Page 63 of After the Siren
‘I’m sure fucking Jake isn’tthat—’ Paddy started.
‘Seriously, would youcan it?’ Jake hadn’t meant to sound that angry. Hadn’t realised hewasthat angry.
Paddy raised his hands again. ‘Sorry,’ he said, and Jake knew he was. Paddy wouldn’t be a dick about something like this on purpose.
‘It’s fine.’
Xen put a hand on his arm. ‘Jaze, it’s okay,’ he said. ‘It will be okay.’
‘Sure,’ Jake told him, and started on his eggs. ‘Stavs said he didn’t want it to be weird, so I’m sure it will be chill.’
He wasn’t even convincing himself.
Theo
Hi
Sorry I had to bail on breakfast, I forgot I was meeting friends
I know we didn’t talk about it this morning, but I don’t think we should hook up again. We don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen but I just want to stay focused on the team and my game, and I don’t want to mess up our friendship
To be clear, I’m not assuming you would want to hook up again, I was just thinking about it because we didn’t really clarify this morning
I had a good time
I hope you also had a good time
Well, shit.
Jake didn’t throw his phone down onto the bed, because he was an adult. He threw himself down onto the bed instead.
He was sore from a particularly brutal physio session, and he just wanted to curl up and nap. It was stupid to be in his feelings about this. Stavs had said it shouldn’t happen again. He was even right. But he’d also panted, ‘Next time,’ against Jake’s mouth, and some stupid part of Jake had gotten its hopes up.
‘I don’t want it to get weird,’ he mimicked, rolling onto his back and glaring at his phone. It had been really fucking weird. From the second Jake had arrived at the club for post-game recovery until the moment Stavs had bolted out of there. When Jake had brought Stavs a coffee, he’d looked at it like the froth might be hiding an unsolicited dick pic.
The little typing dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Disappeared.
Appeared.
Jake
its fine bro no sweat, i get it
Jake closed his phone and shoved it out of reach. He did get it. People said things after they’d just come down his throat, and then they thought better of them later.
‘Bro, what did youdo?’ Paddy asked, five days later.
For a person who hadn’t wanted to fuck up a friendship, Stavs was doing a pretty good job of fucking up a friendship. It was hard to be friends with someone who avoided being within talking distance.
Paddy was sitting with his back against one of the goal posts, drinking a smoothie. They could have gone home after themorning’s training, but it was a stunning day and the oval was empty, so they’d made snacks and headed for the goal square. Sitting near the goals always made Jake feel like he was back in school.
‘I didn’tdoanything!’
