Page 20 of We Were Never Lovers
“Well, what do you normally do in the offseason? You always stay in the city?” Sean knew the guys from other states went home and a lot of the West Australian boys, like himself, went away, took their training plans with them.
“Uh, yeah, we usually, you know,” Jack flashed him a quick smile and went into the kitchen.
“We usually what?” Sean asked. And then it dawned on him—they must’ve made plans. He’d rented a house with Ben once. After he’d been home for a couple of weeks they’d gone down south to Margaret River, stayed in a huge house that’d seen Jayden and some of the cousins, some other players, rotating in and out over the summer before they’d had to pack it up and head to preseason camp on the Gold Coast.
“Just head out on a trip, you know,” Jack smiled over at him.
“Did we have somethin’ booked?”
Jack nodded, but he wouldn’t look at him, busying himself at the fridge, getting things out to make lunch.
“Where?”
“Just a chalet in Bali,” Jack said, eyes on the lettuce and tomatoes in his hands. “No big.”
“And you didn’t go?” Sean asked.
Jack looked up, surprised. “Of course not.”
“Why?” Sean asked.
Jack’s surprise morphed to stunned, but he quickly schooled his features—he was getting better at that—and replied evenly. “Because you had an accident. Of course I didn’t go.”
“Yeah, but,” Sean tried to put into words what he was thinking. “But like, you had a holiday booked and now you’re wastin’ your whole offseason stuck with me like this.”
Lola jumped up on the couch next to him, panting and pleased—she played with a rope toy while Sean did his exercises and gleefully joined him once he was done, like she was doing her exercises while he did his. When Sean made this observation, Jack told him she did that before too—if Sean worked out at home in the gym room, Sean had trained her from a puppy to play with her toy while he did his thing. That’d hit him with a real pang—he’d have liked to see that, see her as a pup.
Jack came over with a sandwich and thrust it at him. “I’m not wasting anything, eat your lunch.”
Sean raised both eyebrows.
“No need to be a dick, I’m just tryin’ to figure out my life.”
Jack sat in the armchair with his own. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not exactly easy for me either—”
“I’m sorry I’m such a—”
“Not like that,” Jack said. “Let me finish. It’s not easy ‘cos Harris said, and then Doctor Cohen took me aside and said it again: I’m not supposed to overwhelm you with shit. It can make you agitated. So, like, I’m flying blind here, okay? I want to tell you all about our life, or like, what we do,” he said hurriedly. “But also, I’m not permitted to, or I don’t want to like, upset you.”
Sean mulled that over. “You reckon it’d upset me if you went to Bali without me if we booked a trip together?”
“No, I think it’d upset you to know we’re the kind of friends that’d never do that. Book something together and if one us couldn’t go, the other one would never go either.”
Sean tilted his head to the side and watched Jack eat. He was quiet about it, contained.
“It’s definitely weird,” he allowed.
Jack jerked his chin in acknowledgement, but didn’t make eye contact.
“But some guys are mates like that,” Sean leaned back, looked at the ceiling. “I mean, Ben would’ve gone.”
Jack laughed and Sean slanted his eyes down to look at him.
“Ben definitely would’ve gone,” Jack agreed with a grin.
Sean huffed a laugh, but the conversation left him with more questions than answers. Ben was his best mate and if he and Sean had booked a trip and Sean got injured, Ben still would’ve gone once it was clear Sean was going to live. Sean would’ve insisted. Ben would’ve acquiesced. So what kind of friends were he and Jack?
7
