Page 37 of We Were Never Lovers
Sean nodded. He looked at Jack now in another white t-shirt, khaki shorts, his thighs thick with muscle, the tan fading because he wasn’t surfing, his chest rising and falling under his forearm crossed over his chest, his handsome face open and vulnerable as he looked away, eyes caught in the distance yet somehow stuck here, and he knew he’d have wanted to make it good in a way that bordered on deranged. He’d have wanted to make sure Jack felt it for days, wanted him to feel taken in a way he’d never felt. He looked at him in the way he’d been doing since that night in the kitchen—a man assessing another man and knowing he’d about kill to get his hands all over him.
He could hear his breathing, hear Jack’s.
“But,” Jack met his eyes again, “it’s like, I don’t wanna take advantage of you.”
Sean laughed, an abrupt sound. “I reckon that’s the other way round, eh? I don’t see you tryin’ to get it all the time.”
Jack was already shaking his head. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not, I’d never lie to you, but, well, you hate me—”
“No, I don’t reckon I do anymore. I told you, I believe you.”
“Yeah, but, it’s like I’m trying to jump you ahead and it feels … it feels wrong. Stuff happened to get us to that.”
“Stuff’s happening now.”
“Yeah, but, not like it did then,” Jack shifted his feet, stood taller as if he’d found an equilibrium in the conversation.
“And if I never get my memory back?”
Jack blanched like the thought had never crossed his mind.
An ache settled in Sean’s chest. He saw the grief in Jack’s face and he resented the person he’d been for Jack; future Sean, friend Sean, fuck buddy Sean, some guy who got all that.
“Don’t say that,” Jack said.
“But it’s true,” Sean insisted. “I might not, I probably won’t. And we gotta deal with that. I mean, it’s not like we’re really friends now. We might never be again.”
“Don’t say that,” Jack repeated, angry now. “Whatever else we did aside, we’re always gonna be best mates.”
“Do you feel like you’re my best mate?” Sean asked.
“Yes,” Jack replied without hesitation.
Sean looked down and ran the material of his shirt through his fingers. “I don’t,” he said quietly. “I can see all the stuff we’re doin’ is like mates’ stuff, but it doesn’t feel real. I feel like a tourist in someone else’s life.”
“I…” Jack’s voice faded and then there was just their breathing in the living room, the distant sound of traffic on a Sunday afternoon.
When Jack spoke again it was to ask if he wanted some leftovers for dinner and Sean said no and went to bed. He lay awake, listening to Jack shutting the house down for the night, the creak of the floorboards as he padded past Sean’s door in his bare feet, the soft click of his bedroom door shutting. He felt that body on the other side of the wall as if Jack were right beside him, and he wanted to tug him close, even though Jack felt like someone between an acquaintance and a colleague he once couldn’t stand but had begrudgingly gotten used to. He didn’t feel the heat of the anger anymore, he couldn’t, not with the wayJack took care of him, not with how he’d gotten to know Jack up close and seen what a bloody good guy he was. His mind felt awkward at wanting to tug that body close, but his body wanted it in a way that felt right.
12
Fremantle made it tothe final for the preseason cup and Sean muttered about how bad this was. Jack laughed brightly as he did his cooldown on the bike, Sean sitting beside him doing arm weights. His ribs were fully healed and he continued to relish in his ability to take full, deep breaths. Jack always took the bike near the weights so he could talk to him when they were in the gym, his sweaty face and neck glistening in the sunshine coming through the glass walls that overlooked the training oval. Sean had a superstition founded in fact about winning the preseason cup—win that, season is fucked.
“I dunno what you’re so happy about,” Sean grunted as he worked his biceps in tandem. “Ya know Melbourne are resting all their good players. So if we lose it, it’s gonna be even more embarrassing.”
Jack smiled down at him, his powerful thighs moving up and down at a quick pace, the sweat making his shorts bunch up around his groin. “Yeah, but the team’s really coming togetherand with you out, well,” he shrugged, “obviously it’d been a worry. Obviously.”
Sean didn’t think there was any point reiterating his position—Jack was choosing not to look at the fact none of the big teams were playing their top defenders, the guys Sean could shake off but Andy Long and Patrick Marley couldn’t. Long because he was young and hadn’t shaken the blows he’d taken playing with the big boys as well as he should’ve and tended to wear those early knocks as a tentativeness that infected his play. And Marley because while he was only a year older than them, he was so injury-prone he played as if the thought to protect himself was at the forefront of his mind even though he probably didn’t intend to. They could’ve played the Kelly brothers down in the pocket, played Tampu in the midfield, but Sean knew Campbell would rest them, would want to avoid risking injury before the actual season. Sean didn’t say all of this—Jack knew this. He was just choosing to ignore it because he was a selective optimist.
Besides, Jack seemed genuinely happy in a way he hadn’t in the month since the BBQ and that awful conversation. It hadn’t seemed so awful at the time, but as Sean turned it over in the days and weeks to follow, he felt something about it seeping into their interactions, creating a politeness between them. At least it looked like politeness, but was in fact a distance Jack hadn’t been putting between them until then. He still looked hopefully at Sean each morning, the remnants of a faith he’d see his Sean restored with daybreak, the careful way he buried it evident when Sean grunted good morning or shook his head slightly. And he’d begun to consider moving out again because it’d become unbearable.
But now Jack was smiling genuinely at him, his legs pumping, and Sean was grateful, more so than he could have anticipated.
“And I don’t reckon your superstition is founded in fact,” Jack was saying as he then went on to detail the winners as far backas 1989 and how well each team had done during the season, failing to mention that the loser in 1989—Geelong—also lost in the Grand Final. Sean said as much.
“Yeah, but they still made the Grand Final, didn’t they?” Jack replied with a grin, panting.
Sean decided to let him have it. He couldn’t see their team making the Grand Final that year, but Jack was adamant they’d make the eight and Sean wanted that too, even if he was looking at a year of sitting on the sidelines in a suit, getting increasingly restless at all the plays he’d make if he were on the ground, he was still happy for his team.
