Page 6 of After the Siren
Chapter Two
Jake Cunningham was not a punctual person. But he hadn’t been late to a footy commitment since under-12s, when his coach had benched him for missing the team bus. Shivering in the rain through four grim quarters had made an impression. As had the 45-minute lecture his mum had delivered in their car on the way to the ground. If it had been anything else, Debbie Cunningham would have refused to give him a lift to teach him a lesson. But football came first.
He’d left himself plenty of time to get to the pre-season camp bus: time to go back for the charger he knew he’d forget, time for the traffic, time to get coffees. Just not time to get rear-ended at the lights by some dickwad in a Porsche Cayenne who was too busy texting to brake.
It wasn’t a bad ding, but the dickwad had taken one look at Jake and decided that he could be bullied. So Jake had to waste time while an asshole in an expensive suit (probably? Who fucking knew, all suits looked the same) tried to convince Jake that the accident had been Jake’s fault. As though Jake hadn’t been stationary at the lights, minding his own business.
On any other day, he would have been pissed about his ute. Hewaspissed about his ute, but he was mainly pissed that he was going to be late. And because he’d already picked up the coffees,he was going to look like an asshole who’d stopped for coffee even when he was late. At least it wasn’t his first season. If it had been, he might have had to ditch the coffees.
These last three weeks, the prospect of development camp had been the sunshine at the end of a really shitty tunnel, but this was not a good start.
Because the universe was against him, the radio was also playing a morning interview with Randy Jones, the Falcons CEO, about the topic of the week: Pride Round. That would have been bad enough, but then they’d gotten onto why there weren’t any out AFL players.
‘Statistically, there must be queer players,’ the host was saying. ‘So that begs the question, why haven’t they come out?’
‘Well, Theresa,’ Randy said, ‘people are entitled to keep their private lives private. Speaking about the Falcons specifically, we pride ourselves on being a welcoming club. I’m sure if we had any gay players, they’d know they could come out if they wanted to.’ Jake forced himself to relax his hands on the steering wheel. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard it before.
Theresa made a sceptical noise. ‘A lot of the queer players in the ALFW have spoken about the homophobic abuse they’ve received, especially online. Isn’t it likely that AFL players would be concerned about the reception?’
Randy chuckled. ‘Everyone always has a lot to say online, but our players are used to that type of chatter. No, Theresa, if they wanted to be out, they’d be out.’
Jake’s phone started to ring, cutting out the radio so Siri could say ‘Johnny heart-emoji drip-emoji leaf-emoji Xenos’.
He hit the bluetooth answer button. ‘Yeah?’
‘Where are you?’ Xen had never been late to anything. First in the rooms, first on the field, usually the last to leave. Xen would have left enough time to get coffeeandhave a minor car accident.
‘Some asshole rear-ended me at the lights, I’m ten away.’
‘Shit, you good?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Car okay?’
‘Bit banged up, but drivable.’
‘I’ll tell Kat what happened.’ Kat Lloyd was the Falcons’ new development coach, and the person who had the authority to tell the bus driver to leave without Jake. She’d also known Jake since he was a toddler, but that just made her less likely to show mercy.
The Falcons senior coach, Jarrod Davies (Davo since his playing days), would come down for a couple of days of camp, but he liked to let the junior coaching staff handle development camp and all the chaos that came with it.
‘Xen thought maybe you’d gotten ... distracted on the way out the door.’ Padraic Riley’s Irish accent was unmistakable. Jake could imagine him sitting next to Xen on the bus, jostling Xen out of the way to talk into his phone.
‘I fucking wish, Paddy.’
Jake and Kyle had been planning to spend the week before camp in Melbourne, before Kyle went back to Canberra. They were going to chill in parks, go for walks, drink coffee. Book a fancy hotel. Be boyfriends. Probably see some pretentious play that Jake wouldn’t understand. Have a lot of sex on sheets Jake wouldn’t need to worry about washing.
It would have been nice.
‘We’ll let you drive,’ Xen said. ‘See you soon.’
‘Thanks, bro.’
Jake ended the call and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was going to have to tell Xen and Paddy about the break-up. Soon. He should rip that band-aid off, but he’d always been more of a soak-it-in-water kind of guy.
They’d both been delighted when he and Kyle had started dating. Jake had known Kyle for years – initially as his friend Olly’s cool older brother, then as the subject of a crippling crush, then as someone who’d started to pay Jake a lot more attention than he’d expected. Olly and Kyle had lived in a big house in Woolamai with their immaculately dressed parents and the kind of couches you weren’t actually supposed to sit on.
Jake caught every possible red light, but managed to swing into his parking space only seven minutes late. He hauled his stuff out of the back seat and headed for the team bus. It wasn’t possible to run with two duffel bags, a tray of coffees and a surfboard, but he managed to get up a fast waddle. Kat was leaning against the side as he approached. She pointedly checked her watch, but then she came over to help him with the board.
