Page 3 of After the Siren

Chapter Two

He’d left himself plenty of time to get to the pre-season camp bus: time to go back for the charger he knew he’d forget, time for the traffic, time to get coffees. Just not time to get rear-ended at the lights by some dickwad in a Porsche Cayenne who was too busy texting to brake.

It wasn’t a bad ding, but the dickwad had taken one look at Jake and decided that he could be bullied.

So Jake had to waste time while an asshole in an expensive suit (probably?

Who fucking knew, all suits looked the same) tried to convince Jake that the accident had been Jake’s fault.

As though Jake hadn’t been stationary at the lights, minding his own business.

On any other day, he would have been pissed about his ute.

He was pissed about his ute, but he was mainly pissed that he was going to be late.

And because he’d already picked up the coffees, he was going to look like an asshole who’d stopped for coffee even when he was late.

At least it wasn’t his first season. If it had been, he might have had to ditch the coffees.

These last three weeks, the prospect of development camp had been the sunshine at the end of a really shitty tunnel, but this was not a good start.

Because the universe was against him, the radio was also playing a morning interview with Randy Jones, the Falcons CEO, about the topic of the week: Pride Round. That would have been bad enough, but then they’d gotten onto why there weren’t any out AFL players.

‘Statistically, there must be queer players,’ the host was saying. ‘So that begs the question, why haven’t they come out?’

‘Well, Theresa,’ Randy said, ‘people are entitled to keep their private lives private. Speaking about the Falcons specifically, we pride ourselves on being a welcoming club. I’m sure if we had any gay players, they’d know they could come out if they wanted to.

’ Jake forced himself to relax his hands on the steering wheel.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard it before.

Theresa made a sceptical noise. ‘A lot of the queer players in the ALFW have spoken about the homophobic abuse they’ve received, especially online. Isn’t it likely that AFL players would be concerned about the reception?’

Randy chuckled. ‘Everyone always has a lot to say online, but our players are used to that type of chatter. No, Theresa, if they wanted to be out, they’d be out.’

Jake’s phone started to ring, cutting out the radio so Siri could say ‘Johnny heart-emoji drip-emoji leaf-emoji Xenos’.

He hit the bluetooth answer button. ‘Yeah?’

‘Where are you?’ Xen had never been late to anything. First in the rooms, first on the field, usually the last to leave. Xen would have left enough time to get coffee and have a minor car accident.

‘Some asshole rear-ended me at the lights, I’m ten away.’

‘Shit, you good?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Car okay?’

‘Bit banged up, but drivable.’

‘I’ll tell Kat what happened.’ Kat Lloyd was the Falcons’ new development coach, and the person who had the authority to tell the bus driver to leave without Jake. She’d also known Jake since he was a toddler, but that just made her less likely to show mercy.

The Falcons senior coach, Jarrod Davies (Davo since his playing days), would come down for a couple of days of camp, but he liked to let the junior coaching staff handle development camp and all the chaos that came with it.

‘Xen thought maybe you’d gotten ... distracted on the way out the door.’ Padraic Riley’s Irish accent was unmistakable. Jake could imagine him sitting next to Xen on the bus, jostling Xen out of the way to talk into his phone.

‘I fucking wish, Paddy.’

Jake and Kyle had been planning to spend the week before camp in Melbourne, before Kyle went back to Canberra.

They were going to chill in parks, go for walks, drink coffee.

Book a fancy hotel. Be boyfriends. Probably see some pretentious play that Jake wouldn’t understand.

Have a lot of sex on sheets Jake wouldn’t need to worry about washing.

It would have been nice.

‘We’ll let you drive,’ Xen said. ‘See you soon.’

‘Thanks, bro.’

Jake ended the call and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was going to have to tell Xen and Paddy about the break-up. Soon. He should rip that band-aid off, but he’d always been more of a soak-it-in-water kind of guy.

They’d both been delighted when he and Kyle had started dating.

Jake had known Kyle for years – initially as his friend Olly’s cool older brother, then as the subject of a crippling crush, then as someone who’d started to pay Jake a lot more attention than he’d expected.

Olly and Kyle had lived in a big house in Woolamai with their immaculately dressed parents and the kind of couches you weren’t actually supposed to sit on.

Jake caught every possible red light, but managed to swing into his parking space only seven minutes late.

He hauled his stuff out of the back seat and headed for the team bus.

It wasn’t possible to run with two duffel bags, a tray of coffees and a surfboard, but he managed to get up a fast waddle.

Kat was leaning against the side as he approached.

