Chapter 5 #2
I don’t know why I agreed to join Jared’s soccer team for a training session, to see if I want to become a regular member. Clearly, I decided that what my life needs is more opportunities to embarrass myself in front of attractive men while sweating.
Actually, I do know why I agreed to come to the training session.
Jared asked me.
This whole thing started a few weeks ago when Emmy wanted to play soccer at the park.
Before I knew it, I was doing keepie-uppies and showing her how to do a rainbow flick.
The delight on her face had been worth it, right up until I’d caught Jared staring at me with his eyebrows practically in his hairline.
“I thought you said you weren’t into sports.”
“I’m not. This is just…muscle memory.”
“Muscle memory that includes advanced ball tricks?”
“I may have played a bit in high school.”
“A bit?”
“Okay, fine, I was captain of the team for two years, and we made it to regionals, but that was before I discovered dancing at nightclubs and decided sleeping in was more fun than morning practice.”
Somehow my confession had turned into this: me, in Jared’s too-big shorts, psyching myself up to meet an entire team of queer men who are about to look at me and discover what happens when someone tries to put Humpty Dumpty back together using a YouTube tutorial and wishful thinking.
It’s hard. Especially because I know one part of me will always track the difference between how men treat me now compared to how they would have treated me before my accident.
Old Felix would have loved this. A whole team of fit gay men was basically my natural habitat. The admiring glances. The flirting. The casual touches leading to phone numbers. The way I never had to wonder if someone was interested. They always were.
Now the only thing people seem to be interested in is not staring too obviously at my face.
“The anticipation is always worse than the reality,” I mutter, repeating one of Annie’s favorite phrases.
“What?” Jared says.
“Nothing. Just something my therapist says.”
Annie and I have been working for months on not letting my fears keep me from doing things and remembering that most people are too busy worrying about themselves to judge me as harshly as I judge myself.
Despite Annie’s best work, I still don’t think I’d be doing this if it weren’t for Jared.
“So, tell me about today’s adventures. Did that anxious Chihuahua you mentioned yesterday finally let you take his temperature?” Jared asks.
“Yes, I managed to get it done while he was plotting my death. I could see the murder in his tiny eyes. And I also dealt with a poodle who had an eye infection. Did you know that dogs have an extra eyelid? It’s called the nictitating membrane.”
“Humans actually have a vestigial remnant of that membrane.”
“We do?”
“That little pink thing in the corner of your eye.”
“That’s a bit disturbing.”
“Human anatomy has quite a few other things we’ve retained that don’t have any useful functions. Like wisdom teeth, the appendix, male nipples.”
“Hey, my nipples aren’t useless,” I say without thinking.
A flush creeps up Jared’s neck and his hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t call them completely useless.”
The husky sound of his voice goes straight to my cock.
Great.
Generally, I think we do quite well at the platonic thing for guys who’ve had epic sex with each other.
We’ve mastered the art of pretending that night never happened.
Well, Jared has. I’m still working on not remembering whenever he stretches and his shirt rides up to expose his skin.
But I guess it’s easier for him to forget when the face looking back at him now is so different from the one hidden under green paint that night.
Jared swallows. “Did you know goose bumps are useless too? They’re supposed to make our fur stand up, except we don’t have fur anymore.”
“Is this your way of telling me I need to manscape? Because I’ll have you know my three chest hairs are very proud of themselves.”
“Three? That’s generous.”
“Fine, two and a half. The half one is still developing. It has dreams.”
Jared’s smiling now. “Your chest hair has dreams?”
“Big ones. Mostly about becoming visible without direct sunlight.”
We both laugh, and my chest loosens slightly. This is what Jared does. He makes me forget to be anxious, forget to monitor myself.
“We’re here,” Jared says, pulling into the car park.
The team is already warming up, all dressed in fluorescent rainbow jerseys that are so bright they must be visible from space. My stomach does a little flip.
“You can still back out,” Jared says. “Though Scott will never let me hear the end of it. I talked you up at the game on Saturday.”
My pulse goes from normal to hummingbird-having-a-panic-attack in about two seconds. “You’ve been talking about me?”
“Just your soccer skills,” he says quickly, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
The thing is, with Jared next to me, I actually believe I can do this. He makes me feel like I’m still worth knowing, scars and all.
We get out and head toward the field. A guy with dark hair and a confident swagger jogs over. This must be Scott, the team captain Jared’s told me about.
“Jared! This is the friend you mentioned?”
“Scott, this is Felix. Felix, Scott.”
Scott’s gaze catches on my face, and I see him mentally recalibrate before his grin kicks in. “Jared says you’ve got skills. We’ll see about that.”
“I’ve got skills at falling over. Does that count?”
“Depends on how dramatically you do it and whether you get a penalty,” Scott replies.
Before I can respond, more players are drifting over.
I’m introduced to the team members. There’s Declan, who looks about fifteen but moves like he was born with a ball at his feet; a quieter guy with glasses, whom Jared introduces as Seb; Tim and Jamie, who are clearly together from the way they orbit each other like binary stars; and Mattie, an attractive guy with an eyebrow ring and a sardonic smirk whose whole demeanor screams edgy and cool.
Each introduction brings that familiar pause—the moment where they process what they’re seeing before their social training takes over. My shoulders creep up toward my ears.
Then Jared does something that makes my heart stop.
He casually steps behind me and rests his hand on my lower back. Not possessive, not obvious, just…there. A warm point of contact that says “I’ve got you” without words.
My shoulders drop. My breathing evens out. Everything’s okay.
