Page 7 of After the Siren

Okay, what? And yes, listening was wrong, but also, maybe if Jake listened to a couple more sentences he’d get a better idea of whether Bestavros was about to end the call.

There was a silence, then Bestavros spoke again. ‘Yeah, and bad blowjobs wouldn’t be good for team morale.’ He snorted. ‘Sorry, Rach, but there have been no blowjobs. As far as I know, anyway. My bisexuality remains valid but theoretical.’

Jake’s brain shorted out. My bisexuality remains valid but theoretical.

‘Oh, sharing a room with Cunningham,’ Bestavros said. ‘Yeah, except he’s also a showboating hack.’

Wow, okay.

‘He can’t put anything away, he’s allergic to wearing a shirt, and he fucking ducks constantly ... no, Rach, it’s a footy thing.’ There was another pause. ‘The abs aren’t real, Priy. Trust me, I’ve seen them.’

Ouch. So now Jake was definitely eavesdropping, but come on. How could he not?

‘He doesn’t take it seriously,’ Bestavros said. ‘He fucks around constantly, and he gets away with it because he’s got natural talent. He skips reps in the gym, he’s always stuffing around in drills, he just cruises on his talent. He’s a flog and he leaves wet towels on the floor.’

Okay, so Jake occasionally skipped a set. Fucking sue me. It wasn’t like he was ever going to dominate one-on-ones. He knew his strengths and played to them.

The towel criticism was fair – he’d heard it before – but he’d never heard a teammate call him a flog before, and he didn’t fucking like it.

He’d worked hard to get here. Logged hundreds of kilometres on the road, driving to and from games.

Even fallen asleep at the wheel once, only waking when his tyres hit gravel.

Left shit early – parties, birthdays, family lunches.

Got to stuff late. Stayed sober when his mates weren’t.

Kept his stupid grades up, as much as he could, because his mum believed in him, but she also knew what footy could be like.

Watched from the sidelines during what should have been his debut season, rehabbing an ACL day by agonising fucking day.

Oh, yeah, and he’d gotten his ass dumped because he wouldn’t risk his career.

Where did Bestavros get off, acting like he knew shit about Jake?

‘No, it’s not that,’ Bestavros said, and Jake desperately wanted to know what that was.

‘He’s just a typical surfer-boy douchebag.

I don’t have to like him just because we’re on a team together.

People like him are why ... okay, yes, subject change.

Ah shit, I’ve got to go anyway, I need to shower before dinner. ’

Jake exhaled slowly. Bestavros didn’t like him. Who gave a fuck? Bestavros was going to be lucky to edge his way into the best 22. Why would Jake give a shit what he thought?

Theo closed his laptop and tipped his head back against the stone wall.

The sky was starting to colour and there was a soft evening breeze, lifting the heat of the day.

He lingered for a couple more minutes, enjoying the smell of the sea.

It was a nice spot, but if he didn’t head back soon he wouldn’t be able to shower before dinner, and that was definitely a necessity.

He’d almost bailed on the group video call. Priya, Rachel and Lee were his oldest friends, but he hadn’t really wanted to answer the questions he knew they’d have for him. How’s it going? How are you feeling?

He’d managed to divert them, initially, at the expense of Nathan Rigger, who’d seen that Theo was taking the vegetarian meal at lunch and had kindly volunteered that there were halal options.

It actually had been quite nice of Rigger.

Theo had cleared up the confusion – ‘I’m vegetarian, not Muslim’ – and Raze had choked on a mouthful of mashed potato.

Rigger had looked like he was longing for the sweet embrace of death.

From there, Theo managed to steer the catch-up to Rachel’s most recent dating sagas, then Lee’s career crisis, and then Priya’s current trial.

In the flurry of their news, he’d gotten away with the sort of vague ‘yeah, good so far’ answers that would not have flown if the other three had been paying more attention.

When the conversation eventually turned to Jake Cunningham, Priya had narrowed her eyes a couple of times, so he was probably going to hear from her later.

He walked around the corner and stopped dead. Cunningham was lounging on one of the deckchairs, apparently engrossed in whatever he was doing on his phone. He tipped his head back to look at Theo. The omnipresent aviators were hooked into the neck of his t-shirt.

‘Hey,’ Cunningham said.

‘Hi.’ Fuck . Theo’s brain ran the conversation in reverse. Fuck . Was there a subtle way to ask Did I just out myself to you? ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Same as you, I guess. Reception’s shit inside and I gotta make a call in a couple of minutes.’

‘Yeah,’ Theo agreed, only half listening. The follow-up question to Did I just out myself? had to be Did you just overhear me bagging you out to my friends? There was no way to know how long Cunningham had been there. And Theo, well ... he hadn’t held back.

‘Did you —’ He stopped.

‘Did I what?’ Cunningham asked. There was something in his voice Theo hadn’t heard before. Then Cunningham closed his eyes for a second and sighed. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

Theo’s hands were a little clammy. He thought about saying About what?

‘Why?’ he asked instead.

For a moment, something like annoyance contracted the corners of Cunningham’s eyes. Something sharper than annoyance, maybe.

‘Because whatever you might think, Bestavros, I’m not that much of an asshole.’

‘I didn’t —’ Theo started. Except he had said several things that pretty much meant ‘asshole’, and Cunningham must have heard some of them. ‘Thanks,’ he finished.

Cunningham shrugged. ‘Sure.’ He stood. ‘Listen, I gotta make that call.’ He looked pointedly towards the door.

‘Uh, yeah, of course. Sure.’ Theo was going to leave as soon as his brain unfroze and gave him back control of his feet.

