Page 34 of We Were Never Lovers
“For gettin’ me in here for a sec,” Sean replied, eyes on the food.
Jack came closer and rested his hand on Sean’s bicep. He looked up and met Jack’s eyes. He wanted to lean up and kiss him—he wondered what everyone outside would think if they walked in and saw them kissing. He had the feeling no one knew they were fucking. And he didn’t know if Jack’s sisters knew he was gay, but he got the impression none of their teammates knew.
“Seriously, no one’s gonna care if you need to take a breather,” Jack said again and squeezed, eyes searching Sean’s. “Sarah saysyou’re doing amazing, says most people would not be handling this so well.”
Sarah was the second eldest sister, doctor, orthopaedic; she’d given Sean a warm smile when they met earlier and peered at him closely. But then he’d felt like Amy, the veterinarian, peered at him pretty closely too. Even the lawyer, Annie, sized him up, made him wonder if maybe she did know what him and Jack were up to. The only one who didn’t try to peer inside him was the oldest, Helen, the History Professor, she just smiled warmly, shook his hand and started talking about the Port Authority trying to encroach on more land, steal more of the beach. She was at least forty-odd, beauty undimmed by the soft wrinkles around her eyes and a single streak of grey in her long, blonde hair.
“Nah, this is really good,” Sean replied, “back to normal, right?”
Jack squeezed his arm, a little tighter this time, searched his eyes like he was looking for something but then let go and started getting utensils out. “Yeah,” he said, distracted. “But look, if you need a breather, just ask me to come help you find the spirits.”
“We’re gonna get that pissed?”
“No,” Jack smiled over at him, “it’s a code we use if we wanna leave somewhere. We say we’re really feeling it for a vodka or we wanna hit the spirits. It means we want to go. Because, well, you know, we never really drink spirits.”
Sean huffed a laugh. They had a code?
“That happens a lot?” Sean asked around a smile. It still felt weird smiling in Jack’s direction, but he loved the way it made Jack smile helplessly back like he was surprised, so he could deal with the discomfort.
Jack did smile back, but then he did that thing where it seemed like he was about to say one thing and decided to sayanother. “Yeah, we’re not big on sponsor events or shutting it down anymore, you know how it is.”
Sean did not know—since when had they ever been into shutting it down? And he enjoyed sponsor events as much as the next player, which was not at all, but they had mandatory hours to put in. Guys like Patrick Marley, Jack’s closest mate on the team, were into it because they had their eye on getting work after they retired, but aside from that how many more ways could you ask some bloke how the mining refinery, or whatever they called it, was going—Hey, how’s that big fuckin’ hole you dug on native land turning out? Good? Great. Fuck you.So, no, Sean didn’t like social functions. He still knew Jack had given him half an answer.
Jack glanced up, his job in the kitchen done, and he must’ve read something on Sean’s face because he dropped that guard and said with a flirtatious smile that looked nervous, “We got better things to do.”
Sean choked out a laugh. They bailed to go fuck? It was the first time it’d come up again since their talk. He could barely picture it—Jack sidling up to him and asking if he’d like a screwdriver, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
“C’mon,” Jack said now, blush rising on his throat, “Mark’s definitely gonna burn the shit out of everything if we don’t call it now,” he brushed Sean’s side as he went by. “Amy’s husband,” he finished unobtrusively, just a gentle reminder because he knew Sean would need help with the names of a bunch of new people. He couldn’t believe he’d missed how good Jack was at that—kind without being obvious about it; he had a real knack for seeing shit from Sean’s point of view, knowing Sean wouldn’t want him to point out that he didn’t know but knowing he needed to know.
“Yeah, ‘kay,” Sean replied, feeling better, and followed him out.
He almost spat his mouthful across the table when Ben said, “You guys must be goin’ stir crazy not bein’ able to do your usual shit, eh?”
Sean managed to swallow carefully and reply, “What?” because surely Ben wasn’t referring to their sex life—maybe he did know?—in front of their teammates and Jack’s family assembled the length of the table, the dining table adjoined to the outdoor table that Jack had dragged inside and made into a dining area by pushing the couch out of the way, done it like he’d done it many times before, Lola trotting in and out with him, tail wagging like she knew what this meant. And Sean watched as the kids dropped food on the floor for her, giggled as she lapped it up, and knew she knew this is exactly what Jack moving the furniture meant.
“You know, you guys always out and about, kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, doin’ shit,” Ben said, nods and murmurs of assent from the rest of the table.
“We’ve been keeping plenty busy with cards. Sean’s a total shark,” Jack said and smiled at him. He was at the head of the table, Sean at the other end.
“We go rock climbing?” Sean asked and felt self-conscious. He knew he didn’t know huge chunks of his life, but he tried to hide it. Except this one demanded an answer.
“Yeah,” Jack smiled again, but something was off and Sean didn’t think anyone else would notice it.
“And Campbell doesn’t do his nut about us getting injured?” he asked and everyone laughed.
“Well, it’s not like we tell him,” Jack replied, smile pleasant enough but not quite honest either.
“Where in the fuck do we go rock climbing?” Sean asked, his embarrassment momentarily forgotten under the weight of wondering. It’s not like there were any mountains.
Jack shifted in his chair, took a sip of his beer. “Different places,” he said.
“Haven’t they opened up that new training place in Cockburn?” Annie asked. “I was thinking of getting the girls into it once they’re older. I think it’ll be good when they want to travel. Imagine climbing some of those peaks we saw in that show. What was that show we watched, Chris?” she asked her husband and the conversation moved on to some show about people getting stuck on mountains and having terrible falls. Sean wondered at that show inspiring her to get her kids climbing, but then she seemed to have the same sincerity as Jack; it’s like they missed all the dangers of the world and only saw the positives, the potential for beauty and fun, as if because of what happened to their parents, or maybe in spite of it. Or maybe they’d always been like this—growing up with their charmed lives in Peppermint Grove, attending prestigious private schools, oblivious to the world beyond what parents who had been a professor, the dad, and a doctor, the mother, had shown them. He didn’t miss that Jack never answered the question.
They were onto dessert, the afternoon sunshine streaking the long table in shadowed light, fruit salads, a pavlova, and a lemon cheesecake at the centre as everyone served, when Amy asked Jack how Finn was going with his son.
“Finn has a kid?” Sean asked in another moment of surprise, self-consciousness again forgotten—Finn was practically a kid himself.
“Oh yeah,” Ben laughed heartily before Jack could reply, “you’re gonna love this. He’s got a kid with Creed.”
