Page 16

‘On the bus, gentlemen.’

Carter joined the queue and laughed as Ethan made a show of pushing in front of him.

The only instruction that morning after breakfast had been to gear up, slather themselves with sunscreen and fill up their camel packs: backpacks with inbuilt water reservoirs accessed by a tube with a mouthpiece attached to the strap.

‘Maybe you should sit at the front,’ Ethan said over his shoulder. ‘You know, lessen your chances of emptying your stomach contents again.’

‘Or I’ll sit at the back and aim for you.’

Ethan gave a dry heave and Carter shoved him in the back with a laugh. Ethan hadn’t been expecting it and careened into the back of the bloke in front.

Beau turned around with a scowl on his face. ‘You trying to start something, snake?’

‘Get your head out of your arse, Beau. We were just mucking around,’ Carter said. ‘And the snake shit’s getting old, man.’

‘Yeah, Beau,’ Ethan agreed. ‘Come up with some new material.’

‘Like the truth,’ Carter added, then feigned a look of thoughtfulness. ‘But that’s right, you weren’t actually there to know what the truth is, were you?’

Beau puffed up like a blowfish. ‘Aaron was though, and he would be here if it wasn’t for you.’

‘I said, get on the bus!’ Jonathan yelled at them.

Beau turned his back and jumped up the stairs, heading straight for the back seat. Typical. Just like a schoolyard bully.

‘It’s not that I don’t like this stand-up-for-yourself attitude you’ve picked up from scouring sheep,’ Ethan said, lowering his voice as they headed up the steps, ‘but without knowing what fresh hell we’re about to go through, might be best if we sit at the front.’

Carter nodded. ‘I’m good with the front.’

Ethan threw himself into a seat three back from the driver and Carter took the seat in front of him.

He watched through the window as Indy strode across the carpark.

Her long legs were clad in jeans today, her strong arms visible thanks to the black singlet she wore.

She had a blue flanno tied around her waist and didn’t give the bus a single glance.

Carter gripped the edge of the seat, stopping himself from running after her or calling out her name, anything to get her to look at him.

To get her to give him time to explain that he was interested in her.

That he didn’t kiss her last night only because he didn’t want her to think he was taking advantage of her vulnerable state.

But he couldn’t. Not just because she wouldn’t appreciate it but because he didn’t want Beau to clue in to how he felt about her.

Carter wouldn’t put it past Beau to have a crack at Indy and if he did, Carter wouldn’t be able to keep his fists to himself.

He needed to be smart about both things he wanted: a fortified footy team and Indy.

The bus headed out the front gate and down the mountain.

Ethan was rabbiting on about the last phone call he’d had with his wife and the cute things his young kids were up to.

There was pride in his voice and Carter couldn’t help but smile even though he wasn’t really listening to Ethan’s story.

For whatever reason, the motion sickness didn’t hit, but he kept his gaze out the window and took deep breaths just in case.

They reached the township at the bottom of the mountain and swung into the carpark of the Windale Hotel. Ethan quietened and Carter sat up straighter. At the front of the bus, Jonathan stood up.

‘Everyone off!’

Carter followed Ethan outside and took in the old cream and maroon building with big open windows and two levels of wraparound verandahs, each with intricate ironwork on the bullnose eaves.

It was quiet, but he supposed that would be expected at ten on a weekday morning.

Still, the place looked like it could handle a crowd.

His arms folded across his chest as he pictured Indy sitting at a table on the verandah, nursing a schooner of beer and laughing with her friends.

He liked the image, except it was missing something.

Him. He wanted to be part of it. She’d said their worlds were too different, so why was it that he could easily picture himself in hers?

Could she not do the same? She didn’t know anything about his life, only had the stupid assumptions she’d thrown at him last night.

Patience . There was still time to show her who he really was. He hoped she’d be interested in finding out.

Ray clapped his hands and the team huddled around where he and Jonathan were standing.

