Page 6 of After the Siren

Chapter Three

‘He officially hates me.’ Jake tipped his head back against Xen’s bed and closed his eyes. Xen was sprawled on top of the covers and had banished Jake to the floor. It was too hot to share, apparently.

They’d been given an hour to themselves before dinner. Jake was too wrecked to do anything except flop onto a comfortable surface. Or a flat surface, at least. He hadn’t slacked in the off-season, but maybe he hadn’t done as much as he could have.

Bestavros clearly hadn’t slacked. He’d smashed the running drills, and he hadn’t needed to throw up into a bin afterwards. It had been impressive. Notes had been taken on clipboards. Kat had nodded more than once. For the first time, Paddy had been beaten in the two-kilometre time trial.

So, Bestavros: hot, good at running, not a fan of Jake.

That last part wasn’t a surprise, but Jake wasn’t used to his teammates not liking him.

Sure, he was a pest. It was pretty much his whole deal.

Opposition players didn’t like him. Opposition fans hated him.

But his own team: they liked him. He might be a pest, but he was their pest.

‘Yeah? What did he say?’ Xen was bouncing a tennis ball off the wall. It was probably very irritating for Bestavros next door.

‘It’s vibes.’ Jake twisted the fidget ring around his finger. It had been an ironic gift from Keeley, his best friend since they’d been in kindergarten, but the joke was on her, because he liked it.

‘Have you apologised?’ Xen asked.

‘No. Why would I bring it up?’

Xen bounced the ball off Jake’s forehead.

‘Ow, that fucking hurt.’

‘It was meant to.’

Jake retaliated by throwing a sock at Xen’s head. Xen was obviously wiped out too, because he caught the sock but didn’t return fire.

Jake flicked the fidget ring again. Maybe he should have apologised.

But suddenly they were two days into the camp and he hadn’t brought it up, and he wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up.

It seemed safer to just leave it. Bestavros hadn’t brought it up either.

Then again, he hadn’t said a word to Jake except in response to direct questions.

Paddy emerged from the bathroom wearing only a low-slung towel. ‘What’s up?’

‘Bestavros hates me,’ Jake told him.

Paddy grabbed a second towel from the foot of his bed and flicked it over his head to dry his hair. ‘Maybe he hates everyone. That guy is intense, ’ he said, slightly muffled. He surfaced from the towel a moment later.

Paddy wasn’t wrong. Bestavros wasn’t unfriendly, exactly, but he kept to himself.

Jake’s mum would have called him ‘reserved’ .

Bestavros’ game was like that, too. He worked hard, hitting drills with a focused intensity, but he wasn’t playing well.

Not like he used to. Jake had spent some time looking at old footage of Bestavros playing in NSW, from back before he got drafted.

He’d wanted to see what Kat had seen – and it was there in spades.

Bestavros had the type of raw athleticism that Jake had always envied.

He only had a couple of inches on Jake, but he played much taller, and he’d mastered a fearless, aerial game that complemented his accuracy in front of goal.

Or it had.

‘I like him,’ Xen said. ‘He works hard, seems nice. We’ve chatted a bit.’

Of course they had. Xen could talk to anyone. He wasn’t chatty , but he put people at ease.

‘I don’t dislike him,’ Paddy said, turning away from them both and pulling underwear out of his suitcase. He dropped the towel and Jake choked.

‘What the fuck is that?’

Paddy looked over his shoulder. ‘My ass?’

‘On your ass, dickhead.’ Paddy definitely didn’t have a tattoo on his ass last time Jake had seen it.

But there was one there now: a large blackwork piece spreading from Paddy’s lower back over his ass and down to the backs of his thighs.

It looked almost like an explosion of abstract flowers, the lines bold enough to show clearly on Paddy’s dark skin.

Paddy pulled on his briefs. ‘Keep looking and I’ll start charging.’ Jake flipped him off and threw a sock at him. It bounced off the ass in question. Paddy grabbed it and tossed it back towards Jake, who lobbed it at Xen. Xen threw the ball at Paddy and the sock at Jake.

‘No,’ Xen said, as Jake reached for one of Xen’s discarded footy boots. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

Jake raised his hands in surrender. ‘Think about what?’

Xen turned back to Paddy. ‘Do people get tattoos on their asses if they don’t want people to look?’

Paddy wiggled his ass and pulled on some shorts.

‘Back to Stavs,’ Xen said. ‘Being on a new team is tough. Takes time to adjust.’

‘We’re great, though,’ Paddy said, dropping back onto his own bed, still shirtless. ‘Shouldn’t he be happy to be here? Bet he didn’t think he’d play another game after that shitshow last year.’

