3. 3

3

T he house’s windows glowed with warm lights beyond the thick wall that ran around the perimeter, the blocks the same as the convict prison not a few hundred metres away as the crow flies. Bougainvillea, bloated and pink, spilled over the wall, a little gate of ornate black iron spared at the centre.

“It’s gonna be a bit awkward with the chair,” Jack said. Sean looked away from the house at his tone—Jack wanted to say something else and this was the comment leading to it. This drove Sean crazy—he’d always wanted to shout at him, ‘Just say it! Just fucking say it!’ But when he’d told Ben that, after watching Jack have a particularly agonising conversation with their coach, Jack tiptoeing around what he’d wanted to come out and simply ask— could they try him more forward rather than midfield? —Sean had sat on the carpeted floor of the locker room, stretching, eyes fixed on the circling conversation and ready to tear his hair out at the painfulness of it, but when he’d complained to Ben about it when they got home, Ben had looked at him incredulously. “Everyone talks to Hurley like that,” he’d said like Sean was dense. “Can’t just come out and ask, come on.”

“Well maybe, but it’s the way Jack does it,” Sean said.

“Why’ve you got such a hard on for the bloke?” Ben replied with a laugh.

Sean spluttered, told Ben he fucking well knew why and that wasn’t the point right now.

But now, listening to Jack explain how difficult it would be to get the chair up the porch steps, how he’d get a ramp installed tomorrow, he’d called the club for help, Sean had to stop him.

“Just fuckin’ say it,” he said, less heat in his voice than usual since he was drugged pretty good on the pain meds.

Jack tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, I just think it’ll be easier if I carry you if you think you’d be okay with that.”

This would not be the quick lift he’d done at the hospital and the apartment—it’d be a bit of a walk to get him inside. When they’d been that close before—right before Sean’s accident as far as he remembered—he’d been conflicted about it. He was conflicted about it now. He’d been furious, shoving Jack against his locker, his bare chest pressing violently against the buttons of Jack’s dress shirt. But anger wasn’t the only thing he’d felt. He flushed at the memory of it.

“Fuck, whatever’s gonna get me horizontal fastest, I don’t care.”

“Oh right, of course, sorry,” Jack got out before sticking his head back in. “I’ll just open up so we don’t have to fumble at the door. Be back in a sec.”

And then he was gone with a soft click of the car door. Sean closed his eyes.

Scratches on the metal to his left and a tap of nails on the glass roused him.

“Lola, no,” Jack said, muffled from the other side of the window.

The door opened and a black dog stuck her snout against him, pressed it up and down his pant leg quickly, sniffing with short bursts and chuffing sounds as her body wriggled wildly.

“Sorry,” Jack said with a fond smile for the dog. “She missed you.”

Sean reached down to pat her and she licked his hand, whined, her wide brown eyes dancing up at him. He laughed. “She’s a nice dog.”

He glanced up at Jack with a smile, which, as far as he could remember, was the only smile he’d ever given him if he didn’t count the way he smiled when they first met. But Jack wasn’t smiling, and while Sean watched him more than he watched anyone else, he wasn’t able to name the expression on his face.

Jack nudged Lola back with a gentle command and said, “Ready?”

Sean grunted. Jack slid a hand under his thighs, the other one around his mid back. “Arms around my neck,” he said, all business, and Sean complied.

He was up and in Jack’s arms a lot faster than he thought he would be, Lola jumping up, barking and trotting alongside them. Sean’s head bumped against Jack’s shoulder as he laughed at her. He was definitely high from the pain meds. Jack snorted a breath and it whistled over Sean’s head. His throat was right there, his Adam’s apple bobbing under thick, tanned skin as he swallowed, the strain evident in his short breaths, the feel of his arm muscles bunching and releasing around Sean’s thighs and back.

They were in a hallway, the floorboards polished wood, the walls covered in framed photos and art; it smelled like incense, scented candles, like the memory of cooking. Jack adjusted him in his arms and Sean held tighter around his neck, his clasped hands bumping against Jack’s shoulder blade. Jack smelled like a memory too; Sean didn’t think he’d catalogued his smell so distinctly, but he clearly had. He knew this smell and this feeling. He knew that fight had been bad, but for it to have stuck so brilliantly alive for more than two years when everything else was lost to him didn’t make sense. Unless it was sharp because it was the last thing he remembered. The scent of his deodorant on his skin, his sweat—it was vivid in a way nothing else was.

“Couch,” Jack said, his voice strained. As he levered Sean down, he mumbled about helping him to bed later, apologised for the smell of the place, explaining that his sisters brought over scented candles and incense to cover the smell of dog, which he didn’t actually mind but they were not worth arguing with.

Jack stepped back and Lola jumped up onto Sean’s chest, broken ribs side. Sean hissed.

“Lola, no,” Jack lunged for her.

“She’s alright,” Sean said around the pain, his arm on his good side waving Jack off.

“Hey, girl,” he said softly.

She nosed him gently, her intelligent eyes sussing out the situation. She was an Australian kelpie, black fur with tan on her snout, paws and ears.

“Sorry,” Jack said, “you’ve always been her favourite, but I can get her to sit on her bed if she’s too much.”

Lola seemed to ascertain he was hurt and carefully manoeuvred herself to his other side, gently walked up until she could rest her head on his chest, tuck her body against his side. Sean’s hand came up automatically and patted her between the ears. She slipped her eyes closed.

“How old is she?” Sean whispered.

“One and a bit,” Jack said in a weird voice that matched the weirdness on his face earlier.

Sean looked up. Jack smiled tightly at him like he’d been caught doing something.

“I’ll get your room ready,” he said and headed for the hallway.

“Shouldn’t my room be ready if I live here?” Sean called after him.

“Yeah, course, but you’ll need fresh sheets and stuff,” Jack waved a hand over his head and disappeared.

“He’s a bloody weirdo,” Sean murmured to Lola.

He heard the distinct, rhythmic call of a couple of ringneck parrots—doomolok in their language. Out the back of Jack’s place, a cluster of enormous old trees flanked the rear wall and there, though he couldn’t see them, were the ringnecks. He was surprised to hear them this far into the city—they were everywhere back home and in the hills, but not so plentiful down here since urbanisation. As he slipped his eyes closed, his hand buried in Lola’s fur, his last thought before he drifted off was of his mum, there in the presence of the doomoloks, letting him know he was safe to let go and sleep.