Page 68 of We Were Never Lovers
“You don’t want me to get my own place?”
Jack closed his eyes. “Do whatever you want, you always do.”
Sean kissed him, hard.
Later, Sean explained if he got his own place he’d have an investment, rent money, all very matter of fact and careful not to look at Jack when he said it. Jack took it to mean he really did want to move in with him, really did just want his own place for the financial reasons. And when they’d picked out this house, it’d been the way Sean had loved it that’d convinced Jack to buy it, knowing it was as much his place as it was Sean’s, hadn’t missed the way Sean’s explanations for rental income often slipped to “we”—“We’ll get rent,” “We’ll get an apartment, low maintenance.”
And when Sean brought Lola back from his hometown, a twelve-week-old puppy from a litter from a local farmer, he’d lifted her out of the box, handed her to Jack and said, “Lola, meet ya other dad, Jackie.”
Jack had taken her, his smile splitting his face as he looked from her to Sean; she was their dog, but she’d always be more Sean’s since he’d named her, explaining to Jack about the first time he heard that song, sitting in the back of the family’s old Commodore, his dad turning it up on the radio. He’d listened to the lyrics, slowly realising the dude was crooning about falling for a man. He’d flushed hot with fear and adrenaline, but he’d felt like he might be okay too. His smile had been fixed on Jack’s hands clasped around Lola’s body, an uncharacteristic nervousness about him as he recounted the memory.
“I love that song too,” Jack said, lifting Lola up in front of him, her sweet little puppy face already offset by those clever eyes. “Lola, it’s perfect.”
“Sweet,” Sean replied, his smile small but real.
From that first day, Sean took the lead in walking her, then running her, and she’d always go to Sean first, but in every other way, she was theirs.
Now, every time Sean referred to this place as Jack’s house, Jack’s dog, it set up an ache in his chest that grew until one dayhe was sure it would consume him—but how could he explain after he’d let it go on for so long? How could he pull it back in without undermining everything? But he’d tell him. Of course he would. It was time—they were inching back to something.
He turned the plug over in his hand and heat washed through him—desire, simple and pure. Maybe after. They always did manage to have their most important conversations in bed—in the dark, spent in the quiet aftermath, when it was easier to be brave.
23
Wanting to punch Jackwas not a new sensation. But for Sean in the last few days, it’d become an all-consuming urge he hadn’t felt with the same intensity since Jack had reappeared in the locker room after getting his trade. Jack wasn’t doing anything, which was the problem. He kept looking at Sean like he was about to say something and the moment felt charged, both of them waiting, and then Jack would say something bland like, “Did you want to drive?” or, “Did you want everyone to come round for the off day?” or, “Do you want me to take her?” when Sean rubbed his leg in bed one morning.
What Sean wanted was for Jack to come out and say what he was clearly holding back behind his near perfect white teeth. He still had that little overlap with the front two, a distracting imperfection, and not something Sean was going to let distract him now. He’d thought after they fucked when he got back from taking Lola, Jack lubed and plugged up, blushing crimson as he waited for Sean in bed, naked chest heaving, dick hardand straining up against his taut stomach—Sean hadn’t even bothered to shower, had just ripped his clothes off and straddled him, coated him in his sweat as he teased Jack’s hole by dragging the plug in and out, fascinated, before it got too much and he’d got him on his hands and knees, covered his body with his own as he pushed inside, fucked him rough and deep, kissed his throat, his jaw, whispered against his ear about how filthy he was, open and waiting for Sean to come home, “Are you that desperate for me, Jackie?”
And yet, Jack was tense after. Braced like he needed to say something, like it was do or die in a final and he had to rise to the occasion. Sean caught his breath and waited too, suspended and desperate to hear it. But Jack rolled on top of him, buried his face against Sean’s throat and as Sean stroked his hair and stared at the ceiling, he felt bereft for the nameless thing he’d never get to hear.
Only, Jack kept doing it. Saying nothing while giving Sean a look like he was full of things to say.