‘I wasn’t talking about whether or not he’s happy to be here,’ Jake said. ‘I was talking about the fact that he hates me .’

‘Of course, sorry to make it not about you.’ Paddy folded his arms behind his head.

‘Just apologise,’ Xen told Jake.

‘For what?’ Paddy asked. ‘You weren’t in that stupid skit.’

Which, to be honest, was how Jake felt about it. Xen made a noise that meant he disagreed but wasn’t going to say anything about it.

‘Question,’ Paddy continued, rolling over and propping himself up on one elbow to look down at Jake on the floor. ‘Why do you care ? Got a crush?’

Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, sure.’

‘It’s okay, we won’t tell Kyle.’

And there it was. The conversation he didn’t want to have. The one he’d been avoiding since the start of camp. He wasn’t sure what his face did, but Paddy’s look changed from teasing to questioning.

‘What happened?’

Jake ripped the band-aid off and took a layer of emotional skin with it. ‘We broke up.’

‘Jesus, Jaze!’ He heard the rustle of the bedspread as Xen sat up. ‘When?’

‘Three weeks ago.’

Xen thumped down onto the floor next to him, nudging his arm up against Jake’s.

‘Why?’

Jake sighed and leaned into him. ‘He said if I wasn’t going to come out publicly, we were done. I said I wasn’t coming out. He said we were done.’

‘That’s fucked,’ Xen said.

Jake hated the part of him that still wanted to defend Kyle, that wanted to say It was hard and I get it and He’s not a bad guy.

‘Bro,’ Paddy said. He’d also slid down to the floor, leaning back against his bed. He extended one leg and nudged Jake’s calf with his foot. ‘You should have said something.’

Jake closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Not much to say.’

‘Yeah, but we could have cheered you up.’

‘You were on the other side of the world and had family shit to focus on.’

And telling the boys would have made the break-up seem permanent.

Would have let it slip out of the sandy haze of the off-season and into reality – like it was now.

Telling them meant that he was never going to get another flirty text from Kyle, or call Kyle while he was curled up in bed, or feel Kyle’s lips pressed against the side of his neck.

‘Did you at least talk to Keeley?’ Xen asked.

‘Yeah – I talked her out of killing him.’ Jake hadn’t asked her about Kyle’s mysteriously slashed tyres.

‘What do you need?’ Xen asked. ‘You wanna talk about it?’

Abso-fucking-lutely not. ‘Just wanna play some good footy.’

‘Can do,’ Paddy said. ‘Gonna be a good year.’

‘Don’t jinx it.’

Xen nudged Jake with his shoulder. ‘We’re here if you want to talk.’

Jake knew he probably should talk about it. He’d talked a bit with Keeley, but she knew him so well that she could fill in the gaps. He hadn’t had to say much at all. She’d just put on H2O and ordered fish and chips.

He kept waiting to get angry. He knew he should be angry.

Angry that he didn’t know whether Kyle had been lying from the beginning when he’d said he understood.

Angry that Kyle had said, ‘We’ll still be friends if it doesn’t work out,’ which had turned out to be bullshit.

Angry that Kyle had spent two weeks sticking his dick into Jake’s mouth and ass at every opportunity while counting down the days to dumping him – because Kyle had known, must have known, that Jake would say no to coming out.

Though maybe he should be grateful for the pre-break-up sex. He wasn’t going to get laid again anytime soon.

Jake looked down at his phone. ‘Gotta call Mum,’ he said, levering himself to his feet. ‘She was having scans today.’ He had another ten minutes before she was expecting his call, but he’d also had enough of sharing.

‘Say hi from me,’ Xen said. ‘Hope it’s good news.’ He squeezed Jake’s shoulder. He was definitely going to make Jake talk about his feelings at some point.

But not today.

Jake ducked out through the fire escape and up the stairs.

There weren’t many places at the training centre where you could get both privacy and phone reception.

The second-floor balcony was the best: shaded enough that it was usually a few degrees shy of roasting, but out-of-the-way enough to be a good place for a chat.

It was only November, but this week felt more like January.

Jake was slipping through the door when he heard laughter. It took him a second to realise it was Bestavros. Bestavros hadn’t seen Jake – the curve of the balcony hid the door from view.

‘You know I wouldn’t miss catching up with all of you,’ Bestavros was saying.

A group call, Jake assumed. Personally, he tended to stick with group chats. He didn’t even call Keeley more than once a month.

He hesitated for a second. Maybe Bestavros was wrapping things up. Jake didn’t really fancy trying to find a better spot, and he still had a few minutes. He sat down on one of the deckchairs and pulled out his phone.

‘... yeah, I thought that would be a good way to bond.’ Bestavros’ voice was dry. ‘Nothing like a blowjob between bros.’