Page 3 of We Were Never Lovers
The doctor looked past Sean. “Jack?” she smiled easily, “would you mind if I had a chat with Sean alone for a moment? Maybe you could go get some coffee.”
“But I didn’t, I don’t—”
She was moving around the bed, the sound of her sneakers squeaking on the tiles as she herded Jack out of the room, his voice never wavering in his defence, his confusion, and, worst of all, his hurt. He’d never heard Jack sound that vulnerable except for the last time he saw him after they lost the preliminary final and got into it after everyone else had left. Jack’s voice had cracked then, cracked brittle and hurt as he’d said, “You’re not worth it.”
The doctor reappeared at his side, smiling like they were old mates.
“Okay, Sean, you want to tell me why you think Jack was involved in your accident?” she asked like it was a completely normal question.
“‘Cos why else would he be here?” Sean repeated because nothing else made sense. They despised each other.
The doctor frowned. “I’m pretty sure he’s down as your emergency contact,” she reached over the bed to hit a button for one of the nurses.
Sean’s lips parted and the dull headache that’d been throbbing behind his eye sockets pulsed. Was it a joke? A prank? It must’ve been. Ben must’ve gotten hold of all his personnel files at the club and changed his emergency contact to Jack Reaver as a joke. Speaking of Ben, where was he? He was Sean’s best friend on the team, his house mate. And where was his mum? Or even Jayden—she’d send his brother down if she couldn’t get to the city; it was offseason, he’d be home by now.
He listened as the doctor had a chat with the nurse, checked some paperwork, before reassuring Sean that Jack was, in fact, his emergency contact. It was a joke, it had to be. But he didn’t think he had the brain power to explain that to her right now.
“Would you like us to ask him to leave?” she asked after the nurse left. She was completely calm about it, like they kicked hysterical teammates out of players’ rooms all the time. But then he thought of Jack sleeping next to him in the armchair, thought about how he hated Jack but he always liked being around him; it was perverse, but he loved it when Jack was in any room, it invigorated him, made his self-righteous anger pulse in a way that made him feel powerful. Plus, Jack was acting like such a fucking pussy at the moment, if Sean asked him to leave, he’d probably cry. Sean didn’t actually ever want to see Jack cry, that’d be too much.
“Nah,” he breathed out, tried to smile.
“Okay,” the doctor said slowly before going through a series of tests—light shined in his eyes, reflex checks—and asked him a stream of questions about how he was feeling.
Jack reappeared in the door and Sean tensed. He was gripping two takeaway coffee cups.
“I got you a coffee. Can he drink coffee?” he asked the doctor.
“If he can stomach it,” she winked at Sean.
“I don’t want a fuckin’ coffee,” he ground out.
Jack recoiled like Sean had hit him. Sean was so fucking confused—why was Jack reacting like that? He could handle more than that.
Jack stepped into the room, cleared his throat awkwardly. “Two for me then,” he said in the most unconvincing display of cheerfulness Sean had ever heard. “I called Ben, let him know you’re awake. He’s on his way down,” he said as he took his chair again, coffees in each hand. He started drinking them like it was normal to be double fisting coffee and so looked anything but.
One of the things that’d struck Sean about Jack once he joined them at Freo, something he’d never really noticed when they’d met in high school at the footy carnival, was how insufferably awkward he was. He truly was a space cadet. Like now: he’d try and make that seem like a normal thing to be doing until it was painfully obvious it wasn’t. And don’t even get Sean started on the way Jack zoned out on the field sometimes, like he was wondering how the groundskeeper kept the grass looking so good rather than the, you know, fucking game they were playing in front of a hundred thousand people.
“Oh, and I messaged Jayden as well,” he went on, unsure but barrelling on bravely. “I called him right after too of course, but I didn’t want to call him now since it’s still early.”
Sean watched him through slitted eyes. “How the fuck did you get his number?”
Jack frowned. “Of course I’ve got his number.”
Sean squeezed his eyes shut. He’d woken up in a parallel universe.
“Sean Hiller,” a man said brightly from the doorway. Sean opened his eyes to see a big whitefella, his smile lively as he looked at Sean like he knew him. Sean had never seen him before in his life.
“Alright, Sean,” the lady doctor said, “I’m going to hand you over to Doctor Harris now, but everything looks good, better than we hoped when you first came in.” She smiled and patted his shoulder before going over to this Doctor Harris and inclining her head for him to follow her out the door.
Sean sat in strained silence with Jack, both of them watching the two doctors talking on the other side of the glass.
“I’ll have to pop home before six to check on Lola,” Jack said. He sipped his coffee, eyes fixed on the doctors; another attempt at casual.
Who the fuck was Lola? And why the fuck was Jack telling him about her?
“But Ben’ll be here by then. I’ll get some more of your stuff,” he jerked his chin at Sean’s travel duffel on the ground and the cupboard, where he presumed his clothes were. “Just let me know what you want.”
Sean stared at his profile, the blonde stubble on his jawline, the crease at the edge of his mouth, the laugh lines beginning to groove into his tan around his eyes. He looked older, and not like this conversation was ageing him, but like he was actually older. It was a slight change, a sharpness to his face, all evidence of the boyish padding from when they first met at seventeen completely gone.
