11. 11

11

T he cobbled stone courtyard out the back of Jack’s place was packed with their Indigenous teammates and their wives and girlfriends, kids, Jack’s sisters—all four of them—also with their husbands and kids in tow. These four statuesque women who were the female versions of Jack—blonde, tan, blue eyed—alongside the brothers, it was like a catalogue for multiculturalism—the brains trust behind Harmony Day would be pleased, Sean thought and laughed to himself. He remembered Jack saying something about a Dutch grandfather mixed in with an English and Irish background, which probably explained the height and nice skin. As he sipped on a light beer, he listened to Ben tell him about his kid’s absolute refusal to take pain medication, how he’d tried to bargain with him, begged him, held him down and poured it down his throat when the kid was running a fever and screaming in pain.

“Maybe you shoulda just given him a choice,” Sean said.

“Right, yeah, what a bloody brilliant idea,” Ben said. “You know what? That’s such a brain trust idea, I’m gonna remind you of it when you got a two-year-old who won’t drink Panadol. I’m gonna bloody remind you of it.”

Sean laughed to hide his surprise. Ben still didn’t know he was gay? Before he’d lost his memories, he remembered wanting to tell him, waiting for the right time, wanting at least one person he was close to, the person he lived with, to be in on this secret he’d lived by himself beyond those few furtive, nameless hook-ups.

He scanned the yard and saw Jack talking with one of his sisters, the youngest one, the lawyer, Annie. Jack had told him Annie was six when he was born—a surprise for their parents—and Annie had insisted Jack was her baby. There was a closeness in the way they stood together, set apart from everyone else, heads bent close, Jack smiling as she spoke and waved her free hand around, the other one gripping a glass of white wine. All of them had greeted Sean like they knew him, liked him, ribbed him about putting up with Jack like it was a well-worn path of conversation before smiling carefully, almost apologetically, like they’d been told to be considerate of everything Sean couldn’t remember.

Jack had leapt into action when Sean had asked why they didn’t have anyone over, and now here they were on the following Sunday, everyone Jack said normally came round for a BBQ or a meal at least once a month in Jack’s backyard.

It was a good crowd and Sean could feel the familiar groove between them all. They talked like they were picking up conversations, not getting to know one another, and he liked it, the warmth between them, but he was uncomfortable too.

“All good?” Jack appeared in front of him and asked with a concerned smile. “You need another beer?”

“Nah, I’ll sit on this one, ta,” Sean tried to smile reassuringly.

Jack frowned and Sean realised why he hadn’t organised this, or resumed this, sooner. He’d known it’d be a lot.

“Wanna come inside for a sec and give me a hand with the salads?” Jack asked.

Ben scoffed. “How’s he gonna help you?”

“I got a busted leg and head, but my hands work just fine,” Sean got up.

Once they were in the kitchen, the buzz of voices from outside audible and discernible but far enough away to let Sean take a breath, to feel hidden in the coolness, in the relative darkness of the kitchen, he exhaled and leaned against the bench.

“You doin’ alright? No one will care if you gotta like, go lie down or something,” Jack said, busying himself with getting stuff out of the fridge.

“Yeah, nah, I’ll be alright,” he said as he watched him. “Thanks,” he said once Jack had lined everything up on the bench, cling wrap pulled back and serving spoons inside green salads, a potato salad, some kind of baked dish he’d pulled out of the oven, and a bowl of pasta salad. His sisters and the guys’ missus didn’t mess around with bringing the food.

“For what?” Jack smiled over at him.

“For gettin’ me in here for a sec,” Sean replied, eyes on the food.

Jack came closer and rested his hand on Sean’s bicep. He looked up and met Jack’s eyes. He wanted to lean up and kiss him—he wondered what everyone outside would think if they walked in and saw them kissing. He had the feeling no one knew they were fucking. And he didn’t know if Jack’s sisters knew he was gay, but he got the impression none of their teammates knew.

“Seriously, no one’s gonna care if you need to take a breather,” Jack said again and squeezed, eyes searching Sean’s. “Sarah says you’re doing amazing, says most people would not be handling this so well.”

