiers, they’d been trying out some new things, the structures hadn’t come together. But that didn’t make it feel any better.

He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling.

There was light spilling in from the gap in the curtains, painting golden strips across the cream walls.

Maybe he’d go back to sleep if he lay still and did some deep breathing.

Maybe he’d forget that he’d managed to be in the wrong place over and over again.

Maybe he could excise from his mind the one-on-one contest he’d lost that had led directly to a goal.

The phone started buzzing again. Theo picked it up to check whether it was someone he couldn’t ignore.

It was Jake. Jake must have filched his phone at some point, because he came up as ‘Jake Cunningham.’

Another buzz, this time a text.

Jake

pick up

r u alive?

Theo winced. That hit a bit different, these days.

Jake

***

i’ll ring the bell

ur sis is eva right???

That made Theo roll over and peer out the window. Sure enough, Jake’s ute was parked outside the house. It was pretty distinctive. Theo picked up the phone when it buzzed again.

‘Jake,’ he started.

He couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to see less, but he also couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to see more.

He wanted to see Jake’s smile and hear Jake’s laugh.

He wanted to watch the way Jake bit his lip and tipped his head when he was thinking.

Maybe he wanted Jake to hold him until he felt better, which was not a thing he was going to get, even if he went along with whatever Jake was about to suggest.

Jake cut him off. ‘You’ve got ten minutes. Wear bathers and shoes you can walk in.’

‘What?’

‘We’re going to the beach.’

‘I don’t like the beach.’ Theo did like the beach, but this seemed like an easy objection. ‘Also, the beaches here suck.’

‘Now you have to come so I can prove you wrong.’

‘I said I don’t like the beach.’

Jake sighed, long-suffering. ‘I don’t care.’

‘It’s not beach weather.’ Melbourne was doing that thing where it decided to put some weather from one season into the middle of another one. It had been unseasonably chilly for several days, which meant it would probably be baking hot tomorrow.

‘Bro, it’s February.’

‘Jaze, I —’

Jake cut him off. ‘Out in ten or I’ll come in and get you. I’ll talk to Eva .’

Theo stared at his phone. He did not want to go to the beach, but he also didn’t want to stay here.

And he definitely didn’t want Jake knocking on his door.

He didn’t doubt that Jake would march up to the door, flirt politely with Eva, and then bully or cajole Theo out of the house.

The lower-energy option was to bow to the inevitable and stave off Eva finding out that anything was wrong. That he was fucking up again .

‘Tick-tock,’ Jake said, and hung up.

Theo threw the phone down on the bed, but he also got up. He fossicked in a drawer to find some board shorts and pulled on a ratty t-shirt.

He managed to get out of the house without running into Eva, so he texted to let her know where he was going.

One of the windows of Jake’s ute rolled down as Theo approached. ‘Get in, loser,’ he said, looking at Theo over his aviators. ‘There’s coffee. And snacks.’

There was. Theo sipped his coffee and pretended not to be delighted by the bag of warm cinnamon doughnuts. It was ... quite thoughtful, really.

They were both quiet on the drive. At one point Theo made the error of reaching for Jake’s phone to change the music and was shouted down – apparently the K-pop wasn’t some sort of algorithm misfire.

‘I don’t know how you listen to this,’ Theo said.

‘Better than the sad-boy indie shit you’re into.’

Jake drowned out Theo’s reply by joining in with a rap break. There were accompanying dance moves, which Jake performed with one hand. Theo found himself smiling, even if he did wish Jake would drive with two hands on the wheel.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

They turned off the highway forty-five minutes later and proceeded down a network of country roads, then finally onto a dirt track.

It was probably a good thing that Jake drove a stupid ute – Eva’s hatchback couldn’t have handled the potholes.

They pulled up, finally, in the sort of car park that had evolved organically rather than through planning permits.

A hand-painted sign read ‘Take your litter away with you, you dirty cunts’ .

Jake parked and unclipped his seatbelt. ‘Phone,’ he said, holding out his hand.

‘What?’

‘Phone.’

Theo handed it over, confused, and Jake shut it in the glove box. ‘You won’t need it.’

‘I’m not twelve.’

