Page 2 of After the Siren

There’d been a time when Theo thought The Footy Show was the peak of poor taste in football media.

He’d been wrong. Full Forward was the Gen-Z version, just with even fewer boundaries and in even poorer taste because it was on YouTube rather than broadcast television.

The hosts were all men, all white and all douchebags.

They had a segment called ‘Woke Wednesday’, where they heaped scorn on things like women who played professional football being paid a liveable income.

But because it was footy, a bit of garden-variety misogyny, racism and homophobia hadn’t stopped them from being accepted as part of the discourse.

Occasionally, when they were punching up, they were quite funny.

Unfortunately, they preferred to punch down.

Theo had watched the skit innumerable times, like pressing down on a bruise to see which angle hurt the most. They hadn’t put the host who played him in brownface – nice to know that there were some limits – but they’d also turned the fact they couldn’t do that into a joke.

He’d thought the ache of it would fade with time, but it hadn’t, not really. The feeling had just become familiar.

The other feature of that episode of Full Forward had been an interview with none other than Jake Cunningham, sprawled on a couch in the studio with a baseball cap on backwards, drinking a vibrant purple bubble tea through a straw so large it looked a bit obscene.

The host had asked him about kicking goals under high stress and he’d said, looking into the camera with those shockingly blue eyes, ‘It’s a lot of pressure.

Some people just aren’t cut out for it.’ Then they’d showed a compilation of all the times Cunningham had managed to handle the pressure: quick snaps, game-changing set shots.

Celebrations before the ball had even gone through.

Theo was not a violent person, but he had occasionally contemplated what it would feel like to ‘accidentally’ elbow Jake Cunningham in his stupid fucking face.

Theo knew exactly when Priya hit the bewildering array of content that emerged if you googled Jake Cunningham and scrolled a bit, because she whistled softly between her teeth. Not that he’d ever indulged in an orgy of rage-fuelled internet stalking.

‘Okay, Instagram first,’ she said. Her eyebrows shot up. ‘His overall aesthetic is very ... Home and Away , but if it was directed by Lil Nas X.’

That took a moment to parse. ‘You’re not wrong.’

Priya, now wholly consumed by Jake’s Insta, turned the phone to show Theo a post. ‘I find this very confusing. Sexually.’

Priya’s taste ran to butch women with sleeve tattoos but, as she often reminded him, you could appreciate art without wanting to touch it.

The caption on the post announced: Thx @nakedmelbourne this was fun.

The first photo was of a mud-splattered and dishevelled Jake sitting on a bench wearing nothing but socks and a pair of sneakers in a melange of pastel colours.

The football in his right hand was preserving what remained of his modesty.

He was looking straight at the camera, his tousled hair falling into his eyes.

Just to remove any shred of doubt that this was a sexy product for sexy people, he was biting his left thumb, his lips quirked in a half smile.

Theo hoped he’d gotten dirt in his mouth.

‘He’s ... very attractive.’ Priya’s eyes were still glued to the screen. ‘What is Naked Melbourne? Is it an exhibition? Can we go and see it?’

‘It’s a brand of sneakers. You’ll see the creative team took the flying leap from “naked” to “naked”.’

Priya swiped through the photos. ‘I do see.’ She flipped the phone towards him again. ‘I think this violates community standards.’

Jake was sprawled in the mud in only socks and footy boots. A sneaker adorning a toned leg was planted in the middle of his chest. The camera angle ensured that the image didn’t break any rules. The text emblazoned across the photo read: for every play .

‘It has certainly violated my eyes,’ Theo agreed.

Priya gave him a look. And okay, yes, he had to concede that Jake Cunningham was hot.

There were definitely circumstances – the sort of circumstances where Theo wasn’t a footballer and Jake Cunningham wasn’t an arrogant little toerag – where Theo wouldn’t have minded seeing those abs. And those thighs. And that look.

‘Are the sneakers any good?’ Priya asked.

‘Oh, they’re great, I have several pairs. Wear them daily.’

Priya stuck her tongue out at him.

Theo held out his hand for the phone. ‘If you’re going to look at his TikTok as well, we won’t have time for any Miyazaki.’

‘I’ll save that for later.’

Priya unfolded herself from the couch and occupied herself with the HDMI cord. She handed the phone to Theo and he flicked through Jake’s Instagram, only half concentrating. It wasn’t the type of content that required many active brain cells.

But the chat had shaken something loose in his chest.

‘Do you think I’ve made a mistake?’

The words were out before he could stop them.

Asking Priya that sort of question was always a risk.

She knew him too well and was much too honest. He’d signed the contract with the Falcons before he’d talked to her about it.

Well, before he’d talked to anyone about it.

Eva – his older sister, current housemate and unofficial legal advisor – had given him an absolute shellacking for signing a contract she hadn’t subjected to meticulous review.

But he hadn’t wanted pragmatism or common sense from either of them.

It had been Priya, though, who’d answered the phone at 11 pm and driven him to the ER six weeks after his last match with the Sharks.

It had been Priya who, when he’d croaked out, ‘I did something stupid,’ had immediately said, ‘Where are you?’ Priya who’d had the spare key to his parents’ house and had come in to get him when he hadn’t come out.

