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He was going to go into the living room and watch a movie. He was definitely going to do that.
His gaze fixed on the scene in the pool: George was leaning against the edge, his arms stretched out and resting outside the water, legs kicking lazily while Finn floated on his back in front of him and watched the sky. Joq heard the murmur of their voices but couldn’t make out the words. George’s fond smile though, Joq could see that just fine.
He planted himself at the kitchen island, pulled out his phone, and scrolled mindlessly, his attention on the pool.
It was an hour and another beer later when they came in.
“Hey,” Finn said quietly from the door.
Joq looked up. Finn was dry and dressed in shorts and a threadbare surfie hoodie, sneakers on, laces loose. If this is what he came in, then it looked like he’d rolled out of bed and headed straight over; he didn’t even have a shirt on under the hoodie, his collar bones and the hollow of his throat visible.
“Heading out?” Joq asked.
George came up behind Finn, his hand brushing his side as he moved them forward.
“Gonna give Finn a lift,” George said.
“Oh, you didn’t want to stay for dinner?” Joq heard himself asking.
“Nah,” Finn smiled. It wasn’t a real smile and in that moment Joq knew Finn knew the dinner invitation was more like an invitation not to stay for dinner. “Me and the other rookies gonna game and order in.”
“No junk,” George said, smiling at Finn. “See you when I get back,” he shot over his shoulder.
“See ya,” Finn said with a little wave.
And then they were gone.
Dinner was on the table by the time George came back.
“Hey,” he said as he came in and went for the fridge.
“Hey,” Joq replied. “All good?”
George shut the fridge and came over to the table with his water. “Yeah, you know, rookies,” he grinned and kissed Joq’s temple as he went past him for his seat.
“Yeah,” Joq breathed out, embarrassingly grateful for the contact.
George gave him a pointed look as he sat.
“What?” Joq asked.
“I didn’t,” George started. Then looked at his dinner. “This looks good.”
“You didn’t what?”
George picked up his utensils, cut into the fish, heaped salad on top of it. His eyes were on the fork suspended in the air when he answered. “With him. I didn’t. It’s a bad idea,” he said and took a mouthful.
Joq was nodding, because it was, but he felt oddly disappointed as well. Did he want to get this self-righteous thing over George? No, that was ridiculous. Why would he want that?
“It is,” he replied as firmly as he could and focused on his food.
George grunted, asked about lunch and they moved on.
12
Finn had a slump after that. Three games and he couldn’t buy a point. He had an absolute clanger in one of them—right in front of goal, perfect angle, no wind; he booted it out of bounds on the full. Joq felt bad for him. The kid’s raging crush on his boyfriend aside, Finn seemed like a genuinely nice guy.
The media were brutal. Social media was worse. But looking at Finn, you’d never know it—sure, he looked tighter around the eyes when the cameras zoomed in on his face after another miss, but other than that, he was the same calm player, loose, smile coming easy at his team mates when they jogged up to him, tapped him on the ass and gave him platitudes.