Cunningham turned away and walked around the corner of the balcony, out of sight. Theo retreated, and heard Jake say, ‘Hey, Mum, how’d it go?’ before he closed the door.

Theo wasn’t surprised when his phone started buzzing as he headed back towards his room. He thought about ignoring it, but then Priya would know something was wrong.

‘Hey, Priy.’

‘Are you good?’ she asked, cutting to the chase. ‘You were cagey.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, stopping to lean against the trunk of one of the jacarandas. ‘No. I just accidentally outed myself to Cunningham.’

‘What?’

Theo explained.

Priya made a thoughtful noise. ‘That sucks, but it sounds like he won’t tell anyone. I know you don’t like him, with good reason. But outing you – that would be extreme.’

Theo had sent Priya the Full Forward episode after she’d made some gentle noises about the possibility of moving on and mending fences. It had put an end to those suggestions, and also to the jokes about Jake.

‘If he overheard that then he overheard what I said about him.’ Theo cringed internally. Calling him a flog had been pretty harsh. He’d been exaggerating a bit, maybe, for the benefit of the group, but Cunningham didn’t know that.

‘Yeesh.’ There were a few moments of silence. But Priya had never been one to beat around the bush. ‘Are you worried he’ll out you out of spite?’

‘Yes.’ Theo hesitated. ‘No. I don’t know. Like you said, it’d be pretty extreme. And Kat, the one I was telling you about – she’s queer. I think she’d come down pretty hard on anyone who did something like that. He is a star, though, so who knows. Nothing I can do about it now.’

‘Should you apologise?’

‘That might just make it worse. I mean, he hasn’t apologised for the skit. So maybe we can just pretend it never happened. An eye for an eye.’

‘How’s everything else?’ Priya asked. He appreciated the question, because he knew she wanted to tell him that he should take the initiative and apologise, and it was probably physically paining her not to give him that good advice.

‘It’s —’ He stopped.

‘Theo.’ Her voice was a little wry and very warm, and Theo suddenly missed her so much it actually hurt.

‘It’s just ... hard. I want —’ He stopped again. Priya stayed quiet.

‘I want to make this work,’ he admitted.

‘To fit in here. But it’s like I’ve forgotten how to do that.

It seems like a good group, and there’s a lot of social stuff, but I just .

..’ He shook his head, as though she could see.

‘I can’t seem to do it. And I’m not playing well. Better, I guess, but not well enough.’

‘You were really excited when you got drafted to the Sharks,’ she said. It was a mark of how seriously she was taking this that she didn’t even pretend she’d forgotten the name of his first team.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I was.’

Shame pulsed up from his stomach, tightening his throat. He’d been naive. Hopeful. Stupid.

‘You know,’ Priya said, choosing her words carefully, ‘the fact you were excited about that and it didn’t work out doesn’t mean you can’t be excited about this.’

Theo closed his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I’ve got excitement in me,’ he said. ‘I just ... I don’t know. It’s better, though. Kat is great. You’d like her.’ Massive understatement. ‘And the medication is still helping. It’s better.’

‘Good.’ She didn’t sound convinced.

‘Really, Priy, I’d tell you if it wasn’t.’

‘Okay,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I just wish I could give you a hug.’

‘Right back at you.’

Priya made the sort of noise she usually made before bringing up something serious. That was alarming, because they’d already covered I accidentally outed myself to my least favourite teammate and my generalised anxiety disorder and accompanying depression might ruin my career .

‘And ... you’re okay not being out to the team?’

‘What?’

Priya had never said she didn’t approve of Theo staying closeted, but she’d been quick to raise it as a silver lining when his AFL career had looked like it was over.

‘What you said about your bisexuality being valid but theoretical. The way you said it. I suppose I just wonder if you’d feel better if you could ... be yourself. Be out.’ She made a noise, and he could almost see her regretting her words. ‘Not that anyone has to be out. You know what I mean.’

Would being out make him feel more like himself?

He knew, intellectually, that the fact he’d only ever been with women didn’t make him any less bisexual.

He was out to his close friends, but that had happened organically, in the mess of teenage feelings and exploration.

There were at least a dozen really good reasons he didn’t want to come out to anyone else.

But even if there hadn’t been, he couldn’t imagine telling his parents – let alone the team – without a partner to introduce.

Abi, Ommi, just a quick PSA to let you know that the Rafael Nadal poster I had above my bed wasn’t there because I liked tennis.

He knew what Priya would say if he told her he thought about it like that.

‘It doesn’t feel like a big deal right now. Honestly.’

She sighed. ‘I hate that you have to hide it.’

‘It’s not like I’ve got a boyfriend stashed somewhere.’

‘In a closet, for example?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘It was building to a very obvious punchline.’

‘You’re mean.’

‘What if you want to date men? Or hook up with them?’

Theo wasn’t sure why Priya had a bee in her bonnet about this topic now .

‘I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.’

Which I won’t . Sure, in an alternate universe he might have taken the opportunity to broaden his horizons if it presented itself. But he liked women, and it wasn’t as though dating was currently a priority in his life.

‘It just feels like the opportune moment for ... experimentation. Before you re-engage with serial monogamy,’ Priya said.

‘I don’t think getting some dick will fix my depression.’

‘Not the object of that exercise. Also, you don’t have to get a dude to get some dick.’

‘Point taken. You know what I mean, though. And seriously, I’m good. Go back to your trial prep. I know you need to highlight.’

‘I do need to highlight,’ she conceded. ‘I’m going to call you on Tuesday after court. Talk then? Take care. Love you.’

‘Love you too, Priy.’