Sarah was the second eldest sister, doctor, orthopaedic; she’d given Sean a warm smile when they met earlier and peered at him closely. But then he’d felt like Amy, the veterinarian, peered at him pretty closely too. Even the lawyer, Annie, sized him up, made him wonder if maybe she did know what him and Jack were up to. The only one who didn’t try to peer inside him was the oldest, Helen, the History Professor, she just smiled warmly, shook his hand and started talking about the Port Authority trying to encroach on more land, steal more of the beach. She was at least forty-odd, beauty undimmed by the soft wrinkles around her eyes and a single streak of grey in her long, blonde hair.

“Nah, this is really good,” Sean replied, “back to normal, right?”

Jack squeezed his arm, a little tighter this time, searched his eyes like he was looking for something but then let go and started getting utensils out. “Yeah,” he said, distracted. “But look, if you need a breather, just ask me to come help you find the spirits.”

“We’re gonna get that pissed?”

“No,” Jack smiled over at him, “it’s a code we use if we wanna leave somewhere. We say we’re really feeling it for a vodka or we wanna hit the spirits. It means we want to go. Because, well, you know, we never really drink spirits.”

Sean huffed a laugh. They had a code?

“That happens a lot?” Sean asked around a smile. It still felt weird smiling in Jack’s direction, but he loved the way it made Jack smile helplessly back like he was surprised, so he could deal with the discomfort.

Jack did smile back, but then he did that thing where it seemed like he was about to say one thing and decided to say another. “Yeah, we’re not big on sponsor events or shutting it down anymore, you know how it is.”

Sean did not know—since when had they ever been into shutting it down? And he enjoyed sponsor events as much as the next player, which was not at all, but they had mandatory hours to put in. Guys like Patrick Marley, Jack’s closest mate on the team, were into it because they had their eye on getting work after they retired, but aside from that how many more ways could you ask some bloke how the mining refinery, or whatever they called it, was going— Hey, how’s that big fuckin’ hole you dug on native land turning out? Good? Great. Fuck you. So, no, Sean didn’t like social functions. He still knew Jack had given him half an answer.

Jack glanced up, his job in the kitchen done, and he must’ve read something on Sean’s face because he dropped that guard and said with a flirtatious smile that looked nervous, “We got better things to do.”

Sean choked out a laugh. They bailed to go fuck? It was the first time it’d come up again since their talk. He could barely picture it—Jack sidling up to him and asking if he’d like a screwdriver, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

“C’mon,” Jack said now, blush rising on his throat, “Mark’s definitely gonna burn the shit out of everything if we don’t call it now,” he brushed Sean’s side as he went by. “Amy’s husband,” he finished unobtrusively, just a gentle reminder because he knew Sean would need help with the names of a bunch of new people. He couldn’t believe he’d missed how good Jack was at that—kind without being obvious about it; he had a real knack for seeing shit from Sean’s point of view, knowing Sean wouldn’t want him to point out that he didn’t know but knowing he needed to know.

“Yeah, ‘kay,” Sean replied, feeling better, and followed him out.

He almost spat his mouthful across the table when Ben said, “You guys must be goin’ stir crazy not bein’ able to do your usual shit, eh?”

Sean managed to swallow carefully and reply, “What?” because surely Ben wasn’t referring to their sex life—maybe he did know?—in front of their teammates and Jack’s family assembled the length of the table, the dining table adjoined to the outdoor table that Jack had dragged inside and made into a dining area by pushing the couch out of the way, done it like he’d done it many times before, Lola trotting in and out with him, tail wagging like she knew what this meant. And Sean watched as the kids dropped food on the floor for her, giggled as she lapped it up, and knew she knew this is exactly what Jack moving the furniture meant.

“You know, you guys always out and about, kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, doin’ shit,” Ben said, nods and murmurs of assent from the rest of the table.

“We’ve been keeping plenty busy with cards. Sean’s a total shark,” Jack said and smiled at him. He was at the head of the table, Sean at the other end.

“We go rock climbing?” Sean asked and felt self-conscious. He knew he didn’t know huge chunks of his life, but he tried to hide it. Except this one demanded an answer.

“Yeah,” Jack smiled again, but something was off and Sean didn’t think anyone else would notice it.

“And Campbell doesn’t do his nut about us getting injured?” he asked and everyone laughed.

“Well, it’s not like we tell him,” Jack replied, smile pleasant enough but not quite honest either.

