Page 64 of After the Siren
‘Are you sure? Did you bite him on the dick or something?’
‘Fuck off.’
In truth, Jake was starting to wonder if hehaddone something. Had he been pushy? Had Stavs wanted to bail all along?
Xen knocked his shoulder gently against Jake’s. ‘You okay?’
Jake blew out a breath. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Sure,’ Paddy said.
‘Well, Stavs is being weird as fuck, but other than that it’s all good.’
‘Yeah,’ Paddy agreed. ‘He’s playing okay, though.’
That was, luckily, true. Stavs had taken all those victory vibes and channelled them into some truly stellar form in the last few training sessions. Or maybe he’d just needed to get laid. Maybe Jake should take the credit.
‘Did the sex suck?’ Paddy asked.
‘The sex was good.’
The sexhadbeen good, but so had the kissing, and the waking up together, and the period of time when Jake had thought maybe they were going to be chill about it and that maybe it would happen again. He didn’t want a boyfriend, obviously, but it could have been good.
‘Then what’s his problem?’ Paddy asked.
‘How would I fucking know?’ Jake knew he hadn’t managed to keep the hurt out of his voice.
Xen was making the face he made when he thought Jake and Paddy were both being oblivious. ‘Maybe he hasn’t hooked upcasually with a lot of people,’ Xen suggested. ‘So he’s freaked out. Especially because you’re his friend, Jaze.’
Paddy looked a bit incredulous. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Being attractive doesn’t mean you have a lot of casual sex,’ Xen said.
‘Yeah, but he hooked up with Jaze, so obviously heisdown for some casual sex,’ Paddy pointed out.
Xen shrugged. ‘He’s talked about one long-term girlfriend, and then maybe another girlfriend during high school. I’m just speculating. But maybe he’s freaking out because you’re friends, and he doesn’t know how to act around a friend he’s had sex with.’
It seemed ... possible. Jake preferred it to most of the explanations he was coming up with. It was much less bad thanhe regrets having sex with you.
‘Okay, Yoda, so what do I do about it?’
‘Talk to him,’ Paddy said, at the same time as Xen said, ‘Give him some space.’
Paddy gave Xen a hurt look. ‘Youalwayssay to talk to people.’
Xen put his smoothie aside and lay back on the grass. ‘I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But I’d say trying tomakehim talk will probably freak him out more, so give him a couple more days, keep being chill about it, and if he doesn’t come to you,thentry to talk to him.’
‘So wise,’ Paddy told him. Xen rolled his eyes, but he looked pleased with himself.
‘Incoming,’ Paddy said, and Jake glanced back towards the club. Raze was walking purposefully towards them. ‘Bet he’s coming to ask why your boy is being a freakshow.’
‘He’s not my boy,’ Jake said. And he wasn’t going to be. Clearly.
Chapter Fifteen
Theo was aware that he was making it weird. He couldn’t seem tostopmaking it weird. It should have been easy to be normal, because Jake was acting like nothing had happened. That was making it worse. Jake totally unfazed, when all Theo could think about was the fact they’d had sex. He laid eyes on Jake and sex klaxons went off in his brain.
At least he was playing okay. It had taken him a couple of games to get used to being on the wing, but he felt settled there now. Being able to accelerate away from an opponent down the boundary line was a particular kind of satisfying. For the first time in his career, there had been positive articles about his performance. He’d even gotten an email from a Falcons fan podcast asking if he’d come on and have a chat. (He’d filed that one in the ‘maybe’ basket.) He’d also dropped back to one Law subject for the trimester, which was keeping the study side of things manageable.
