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Joq jerked his head. “All good. Just gotta. Got some things…”
“That was fucked up,” she said.
Joq shook his head. “It’s not what it looks like. We’re, you know, open.”
“Oh,” she said, realisation dawning in her eyes. But then she narrowed them. “You’re open like that though?”
“Like what?” He did not want to have this conversation but he seemed to have lost his ability to get out of it.
“Like, that wasn’t a couple of people who are just fucking,” she said. The words were so matter of fact it made Joq wince.
“It’s fine,” he said again and tried to smile.
She gave him a pitying look.
“Get those files to storage. I’ll be back,” he turned and headed out the door before she could say anything else.
Joq sat outside by the pool that night, drinking a soda water. He watched the filter bubble, and listened to the distant hum of traffic.
George found him out there.
“Hey, there you are,” he said. He was smiling. Joq could hear it in his voice.
“Hey,” Joq replied but didn’t look at him.
He wanted to confront him, but he wanted to see if George would tell him something had started first.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, course,” Joq said, his eyes still fixed on the pool. He could hear George breathing. He waited.
“Alright, well, I’m gonna cook, you want anything in particular?”
Joq almost laughed. Everything felt surreal.
“You only know how to make stir-fry,” he replied.
George laughed. “I can always order something.”
Joq sipped his water. “Stir-fry’s fine.”
“Cool, give me thirty, just gonna shower,” George said and Joq listened as he went back inside.
22
Joq almost didn’t watch the away game that weekend. It would’ve been a first, but Finn wouldn’t be there—he was still suffering minor concussion symptoms, though he wasn’t officially post-concussion syndrome yet—and decided he could do it.
He forgot playing or not, Finn would be there. Finn would be there sitting on the bench in his suit looking handsome and relaxed, chatting with the guys like they’d been friends forever, watching the game with serious focus, and exchanging words with George around mutual smiles between quarters.
Before the start of the third, Joq looked on with mute horror as George clapped Finn on the shoulder and leaned in close to say something against his ear. Finn was still laughing as he tucked his hands into his pockets, eyes on the ground as he went back over to the bench.
Joq clenched his jaw and decided he might as well accept it. They were going to fuck, if they hadn’t already. It didn’t mean him and George were going to break up.
And, for some bizarre reason, that thought drew him up short. The action continued on the screen but he wasn’t watching anymore. Over the last couple of months, he hadn’t seriously considered that possibility. He’d thought… George would have a fling with someone he momentarily liked more than he liked Joq. He wouldn’t fucking leave him… would he?
In another almost first, Joq almost let George’s facetime call ring out. He was lying in their bed, laptop open, the smile-grimace of George’s picture looking up at him as the call came in later that night.
It was tradition: George always face-timed after the game, after dinner, after drinks. Joq was always the last thing he did on the road on game day. It was their thing.
