Contested (Advantage #1)

|| Chapter One || Sebastian – “Are you fucking kidding?”

|| Chapter One ||

Sebastian – “Are you fucking kidding?”

EARLY NOVEMBER

The slap of leather on skin cut through the early morning quiet.

Sebastian Nguyen pulled the football into his chest and held it there, fingers spread over the worn leather, boots planted in the wet grass of the Melbourne Mustangs’ training oval.

Rain from the night before still clung to the surface.

It darkened the turf and soaked through the sides of his boots when he shifted his weight, but he ignored the cold working its way in.

He had played in worse. He had played through winter wind that pushed kicks sideways, through mud that clung to calves, through the kind of rain that made keeping your body clean almost impossible.

This was nothing.

This was just his first morning at a new club, after barely sleeping, standing on an oval that did not belong to him yet.

He tucked the ball under his arm and ran his free hand through his black hair. It fell back into place over his forehead anyway, dead straight.

The clouds sat low over the city, thick enough to hide the sun, but the sky had started to brighten at the edges.

Almost six o’clock on a Monday in early November.

Too early for most people to be anywhere except bed, but the Mustangs’ facility already had life in it.

Not much. Not full-squad noise, not the proper return of a club waking up for another season.

A few cars in the car park and a couple of staff crossing between the building and the oval, along with the faint scrape of someone dragging equipment out from storage.

The newer players were back first. That was how it worked.

The first few years on a list meant shorter breaks, earlier testing, more chances for coaches to decide whether the off-season had been used properly or wasted.

The older players could stretch their leave a little longer.

They had the luxury of being known in the club.

Sebastian did not.

At the Geelong Rams, he had been a ruck. Before that, he had been a ruck in juniors, back when he was nine at his local club and barely understood the game beyond the bounce, the contest, and the satisfaction of getting his hands on the ball first.

The position had shaped him before he was old enough to know what that meant.

But he had grown into it, built himself around it, and learned where his body belonged on the field.

He had fought for contests, worn knees in his ribs, landed on his side, landed on other men, got up, and gone again.

He had spent two years proving he could handle it.

Then the Mustangs had called.

The offer had been too good to refuse. Not because Geelong had been lacking or lesser.

The Rams were a strong club, and Sebastian had known exactly what he was leaving behind when he signed the paperwork.

But the Mustangs had offered more money, and more money meant something different when a person had grown up learning how thin a household budget could stretch before it snapped.

It meant security and the chance to build a life for himself and his family.

While the offer hadn’t been for ruck, ruck-rover wasn’t bad. It was still in the centre and kept him around the contest. Close enough to prove the move had been worth it.

Ruck-rover was not an insult. He had told himself that several times already.

Sebastian bounced the ball once and caught it cleanly. Fifteen metres downfield, Randal had his hands planted on his hips, waiting.

Randal was the first player Sebastian had run into when he arrived, sitting on the hood of his car with a takeaway coffee balanced against his thigh.

Blond hair tied back into a ponytail, boots already laced, easy grin in place.

He was shorter than Sebastian, broader through the middle, and carried himself with a relaxed confidence.

They had decided to start kicking because standing around was too confining. It was easier to move and let his body do something familiar while the rest of him adjusted to the new colours, new facility, new oval, and the new names he would have to remember.

“You gonna kick it back?” Randal called, throwing his hands in the air. “Or you waiting on permission from Japan?”

“That doesn’t make sense!” Sebastian yelled back, kicking the ball directly into Randal’s chest. “Also, I’m Vietnamese.”

Randal caught it against his body and gave the smallest shrug. No shame or correction. No moment of realising he had been a dickhead. He just stepped back, lined up his kick, and punted the ball across the grass.

It curved wide enough that Sebastian had to jog left to mark it.

“Shit kick,” Sebastian said, tossing the ball to himself, then sending it back.

This one hit Randal exactly where it should have. Of course it did.

“Eh, I’m full-back. Don’t need to be perfect,” Randal replied.

His next kick skewed again.

Sebastian started across, but the ball dipped before he could get under it.

It hit the grass and bounced away, spinning low over the wet surface.

