Page 11 of We Were Never Lovers
“I need to piss,” he gritted. “Can’t get through the door.”
“Okay,” Jack nodded and straightened. He was all business—going to the back of the chair, wheeling Sean in backwards in a second, spinning him so Sean was next to the toilet, coming alongside him and sliding his arm around his lower back, holding his hip.
“You’re gonna stand on the good leg, but I’m gonna have most of your weight. So just lean on me. I’ll get your pants down—”
“You don’t gotta—”
“Sean,” Jack interrupted. “You did it for me, okay? You did it for fuckin’ me. We’re doing this.”
And before Sean could respond, Jack was lifting, Sean was balancing on one leg, which was easier with Jack taking his weight, and Jack was shoving his pants down so Sean could fumble for his dick. His bladder was so full it’d gone beyond pain and into agony and he wasn’t sure he could actually piss. Jack was looking up in a way that seemed obvious, but Sean was grateful as he huffed, his breathing laboured, ribs a dull ache, head fuzzy. He willed his dick to get on with it. And finally, in a rush that began with a burst of pain and then intense relief, he groaned as his urine splashed on the porcelain. He felt a spike of mortification. But Jack didn’t respond, just held him steady with a hand on his hip, his arm firm around his back, his body a long, damp line against Sean’s side. Sean was so relieved and woozy, he let his head fall on Jack’s shoulder with a humiliating sigh. Jack tightened his grip and held him steady.
Jack got him into the living room, neither of them speaking, but Sean could feel the tension and he knew what it was—Jack was angry. Jack rarely got angry. It’s why the fight they’dhad was so surprising—Sean never thought he’d snap, had been alarmed and thrilled he’d finally pushed him there. But he could feel his anger now.
“Sorry takin’ me to the toilet is such a downer for you,” Sean said. He folded his hands in his lap, stared up at him.
Jack closed his eyes—he looked like he was counting. Before Sean could make fun of him, Jack opened them, met Sean’s serene gaze with the anger Sean had seen in the locker room. It thrilled him now like it did then.
“Don’t fuckin’ say that, alright? Don’t say what you think I’m thinking ‘cos it’s not. I’m happy to take you to the toilet—”
Sean scoffed.
“I fuckin’ am! I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I want to take care of you, can you please,” Jack cut off and made a frustrated sound, looked out the window at the yard with a pool, BBQ, nice garden, table and chairs, an ideal set up for lazy afternoon parties with teammates or family under the shade of those magnificent trees.
“Can you please just let me,” he finished, all that heat leaving him.
“I dunno,” Sean replied honestly. Because he didn’t—it was surreal. Anyone else would be better than Jack. He’d feel less vulnerable with his dick out and his busted head, broken ribs, and fucked femur around their coach, Hurley—who was about as warm as an arctic winter—than he did around Jack.
Jack sat down on the couch and faced him, clasped his hands together as words tumbled out of him in a rush, “Look, I know Harris said not to overwhelm you with stuff, but the shit you hate me for? We sorted it out. I didn’t mean to cause the damage I did with that hit. I tried to pull back, but I got pushed and I thought you knew that, and I had no fucking idea how bad it was. And I fucked up thinking it was about that comment, okay? I didn’t know you didn’t know, and I thought you thought it wasme. I never said anything ‘cos Tony would’ve been expelled, but I should never have said it was me and I fuckin’ hated myself for it. And I didn’t even realise you thought I thought different about that night, ‘cos I didn’t. I was just young and fuckin’ stupid and scared and I acted all wrong.”
Sean sucked in a breath. How was he supposed to take all that? Suddenly out there, just like that. That hit had been so dirty—Sean had been chasing the free ball, low to the ground as he tapped it up and scooped it onto his chest, he was straightening up to run and the last thing he remembered before he was out cold was the blur of a navy jumper, a wall of muscled chest cracking into his head, snapping it back, the vision of blonde hair and wide eyes on his before everything went dark. A classic shirt front concussion. One of the dirtiest hits you can land on someone.
Ben told him about the fight that broke out right after, but Sean didn’t remember anything until the stench of disinfectant and the soft chatter of his mum’s voice woke him in a hospital bed. Apparently, he’d been taken to the bench, checked over by the ambulance drivers, but they didn’t take him to hospital until he started vomiting in the locker room and passed out after the game—he had no memory of it, he’d been awake but severely concussed.
It’d almost ended his career before it’d even begun. There were recruiters at that carnival and everyone knew if it wasn’t for his uncle being a league legend and his brother already playing for the league in Melbourne, he might not have been drafted at all after missing the TAC Cup—the premier competition for league hopefuls leading up to the draft. He knew what the recruiters would’ve penned in their notebooks, ‘Weak’, ‘Injury Prone.’
He’d been drafted thirty-ninth in the second round, while Jack had gone number two in the first. Sean wore thirty-nine on his jumper as a reminder. Before that hit, he’d been slated to go topthree. And how dare Jack bring up that shit Tony had said and make him relive it when he hadn’t wanted to know about it in the first place. Sean was proud of his Aboriginality, but he’d never wanted it to become a fucking talking point for all the wrong reasons. But worse, somehow, was bringing up how pathetic he’d been that night on the cricket pitch when it was just the two of them. And Jack was saying they’d somehow squared all that away?
“Bullshit,” he said softly because he couldn’t say anything else around the tightness in his throat.
Jack, surprisingly, laughed. It was not a funny laugh. “What can I say to convince you? I’m telling the truth, I swear. We talked about it, you thought—”
“Stop,” Sean said. He could not hear this. He was mortified. He was furious. He could feel it shaking inside him. He couldn’t do this, not on top of his injury, not on top of losing his mum. He could not have his most shameful memories flung in his face like a regular piece of conversation on a Tuesday morning.
Jack looked at him. And he must really know him, because he nodded, said, “Okay,” and got up. “I guess context really is everything. Helen is right.”
“Who the fuck is Helen?” Sean asked, eager for the subject change, even though he hated female names in Jack’s mouth. He’d never seen Jack with a woman; he was still pretty sure Jack was just like him, gay and discreet about it. Only not like him at all because Jack was so closeted he took out any inkling someone might know by landing dirty fucking hits on them.
“Helen’s my oldest sister,” Jack replied, returning to the same factual voice he’d used last time. “She’s a History Professor. Annie’s second youngest, closest to me in age, she’s a lawyer. Then Sarah, a doctor, orthopaedic, and Amy, she’s a veterinarian.”
“And then they got you, a footballer. Your parents must’ve been so proud,” Sean said and winced internally. That was not cool.
But Jack laughed, met Sean’s eyes and shook his head. “You said that last time I told you, except…”
“Except what?”
Jack waited a beat, looked away. “Except not as mean,” he shrugged like it was no big deal, but Sean could see the crack of pain before he quickly plastered over it. “I’m gonna shower real quick then I’ll give you a hand, alright?”
Sean sighed a long-suffering sigh.