“Where in the fuck do we go rock climbing?” Sean asked, his embarrassment momentarily forgotten under the weight of wondering. It’s not like there were any mountains.

Jack shifted in his chair, took a sip of his beer. “Different places,” he said.

“Haven’t they opened up that new training place in Cockburn?” Annie asked. “I was thinking of getting the girls into it once they’re older. I think it’ll be good when they want to travel. Imagine climbing some of those peaks we saw in that show. What was that show we watched, Chris?” she asked her husband and the conversation moved on to some show about people getting stuck on mountains and having terrible falls. Sean wondered at that show inspiring her to get her kids climbing, but then she seemed to have the same sincerity as Jack; it’s like they missed all the dangers of the world and only saw the positives, the potential for beauty and fun, as if because of what happened to their parents, or maybe in spite of it. Or maybe they’d always been like this—growing up with their charmed lives in Peppermint Grove, attending prestigious private schools, oblivious to the world beyond what parents who had been a professor, the dad, and a doctor, the mother, had shown them. He didn’t miss that Jack never answered the question.

They were onto dessert, the afternoon sunshine streaking the long table in shadowed light, fruit salads, a pavlova, and a lemon cheesecake at the centre as everyone served, when Amy asked Jack how Finn was going with his son.

“Finn has a kid?” Sean asked in another moment of surprise, self-consciousness again forgotten—Finn was practically a kid himself.

“Oh yeah,” Ben laughed heartily before Jack could reply, “you’re gonna love this. He’s got a kid with Creed.”

“George Creed?” he asked and was about to crack up like it was a joke when Ben went on, “Finn got outed big time, which was like everywhere and we were all like, he’s gay? But then it got even bigger when Creed came out as his boyfriend and married him a couple of months later.”

Sean stared at him, certain he was joking. Amy picked up the conversation asking how old the kid was now, and Bleaker mused that Flynn was even better since he became a dad, while Chris reckoned George moving up to Sydney was the reason they were looking better last season.

He looked up and Jack was watching him. Sean couldn’t help frowning—he felt like this was information he should’ve been given. There were two out players and they had a kid? He wanted to tell Jack he should’ve led with that when Sean was conscious and willing enough to have a conversation with him.

“Sorry,” Jack said now, his voice carrying down the length of the table.

Sean wasn’t sure what he was apologising for—not telling him? Letting him, a fellow gay player, find out like this in the midst of a group of people he was pretty sure didn’t know he was gay?

“Oh man,” Ben said to Sean, “you gotta look up their wedding photos. It was in Vogue .”

“Jack’s got pictures,” Helen said.

“You went to the wedding?” Sean asked, his brain still struggling to process the information.

“Yes,” Jack nodded, he looked like he really wanted to change the subject but it was like a herd of bolted horses—charging in multiple directions as voices overlapped discussing how the league had been good to them, how Finn and George were great ambassadors for the gays, how there were still pockets on the internet calling for them to be hounded out of the game, the country, how good it was that none of that shit happened on the field.

It was only Bobby, sitting to Sean’s right, who muttered to him, “None of this was ‘ere when it was just us blackfellas, eh?”

Sean kept his expression neutral and hated himself a bit when he murmured, “Yeah,” in reply. He’d heard it before—the assumption that traditional life had been free of gays and saw no point countering it with the argument that 60,000 years of living here and not a single gay person was impossible, so he let it slide like he always did, felt ashamed as he burrowed ever more deeply into his safe closet.

He didn’t count on Matty Tampu listening in. “We had the sista girls since before the white man come,” he said softly, “ain’t just a white man thing.”

Bobby argued that was different, that was just men dressing up as chicks, but Tampu shook his head, “Them sista girls always been takin’ a man, no problem. Always thataway. Only become a problem for them when those whitefellas bring their religion.”

Sean rubbed his forehead and hoped he didn’t look as uncomfortable as he felt. He had no problem with sista girls—the men who were really women on the inside and dressed like it on the outside—but he hated this conversation occurring so close to him.

“I think I need a rum and coke,” Sean said.

Jack sprung up from the other end of the table and Sean startled. Right, they had a code. He really wanted the drink. He started laughing, a hysterical noise bubbling out of him; Ben looked his way and cracked up, unsure at first but then heartily, the other brothers joining in.

