Page 33 of We Were Never Lovers
“Like I meant it,” Sean replied quietly.
“Well, I reckon you always mean it, but more, I dunno. There’s more to it now or it’s like, you’re giving me pointers.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Sean said and Jack looked at him, guarded but about as open as Sean reckoned he was going to get. “Our foreplay and pillow talk is me helping you with your game.”
Jack chuckled and it was real, a lightness coming over his face. “Yeah, kind of, I guess. I mean, it’s not like you tell me anything I don’t already know—”
“Bullshit.”
“But it’s the way you say it, and yeah,” Jack leaned back and stretched his legs and torso, “you make the odd good point,” he shot Sean a smile. It was the kind of smile that invited Sean into this thing with him, a bridge. And Sean wanted to cross it, but he felt like he couldn’t quite step onto it yet. Somethingwas missing. He was turned on, he wanted to fuck Jack, still felt horned up from the time in the kitchen, but this was a lot more intimate than he’d bargained for.
Jack must’ve read his mood shift because he sat up, said, “So, hope that fills in the gap a bit,” and with that, he got up.
“Yeah, thanks,” Sean murmured and grabbed his phone, started scrolling through his socials for something to do while Jack puttered around pulling the blinds down and turning off lights and turning on lamps, falling into his normal routine for the night but with a self-consciousness Sean could feel.
And it was Jack who turned in first, which was weird, and of course he asked if Sean needed anything, got him water and pain meds for his room even when Sean said no, and then disappeared down the hall and into his room with a soft click of the door.
It was a quiet night, the heat of the day lingering outside but smothered by the cool insulation of the old bricks of Jack’s house. Sean sat in the silence, Lola snoring softly beside him, and wondered why he felt like Jack had just told him everything and yet he felt like he knew less than before. As if a big part of the story was missing. And also why the story hadn’t led to them jumping straight back into it, but had instead made him feel shy for it, and made Jack, by the looks of it, feel the same way. He cursed his memory loss—this massive gap he was sure had something to do with what this all meant to him, and that was something Jack couldn’t fill. Even though he was sure there was stuff Jack still wasn’t telling him.
“C’mon, girl,” he said to Lola and leveraged himself off the couch and hopped to his room.
He lay in bed, hand running up and down her silky coat, his mind and body preoccupied by the mind and body in the bed on the other side of his wall. And he’d bet money on it that Jack wasn’t sleeping either.
11
The cobbled stone courtyardout the back of Jack’s place was packed with their Indigenous teammates and their wives and girlfriends, kids, Jack’s sisters—all four of them—also with their husbands and kids in tow. These four statuesque women who were the female versions of Jack—blonde, tan, blue eyed—alongside the brothers, it was like a catalogue for multiculturalism—the brains trust behind Harmony Day would be pleased, Sean thought and laughed to himself. He remembered Jack saying something about a Dutch grandfather mixed in with an English and Irish background, which probably explained the height and nice skin. As he sipped on a light beer, he listened to Ben tell him about his kid’s absolute refusal to take pain medication, how he’d tried to bargain with him, begged him, held him down and poured it down his throat when the kid was running a fever and screaming in pain.
“Maybe you shoulda just given him a choice,” Sean said.
“Right, yeah, what a bloody brilliant idea,” Ben said. “You know what? That’s such a brain trust idea, I’m gonna remind you of it when you got a two-year-old who won’t drink Panadol. I’m gonna bloody remind you of it.”
Sean laughed to hide his surprise. Ben still didn’t know he was gay? Before he’d lost his memories, he remembered wanting to tell him, waiting for the right time, wanting at least one person he was close to, the person he lived with, to be in on this secret he’d lived by himself beyond those few furtive, nameless hook-ups.
He scanned the yard and saw Jack talking with one of his sisters, the youngest one, the lawyer, Annie. Jack had told him Annie was six when he was born—a surprise for their parents—and Annie had insisted Jack was her baby. There was a closeness in the way they stood together, set apart from everyone else, heads bent close, Jack smiling as she spoke and waved her free hand around, the other one gripping a glass of white wine. All of them had greeted Sean like they knew him, liked him, ribbed him about putting up with Jack like it was a well-worn path of conversation before smiling carefully, almost apologetically, like they’d been told to be considerate of everything Sean couldn’t remember.
Jack had leapt into action when Sean had asked why they didn’t have anyone over, and now here they were on the following Sunday, everyone Jack said normally came round for a BBQ or a meal at least once a month in Jack’s backyard.
It was a good crowd and Sean could feel the familiar groove between them all. They talked like they were picking up conversations, not getting to know one another, and he liked it, the warmth between them, but he was uncomfortable too.
“All good?” Jack appeared in front of him and asked with a concerned smile. “You need another beer?”
“Nah, I’ll sit on this one, ta,” Sean tried to smile reassuringly.
Jack frowned and Sean realised why he hadn’t organised this, or resumed this, sooner. He’d known it’d be a lot.
“Wanna come inside for a sec and give me a hand with the salads?” Jack asked.
Ben scoffed. “How’s he gonna help you?”
“I got a busted leg and head, but my hands work just fine,” Sean got up.
Once they were in the kitchen, the buzz of voices from outside audible and discernible but far enough away to let Sean take a breath, to feel hidden in the coolness, in the relative darkness of the kitchen, he exhaled and leaned against the bench.
“You doin’ alright? No one will care if you gotta like, go lie down or something,” Jack said, busying himself with getting stuff out of the fridge.
“Yeah, nah, I’ll be alright,” he said as he watched him. “Thanks,” he said once Jack had lined everything up on the bench, cling wrap pulled back and serving spoons inside green salads, a potato salad, some kind of baked dish he’d pulled out of the oven, and a bowl of pasta salad. His sisters and the guys’ missus didn’t mess around with bringing the food.
“For what?” Jack smiled over at him.
