Page 91 of Begin Again Again

“Fuck,” he repeated. “It was the final too. Grand opening, grand closing.”

Beth’s stomach swooped. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged, turning his face to the cliff where he’d jumped.

“But, I mean, have you recovered? Can you run and…?”

He looked at her and Beth saw blank, edgeless rage. She was a child who’d wandered into a secret basement and found a monster. She wanted to dive, cover her face in the water. Instead, she looked at the sky—soft and denim blue. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s your business.”

There was a long pause. Wind whistled around the rocky bowl.

Byron let out a long breath. “It doesn’t matter. And I can’t play anymore. Not on that level.”

“Could you play reserves or something?”

There was another charged pause and Beth wondered what the fuck was wrong with her.

“It’s complicated,” he told the cliff face. “I wouldn’t want to fuck up my knee and not be able to work.”

“Sure.” She grasped for a joke. “Would you consider touch? We could dominate on the field together?”

Byron didn’t smile. “Not my vibe.”

There was a definite ‘this conversation is over’ bite to Byron’s voice and Beth wasn’t a masochist. She dived, hoping the cold would purge her curiosity. She held her breath for as long as she could before rising to break the surface.

“Sorry,” he said, as soon as she popped up.

“Sorry about what?”

“Me. This conversation. It’s just…” He swiped under his left eye. “It’s another lifetime ago. Footy.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. She and Byron swam around for a bit, never far from one another but never in danger of touching. Beth had the sense that they’d moved too fast and too hard and wound up in hostile territory. In Byron, she saw all the prickly defensiveness that followed her when she ended Wine Wives. And as much as she liked him, they weren’t close enough that she felt she could comfort him.

Byron pushed a hand through the water. “So, Lara knows who I am?”

“Yeah. She’s a big footy fan. She told me who your roommate is.”

“You didn’t know who he is?”

“Who?” She did jazz hands. “Derek Hardiman?”

Byron grinned.

“No, I didn’t know who he is.”

“How did…” He cleared his throat. “How did Lara know who I was? Did she remember me playing?”

“Um, no. She looked you up. Is that a problem?”

Byron rubbed his eyebrow, feathering the hairs. “Nah it’s not that. It’s just there was a thing last year…”

“A thing?”

“Me and Derek got into some shit. My name was mostly out of it, but not everywhere. I thought maybe Lara read some stuff and that’s why she didn’t approve. Of me, I mean.”

Beth smiled at him. “So, what did you and Derek get up to? Or do I have to Google it?”

“I thought you were respecting my privacy, Horoscopes?”

---