Jack was next to him. “You wanna lay down?” he asked before looking at everyone. “I think it’s time to call it.”

“No, no,” Sean tapped his side. “I’m good, but I really could do with a proper drink.”

“Oh,” Jack said and smiled down at him. “Alright, sorry,” he lowered his voice. “I would’ve told you but I really hadn’t thought of it.”

“You really went to their wedding?” Sean asked.

“Well, yeah, Finn’s one of my best mates and George finally forgave me,” he smiled like he was still relieved, and Sean remembered how pissed off George had been about the trade back West—requested by Jack to be close to his family and his desire to play at home—and he’d been surprised at the time at how Creed hadn’t even softened his disappointment when asked about it by the media. He’d known, in an idle way, that Jack had been hurt by that, but he saw in his relieved smile now how deeply hurt he’d been by it.

“And you didn’t ask me?” he asked jokingly.

But Jack was serious when he replied. “I did actually. You said no.”

Before Sean could follow up, Ben was off again, “You coulda gone and you turned it down? Wasn’t it like, a whole week in Byron? Sean mate, you’re a fuckin’ clown.”

“Hey, fuck you, maybe I had better shit to do.”

A rum and diet coke appeared in front of him while he defended a life choice he didn’t remember making.

By the time everyone left, Sean was buzzed and exhausted. Jack’s sisters had stayed and helped Jack clean up while Sean supervised the kids playing with Lola out the back.

“All good?” Jack asked, his hand coming to rest on Sean’s shoulder.

“Did you really ask me to come to the wedding with you?” Sean looked up as he asked.

Jack seemed surprised. It was an abrupt question, Sean knew. “Yeah, course,” Jack answered.

“Wouldn’t that’ve been weird? Shouldn’t you of brought, like, a date?” his warm smile, floating on the booze, turned down at the thought of it. He could imagine the kind of guy Jack would date—and hell, if he was going to a gay wedding, he could certainly bring a gay date, couldn’t he? He’d be some handsome fucker, maybe a suit with shiny hair and blue eyes, a sleek body and clear skin, something professional like all the men his sisters were married to—a stockbroker (Helen), prison psychologist (Annie), a paediatrician (Sarah), and another veterinarian (Amy).

Jack shook his head and dropped his hand, but not before giving Sean a gentle squeeze. “Nah, nothing unusual about bringing my favourite teammate.”

Sean flinched inwardly. He wanted to ask why he’d said no. He liked all those blokes, liked Finn and George as much as he knew them, and he liked the beach.

“You need a hand?” Jack asked, picking his crutches up.

“Do we really go rock climbing?”

Jack flicked his eyes up, assessing, before he shook his head and smiled, rueful yet mischievous. “Nah, we just say that when people ask what we got up to on our days off.”

“What do we really get up to?”

Jack raised both eyebrows pointedly.

“No way,” Sean breathed.

“Way,” Jack reiterated.

“All day?” Sean asked and let Jack tug him to his feet and get his crutches into position. He felt Jack’s snort of laughter ruffle his hair.

“Well, sometimes we take a stroll along the beach as well. Get a surf in.”

Jack stepped back, but remained close enough to step in if Sean stumbled. Sean shook his head with a laugh while Jack smiled smugly back at him. The moment shifted, the humour dissipating the longer they stood close together.

If they were going to do it, Sean thought, they were going to do it now. He felt the press of the crutches under his armpits, tightened and released his hands on the grips. Jack watched him, in it with him for a moment.

“Jack—”

“You should sit,” Jack stepped back to make room. “On the couch, I mean, elevate your leg.”

Sean exhaled and tried to find his patience. He wasn’t going to jump Jack—like he could in his state, Jack really would have to come to him—but he was sick of Jack looking at him like he was waiting for something before extinguishing it so quickly Sean had to wonder if he’d imagined it, if he was projecting. He felt the agitation coming on, the mood swings that accompanied not knowing what the fuck was going on half the time, and powered by Jack with an irritated huff.

“I’m not gonna like, bully ya into lettin’ me fuck you, ya know. So you can just stop with the sad lady act,” he snapped.

Jack sucked in a sharp breath. “Sean,” he said on the exhale.

Sean tossed his crutches aside once he was in front of the couch and they clattered to the floor. Lola sprang up and darted to the side from where she’d been sleeping on her bed.

