Page 70 of We Were Never Lovers
Sean got snappish, selfish again, after they fucked, had been doing it all season by that point, but on that night, it’d been a week since Jack had been in Sean’s bed—ostensibly his bed, but it felt like it belonged to Sean when he came over—and Sean was in a good mood and Jack felt the tendrils of hope.
He followed Sean out into the carpark, a carefully timed exit to catch him alone before he got to his car.
“Hey, wait up,” he called, hoping to sound nonchalant.
Sean glanced over his shoulder, slowed but didn’t stop. He raised an eyebrow, tried to hide his smile.
“Hey,” Jack said once he was alongside him, a little winded from the question he wanted to ask and not the few feet he’d jogged.
Sean grunted low in acknowledgement, unlocked his car with a beep-beep of the immobiliser in the quiet space, the haloes of pink from the sinking sun streaking the blue sky around them.
“You wanna get dinner?” Jack asked in a rush, held his breath straight after, his heart pounding.
Sean twitched, opened the back of his car and threw his bag in. “Dinner?” he asked, like it was a foreign concept.
“Yeah, like. With me?” Jack said, and winced. He was an All-Australian all-star football player, you’d think he’d have a semblance of chill. And it’s not like it was an outlandish request—they’d been fucking all year, what was getting dinner?
“What’re you? My boyfriend?” Sean mocked and went to go by Jack and get in the driver’s seat.
“Well, I’m not fuckin’ anyone else, so,” Jack said before he could think better of it.
“Ya better fuckin’ not be,” Sean snapped at him, whip fast.
Jack huffed a laugh, then grinned, pleased. Sean recovered himself with an eye roll.
“So, dinner?” Jack asked again hopefully. “Nothing fancy, I was thinkin’ fish and chips, Port Beach.”
“Romantic,” Sean said flatly, but he was doing that thing where he tried not to be soft and it was this tick that gave Jack the flare of hope every time he saw it.
“Meet you there. You’re buyin’,” Sean quipped and got in the fancy Range Rover he’d bought with the cash prize for winning Mark of the Year. He looked up at Jack outside his window just before he drove off and shook his head, but he was smiling, and Jack’s hope burned brighter.
Itwasromantic, sitting on the little wall where the stretch of sand met the carpark, eating the fish and chips Jack had ordered from his car and picked up on the way. He’d been unsure until he’d seen Sean sitting on the wall in the dying light of the sun sinking on the horizon, a gruff smile for Jack when he walked up and handed Sean his own paper-wrapped parcel, pulled a can of diet coke out of his jacket pocket and handed that over too.
“Thanks,” Sean said and carefully unwrapped the paper with his long fingers, eating slowly, eyes on the water.
They didn’t talk much, but they were pressed together from shoulder to hip, knees knocking as they ate, the waves rolling in and crashing in front of them, the odd jogger or couple walking along the beach dark figures against the last of the light.
“Come over?” Jack asked when they finished.
Sean had snorted, but he’d gotten up first, his rubbish in one hand as the other one reached down for Jack. He tugged him to his feet and Jack expected him to let go, but he pulled him in instead.
“Ya really not fuckin’ anyone else?” he’d asked, the first real look behind the guard Jack had seen outside of sex since they were seventeen. He seemed small then, Jack remembered—the way he was huddling into Jack’s body and looking up at him, his wide eyes searching Jack’s sincerely.
“No,” Jack replied, “no one else.” He’d felt like the words were inadequate at the time, and yet they’d carried everything.
“Good,” Sean replied, gruff again, brushing off the vulnerability with a joking, “After all the effort I put in,” he grinned then, quick and sharp. “Looks like I’m stuck with ya.”
Jack laughed, embarrassed and surprised, but he was too happy to be anything but honest when he said, “Good, that’s good.”
They’d gone back to Jack’s and fucked, and it was different, the guard was slipping. Sean always watched him so intently, and his gaze had always been a heady thing to have focused his way, but Jack felt like it’d shifted that night. Sean wasn’t trying to pretend he wasn’t watching him.
He’d returned to form that weekend in the game, giving Jack a real spray after Ben had kicked a goal off Sean’s quick snap to him across the front of the goal, Jack out of contention because the monster Sydney defenceman, Carts, had him in a fucking headlock. It was an illegal play, but the goal was snapped before the umpires deigned to notice it, and life carried on.
Though not, apparently, for Sean.
“What the fuck was that?” he yelled at Jack as Jack went to jog back for the centre huddle, Sean racing out of the pocket to deliver the line, the sound of the crowd roaring around them, but certainly not loud enough to drown out Sean’s seething voice.
Jack stumbled, shocked. He shouldn’t have been—Sean did this—but he’d thought something had changed after that last weekend.
