8. 8

8

S ean hopped into the living room the next morning where he knew he’d find Jack in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, and he was determined to ask what was between them—were they together? As absurd as the thought was, more troubling was if they were, why hadn’t Jack told him?

“Morning,” Jack said brightly, the tone undermined by the bags under his bloodshot eyes, his clammy skin, but the forced cheer was there and with it the knowledge getting him to talk about this was going to be impossible.

“Mornin’,” Sean replied, rote, and hopped over to the couch. Lola looked up at him and wagged her tail. “Hey, girl,” he said and sat down next to her. She was loose and sleepy after her run and flopped her head back down with a sigh, drifting off as Sean patted her.

They had a routine now—Jack took Lola for her run, timed it so he’d be showered and preparing breakfast by the time Sean got up around seven. After breakfast, he’d help Sean get in the shower, covering the cast, handing him everything he needed before making himself scarce. Then it was whatever appointments Sean might have—carefully scheduled before noon each day so Jack could take him before he went to training at the club for the afternoon if he wasn’t doing it from home—and Sean rested, which either involved actual rest because he was shattered from the morning’s activity, or he snooped around on his phone, trying to make sense of the last two years from the internet, but that usually gave him a headache or made him confused, which made him angry, so he turned on the TV and sat with Lola until Jack got back and made them dinner. Then it was a movie or a game—cards, a board game, chess, no more puzzles—before they went to bed.

Except for last night when Jack sucked him off in the kitchen and Sean gave him a wristie. That was a new part of their routine.

“Here you go,” Jack said with a smile as he placed the dinner tray laden with Sean’s usual breakfast, lighter pain meds, coffee and juice in front of him.

“Are we lovers?” Sean asked.

Jack fumbled with the tray, eyes flicking to Sean’s, before he righted it with a mumbled, “Shit,” and stepped back hastily, his hands wiping at nothing on the front of his shorts.

“We were never lovers,” he said quickly and went back to the kitchen.

“So did I just imagine that in the kitchen last night then?” Sean called. “You suckin’ my dick? ‘Cos I don’t reckon my fantasy’s ever gone thataway before.” That was a lie, but Jack didn’t need to know that.

“You jerked me off too,” Jack retorted, his back to Sean.

“Uh, yeah? I mean it’s not a contest, but I’m just askin’, or sayin’, that wasn’t the first time, right?”

Jack sat at the table, his food in front of him. Sean was a big fan of the layout of Jack’s house—it was old, convict era, but someone had added the sunroom to the back of the original house, an extension protruding from and encompassing the kitchen, taking in the sweep of a dining room, living area with the enormous, comfy sunken couch Sean frequented, and a bathroom tucked around the side of an old wall. It was good because Sean could always see Jack from his spot on the couch—see him in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table, relaxing in the armchair, or tidying weights and Sean’s other physio things from the space opposite the couch near the large screen TV. The windows and sliding glass doors lined the space, east facing, so the morning sunshine filtered into the room through the old trees filled with lorikeets shrieking to meet the daylight—the ringnecks long gone and yet to be seen again.

It also meant Jack couldn’t hide; he could bury his face in his hair and focus on his rolled oats and fruit as if Sean hadn’t spoken, but it’s not like Sean could miss the blush rising on his cheeks, or Jack could miss Sean staring at him, waiting.

“No, that was not the first time,” Jack murmured.

Sean whistled, out of nerves as much as surprise—him and Jack were fucking? He had so many questions—how? Since when? Why? And if they weren’t lovers, if they weren’t together, what were they? Except what came out was, “So, I fuck you?”

Jack huffed and focused on his food. He shrugged after a moment, which Sean guessed meant yes.

As outrageous as it was, Sean could concede Jack was a gorgeous man and if future Sean had managed to start fucking that then future Sean was doing something right (in between losing his mind and becoming friends with Jack). But maybe that’s what it was. A friends-with-benefits situation. It made sense. More sense than the alternative—they were together—that was as unfathomable as them being friends.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sean asked and started eating.

Jack snorted derisively and finally looked up, his expression belligerent. “Yeah, I’m sure that would’ve gone well, when do you think I should’ve slipped it in? After you woke up and called me a cunt or when you decided to move out?”

“That’s not fair—”

But apparently Jack had been sitting on a few things and he was on a roll. “Maybe I could’ve just said, ‘hey, by the way, not only are we best mates, but you fuck me on the regular.’ Yeah, I reckon that would’ve gone over real well.”

“I fuck you on the regular?” Sean asked, his own blush rising. Clearly, they were fucking, last night, early this morning, that was practiced, that was the kind of sex you had with someone when you’d learned their body and everything they liked and you knew exactly how to give it to them. It was still bizarre, verging on incomprehensible, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been the kind of good Sean had never experienced before. Jack knew how to map every inch of his dick with his mouth in ways Sean didn’t even know to like.

Jack shook his head—he was red and he looked upset, but like he didn’t want Sean to see it; the way he dropped his eyes with embarrassment, Sean knew he wanted this conversation to end.

Not fucking likely.

“I don’t fuck you on the regular?”

“What do you want me to say?” Jack stood suddenly and went back into the kitchen.

“I want you to tell me what we are to each other. I want you to tell me what the fuck that was last night,” Sean replied.

“It was, it was,” Jack threw his hands up, eyes fixed outside, “just blowin’ off steam,” he finished and turned the tap on, got busy with the dishes even though he’d barely eaten and neither had Sean.

“So, we’re what, fuck buddies?” Sean asked. It was difficult to get a good read on Jack with him in the kitchen and refusing to make eye contact, but maybe that was enough. Maybe that was the confirmation Sean needed on top of his instinctual feeling there was more to this story.