They showered side by side in the locker room after training, steam billowing around them, Jack lathering up and washing perfunctorily, Sean doing the same. It was strange, showering next to Jack—that unspoken agreement to take opposite ends seemingly broken. Back then Jack had always taken the farthest from the door, Sean the nearest to the door, a stretch of shower heads and teammates always firmly between them.
The last thing he remembered before his accident was his surprise and rage at seeing that far shower occupied. Everyone else had left, so it was just him and Jack, and a row of empty shower heads stretched between them. He went back to that moment repeatedly, replaying it, thinking if he could just get past that last point he remembered—if he could push himself into the next moment, then he’d know what Jack wasn’t telling him.
He replayed it again now: seeing Jack there and getting on with it anyway. He’d known even without a small army of men between them, Jack wasn’t stupid enough to try and talk to him. He’d turned the water to hot, stepped under before it’d fully warmed,and hissed at the cold. It was the shock he needed, something to jolt him out of the depressive spiral he’d been sitting in since they’d trudged off the ground.
They hadn’t simply lost the game, they’d choked. From the first bounce, they were behind the play—couldn’t get a ball to land on a chest, couldn’t hold a tackle, couldn’t hit the middle of the posts on the few occasions it’d actually gone down their end. Sean had managed two goals, but that was shit for him. And he could admit Jack would’ve gotten a couple if he’d kicked to him when he was open, but Sean thought he had the shot too, and Jack had been struggling to find the middle after his injury, so it wasn’t the usual pettiness holding him back from kicking to him. Well, it was only a little bit of that.
The shower at the end turned off and Sean tensed. The warm water hit his shoulders, the back of his head, and he turned to put his back to the room. Jack’s feet slapped loudly on the tiles behind him. Sean held every muscle in his body rigid, waiting for him to pass. The feet came closer, would pass right by him and be gone and Sean would relax.
The feet stopped. Sean went so rigid, he felt like a snake reared up and coiled tight, one wrong move and he’d strike.
Jack sighed, gusty and loud behind him, almost as if he was about to fucking speak. But then, he didn’t. The feet moved on with a reluctant splashing on tiles, and then they were gone.
Sean exhaled, his body shaking. It still surprised him how much Jack could get to him. No one else made him so angry, so unsure of himself, so close to losing control.
He remembered he’d stayed in the shower for a long time. He remembered his hand turning the tap off, how swollen hiseyes had felt, how the tears had washed away the worst of the disappointment, left tiredness in their wake. He remembered tying his towel in a loose knot around his waist and heading back out to get dressed, grateful to be alone with his red rimmed eyes.
Jack stood slowly when he walked in. He was dressed in his suit, his hair at that point of dryingwhere it’d formed waves around his face. His eyes were hard when they met Sean’s, but they were scared too. Sean remembered that much.
“What the fuck you still doin’ here?” Sean asked, voice rough from crying and nowhere near as angry as he’d wanted to sound. He felt smaller than Jack—he was smaller, several inches in height and at least ten kilos in weight, but with Jack dressed in his suit, his dress shoes on, tie loose around his throat in a clumsy Windsor knot like he’d been tugging at it, next to that armour Sean felt as naked as he was save for the towel.
“I’m fucking sick of this,” Jack said. He squared his shoulders and his voice ricocheted around the empty room angrily, but there was a shakiness to it; as if he’d been rehearsing the words in his head and once they came out they’d fallen short of what he’d been hoping for.
Sean barked a humourless laugh and gave him his back as he went for his stall. He hoped it communicated how done he was with this conversation and how much he wanted Jack to leave. He didn’t think he would cry again, and he was grasping at anger to keep it at bay, but the sight of Jack shook him to his core normally, never mind when he was cut open like this.
“Don’t you have something to say to that?” Jack asked, a plaintive note in his voice. “I apologised for that shit when we were kids, Tony showed me the texts. You said it was done, but all season you’ve treated me like shit and I’m, I’m,” his voice failed him at the end and Sean’s body tensed, growing more infuriated the longer Jack went on.
