by Jay Hogan
“Shit.” The word formed in a wheezing gasp from my lips as my hands hit my knees and I doubled over in exhaustion. Every aching bone in my body screamed in protest, alongside every muscle and cartilage attached to it. What the fuck was wrong with me? I’d seen the B squad number 10 feint left, watched his eyes shift out of sync with his movement in an attempt to draw me in. A six-year-old couldn’t have missed it. God forbid Conrad Parker ever played poker—he’d be fleeced in a minute.
All I had to do was stay on course, and I had him. I was faster, more agile, stronger. My brain knew that, my body prepped accordingly for the tackle, and I still fucking screwed it up. Missed him by half a metre and was left clutching at air while he slid on by and over the try line. Shit, shit, shit. And it wasn’t the first mistake I’d made tonight. Staring down the barrel at my first starting fullback position with the ABs for next weekend’s test, and here I was screwing it up with no effort whatsoever. After tonight, if they didn’t can me altogether, I’d consider it a win.
“Hey, Taylor.” Conrad eyeballed me from where he was sprawled on the grass wearing a shit-eating grin. “You been jacking off too much? I hear it drains the balls, you pussy.”
“Fuck off, arsehole.” I flipped him off. “At least I have a cock worth jacking. You’d have to find yours first.”
He chuckled and pushed to his feet, slapping my back as he passed me to join the others who’d made their way to the middle of the pitch. “Look sharp, kid,” he warned. “Trouble’s brewing.”
I followed his gaze and groaned at the sight of Coach Knowles stomping towards me, face puce, head shaking. Goddammit. That was all I needed.
IN THE showers following the training debrief, I took myself to a far cubicle, well away from all the chatter, and licked my wounds. I’d been lucky. I’d shown enough random sparkles of form to offset my groaning slips of ineptitude… just. But I’d been soundly warned. I would start, but any sign of the sort of rat’s nest of mistakes I been making today, and I’d be subbed early. Like hell. That shit wasn’t going to happen. It had cost me too damn much to get here as it was.
Tom MacDonald stuck his head around the corner of the shower stall. The ABs’ starting lock was also one of the senior players who seemed to have taken me under their wing.
“Hey, newbie,” he said with a grin. “Don’t take it too hard—there’s a lot of pressure comes with your first start. We’ve all been there.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, man. But I saw the looks you guys threw my way when I earned us a ton of running drills. Everyone wanted to bury my arse.”
He chuckled. “Hell yeah we did. In case you hadn’t noticed, we were all dying out there. Doesn’t mean we won’t cut you some slack, so quit fucking sulking like some teenage girl and get your ratty butt out here.”
Dammit. He was right. I was being a precious prick about the whole thing. I flipped off the taps and reached for my towel. It was gone. Fuckers.
THE MEDICAL team wanted some time with the players to check our injury tally and any lurking problems before the game, and to read everyone the riot act about eating well and looking after our bodies. The sports psychologists were hovering as well. I did my best to avoid them, but Murphy’s law and all that….
“Hey, Reuben, wait up a minute.” Sean Mitchell was the ABs’ mental skills specialist, and a black ninja of the mind. If I thought Rebecca from the Blues had been bad, Sean was her evil twin.
I plastered on my best welcoming smile and tried to look relaxed. “Hey, Sean. What can I do for you?”
He gave me a sideways smirk. “Ten for effort, Taylor, but you aren’t fooling anyone.”
I winced. “That obvious, huh?”
He grinned widely. “Obvious and expected. Let’s just say if you weren’t freaking out, I’d be ordering a drug screen, especially after that training session.”
I glanced away, my cheeks heating. “Yeah, not exactly my best form today.”
“Come sit a minute.” He wandered over to a half circle of chairs currently unoccupied. I took one across from him as he studied me for a minute. It was like staring into the dentist’s light waiting for the pain to begin.
“For God’s sake, relax, man,” he chuckled. “I’m not here to mess with your starting spot.”