Priya who’d sat with him all night under the fluorescent lights, breathing in antiseptic and listening to podcasts with one AirPod each, even though she’d hated hospitals since she was twelve.

Who’d only left him twice: once to go and scour the vending machines for a Twix and once to find a 7-Eleven to get them terrible, scalding coffee and a handful of sachets of brown sugar.

Priya who, when he’d been discharged at 5 am, had driven him to Bronte Beach and walked beside him in the freezing surf under the rose-gold spring sky while the salt water soaked her rolled-up pyjama bottoms.

She looked up.

‘No, I don’t think you’ve made a mistake.’

‘Why? Why was this the right call?’

She regarded him steadily. ‘You should know the answer to that.’

‘Humour me.’

‘You didn’t tell anyone about the offer because you thought we’d try to talk you out of it. That means you wanted it.’

It had been more than that. It had felt like it might vanish if he’d told anyone, dissolve in his hands.

That didn’t feel like a why , though. The offer had come almost out of the blue.

He’d been waiting to be delisted, ready to enrol full-time at uni.

Then there’d been Kat Lloyd’s soft, matter-of-fact voice over the phone.

Sure, he was steak knives, but a second chance was a second chance.

Priya abandoned whatever it was she was doing with the HDMI cable but stayed kneeling next to the table.

‘You remember that game I came to watch?’

‘Your first and last.’

It had been a high-school game: a preliminary final. She’d been roped into coming as part of a gaggle of Theo’s debating friends. They’d won the granny the week after; he’d kicked five goals and felt like he’d never come down from the high.

‘It was funny seeing you out there. I mean, I knew you very well, but it was like seeing a different person. Or ...’ She paused.

‘Not a different person. It was like seeing you be yourself in a way I’d never seen before.

’ She busied herself rearranging the snacks.

‘It was weird, too – you’re the furthest from a bossy person, but you were just so in command.

You know how I feel about sports. I had no idea what was going on.

But any time the ball came near you, you were gesturing and shouting, and the other players just did what you said.

You snapped your fingers and all of these lads who would never have spoken to us in a hundred years at school were falling over themselves to get the ball to you.

’ She grinned at him. ‘The significance of you having the ball was mostly lost on me, but it was impressive. And then you won and I think it was the first time I’d ever seen you look joyful . ’

He hadn’t thought about those junior games for a long time. They’d been swallowed up by week after week of stats and schedules and the creeping realisation that he was fucking it up.

‘But I failed , Priy.’ He hadn’t said that to anyone before. Not even on the way to the hospital while she’d laughed at his jokes and kept one hand resting on his. ‘I wasn’t good enough.’

‘Bullshit. If that were true, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Single, in a new city, with no friends, living in my sister’s guestroom so I can be kept under surveillance?’

He didn’t mind living with Eva, even if it did sometimes feel like living with a stranger.

Of all his siblings, she was the closest to him in age, but she’d moved out of their parents’ house when he was ten.

His two eldest siblings, Simon and Alisa, were more like an uncle and an aunt.

He loved Eva, but they weren’t close. Still, when he’d told her he was moving to Melbourne, she’d offered him the spare room in her two-storey terrace.

Right after she’d finished telling him off for signing a legal document she hadn’t read.

He’d sworn Eva to secrecy and told her about ‘the incident’ (as he called it in his mind), because Priya would worry if he hadn’t told anyone in Melbourne. Maybe softened some of the details a little. ‘I’m on medication now, it’s much better.’ (It wasn’t a lie .)

Priya clicked her tongue, disapproving. ‘Always chasing something.’ She sighed and rocked back on her heels. ‘You know I hate being earnest, so just be quiet and let me finish, and then we can go back to being glib and dismissive.’

He nodded obediently.

‘Football was the only thing I ever saw you do for yourself. And you cared about it enough to pursue it even when lots of people in your life told you it was stupid. Including me.’ Her grin was rueful.

‘I know the last two years have been shit. But you wouldn’t be getting a second chance if people at the Hawks —’

‘Falcons,’ he corrected.

‘Whatever, they’re all scary birds – if the Falcons hadn’t seen something in you that they liked. So, you haven’t failed.’

‘I might, though.’

‘Yeah, but at least you haven’t just given it up to become a moderately successful lawyer who bores all the grads with stories about how you’ – she puffed out her chest and assumed a tortured expression – ‘could have been a football star if only you’d taken that deal.’

‘Excuse me, I would be a very successful lawyer.’

‘Not if you’re tormented by thoughts of what might have been. Aren’t there some motivational sports quotes about the courage to risk failure that we could stick to your mirror? Being in the arena or some shit?’

‘Eva is way ahead of you there. She keeps pointedly leaving books about stress and perfectionism on the coffee table.’ He leaned forward to close the YouTube tab. ‘Thanks, Priy.’

She reached up and ruffled his hair. ‘That’s all the earnest you’re getting for the year.’

‘Noted.’

‘And we’re watching Princess Mononoke first. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Done.’

‘Also, I expect daily updates on your budding bromance with Jake Cunningham.’

‘Of course.’

They settled back on the couch. Theo let his breath go as the familiar music chimed.

Priya raised her glass of kombucha as the first scene rippled onto the screen. ‘To old friends, and new beginnings.’

‘Cheers.’