Page 51 of We Were Never Lovers
“You told me,” he said like he was trying to make it an unimportant fact of life about their past and missing that mark completely.
“When?” Sean asked, the urge to push burning inside him.
“Ah,” Jack said, holding his spatula up but not turning back. “Last year, I think?”
He was lying. Sean didn’t doubt it’d been last year, but he wasn’t saying everything. He tried to formulate the follow-up. Lola pressed herself against his leg, reminding him that he wasn’t getting to the most important job of the day. He reached down to pat her. Jack slid pancakes onto a plate, went for the fridge, pulled out the margarine, placed it next to the sugar bowl and freshly squeezed lemon juice on the bench. Because he knew if Sean was ever going to eat pancakes, which he rarely did, but if he did, he took them drenched in margarine, sugar, and lemon juice.
“Where?” Sean asked as Jack slid the plate to him.
“Umm,” Jack looked at the pancakes, stalling for time. “Here?”
“Where here?” Sean watched him closely.
“Probably like,” Jack waved his hand at the couch, eyes darting around.
“What were we talking about before that, what were we doing?” Sean slid onto the kitchen stool.
Jack went back for the pan, huffed a fake laugh. “I dunno, man. Just chilling, I guess.”
“You’re lyin’,” Sean told him. What he didn’t get was why.
“Lying about what?” Jack asked, his voice going high. He turned back. “I just want you to have a good birthday, not get into all this.”
“All what?” Sean had him.
“All that stuff,” Jack replied dismissively and started getting stuff out for a smoothie. Sean thought he’d try and get away, but all he had to offer was taking Lola out but Lola didn’t want Jack now she had Sean back; Sean saw it in the way she’d hesitated, looked between them, confused, the one day Jack had taken her because Sean’s leg was hurting too much for it. And since Lola’s happiness seemed to be Jack’s top priority, he wouldn’t take that from her even if he was desperate.
“What stuff?”
“Eat or the butter won’t melt,” Jack focused on shoving frozen banana, berries and kale in his blender.
Sean obliged, opening the margarine and slathering the pancake stack, but he wasn’t going to stop. “What stuff?”
“Jesus, you’re relentless,” Jack huffed.
“Yeah, and if we’re such good mates, you should know that,” Sean replied, which wasn’t entirely fair. Sean could be relentless with Jack, but he wasn’t like this with anyone else. Of course, no one else had fucked him up as much as Jack so it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it.
“Yeah,” Jack nodded, more to himself. He turned on the blender, the roar cutting out all conversation. Sean ate, chewed carefully around the incredible explosion of sweet, bitter and fat in his mouth on top of the perfectly fluffy and crisp pancake.
He kept his eyes on Jack and knew he couldn’t blend that fucking thing all morning. The noise cut out.
“What aren’t you tellin’ me?” Sean asked immediately around a mouthful.
Jack shook his head, poured his smoothie into a glass. He was red, twitchy. “Nothing, I’m not like keeping some massive secret from you—”
“Bullshit!” It burst out of Sean.
Jack looked up, his blue eyes flashed with the first hint of real emotion Sean had seen in a while, longer than that. He looked as angry as he did in the locker room when they fought.
“You want me to tell you it was after we fucked?” he yelled. Sean sat back, riveted. “You wanna know it was just after your mum died? You wanna know you were so fuckin’ mad you fucked me so hard I could barely walk? And I took it ‘cos I knew you needed something to do with it? How you cried after and told me all that shit? Is that what you wanna hear?”
“Yes!” Sean cried and stabbed his fork in Jack’s direction. “Fuck’s sake, yes! I want you to tell me who we are!”
Jack shook himself, he looked shaken up but before Sean could prod him further, he saw him retreating.
“I told you,” he said, withdrawn. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“Why not?” Sean didn’t get it—if he was mad, he should fucking get mad. Sean was fucking mad.
