Page 8 of After the Siren
Jake gave him the finger. Xen grabbed Paddy’s wrist, presumably worried that he might take the same approach he’d taken to checking Jake’s abs.
‘No,’ Xen told Paddy.
Paddy batted his eyelashes. ‘No what?’
‘Just no.’
They had, in fact, given Jake a sort of foam cup to shove into his briefs. That had been nice. He was used to being naked in the locker room, but there was being naked in the locker room and then there was people in several major Australian cities knowing what your dick looked like. Turned out he did have some boundaries.
‘Good break, though?’ Paddy asked, with a suggestive lift of an eyebrow.
Jake hadn’t really meant to come out to Xen and Paddy at the end of their first year on the Falcons together. He’d had a firm belief that the appropriate number of teammates to know he wasn’t straight was a big fat zero. But then they’d been in Spain in September (no finals run for the Falcons), and one night in Barcelona Paddy had pointed out that a very hot man was leaning against the bar and checking Jake out in a way that was clearly meant to catch his attention.
‘Um,’ Jake had said.
‘Hey, if you’re not interested, let me know. I’ll have a shot.’ Jake had been silent for longer than he meant to. ‘You’re ...’ Paddy had shrugged. ‘I don’t really do labels.’
‘Just sometimes dudes?’ Xen had asked.
‘I appreciate all the stars in the gender constellation,’ Paddy had explained.
Jake had blurted out ‘I’m gay’ before he’d had time to second-guess himself. Which, let’s be real, Xen and Paddy had already guessed. Saying it out loud had felt itchy and vulnerable, but then Xen had pulled him into a one-armed hug and Paddy had held out a fist for him to bump.
‘Thanks for telling us,’ Xen had said. ‘We’ve got your back.’
‘Yeah, this is cute and all,’ Paddy had agreed, ‘but are you gonna go talk to that guy?’
Jake did. Although after exchanging names, there hadn’t actually been a lot of talking.
He should tell Xen and Paddy about breaking up with Kyle. Except he didn’t want to tell them on the bus. Later. He’d tell them later. ‘You know any of the new people?’ he asked instead.
There had been five new names on the camp list. Their new draft picks, whom Jake had met a couple of times through the Falcons development academy. Jason Stevens had come fromPerth, Nathan Rigger had done a couple of VFL seasons with the Harriers, and Theo Bestavros came from the Sydney Sharks as part of the trade for Jamie Collins.
Theo Bestavros.
Jake wished he’d never done that stupid fucking interview.Full Forwardhad always been a bit borderline, but he hadn’t realised they were going to stick his interview next to a skit that had definitely crossed the boundary into actually racist. He hadn’t needed Xen to explain just how problematic it was, but Xen had done so. A number of times, and in detail.
He’d thought about messaging Bestavros about it, but it wasn’t as though they were friends – or likely to see each other again. Everyone had known Bestavros was done. Messaging him in order to be told to fuck off had seemed a bit pointless. Except apparently not, because now Bestavros was here, on the team bus, and presumably not ready to plait Jake’s hair and make friendship bracelets.
Once they were well underway, and the bus driver had given up telling them all to sit down, Jake made his way down the bus to check in with everyone. It was good to be back.
Bestavros was sitting with Morgan Reyes. Not surprising; Raze was, at heart, a heavily tattooed mother hen. He already had Bestavros smiling.
The smile vanished when Bestavros saw Jake.
Raze returned Jake’s fist bump. ‘Hey, Jaze.’ He turned to Bestavros. ‘He’s Jaze because we already had a Cunno.’
‘And because it’s cute that we rhyme,’ Jake added.
‘Hi,’ Bestavros said. He didn’t smile.
Bestavros was hot. Jake had known that, theoretically. He’d seen Bestavros on the field, but he didn’t register other players as anything more than physics and geometry while he was playing. Angles and momentum. He broke them down into their component parts; pure form and function.
Bestavros was wearing tailored shorts and a cream linen shirt with short sleeves. It was a good look on him. His curly hair was shaved close on the sides, but he’d left it long on top and it was falling forward into his hazel eyes. He wasn’t as built as Paddy, but he’d clearly been putting in the work over the off-season. He didn’t look particularly touchable, but he did look good.
There was a beat of silence. Was Raze also thinking about the skit? He hadn’t said anything about it, but that was probably because everyone knew that Yelks had already pulled Jake aside for one of his chats. Jake would have taken one of his mum’s lectures any day over one of Yelks’ not-angry-just-disappointed chats.
Jake hesitated. Should he apologise? He should probably apologise. Bestavros was right there, looking at him. Looking at him kind of expectantly. But this didn’t seem like the time for an apology. On a bus, in front of Raze. There would be other moments when he could apologise. Or maybe apologising would make it worse.
