Page 47 of We Were Never Lovers
He’d sat with Jack in the middle of the oval, drinking beers and laughing, talking shit, and he’d kept thinking—I could kiss him, I could just lean over and kiss him.Maybe he wants to kiss me as bad as I want to kiss him. He never let himself think about what happened next. Sometimes he thought about how his mind had gone and fucked off the last two years when what he’d wanted desperately since that night was for that particular memory to fuck right off, to never have happened.
Because the next day everything went to shit. Jack avoided him—of course he did, Sean had been the embarrassing one, the one who had taken that chance. And the hit had been the final nail in the coffin; it’d been the pain that’d ignited the hatred. But no matter how many times he tried to get rid of it, he could still see Jack sitting in the middle of that cricket pitch so their asses wouldn’t get wet on the grass, his face fuller than it was now, a boy’s face, his eyes dancing as he laughed when Sean told him stories about his dad making him shear sheep back home, the absolute nightmare that was grabbing them, wrangling them, holding them down, all the while trying not to get a hoof in the face. Sean had leaned in when Jack paused in his laughter, his face sobering; he’d held Sean’s eyes like he was welcoming it. But Sean had misread the situation the same way he’d completely misread Jack. And after he woke up in the hospital with his first concussion the next day, all he thought was how much hewanted to punch Jack’s fucking lights out, how he’d have to hold back tears when he did it.
So, no, he wasn’t apologising to Jack now. Jack, who let other men flirt with him. Jack, who didn’t stay in bed until Sean woke up. Jack, who had the audacity to look hurt.
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“He’s got a boyfriend,” Sean’s words reverberated through Jack’s skull.
‘So do I!’Jack wanted to scream at him. ‘So do I! And he’s being a right prick at the moment, but he’s mine and I fucking love him, alright? You hear that, Sean? I fucking love you!’
He exhaled slowly, did the breathing exercise he’d read about. He’d fallen down an internet search hole after they’d discovered Sean’s memory loss and been horrified, but at least found some practical advice.Give them space. Don’t rush them to remember you. If it gets too much, take a break, getting angry and trying to tell them who you are won’t help. Try these deep breathing techniques…It was mainly the spouses of dementia patients, which was heartbreaking and depressing and not what this was, Jack repeated to himself. Sean had temporary amnesia. It’d come back. He’d never forget them. He wouldn’t do that to Jack, he wouldn’t. Jack knew him, Jack knew Sean would never do that to him. He wouldn’t leave him like this.
He thought about the morning of Sean’s accident. Before Sean left to meet Ben for brunch. It cut him up to think about it, but then all memories of Sean before cut him up now. The memories of them happy hurt him the way looking at happy photos of his parents hurt. He didn’t want it to, he wanted to remember them as that brightness, as a memory of uncomplicated love, but now it hurt to look at them even when it was good.
Sean had woken him up early that morning as the first light spilled through a crack in the blinds, kissed the back of his neck in a way that asked if he was awake, if he wanted it. Jack always wanted it. He’d pushed his ass back and hummed with sleepy pleasure when he felt Sean’s hard dick rub up against his back. Sean held him still, his kisses turning serious, trailing over Jack’s throat, up to his ear; Jack shivered at the memory of the smile in his voice as he whispered, “Yeah?”
He’d pushed Jack onto his stomach, fingered his ass and teased his prostate until Jack was begging. He’d held him down as he worked himself inside, ran his hands up Jack’s arms, linked their fingers together above his head, his dick sliding in and out perfectly, his breath wet on Jack’s nape as he took him to the edge and over it with an expertise only he knew.
He’d held him after, kissed him, stroked his hand up and down Jack’s back, over his ass, up into his hair, said how much he loved him with those kisses, those hands, and Jack told him back with his own lips, his hands holding Sean close.
“I gotta take our girl for a run,” Sean had broken the kiss to say.
“‘S early,” Jack replied. They had no training, nowhere to be, season done, a few days off before they flew to Bali, to the private chalet they’d rented with a private beach in Nusa Dua.
“Meetin’ Ben,” Sean kissed him again.
And Jack remembered. Brunch.
“I’m takin’ your car,” Sean said as he dragged himself away and Jack rolled onto his back with a sigh—he could’ve gone again, maybe not come again for a while, but he’d have liked to see where those lingering kisses, those fingers that’d begun to focus more on his crack, his balls, could’ve gotten him.
Sean laughed. He kissed Jack again and murmured about later, promised he’d get dicked down nice and good and all day once they got to Bali. Jack laughed against his lips, a soft huff, but he knew Sean didn’t miss how much he liked the idea.
“It’s basically your car,” Jack said as he rolled over, buried his face in Sean’s pillow and decided to get some more sleep.
“Possession is one tenth of the law,” Sean replied as he got dressed, whistled Lola up and headed out for a run.
Jack woke again to the smell of his deodorant, his hair dripping from the shower, a soft kiss on his temple.
“Be back around twelve,” he whispered.
“‘M gettin’ up,” Jack said.
Sean pressed him down with a gentle hand on his low back. “No, sleep in, Jackie. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“‘Kay,” Jack smiled against the pillow and kept his eyes closed.
He wished, now, he wished he’d opened his eyes, rolled over, pulled Sean back into bed—if he’d made him stay, kissed him for a few more minutes, then Sean wouldn’t have been on the bridge at the same time as that truck. If he’d opened his eyes, he would’ve seen Sean’s eyes on his—the fond, focused look Sean only ever gave to him. It’d taken years, but once he let that guard down, let Jack back in, he let Jack have that look in private, in stolen looks in the locker room, on the field. That look said Jack was his, and he was Jack’s. And Jack had been too fucking stupid to know to roll over and open his eyes and appreciate the fuck out of that look before it’d been ripped away for good.
No, he took a deep breath. Not for good. Sean was coming back. His Sean was coming back. And if he didn’t—
Jack exhaled roughly, the kind of breath that was used to stop the tears that’d welled in his eyes from falling. If he didn’t—
There was no world in which Jack didn’t love Sean and while he still believed, when no one else seemed to, that Sean would remember them, if he didn’t—
There was no world in which Jack didn’t love Sean.
The tears spilled over and he pressed both palms against the sockets hard, tried to hold them in, but they were bitter and hot and wanted to come out. He swiped angrily at his eyes and made them stop.