‘I thought some of you might recognise this place from your little excursion last night,’ Jonathan began, with a nod to the old building.

Carter glanced around the group, noticing the chins of three of their younger players dropping to their chests.

‘I know what some of you are thinking. What’s the big deal?

Yeah, watching the cricket wasn’t compulsory and we do want you to have some downtime while on camp, but, fellas, let me assure you—the first dumb decision made last night was coming to the pub.

The second dumb decision was hitching a ride back with the mayor’s young and impressionable daughter! ’

Jonathan’s voice rose to a yell. Carter briefly closed his eyes.

‘This isn’t the city! This is a small town where we are guests and we need to respect that. I can tell you that our gracious property owner Nova was pissed when she got the call from the mayor asking why my football players were drunk and out with his seventeen-year-old in the middle of the night!’

‘She did not look seventeen.’

The whisper came from the back but by the way his lips disappeared into a thin line, it had been loud enough for Jonathan to hear.

The yelling continued. Carter cast a glance across the circle at Beau. His head was down, not from guilt but to hide a grin. Anger clouded Carter’s view and he pushed it down. Another stupid dare. Maybe not the mayor’s daughter but definitely the trip to the pub.

Ray opened the compartment at the bottom of the bus where weight plates were stacked and tied in. He untied them and pushed them out of the bus with the assistance of the trainers. The plates landed noisily on the bitumen.

‘All of these need to get back to camp,’ Ray said.

Groans rang out from the group and Carter gritted his teeth to stop from joining in.

‘This is on you! All of you.’ Jonathan glowered at them.

‘I haven’t seen much teamwork coming from any of you since we got here.

You want to act stupid? The whole team will suffer!

We need to be leaving last season behind, but all I’m seeing are players who want to drag last year’s failure into this year and ruin our season before it even begins.

Let me be clear. Either you come back as a team, or you don’t come back at all, and the Scorpions will forfeit the entire season. ’

The coaching staff climbed back on the bus and drove off, leaving the team staring dumbfounded after them.

‘This isn’t fair!’

‘We didn’t even get a drink out of it.’

‘Fuck this, I’m going to the pub.’

‘He can’t pull us out of the comp!’

Voices were escalating and anger towards the players who were responsible for the pub trip mounted. But none of it was directed at Beau, the real culprit. Carter looked at Ethan, who shrugged, then put his fingers in his mouth and let rip a piercing whistle that drew the team’s attention instantly.

‘Enough!’ Carter yelled. ‘Don’t you get it? This is exactly what the coaches were talking about. We’re one team. What one person does affects everyone else. We’re going to get slaughtered in every game if we can’t figure out how to look out for each other and have each other’s backs.’

‘Like you can talk,’ Liam Dodds said from beside Beau.

Ethan put a hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘Like coach said, we need to leave everything that happened last year there and not bring it to this season, otherwise we’re sunk.

You don’t have to like it, you just have to shut up about it.

Besides, it’s the attitudes and decisions from this week that have landed us here. ’

‘No more dares,’ Carter said, looking sharply at Beau and the others. ‘I’ve already covered up one dare that could’ve gotten us kicked off the mountain. It’s obvious that’s what last night was as well.’

‘You can’t take away tradition,’ Beau growled.

‘Tradition never included property damage,’ Carter shot back.

‘We have to do things differently this year,’ Diego jumped in. ‘I’m with Carter, no more dares. Let’s just keep our heads down, put in the effort and do the work to show the coaching staff we’re serious.’

‘This is supposed to be fun!’

‘No more dares.’

‘It’s tradition.’

Isaac, their captain and most experienced player, moved from the back of the crowd to the middle of the circle. Everyone fell silent, even Beau.

‘Are you all done? It’s as simple as this, gentlemen. I’ve already decided to retire after this season. I want to play this year, I want to win a premiership, and I want to do it as a Scorpion with each and every one of you beside me. Let’s cut the bullshit and get it done. What do you say?’