She pointedly checked her watch, but then she came over to help him with the board.

‘Car trouble,’ he told her.

‘Xenos said. You need to get checked out?’

‘Nah, it’s all good. He barely hit me.’

‘Last time you said that you had three broken ribs.’

Sometimes Kat liked to remind Jake that she’d been there when he first picked up an AFL ball. Sometimes Jake liked to remind her that she’d been his English teacher and coach when he was playing under-14s, so she was old now.

Kat had gone from teaching – where she’d met and hit it off with Jake’s mum – to the AFLW’s Hawthorn Harriers. The Falcons had poached her from her assistant coaching role there.

‘I was fifteen. I was an idiot.’

‘And that’s changed?’ Kat slammed shut the door of the underbus storage compartment. ‘Glad you’re alright.’ She gave him a friendly bump with her hip. ‘Don’t want to lose one this early. Bad form. Now get on the bus.’

‘Yes, Miss.’ Jake snapped a salute and did as he was told.

Xen and Paddy were on the back seat. Jake had met them for the first time in the same seats on an almost identical bus three years earlier.

‘Cutting it fine,’ Xen told him, making a swipe for Jake’s coffee. He was looking good, his olive skin tanned a couple of shades darker than at the end of the last season and his curly black hair cropped shorter than usual.

Jake jerked the coffee away. ‘I got one for you, bro, leave mine alone.’ He handed Xen one of the KeepCups.

‘Sure you’re okay?’ Xen was looking at him like he might be concealing a gaping wound.

‘I’m good.’

Paddy pulled Jake down onto his lap and wrapped his arms around Jake’s waist. ‘Missed you.’

Paddy had spent the two months of off-season downtime with his parents and siblings in Kilkenny. He was one of seven children and, as far as Jake could tell, family time consisted of jumping naked into freezing cold water then drinking pints of beer.

The bus driver made a pointed comment over the speaker about seatbelts and Jake slid sideways into a seat of his own. The engine vibrated into life and the bus lurched out into Victoria Street, heading for Sydney Road. Right past the billboard that was going to cause Jake grief all year.

If Jake had gotten his way, Naked Melbourne would not have put up the advertisement featuring him within half a kilometre of the Falcons’ training facility. He hadn’t, though. He’d gotten a fat cheque, but not his way.

‘Like I need to see that on my way to work,’ Paddy said, pointing. His Irish accent always sounded stronger when he’d been home to see his family.

‘You’re the one who made me do it.’ Jake had been three shots beyond sensible when he’d made the bet, but he’d followed through.

‘Can’t believe they photoshopped abs onto you. False advertising.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘Where are they now, then?’ Jake squawked as Paddy shoved a hand – a cold hand – up the front of his singlet.

‘That’s harassment!’

‘You love it.’

‘Behave, children,’ Xen said.

‘They put, like, ab make-up on me,’ Jake admitted.

Unlike Paddy, who could have been used on advertisements for protein powder or weird supplements, Jake didn’t put a whole lot of effort into maintaining a sixpack. His body got the job done, and that was all that mattered.

He did hope that Kyle had to drive past the billboards in Canberra. Often. Just to remind him that he didn’t get to come on those abs anymore.

‘They stick a banana down your undies too?’

Jake gave him the finger. Xen grabbed Paddy’s wrist, presumably worried that he might take the same approach he’d taken to checking Jake’s abs.

‘No,’ Xen told Paddy.

Paddy batted his eyelashes. ‘No what?’

‘Just no.’

They had, in fact, given Jake a sort of foam cup to shove into his briefs.

That had been nice. He was used to being naked in the locker room, but there was being naked in the locker room and then there was people in several major Australian cities knowing what your dick looked like. Turned out he did have some boundaries.

‘Good break, though?’ Paddy asked, with a suggestive lift of an eyebrow.

Jake hadn’t really meant to come out to Xen and Paddy at the end of their first year on the Falcons together.

He’d had a firm belief that the appropriate number of teammates to know he wasn’t straight was a big fat zero.

But then they’d been in Spain in September (no finals run for the Falcons), and one night in Barcelona Paddy had pointed out that a very hot man was leaning against the bar and checking Jake out in a way that was clearly meant to catch his attention.

‘Um,’ Jake had said.

‘Hey, if you’re not interested, let me know. I’ll have a shot.’ Jake had been silent for longer than he meant to. ‘You’re ...’ Paddy had shrugged. ‘I don’t really do labels.’

‘Just sometimes dudes?’ Xen had asked.