26. 26

26

I t’d been Sean who’d started texting Jack again. Another fact of their past Jack hadn’t told him. It was the week after they’d lost the preliminary final, the end of their first season as teammates, though Jack had felt less animosity from their opposition than his supposed teammate. Jack had posted a workout video on his socials—he wasn’t Finn, he didn’t know how to give the camera the shy yet knowing smiles, the look from under his lashes, the thirst traps that meant Finn’s social media numbers weren’t just down to his ridiculous abs. But Jack did try and put some helpful content out there for fellow footy players and younger guys. And women; he had a lot of female followers—there were as many good female athletes out there as men—he followed a lot of them himself, knew a lot of them. He usually posted training tips, nutrition tips. It’d only been up for an hour or so when his phone buzzed.

Sean Hiller lit up his screen as the contact and he almost dropped the phone in his haste to pick it up. He stopped just as he was about to slide the message open—what if it was an insult? It was definitely an insult. Sean had been radio-silent on his phone for years and even leaving aside what happened in the locker room, there was no way Sean was texting him something nice. He held his phone, stared at the little notification, the green box with Sean Hiller staring up at him until the screen went dark.

How much worse could it be though? Compared to all the other shit over the season. And after what’d happened… maybe there was hope.

He tapped his phone and opened the message.

Nice thirst trap .

Jack blinked. Was that sarcasm? Of course it was fucking sarcasm. He huffed a laugh. Of all the things he imagined Sean sending him after all these years, it wasn’t an insult toeing the line of humour. Unless it was an insult? But, no, he didn’t think so. Still, he was hardly posting thirst traps—him lifting a barbell in the gym in shorts and a singlet, sweaty and heaving, was not something people got all worked up about.

Thirst trap , he wrote back and added a laughing emoji. Nice one .

He hit send and saw the read notification appear immediately. His heart was pounding, his stomach filling with butterflies as he watched the text bubble pop up as Sean typed.

Mate, that’s a fuckin thirst trap. Who u tryin to pull?

Jack blushed and thought: you .

Except that was ludicrous. He wasn’t posting sexy content. He chuckled, bit his lip, and wondered how to reply. Honesty usually worked.

It’s a workout tip , he wrote. Got a lot of young followers .

He hit send and got an immediate screaming laughing emoji for his troubles.

Followed by: I bet u do .

Then: ur form sucks .

Jack recoiled with further embarrassment at the implications of the first response, couldn’t help his laugh at the second.

Sean sent him a link—it was a workout video. Jack scoffed. Sean followed it up with: ur knees r gonna thank me .

Jack watched the video. Sean had a point.

He typed a quick thank you .

And got an eye roll in reply. He waited for more, but there was nothing.

He’d followed all of Sean’s socials for years, careful not to like anything lest he piss him off, so he knew Sean didn’t post anything workout-related. He didn’t post much at all. Just the odd picture of him and his mates and family at a BBQ or fishing or out hiking somewhere in the offseason. He clicked over to them now to see if he could find anything to keep the conversation going. Sean’s latest post was him and his brother on top of Boyagin Rock near their hometown. Jayden had his arm outstretched to take the photo, Sean grinning under his other arm in the corner of the frame. He liked the picture and left it at that.

He’d been antsy for the next few days, wondering how he could keep it going. Sean didn’t post anything. But then Jack usually posted every few days, and he was thinking about Sean when he got his phone set up, even though he was pretending he wasn’t. There was nothing sexy about what he was about to do: he was at the athletics training facility on the running track. He used it with a few other athletes to do interval running. His outfit wasn’t sexy—loose shorts and a white singlet—and the video, if it looked any good, would just be him sprinting, coming from a distance and belting past the camera; then he’d cut it and take the clip of him doing the ten second jog before he accelerated again. He was happy with it when he watched it, and he tapped out the instructions after he uploaded the video. He was rubbing sweat off his forehead with his towel as he hit post, tucked his phone away and hit the showers.

His phone was pulsing with notifications when he opened his locker and his heart gave a hopeful thump thinking one of them might be Sean. He told himself to stop being ridiculous—Sean had his own offseason to worry about, he wasn’t sitting around waiting for Jack to post shit. His excitement overwhelmed him as he picked up the phone anyway.

“Same time next week?” came from behind him, and Jack fumbled his phone, shoved it into his gear bag like he was doing something wrong.

He looked up at the smiling face of Callahan—a runner who specialised in the ten kilometre event internationally, Olympic hopeful, and Jack’s training buddy.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he said easily.

“Cool,” Callahan smiled, “nice vid. Thanks for the shout out.”

“Yeah, course, thanks for the session,” Jack replied.