Carter felt the energy rise up in him. He held his fist out into the middle of the circle. ‘I’m in.’

Isaac met it with his own fist. Ethan threw his in too as more fists joined and calls of being ‘in’ were made. The last fist to be added to the pile was Beau’s. He met Carter’s gaze across the circle.

Carter nodded. He knew what Beau’s look meant. The air between them was anything but clear, but it was on hold. For now.

‘Scorpions on three!’ Carter yelled.

‘One … two … three … Scorpions!’

Cheering replaced any nerves about the task at hand.

‘Smaller weights in bags, divvy them up evenly,’ Isaac instructed. ‘Bigger plates go between pairs. We stick together and tackle this mountain like the son of a bitch it is.’

Carter’s calves were on fire. The sun was beaming down on them in all its summer fury and he could feel the back of his neck burning.

His shoulders ached from the weights in his bag and the weight he and George Hall were carrying between them was becoming slippery thanks to the sunscreen being sweated out of their pores.

Two hours had passed and Carter didn’t think they’d even hit the halfway mark, not that he had any clue as to where that was.

He’d stopped taking in landmarks after they’d passed the impressive facade of Granger Stud.

‘There’s a picnic area up here!’ called Diego, who was leading the pack with Dodds.

‘Let’s have a break.’

The boys started disappearing off the side of the road.

Carter swapped a look with Hall. ‘Looks like it’s five metres away. Reckon we can get there?’

The younger man’s face was beetroot red with his exertion. He nodded and gritted his teeth. ‘Yep.’

They made it, and Carter had never been so happy to drop a weight plate into the dirt.

All around him, men were peeling off their packs and finding shade to sit under.

The picnic bench disappeared under the bodies of seven big players but Carter wandered a couple of metres through the bark to find a tree stump to sit on.

He rolled his shoulders and moved his heels up and down to stretch his calves.

Isaac came over and Carter shu?ed sideways to make room.

‘How did Hall go? He didn’t seem to need as many breaks as Burgess did.’

‘Nah, he’s a workhorse.’ Carter lifted the mouthpiece for the water sack in his camel pack to his lips, sucking water up the long tube.

‘Doesn’t look like Beau’s going to let the whole thing with Aaron go too easily,’ Isaac commented. There it was. The real reason he’d come over. ‘I’ve gotta admit, it was a hard thing to swallow. There’s no chance you got it wrong?’

‘None. I know what I walked in on. I didn’t lie or embellish.’

Isaac’s head bounced in a nod. ‘I always thought he was a good guy, you know? That all the talk about Nyssa was just a locker room venting.’

Carter’s jaw tensed. Good guy . He was really starting to hate that term. What did it even mean anymore? ‘We all did.’

‘First I hear of it, Jonathan’s pulling me into a meeting to give me the courtesy of knowing first that they were about to announce that he wasn’t playing in the grand final.

I tried to argue but it was a decision way above my grade.

’ He tilted his head from side to side, stretching his neck.

‘I can’t help but think if we’d known, we could’ve gotten him some help.

You know, counselling or a behaviour change program or something. ’

‘It’s not too late,’ Carter said. ‘I hope this is the wake-up call he needs and he puts in the work. I’m sure a team would take him on if he can show he’s changed.’

‘Maybe.’ Isaac looked him dead in the eye. ‘Regardless, Carter, I don’t know if I could’ve turned on a brother so quickly to provide a statement to the police.’

‘You would’ve if you’d seen what I did.’

His words hung uncomfortably in the air between them.

That was the real issue he’d expected most of them not to understand.

Aaron was a teammate and a friend—where was Carter’s loyalty?

How could he have provided a statement that turned the tables on Aaron’s future?

All things he’d asked himself a million times since it happened.

But that image of Nyssa against the wall, covered in blood, with Aaron’s fingers wrapped tightly around her neck, the battle for consciousness in her eyes, gave him all the reasons he needed.

Isaac stood and clapped his hands. ‘On your feet, men. Let’s get these weights home.’