‘So you weren’t on socials this morning like a muppet?’

Theo had been on socials that morning. Like a muppet. A sad, pathetic muppet. ‘Fine.’

Jake retrieved a backpack from the back seat and led Theo across the car park to the beginning of a track. Theo trailed after him, feeling a little bit like a reluctant puppy being taken on a walk.

‘I used to come here all the time during school holidays,’ Jake said, sure-footed on the rough path. Theo was really hoping neither of them was going to break an ankle. Davo would be pissed as hell. ‘Most people don’t know about this track, so it was a good place to go and ... hang out.’

‘Hang out, huh?’

Jake gave Theo a wry look over his shoulder. ‘Yeah.’

It wasn’t a hard climb, but Theo could appreciate why you wouldn’t make it if you had a gaggle of children or a whole lot of gear.

Just as Theo was about to ask how much further they had to go they came up over a rise and there was the beach, the restless ocean stretching out to the edge of the pale-blue sky.

He’d been wrong. It was beach weather, even if it was a little cool.

They both kicked off their sneakers and walked down the sand. Theo inhaled. He’d missed being close to the beach. Sometimes you just needed to submerge yourself in salt water. Not that he was going to admit that to Jake.

Jake unfolded his towel and tossed his stuff on top of it. Theo followed suit and sat down.

‘I’m getting in,’ Jake said, pulling off his t-shirt.

Theo actively dragged his eyes away from the mermaid tattoo. He’d seen tattoos before. There was no reason this one should exert a magnetic pull on his eyeballs.

‘It’s not warm enough to swim.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ Jake said, unbuttoning his shorts. He was wearing budgie smugglers underneath. They were neon pink with an eggplant-emoji pattern.

‘I am not getting in.’

‘Yeah, you are.’ Jake nudged his toe under the hem of Theo’s t-shirt and Theo wriggled away.

‘Get your gross feet away from me.’

‘Hey, my feet are fine. Xen and I get fucking pedicures all the time, okay?’

The foot intruded under Theo’s t-shirt again and he grabbed Jake by the ankle. Jake hopped free, laughing. ‘Come on.’

‘This is not swimming weather.’

‘Don’t make me make you.’

‘Like you could.’

Jake’s eyes narrowed.

‘That was not a challenge,’ Theo said, rolling to his feet, because he was absolutely not going to get into a situation where he and Jake were grappling and Jake was trying to remove Theo’s clothes.

‘Sounded like one.’

‘I’m bigger than you.’

‘I’m meaner.’

‘I’m faster.’

‘I bought you doughnuts.’

‘I’m sad.’ It came out almost like a joke.

‘But I’ll be sad if you don’t come in.’

‘I’ll be sadder if I do.’

‘Fine.’ Jake pouted. Actually pouted. ‘I’ll go for a swim and you can just sit here on the sand like a loser.’

‘A loser who isn’t going to freeze his balls off.’

‘Thanks for the concern about my balls.’

Theo resettled on the towel as Jake waded into the water. He spun back around, stretching his arms wide. ‘It’s nice!’

‘I don’t believe you!’

Jake gave him the finger then turned, took a few running steps and plunged into the surf. He surfaced a few seconds later, shaking out his hair. ‘Refreshing!’

Theo realised he was smiling. ‘Fine!’ he yelled back. He did want to get in. He could never be on the sand without wanting to get into the water.

He took his usual approach to getting into an ocean that might be cold, which was to run in and submerge himself before his body could register the actual temperature. Which might have been an error, in this case, because it was freezing .

‘You’re a fucking liar,’ Theo shouted as he surfaced. This water must have come straight from the Antarctic. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in colder water.

Jake was laughing, his hair turned darkly golden. He threw his arms out, tipping his head back. ‘It’s the fucking best.’

‘I might die.’

‘Nah, I’d rescue you.’

‘Not if I drown you first for being a lying shit.’

Jake grinned at him. Sometimes looking at Jake when he smiled was a bit like getting winded.

It wasn’t just that he was good-looking, it was that he didn’t hold anything back when he was happy.

His smile made Theo think of summer sunshine, and freshly squeezed orange juice, and also the time he’d run flat out into a goal post trying to take a mark in under-16s.