“Shit, sorry, girl,” he hopped and levered himself down. She wasn’t in the firing line, but guilt seared through him for startling her.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He could feel Jack hovering in front of him. Sean’s buzz was fading into a dull headache and he couldn’t deal with him right now.

He listened to Jack’s laboured breathing and wondered if he should take some pain medication or if it’d be a bad idea with the booze.

“I want it so bad, it’s driving me fucking crazy,” Jack whispered.

Sean’s eyes snapped open. Jack was standing near the armchair, eyes on the floor, his hand holding his arm tightly across his chest. He was breathing heavily, and in that moment, Sean saw what it cost him to say that. His own breathing ramped up, the charge between them eclipsing what it had been before. His heart was hammering and he was too scared to speak; he felt like something would break if he did.

Jack flicked his eyes up and held Sean’s gaze. He swallowed and Sean could see it—he was scared. Of what, Sean didn’t know. Of him?

“I’d never hurt you,” Sean said even though as far as he remembered, he had and he did, regularly; but he meant, he’d never hurt Jack if they fucked.

Jack nodded jerkily, looked away.

“You don’t believe me,” Sean said.

“It’s not that,” Jack said, eyes trained on the wall. “I know you wouldn’t, you never have even when we were… rougher.”

Sean nodded. He looked at Jack now in another white t-shirt, khaki shorts, his thighs thick with muscle, the tan fading because he wasn’t surfing, his chest rising and falling under his forearm crossed over his chest, his handsome face open and vulnerable as he looked away, eyes caught in the distance yet somehow stuck here, and he knew he’d have wanted to make it good in a way that bordered on deranged. He’d have wanted to make sure Jack felt it for days, wanted him to feel taken in a way he’d never felt. He looked at him in the way he’d been doing since that night in the kitchen—a man assessing another man and knowing he’d about kill to get his hands all over him.

He could hear his breathing, hear Jack’s.

“But,” Jack met his eyes again, “it’s like, I don’t wanna take advantage of you.”

Sean laughed, an abrupt sound. “I reckon that’s the other way round, eh? I don’t see you tryin’ to get it all the time.”

Jack was already shaking his head. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not, I’d never lie to you, but, well, you hate me—”

“No, I don’t reckon I do anymore. I told you, I believe you.”

“Yeah, but, it’s like I’m trying to jump you ahead and it feels … it feels wrong. Stuff happened to get us to that.”

“Stuff’s happening now.”

“Yeah, but, not like it did then,” Jack shifted his feet, stood taller as if he’d found an equilibrium in the conversation.

“And if I never get my memory back?”

Jack blanched like the thought had never crossed his mind.

An ache settled in Sean’s chest. He saw the grief in Jack’s face and he resented the person he’d been for Jack; future Sean, friend Sean, fuck buddy Sean, some guy who got all that.

“Don’t say that,” Jack said.

“But it’s true,” Sean insisted. “I might not, I probably won’t. And we gotta deal with that. I mean, it’s not like we’re really friends now. We might never be again.”

“Don’t say that,” Jack repeated, angry now. “Whatever else we did aside, we’re always gonna be best mates.”

“Do you feel like you’re my best mate?” Sean asked.

“Yes,” Jack replied without hesitation.

Sean looked down and ran the material of his shirt through his fingers. “I don’t,” he said quietly. “I can see all the stuff we’re doin’ is like mates’ stuff, but it doesn’t feel real. I feel like a tourist in someone else’s life.”

“I…” Jack’s voice faded and then there was just their breathing in the living room, the distant sound of traffic on a Sunday afternoon.

When Jack spoke again it was to ask if he wanted some leftovers for dinner and Sean said no and went to bed. He lay awake, listening to Jack shutting the house down for the night, the creak of the floorboards as he padded past Sean’s door in his bare feet, the soft click of his bedroom door shutting. He felt that body on the other side of the wall as if Jack were right beside him, and he wanted to tug him close, even though Jack felt like someone between an acquaintance and a colleague he once couldn’t stand but had begrudgingly gotten used to. He didn’t feel the heat of the anger anymore, he couldn’t, not with the way Jack took care of him, not with how he’d gotten to know Jack up close and seen what a bloody good guy he was. His mind felt awkward at wanting to tug that body close, but his body wanted it in a way that felt right.