Page 80 of After the Siren
‘Maybe if you’re lucky he’ll make it up to you later,’ Gabby said, with a grin eerily reminiscent of Paddy’s.
‘I regret my choices,’ Jake said, clambering to his feet. ‘And we should get a move on.’
The two of them said their goodbyes – getting hugs from everyone – and headed towards the locker room so Jake could shower. Jake was walking very briskly.
‘What’s the hurry?’ Theo asked. They had a while before they needed to be on the road.
Jake stopped in front of a door and tested the handle. It opened, and Theo saw a dingy room full of assorted equipment.
‘Great,’ Jake said, opening the door wider. ‘Come here.’
‘What are —’ Theo didn’t get the rest of the question out, because Jake had pulled him into the room and shoved him up against the door, and by then Theo knewexactlywhat he was doing.
He didn’t have any complaints.
Jake felt like his heart was still going a bit too fast, bouncing up and down under his ribs as they set off on the drive. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it. He hadn’t reallymeantto do it, the words had just come out. And now he had the same jittery feeling he got after a good win – too much energy to contain.
Maybe it had been spending time with the AFLW players, seeing how open they could be, how they joked about queerness. Maybe it had been every stinging reference to him being a greatally. Maybe it had been that he didn’t want to keep lying, not to them, even just one ongoing lie of omission. Maybe it had just felt safe.
He glanced across at Stavs in the passenger seat. He was still smiling in the dopey way that meant Jake had won at sex, his head tipped back against the headrest.
He’d actually thought Stavs was going to bail on coming with him to Phillip Island. He’d seemed stressed about the whole idea. But he hadn’t bailed, and maybe a little bit of the excitement was the thought of having Stavs in the place that would always be home. A niggly part of Jake said that they should reallytalkabout this, because whatever they were doing was not just fuck buddies, but Jake was ignoring that. Why risk messing up a good thing by talking about it?
They stopped at Jake’s favourite bakery on the way, and Jake overcame Stavs’ resistance to a vanilla slice.
‘It’s yellow,’ Stavs said, giving it an experimental poke. The custard jiggled.
They’d taken their haul down to the inlet to eat. It was a spot where Jake had memories on top of memories: eating lamingtons here with his mum, eating doughnuts with Keeley, chilling out with his mates and pissing off anyone trying to have a nice, quiet time.
‘They’re supposed to be yellow.’
‘This is not a colour found in nature, unless nature is very ill.’
‘Just eat the slice.’
Stavs did eat the slice, though he also insisted he’d take Jake to some Egyptian bakery to learn about proper baking. Jake liked the idea so much that he almost forgot to defend Mrs O’Hara’s Country Bakery. Liked the idea of going with Stavs to a place that was important tohim. The way Stavs would look while he explained to Jake why his baked things were superior.
Occasionally, these sort of moments made Jake reflect that he might be a bit fucked.
Stavs was quiet in the car, but he seemed peaceful. He didn’t even try to skip the K-pop on Jake’s playlist.
‘I wrecked my first car there,’ Jake said as they came around a sweeping bend. ‘Driving back after a game when I was sixteen. Fucked up some ribs.’
He shouldn’t have been driving unsupervised at all – when his ride to the game fell through, he’d stuck P-plates on instead of his Ls and taken the chance that his mum wouldn’t catch him.
Stavs glanced across, frowning. ‘Yeah?’
Jake thought about it every time he drove down this part of the road. He didn’t really remember the minutes before it, just how tired he’d been, driving with both windows down andNickelback playing, telling himself to stay awake, too young and stupid to just pull over.
‘I was playing for the Dandenong Dragons, so it was a couple of hours both ways. I usually got a lift, but there was this one night where the game got delayed and then I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. I woke up when the tyres hit the gravel, just in time to feel my ribs crack.’
Stavs winced.
‘After that I used to stay with mates, or someone would come and get me. Keeley used to, sometimes, and then sometimes ... sometimes Kyle would drive me and Olly, his brother. He used to bitch about it, but I think he liked it.’
‘Because he got to spend time with you?’
Jake snorted. ‘No, because he liked to be a martyr.’ That was probably unfair. It had been nice of him.