Callahan grinned, gap-toothed, winked and sauntered out with a little wave. See? Jack wanted to say to Sean, these were just workout videos, athletes appreciated them.

He pulled his phone out again, telling himself Sean wouldn’t have messaged when he saw it: a single text message notification. All the other notifications were from the socials. He slid it open, held his breath.

It was the video. Jack frowned and hit play. Sean had put slow motion on it and Jack continued to frown and then went scarlet at what the slow version emphasised—it was hard not to notice the way his dick and balls moved against the thin material of his grey shorts. Jack swallowed, mortified.

Under the video was a laughing emoji and an eggplant.

Jack didn’t know how to take it. It felt like Sean was mocking him. What felt like? He was. But Jack hadn’t intended that, and honesty was the best policy.

Shit , he wrote, I didn’t notice that. Should I take it down?

The text bubble popped up, disappeared.

Jack bit his lip and itched to go and take the damn thing down. How embarrassing. No wonder Sean was ripping into him.

The message bubble popped up again. Jack held his breath.

Ya should invest in a jock strap , was the reply.

Jack bounced his leg as shame washed through him. He was going to take it down. Another message popped up.

But nah, it’s a good tip .

And that might’ve been the nicest thing Sean had said to him since they were seventeen. It gave Jack the push to talk like they did then too.

Yeah, but, it’s kinda pornographic , he wrote and hit send.

He got an eye roll for his efforts.

Then: leave it .

And well, Jack couldn’t take it down now. But he could defend himself.

I’m not trying to post thirst traps .

He got a swift reply, none of my business what u do .

Jack frowned. He wanted it to be Sean’s business. And even though there was no good way to reply to that message, he didn’t want to leave the exchange without leaving the door open.

Okay , he typed, thanks for the heads up anyway .

The locker room was empty by the time Jack got up after waiting for a reply. He never got one.

He didn’t hear from Sean for about a month and he was too scared to initiate the contact even though he started and deleted several messages. Nothing special, just every time he saw a film and had a thought, or something happened in the footy news, or his sisters gave him shit for his workout videos like Sean did. Except not like Sean did because they didn’t suggest he was trying to get laid with them, they just said he was showing off. He really wasn’t doing any of the above and he knew, like Finn knew better than anyone else, that it was important to create a profile beyond footy if they wanted any sort of career after it. Jack had his business degree from the University of Melbourne, but unlike most graduates, he didn’t have the years of experience in an actual business. He was going to be leaving footy at some point in his thirties with nothing but the degree and his history as a player. He needed to leverage what he had.

He’d posted more videos, careful not to make his bouncing dick and balls the star of the show again (he was drenched in shame every time he thought of it), but he found himself trying to tailor the videos in ways that might draw Sean out without creating, well, semi-pornographic content.

A close-up of his face while he bench-pressed, followed by a sweeping shot down his body. Nothing from Sean.

A video of him plunging into the ice bath, re-emerging with a shocked gasp, his face, shoulders and chest launching out of the water. He’d even tested that one in slow motion, but posted it in normal time, a laughing emoji next to it and a detailed explanation of the benefits of ice baths. Still nothing.

More weight training. A quick conversation reel with Callahan about beating the wall with interval training. A rock-climbing video at the place in Cockburn. Nothing.

It was the simplest thing that prompted a response. A mirror selfie. He was in tracksuit pants and a white singlet, exhausted after a day of training, a throwaway comment about the importance of sleep.

His phone beeped when he got into bed. He expected one of his sisters, but sat upright and hit the lamp when he saw Sean’s name.

Come on. Ur literally mentioning ur BED .

Jack laughed—incredulous, hysterical, fond—and read the message again.

Not everyone has such a dirty mind , he wrote, giddy with it.

It wasn’t until Sean didn’t immediately reply that he’d thought maybe that’d been a step too far. He sat forward, cradled his phone in his hands, started to type a recant when Sean’s typing bubble popped up.

Ur flirting sucks almost as bad as ur form .

Jack laughed, his heart soaring—were they flirting? He wanted to ask, but he got the sense the only way to keep Sean talking was to keep it light.

And ur flirting game is any better? He hit send before he could second-guess himself.

Sean didn’t reply. Jack waited. He knew he’d said the wrong thing. He lay back down after a while but didn’t sleep, ears attuned to the ding of his phone, which he’d taken off do not disturb mode for Sean. It was off for his sisters, but he’d added Sean after the first message. He didn’t mind if Sean woke him up, wished he would.

It was almost midnight when his phone pinged.

Dunno, u tell me, reckon there were two of us in the locker room .

And Sean couldn’t have knocked the wind out of him more if he’d tried.