The wedge of fear in my gut softened somewhat, and my shoulders relaxed. “What, then?”
He held my gaze. “Playing at this level isn’t about getting it right every time you go out on the paddock. If it were, the All Blacks would be a quivering mess of performance anxiety and failure, instead of being the most successful sports team around.”
I snorted. “Good luck convincing the fans that perfection isn’t possible. Okay, so what is it about, then? I’m guessing you have some words of wisdom to bestow.”
“You guess right, my young apprentice. It’s about putting all your prep shit in place so you have the best chance of getting it right. Even with every box ticked, you’re still gonna screw up sometimes. That’s how it goes—that’s sport. The public might want us to win every time, but no team can do that. Every team has weaknesses. Every team is made up of players who are human, fallible. Players who can and will make mistakes, who can read the play wrong, who can fuck up big time. Therefore you work on your skills, get your flesh and the plays in the best shape you can, and get your mind match-fit as well.”
I nodded. “AB playbook 101, I get that.”
“Good. Cos what I and everyone else saw out there today was a guy whose head was seriously screwing up his form. You’re fit and you’re clever. That wasn’t your problem today. The coaches and the rest of the team believe in you. They think it’s starting nerves and are standing by your previous form. Me, not so much.” He eyed me coolly.
I winced. Fuck.
He went on, “I keep asking myself, none of this happened when you wore the black jersey for the first time, so why now? You want this, I know it. I can feel the excitement rolling off you in waves. You’re itching for it, but something’s in the way. Care to share?” He sat back and waited.
Yes. No. God, how I wanted to talk with someone, but… “I can’t,” I said. “For lots of reasons. But yeah, I’ve been distracted by some… personal stuff. I’ll do better.”
He shook his head, disappointed. “I was hoping for a different answer,” he said. “But if you can’t talk to me, talk to someone. You’ll get good support in this team if you can get your head out of your arse to accept it. I’ll give you a free pass today, but if Saturday doesn’t go to plan, you’ll talk to me, or risk being shelved. Don’t let whatever’s going on up there—” He tapped my forehead. “—screw up the most important opportunity of your life.”
I cringed. Yeah, about that. Trouble was, I was beginning to think that particular opportunity had turned out to be nothing to do with rugby and had already been screwed beyond redemption.
“I won’t,” I answered. “I don’t mean to be secretive, it’s just… complicated.”
Sean cocked an eyebrow. “Girlfriend shit? Your father mentioned how much he liked Sonja.”
Good for him.
Sean’s raised brows indicated he hadn’t missed the souring of my expression at my father’s name but he didn’t push it. Instead, he stood. “All right, I’ll leave it for now. But don’t think we’re done. Get things right on Saturday and you’ll have gone a long way in securing a long-term place for yourself in this team, so get your head in the game, Reuben.”
I STEWED all the way home, regret and self-recrimination piling up around my heart like a stack of rotting carcases. It had been two weeks and Cam was as present in my day-to-day thinking as he’d been when we were… well, whatever we were.
It was all too clear now, just too fucking late. Bending to my father’s will guaranteed me nothing more than a reprieve, something I’d taken far too damn long to understand, and losing Cam had been the catalyst. If I’d thought staying in the closet would solve my problems with Cory, I’d been a fucking idiot.
Churning it around in my brain the first week after Cam left, I finally understood my father would simply turn around tomorrow or six months from now with something else he wanted and threaten me with Cory all over again. Punching him was a case in point. He immediately played the Cory card. I was in my own personal fucking terrorist negotiation, and we all know how well those ended.
Still, at least it galvanised me into action. Losing your express reason for drawing breath as a result of your own stupidity will do that to you. It was gonna be messy trying to sort the whole Cory situation out, but I was now committed. I’d even made the damn call and got myself an appointment with a social worker. It was still a week away, I just couldn’t face it before the test, I was a mess of nerves as it was. I wanted a clear head and I’d also decided to ask Cam to come with me.