“Yeah, sure, if you wanna call it that,” Jack replied.

“I don’t know what to call it,” Sean said angrily. “I’ve lost the last two years of my fuckin’ life and you’re apparently deciding on what I can and cannot know, like the fact we’re fucking. That’s a pretty big piece of information to leave out. Why would you do that? Why would you not tell me?”

“Because you’re not the you who fucks me right now!” Jack turned, giving up the pretence of doing the dishes. He was breathing harshly and he looked angry, but again it was Jack, so it was upset too. He even had the gall to look hurt— he was hurt?

“What the fuck does that mean? You reckon I learned how to fuck better in the last two years? Better in a way I couldn’t just figure out?” That stung—what did Jack think, Sean couldn’t fuck him properly?

“No,” Jack shook his head, gripped the kitchen bench and looked down. “I mean the you that fucks me, you know I like,” he took a deep breath, “certain things.”

Sean frowned. Certain things? What the fuck did that mean?

“It’s hard to explain,” Jack said and returned to his seat at the table. “So it’s probably best if we just forget—”

Sean laughed, bitter. “No, we cannot just forget that somewhere in the last two years I started nailing your ass, come on.”

“See, that right there,” Jack pointed at him with his spoon. “The you that fucks me wouldn’t call it that in that tone and the way we do it we use a lot of, a lot of,” he looked around like he was trying to think of the word. “Trust,” he said and looked at Sean again, triumphant. “We use a lot of trust and we… you don’t trust me.”

“You don’t trust me either,” Sean said because that was true.

“I…” Jack faltered. Sean knew what he wanted to say and why he’d abandoned it. I don’t trust this version of you, I trust my Sean .

“Look, let’s just forget last night happened, okay?”

But Sean was already shaking his head. “No fuckin’ way. That was awesome.”

And maybe the Sean who hadn’t been living with Jack for months would’ve been embarrassed to say that. But this Sean, the one who’d had to concede that in close proximity, at this age, almost thirty-year-old Jack was a generous guy, kind and considerate, observant and honest. Up to a point, but he was always striving to be honest. And he was hot as fuck. Sean was not planning to let go of the option to fuck him if it was on the table, which apparently it had been. For some time.

Jack groaned and continued eating, but the blush was rising and Sean knew Jack enjoyed that too. He ate and pondered over Jack’s objections.

“Finished?” Jack asked as he came over, the question pointless since Sean clearly was.

“Yeah, thanks, that was great,” Sean said and smiled up at him.

Jack fumbled with the tray like a school girl who’d just been paid attention by the hottest guy in school. Sean laughed.

“Stop it,” Jack said and took his stuff.

“Stop what?”

“Trying to charm me.”

“Why? Is it workin’?” Sean called as Jack got busy in the kitchen.

“No,” Jack said firmly and changed the subject to Sean’s appointment that morning. But Sean wasn’t fooled—Jack was blushing, dropping eye contact even as he kept up a steady stream of conversation and helped Sean get ready.

Sean smirked at him whenever Jack met his eyes, which led to Jack huffing, rubbing the back of his neck, fumbling with the band near Sean’s groin when he got the bag over his cast. Just the thought of his fingers so close had Sean’s dick stirring under the pants Jack had placed there, and he wondered how he could manoeuvre the situation so Jack was sliding to his knees in the shower, wrapping his lips around him again—

“Right!” Jack said loudly and stood. “You’re all set. Yell out when you’re finished.”

And he scurried out of the room.

Sean couldn’t help it, he laughed and it felt better than any laugh he’d had since he woke up in the hospital. As the perfectly hot water—not too hot, just the way Sean liked it—cascaded over him, he allowed himself to remember, for the first time since they were teenagers, why he had liked Jack back when they met at the footy carnival.

He’d been walking down the corridor in the boarding school all the teams were staying at, telling himself he was looking for Ben but really hoping he’d bump into the white boy who’d caught and held his attention in that game—the great Jack Reaver. There’d already been some buzz around him before the competition and seeing him in person, seeing him play, solidified the hype. What had been unexpected was the way he smiled so softly down at Sean after the game, the way his warm palm lingered on Sean’s side after they’d done the post-game opposition hand shake. Later that night, when he’d seen him emerge from one of the rooms, loose and relaxed-looking in black trackies, fancy sneakers and a West Coast hoodie, as he’d walked Sean’s way, Sean noticed the way the sharp cut of his jaw, the aloofness in his eyes, this cool guy persona he wore as a teenager, simply melted away and turned into that soft smile when he saw Sean coming towards him. He was kind of goofy with the way he tucked his hands into his pockets, mumbled hello, his eyes darting up to Sean’s and down to his feet, but he agreed immediately when Sean asked if he wanted to sneak out, face brightening even more as he looked up and breathed out, “Definitely.”

Sean could still feel the warm line of him at his back as they checked the exit door, scanned for teachers and coaches, recalled the way Jack kept casting glances at him as they raced each other across the oval, like he was delighted and shy about it all at once. And Sean kept looking back and huffing a laugh to cover how giddy he felt.

There’d been something about the easily embarrassed dude behind the cool footy superstar everyone thought he was that’d hooked Sean in and didn’t want to let him go, even when it turned into something else, something he hated, that hook remained. But if he let himself leave aside the bad parts for one moment, remembering only the boy he’d liked, and coupled him with this new knowledge that the adult version was at home on his knees and brilliant with his mouth, Sean could admit that hit him right where he lived. If future Sean had become best mates with him, it must’ve been because of this—this fuck-buddies arrangement. Because they could’ve been buddies, could’ve been more, if everything hadn’t gone to shit the next day.