Chapter Two #3
Marcos signed the exchange for Paula, though she had caught enough from faces and timing to know most of it already. She kept her eyes on him a little longer.
He gave her a small shrug.
Then, for no reason he wanted to keep, his mind flicked to Sebastian.
He wondered if Sebastian’s family talked about football at dinner.
If they spoke about the Mustangs, or Geelong, or the position he had lost. Then he remembered Sebastian’s face on the oval, the sharp line of his mouth, the way he had held himself when he realised Marcos had ruck, and decided that was none of his business.
He shook it away and focused on where the conversation had turned, glancing at Paula, who was waiting expectantly. He caught her up.
Once dinner was done and the kitchen was cleaned, Marcos leaned against the counter as his family idled in small conversation around him.
Greg stood with one hip against the sink, arms crossed, watching Becca talk with her whole body about something that had happened at school. Paula stood at the door, half in the kitchen and half out of it, attention drifting between faces.
Marcos caught her eye.
‘Another game?’ she asked, nodding back toward the family room.
“Maybe later. I’m gonna go for a run,” Marcos said aloud, to let the others know as well.
“Don’t get stabbed,” Becca said, and Greg jumped in instantly.
“Rebecca!”
“Sorry,” she murmured with a grimace.
Marcos looked at her. “Perdedora,” he said, then he tussled Paula’s hair and walked out of the kitchen.
His bedroom sat toward the front of the house, in the older section.
It had not changed as much as it should have for someone who played professional football now.
The same narrow bookshelf stood beside the wardrobe, and the same old posters stayed on the walls.
Training gear spilled from one laundry basket because he had run out of energy to sort it.
A PlayStation controller sat on his desk under the television, beside a half-empty bottle of water.
He grabbed his headphones from beside his nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his runners.
Standing, Marcos rolled his shoulders, and left the room.
He gave a quick wave to his family as he walked back through the kitchen and headed out the front door, breaking into a light jog as soon as he was on the footpath.
The evening had cooled. Cars rolled along the nearby streets in uneven bursts, headlights sliding over the sidewalk, low fences, and bins left too close to the kerb. Warm light sat behind front windows.
Marcos put his music on and let it fill the space his family usually occupied.
This was something he did most nights when training did not ruin him completely. He liked the quiet after dark. He liked the space it gave him.
His stride had settled by the time he reached the next main road.
His breath came steady. Shoes hit concrete, then the softer edge of grass where the footpath narrowed near a tree root.
He crossed at the lights with two cyclists and an old man carrying groceries in both hands, then turned down a quieter street where the houses sat close to the road and front gardens pressed against fences.
His father’s words worked their way into his thoughts through the music.
“You’re a much better player.”
Marcos rolled his neck once and kept running.
It did not sit cleanly. Maybe because Sebastian’s face kept arriving with it.
He saw Sebastian on the oval, arms folded, eyes flat with anger he was doing a bad job of hiding. Over the past few weeks, Sebastian had run through drills tight-mouthed and precise.
Sebastian Nguyen was annoying. But he was also good.
That part was inconvenient.
As much as Sebastian got on his nerves, and how much they had competed with each other, even in their younger days, Marcos wouldn’t outright say he was the better of the two.
It was easier when other people said it. His dad, or commentators, or teammates who only saw the highlights and the centre bounces and the fact that Marcos had the ruck position now. They didn’t have all the smaller pieces Marcos did.
Sebastian at ten, skinny and furious, shoving him after a centre bounce because Marcos had got both hands to the ball first. Sebastian at thirteen, mud on one cheek, jaw set so hard it looked painful.
Sebastian at sixteen, already moving like he knew exactly where Marcos wanted to put his body and how to make that difficult.
They had been doing this too long for Marcos to believe it was simple.
Marcos turned the corner and slowed slightly as the footpath dipped near a driveway. The music kept pushing, but his thoughts had gone somewhere else. Back to the Mustangs’ oval. Back to Sebastian jogging beside him.
Marcos smiled before he caught himself.
Then the smile faded.
He had ruck, and Sebastian did not.
It was easy to joke about it when Sebastian glared at him, easy to say “sidekick” and “second best” because Sebastian reacted so easily. But alone, with the streets stretching ahead and his legs moving on habit, Marcos could admit what had been playing on his mind.
He didn’t think he was the better player.