I itched to hear his voice, his laugh, and I needed to touch him like my life depended on it. I was desperate to know how he was. I had to believe he was hurting just like me, and I just ached for him. He didn’t deserve any of this. I called the ER a couple times, not to talk but just to see he was on duty, relieved to hear he was.
I sent a daily text as well, nothing big, just a reminder. I’m working on things, I miss you. Only one reply came back, saying he was doing okay, but I could see he was reading them all and that was enough. I knew I couldn’t talk to him without having something in place first and now I did. So, I’d decided to ask him to meet me on Sunday after the test, to talk, and I was also going to ask if he would come with me to the social worker. I could only hope he’d say yes, but my heart was terrified. What if he’d had time to think and decided I wasn’t worth the risk anymore? What if he didn’t want to meet? What if he really was done with us? If that were the case, I had no one to blame but myself.
When he’d walked out two weeks ago, I damn near couldn’t breathe, collapsing on the floor, weeping like a child. Apt, really, since I’d pretty much behaved like one for six months. It had all seemed so fucking clear when my father was standing up in my face, threatening me, threatening Cory. My nephew was just a child. A child who needed at least one adult in his life who actually gave a shit. How the hell was I supposed to make a decision like that?
But I’d had a damn wakeup call. What I felt for Cam was life changing. I loved him. And yeah, I guess I’d known it for a while, I just didn’t want to admit to something I wasn’t convinced I could have. But there was no hiding from it now. Without Cam, I was left with a gaping maw of regret where there used to be life. He had every scrap of my heart and there was no going back or switching him out for anyone or anything, not even my nephew. I needed to find a way to make him part of my foundation and I was determined to do it.
Finding somewhere new to live was also proving a nightmare. My dad hadn’t backed down on that, though at least he wasn’t playing hardball about Cory, not yet anyway. Little did he know. Still, I wasn’t prepared to spend hours in traffic just getting to training or to see my nephew, and I couldn’t afford most of the places closer by, so yeah, it was taking time.
The only thing crystal clear in my mind was how much I missed Cam. I couldn’t suck enough oxygen into my lungs to ease a pain in my chest that was getting worse by the day, not better. I told myself it was the right thing to let him leave that day. We both needed time. But every dragged-out, fucked-up minute of the last two weeks screamed at the lie, and instead, it felt like the biggest goddamn mistake of my life. And watching my teammates laugh and greet their families or girlfriends since had become its own personal brand of torture. So much so that I tried to be first out the door after each training session to avoid even witnessing it.
The touches, the affection, the love between these men and their significant others just fucking tore at my heart. It forced the question of how long I was gonna put my life on hold before I could have that. Have someone who cared about my day, who waited up for me, who was my soft place to fall, who just gave a shit? Oh, wait, that’s right. I’d had someone like that and I let him walk out the door. Dammit all to hell.
Well that stupid shit stopped now, because ignoring things was no longer an option. I now knew exactly what I wanted, and I was determined to get him. Cameron Wano. Without Cam, everything was falling apart, including my game, and if I didn’t sort it, my promising career with the All Blacks could well be one of the shortest in history. But that was the least of my concerns and wasn’t that a fucking miracle, all things considered. What was front and foremost in my thoughts was the realisation I’d come to over the last two weeks, that if it came to a decision between my game and Cam, I would choose Cam, no question. Cue the trumpets and fucking dancing girls.
And as for Cory? I couldn’t see a future with Cory that didn’t include Cam, and I would do everything in my power to make that happen. I didn’t know what form it would take, but I would be there for my nephew and so would Cam, at least if I had any say in it. And that recognition changed everything.
I pulled up next to my apartment and my heart sank. “Damn.” A bright glow emanated from the lounge window as if every light in the room was switched on, and that could only mean one thing—Craig.
A quick look confirmed his car alongside the workshop but not Dad’s, thank heaven for small mercies. My father would be three sheets to the wind by now, sprawled in his worn-to-threads recliner, too drunk to drive, not that it necessarily stopped him. Still, even facing my brother and Cory was pretty damn near the last thing I needed after today. I wanted some space from both of them to try to get my head on straight about Cam.
