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He tucked his hands in his pockets and listened to Brendan’s rundown for the day’s meetings and did his best to focus.
His phone remained silent the whole walk back.
6
Joq was sitting in his chair in front of the wall of screens at the stadium the following evening, rolling his phone in his hands. He hadn’t responded to Chris’ dinner invite from the previous morning. He’d been about to, his face breaking into a smile as he’d typed out lol and was about to continue with, see you then, when he’d stopped, deleted it, and pocketed his phone.
He’d received a follow-up in the afternoon, a question after his wellbeing in the evening, and then a simple request to let Chris know if he was alright.
Joq stared at them, his hand hovering but he couldn’t type the words.
Not tonight.
I’m fine.
When I felt you behind me this morning it felt so familiar and I panicked and I can’t do this anymore.
Definitely wouldn’t be sending the last one.
It’d been silent all day aside from the usual texts from his mum—random comments about how much she hated some new actress in one of her crime shows; a question on whether he’d like fish or chicken when he came for dinner the next day; and a series of catalogue pictures from Vogue Living questioning whether or not she should upholster her couch in a new pattern. He knew what she was doing. Making sure he was okay since Sydney were playing in the first final that night, Finn’s team, and George was there for it since he didn’t have a game of his own until the next day.
Joq was fine. He’d made his peace and managed to avoid them by holing up in the security room until every single person had left the building. He also made a point of not watching the locker room screens or the game screens. But if he had to sit through yet another commentator dissecting George’s facial expressions every time Finn got the ball—which was constantly, the man’s possessions were preternatural—he thought he’d scream. Actually belt out a roaring tirade and scare the shit out of his whole team.
Besides, tonight, he was preoccupied. He felt like an absolute asshole, but he couldn’t see Chris anymore, he just couldn’t.
The roar of the crowd thundering through the stadium and reverberating in their little concrete cave forced him to look up at the screen.
Finn had clearly just kicked a belter of a goal from the fifty-metre mark—he was being mobbed by his teammates—and Joq watched on the coverage screen as they switched the shot to George, grin blinding as he clapped and said something to—oh for fuck’s sake—his dad standing next to him, also smiling and clapping.
And just, fuck this, Joq thought and stood.
“You got this, Simo?” he asked.
“Yeah, boss,” Simo replied and rocked in his chair. “You heading out?”
“I think I’ll call it, yeah, if you’re all alright?” Alison and Cameron looked up, smiled, nodded, a chorus of ‘all goods,’ and he wondered why he sat through any of this. Since Simo had become Team Leader, Joq didn’t really need to be there for the games, at least not in their entirety; in fact, if it wasn’t for their company, he’d have left a while ago.
“Cool, see you Monday,” he said.
“Not coming in tomorrow?”
“I think you’ve got it covered,” he replied with a smile. He didn’t need to see George’s game as well—it was almost impossible to miss the shots of him in the box as the assistant coach to other Sydney side, the panning shots of Finn watching in the crowd with his own team after every shot of George. It was like having a front row seat to a gay soap opera he really didn’t want to watch.
“Yeah, we do,” Simo grinned and slurped on his drink, refocused on the screen.
Joq left, taking the back entrance to the staff carpark, got in his car and wondered where he was going. He didn’t feel like going home.
Joq looked at his phone.
He wanted to text, so badly.
Instead, he threw it on the seat with a huff and decided to go visit his parents, maybe rile his mum up by telling her he liked the new actress.
7
Chris arrived at the stadium late the day after Joq stopped replying. He was just going to check in, make sure he was alright, see if maybe his phone was broken.
He knew his phone wasn’t broken. He knew he needed to take the hint.