“Right,” Scott calls out. “Let’s do some drills. Felix, you’re with Jared, Mattie, and Declan.”
The next twenty minutes are an exercise in trying not to stare at Jared.
Which is basically impossible because Jared in athletic gear should come with a warning label.
The way his shorts sit on his hips. The way his shirt rides up when he heads the ball, showing a strip of stomach that makes my mouth go dry.
I’m supposed to be focusing on the drill, but instead, I’m cataloging how sweat makes his skin glow in the afternoon sun.
“Felix!” The ball smacks me in the chest because I’m too busy watching Jared laugh at something Declan said.
“Sorry! I was…planning my next move.”
“Planning to use your chest as a backboard?” Mattie asks, but he’s grinning.
We move into a practice game, and suddenly, muscle memory takes over.
The ball comes to me off Declan’s shoulder and my foot finds it perfectly. I manage to thread between two defenders into the space where Declan’s already sprinting. He doesn’t even have to break stride before slotting it past the goalie.
“Yes!” Declan pumps his fist.
The next twenty minutes fly by. My body apparently remembers everything—when to check my shoulder, how to weight a pass, the exact angle to approach a defender.
Sweat drips into my eyes, but I don’t care because, for once, nobody’s looking at my scars. They’re watching the ball at my feet, tracking my runs, calling for passes.
Then Jared sends this perfect cross arcing through the air, and I don’t think. Instead, I just jump. The ball meets my forehead with that satisfying thunk, and suddenly, everyone’s shouting.
“Get in!” Scott yells.
The ball obeys him and slots perfectly into the back of the net.
Before I can process what happened, Jared’s arms are around me, lifting me slightly off the ground in a hug. He smells like grass and sweat and citrus, and I have to lock every muscle in my body to stop myself from clinging to him like a koala with abandonment issues.
“You’re amazing,” he says against my ear before letting go, leaving me standing there trying to remember how joints work.
Scott’s already pulling off his training bib. “Blue Dragon?”
A chorus of agreement goes up, and just like that, I become part of the post-practice ritual.
It turns out The Blue Dragon is a pub next to the sports fields. The Rainbow Rascals have clearly claimed a corner of the pub as their own.
I end up squeezed into a booth between Jared and Declan, trying not to notice how Jared’s thigh presses against mine. Why does Jared always smell so good even when he’s been running around for over an hour? It’s criminal.
“So, Felix,” Scott says, sliding a beer across to me, “Jared says you’re new to Auckland?”
“Yeah, I’ve only been here a few months,” I say. “I moved up from Hamilton.”
“What brought you here?” Tim asks, pushing his glasses back up his nose.
“I’m training to be a vet nurse. And I needed a change of scenery.” I don’t elaborate on why, but I’m pretty sure the understanding in Tim’s gaze means he’s worked out the reason.
“The other day Felix had to deal with a puppy who ate so many paperclips he needed his stomach pumped,” Jared jumps in, seamlessly redirecting the conversation.
“I once had a dog who ate my grandmother’s hearing aid,” Declan says.
Everyone starts sharing weird animal stories, and the knot in my chest loosens. These guys are actually…nice. Normal. They’re treating me like just another player, not a curiosity.
But I’m still hyperaware of Jared next to me. The way he laughs with his whole body. How he automatically orders me a cider when the next round comes because he knows I prefer it to beer. How his hand occasionally lands on my shoulder or knee.
But then I catch a glimpse of Tim and Jamie across the table. Tim leans into Jamie when he laughs, and Jamie turns to whisper something in Tim’s ear. It’s so natural, so obvious they’re together.
That’s never going to be Jared and me.
I’m sitting here, surrounded by gorgeous, fit men, accepted into their group, and all I can think about is the paramedic whose thigh is pressed against mine in a completely platonic way.
And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I need to stop waiting for something that’s never going to happen. Maybe I need to prove to myself that someone else could want me, scars and all.
“You good?” Jared asks quietly while the others are debating whether Scott’s goal from the last game was offside.
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“About?”
About how you hugged me after I scored and I wanted to never let you go. About how you knew exactly how to calm me down today. About how I’m completely fucked because I’m falling for you, but you don’t appear to be interested in anything more than friendship.
“About how Mel from work offered to set me up with her brother, and I should probably accept,” I say instead.
Jared goes still. “Oh?”
“Yeah, she asked me today. I’m thinking it might be good for me to go on a date.”
“Right.” His voice sounds weird. Flat. “That’s…good. Getting back out there.”
“Exactly.”
There’s a commotion because Mattie has come back to the table, sheepishly clutching some beers he’d been sent to order ten minutes ago. He got caught up talking to an Australian guy at the bar.
The guys give Mattie shit about flirting with the enemy, but I don’t pay close attention.
Anyway, I’ve made my decision. While Jared’s in the restroom, I pull out my phone.
Hey, Melissa, I’ve thought about it, and I’d like to meet your brother.
She replies immediately with about twelve exclamation points and a string of emojis.
His name’s Mason. I’ll set it up for this weekend!
I stare at the message. Mason. A nice, normal name for what will probably be a nice, normal date with someone who isn’t my neighbor, isn’t my friend, isn’t the person who held my hand in the dark during the worst moments of my life and now makes me laugh until I can’t breathe.
“Another cider?” Jared asks.
“Yeah,” I say, shoving my phone in my pocket. “Another round.”
Maybe dating Mason will fix this. Maybe someone else’s hands on me will finally overwrite the memory of Jared’s.
Maybe I’ll stop wanting something I can’t have.