Page 38 of We Were Never Lovers
“You done?” Jack smiled down at him as he got off the bike.
“Yeah,” Sean replied and dropped the weights.
Jack held his hand down and Sean took it, let him pull him to his feet and reach for his crutches. Sean got himself adjusted, thought about how strong his right leg was getting, worried over how weak his left leg was, buried in plaster and doing nothing, a wasted limb that’d need months of work to restore. He waited for the platitude Jack would give him, like he could read Sean’s worries as if they were his own. But Jack didn’t, he just continued to smile like he hadn’t in months. It wasn’t completely unencumbered, the caution on the edges ever-present, but it was more open than it had been.
“I’m just gonna shower real quick,” he said. “Meet you in the canteen?”
“Yeah,” Sean replied, a little disarmed by that smile.
They did win the preseason cup. As Sean watched Jack crush Ben in a hug from his position on the bench under the brightlights of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the crowd of eighty thousand cheering and clapping as if it were a game that mattered, he couldn’t help his blinding grin as he struggled to his feet and leaned on his crutches. He took the hugs from the guys beside him, readily agreed that this was awesome, what a game—three points in it at the final siren—and chose to ignore, as everyone else seemed to be doing, that Melbourne had rested their superstar, Lacy, and if he’d been on the ground then a loss could’ve been written in before the game even started. He looked over at the other interchange bench and saw the man himself, tattooed throat peeking out from under his suit, gap-toothed grin wide as he backslapped his teammates and no doubt told them they’d played well. The ruckman came over to him and Lacy’s grin widened as he gave him a hug, reached up and said something against his ear that made the big fella laugh. Lacy knew what this was as well as Sean did, but Fremantle took what they could get and Sean decided to let the win wash over him.
By the time they stumbled back into Jack’s house after the celebration in Melbourne, the flight home, the party at the clubhouse the following night with supporters who didn’t fly over for the game, Jack was drunk.
“I know it doesn’t matter,” he slurred for the umpteenth time as Sean watched him trying to fit the key into the door, the sound of Lola scratching and whining on the other side making Sean feel as impatient as she was, “but fuck, it feels good anyway, ya know?”
“Give me that,” Sean said and nudged him aside. “I know.”
He got them inside and Lola went berserk. They’d seen her when they came in that morning, but Jack said she always got more worked up after they’d been away for a game, took a few days to settle, to trust they weren’t going to leave her alone again with Jack’s niece, Helen’s eldest, Olivia, and her boyfriend, Nate. They were both eighteen and Sean asked if they everthrew parties while they were away and Jack laughed, telling him Olivia was even more of a nerd than Helen, her and the boyfriend studying medicine, but assured Sean that in between reading the piles of books they brought over they were very reliable dog walkers.
“Hey, girl,” Sean said as she jumped up his good leg before starting to do excited circles, then charging up and down the hallway. He chuckled at her, felt Jack at his back.
“Fuck, missed you out there,” Jack said as he slammed the door behind them.
“Ya said,” Sean glanced over his shoulder. Jack had also said this multiple times. He was finding painfully earnest drunk Jack less annoying than usual.
He felt Jack’s hands land on his waist and stuttered in his momentum down the hall.
“Nah, but like,” Jack pressed his front against Sean’s back, his fingers pressing indents into Sean’s hips. “I really fucking miss you.”
Jack was a head taller than him, but as he leaned down to nuzzle at the back of Sean’s neck, his beer breath fanning over Sean’s cheek, he felt like Jack was trying to make himself smaller. When Jack’s lips ghosted over his skin, Sean exhaled roughly.
“I miss you so fuckin’ much,” Jack said, the drunken exuberance washed away under the weighted ache in the words.
“I’m right here,” Sean managed after a beat.
“No, but,” Jack sighed and pressed his groin against Sean’s ass. “I missyou.”
Sean breathed steadily; he didn’t know what to say. Jack pushed closer, slid his hands around Sean’s waist and tugged him back against him, tucked his face into the crook of Sean’s neck.
“What do you want?” Sean asked, voice low.
“I want you.”
Sean wanted to say he was right here again, he wanted to tell Jack if he wanted to fuck around, they could fuck around, but it didn’t feel right. Because Jack wanted someone else and Sean wasn’t him. He wondered, as Jack moved his lips against his throat, what future Sean would do. Spin around and push Jack against the wall and kiss him? Take his hand and drag him to the bed and fuck him?
Lola charged back down the hallway, no doubt wondering where they were. Sean shook his head. He wasn’t the guy Jack wanted.
“Jack, c’mon, I reckon it’s time for bed,” he said.
“Yeah,” Jack breathed against his throat, rocked forward.
“Jesus,” Sean breathed out and tried to extricate himself.
Jack gave him room to move but didn’t let him go. Sean guided them through Jack’s open bedroom door, unsteady on his crutches as the bulk and long limbs of Jack tried to keep him close, tried to get his hands under Sean’s shirt.
“Okay, bed,” Sean huffed.
“Yeah, yes,” Jack moved back an inch and Sean listened to the sound of his belt unbuckling, the fabric of his pants being shoved down his legs, a thump and then another as his shoes came off, the soft sound of his buttons popping open on his shirt.