He exhaled through his nose and jogged after it, irritation already there because he had not slept, because the joke had landed badly, because his boots were wet, because the oval was not familiar yet, because he was still telling himself ruck-rover was not an insult.

A boot stopped the ball before he reached it.

Sebastian’s gaze slowly worked its way up, past the white sock pulled up above the ankle.

The Mustangs shorts. A compression shirt tight across a body Sebastian recognised before he let himself look higher.

Broad chest and strong shoulders. Arms he had shoved off at stoppages more times than he could count.

Curly brown hair sitting messy over a forehead Sebastian had once tried to drive into the turf with his palm.

Marcos Reyes lifted his head.

Sebastian stopped dead.

The Mustangs’ maroon and gold colours should not have looked right on him.

That was the first thing Sebastian thought, and it annoyed him before anything else had a chance.

Marcos should have looked wrong and out of place.

Instead, he stood there with the ball trapped under his boot, bronze skin warmed by the dull morning, brown eyes steady and bright with something Sebastian immediately chose to hate.

“Are you fucking kidding?” The words left Sebastian before he had decided to let them out.

Marcos dropped his gaze to the ball, then lifted it back to him. “Hey, Seb,” he drawled. “Nice mark.”

Sebastian folded his arms.

Marcos Reyes had been a problem long before the AFL got hold of them.

Their junior clubs had sat on the same ladder, which meant Sebastian had spent half his childhood running into Marcos at centre bounces before either of them understood what a rivalry looked like from the outside.

Back then, it had been smaller. Muddy grounds, parents along the fence, coaches yelling themselves hoarse, boys growing into bodies they had not worked out how to use yet.

Marcos had been there through all of it, too tall too early, too strong at the wrong times, too difficult to move when Sebastian needed him gone.

Then they had been drafted in the same year, into the same position, to different clubs, both eighteen. Geelong Rams for Sebastian. Bendigo Bandits for Marcos. The professional league had not started anything. It had just put cameras on what was already there.

The commentators had enjoyed it from the first senior game.

The media teams had clipped their contests, slowed them down, replayed every shove and late bump until it looked cleaner and more deliberate than it had felt in the moment.

By the end of their first AFL season, someone had called them rivals, and neither club had bothered to deny it.

Sebastian had not hated the label.

‘Opponent’ was too mild for Marcos. He had a way of being there, always there, in front of Sebastian at the wrong time, underneath him in a contest, over him in a mark, grinning when he should have had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

Marcos made Sebastian forget the ball sometimes.

That was the worst part. For one stupid second, the game would narrow to the man in front of him.

Now, it had been two years since their rookie season, and Sebastian knew that could not happen here. Not when they wore the same colours.

Marcos bent and picked up the ball. He bounced it once, then again, walking toward Sebastian with the lazy control of someone who had not been surprised by anything this morning.

More players were arriving now. A couple jogged past toward the far boundary. Others had started stretching near the line, voices low and loose.

Sebastian barely registered them.

“You seem surprised to see me,” Marcos said, stopping a few feet away. He bounced the ball once more. “You didn’t read the announcements?”

“I’ve been busy.” Sebastian’s voice came out sharp. He did not soften it. “You got ruck?”

Marcos’ mouth curved. “Yep. The better player got it, and I’m so excited to be able to rub it in like this.”

The ball thudded back into Marcos’ palm.

Sebastian’s arms loosened from his chest. His hands fell to his sides, fingers flexing once before he stopped them. “Better? Is that why the Bandits didn’t make it to the top eight last season? ‘Cause the Rams did.”

“The Rams also never won a game against us when I got signed.”

Sebastian stepped closer.

It was not enough to make Marcos move. Marcos was taller by enough that it mattered in a contest but not enough that Sebastian could pretend it gave him an excuse.

They were built for the same violence. Heavy legs, strong backs, and shoulders made by years of fighting other bodies for space.

Marcos had used that body against him plenty.

Knees, hips, forearms, legal pressure held right up to the edge and sometimes past it.

Now he was standing on Sebastian’s new oval, in Sebastian’s new colours, with Sebastian’s old position.