It was Cory’s playgroup day, so he should’ve been ready to drop in his bed over an hour ago, exhausted, and Craig usually avoided visiting since it was one night he got to kick back earlier than usual. This new, semiresponsible Craig still left me wary and unconvinced, but I was determined to be positive.
He’d even found himself a girlfriend, of sorts. Barely twenty, the girl possessed a rack to bust a nut over, in my brother’s words, and all the smarts of a tadpole, in mine. Regardless, she’d been spending a lot of time in Craig’s bed, meaning his apartment was now eminently more attractive than mine, a definite plus for me. But not tonight, apparently. The back of my neck prickled with unease, and with good reason.
The shitstorm started before I even got in the door, the sound of Cory’s high-pitched whine audible from the bottom of the stairs, immediately putting my teeth on edge. Holy shit. My nephew was fair worked up about something. A sinking pit formed in my belly, and as if to underscore the sheer level of disaster awaiting me, I was greeted by a blast of rum fumes before I’d even got the front door cracked. Goddammit. I just knew my night was about to turn to shit. I drew a deep breath and gingerly stepped inside.
Cory was sitting cross-legged in the dim hallway by the front door, head between his knees, rocking in rhythm with the in/out breathing of his sobbing whines. Holy hell. I went to my knees beside him. How long had he been like this? I scooped him up, holding on tight as he struggled against me, and went in search of my brother.
That disappointing mystery was quickly solved in the floodlit lounge, where Craig was sprawled half on the couch, half on the floor, eyes shut, and drool running from the corner of his mouth. To complete the picture, hanging from his left hand was a near-empty bottle of my favourite Diplomático rum, a Christmas present from Georgie. Fuck.
I switched off all but one of the lights for Cory’s sake, then slam-kicked my brother’s feet to rouse him. Getting little response, I set Cory on the floor and sat beside him, keeping his hand in mine as he started whining and rocking once again.
“What the fuck, Craig?” I shoved at his feet again. How the hell he could be passed out with the din Cory was making was beyond me.
He stirred, lashing out wildly with his right leg, though making no effort to open his eyes. But when he raised the rum bottle to his lips, I grabbed it from his hand and shoved it out of reach. He mumbled something I didn’t bother to even try to decipher, opting to get my nephew settled first befo
re dealing with my arsewipe of a brother. That in itself was gonna need a full court press.
Cory startled at my touch but didn’t immediately pull away, which boded well. I matched his rocking and started the slow stroke on his right hand that always seemed to distract him. Humming “Dancing Queen,” I pulled him against my side so we moved together as I reached for the remote and flicked on one of his favourite movies.
Craig remained passed out, snoring softly, his rum-soaked breath wafting over us in foetid waves. I thanked God Cory had never been particularly sensitive to smell, although that would’ve given me all the excuse I needed to beat on my brother big time. But getting my nephew calm and settled was taking all my concentration, and Craig was the least of my worries, for now.
Half a movie later, the whining finally broke apart and Cory went quiet. My throat was rough and sore as hell from all the singing, but I didn’t risk calling it a night just yet. I moved position so I could at least lean back against the couch and get some respite from the killer needles drilling into my tired back. Cory stiffened as I shuffled, then settled against me once again. I kept humming as he continued to watch the movie until he put a finger to my lips. I nearly cried with relief.
“Shhh, Ruby. Okay.” He snuggled close.
Jesus Christ. This beautiful kid. My heart nearly cracked in two as my head fell back and I breathed easily for the first time since I’d gotten home. I eyed the rum, wishing I could pour myself some solace, but my night was far from done. I’d give Cory another fifteen minutes with the movie, then move him to my bed and cross fingers he’d settle to sleep. Only then would I finally tackle my brother, who was just now beginning to stir from his alcoholic haze. That is, if I could quell the urge to commit painful and drawn-out fratricide on his sorry arse first.
