Chapter Ten #2
“You’re not in fucking primary school,” Jacob said, looking between the men. “Grow up and sit next to each other.”
Marcos moved quickly, getting to his feet and shifting himself next to Sebastian. He still didn’t lift his gaze. Didn’t give any indication that he even glanced Sebastian’s way.
They sat there, waiting for Jacob to speak.
Sebastian’s body was relaxed because he made it relax. Arms loose in his lap. Legs slightly spread. Back resting against the lockers behind him as though the whole thing was irritating rather than threatening. Everything arranged against the tightness wound in his chest and under his skin.
Marcos was the opposite. His body held tight.
Sebastian noticed the tension in his muscles, the flex down his arms and into his legs, the way his hands stayed clasped between his knees.
His shoulders were set too high. His jaw worked once, then stopped.
He looked as though he was waiting for Jacob to start yelling, or for Sebastian to say something, or for the ground to open under both of them.
Then, with a slow exhale, Marcos loosened. His shoulders dropped. His fingers uncurled. His legs shifted until his thigh rested against Sebastian’s.
Sebastian almost flinched away.
The sudden warmth sat wrong. The contact felt like a mistake.
It sat against the side of his leg, solid and deliberate, casual enough to look like nothing if Jacob noticed.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Marcos had only run out of room on the bench.
Maybe his body had shifted without his head catching up, the same way it had last night when he crossed Sebastian’s living room and put his mouth on him.
Sebastian kept his eyes forward. Marcos didn’t move. So, neither did he.
“It’s good to see both of you came today,” Jacob started, fingers tapping on his clipboard. “That bruise seems to have developed quite nicely.”
Sebastian’s eyes flicked toward Marcos, but he couldn’t see the bruise he had left sitting on the other side of Marcos’ face. He wondered if it had gotten worse since last night. Or how much it hurt now.
Sebastian’s bruises hadn’t been that bad.
He hadn’t been hit that hard. The fight he’d been in had given him marks, sure, but they had already started to fade.
Marcos had received almost a clean hit from him, though, and considering the constant throb Sebastian still had in his knuckles, he was sure the other man was feeling something.
“Look, boys, this shit has to stop,” Jacob continued. “What even happened yesterday? Seb?”
Sebastian’s heart climbed into his throat, and he swallowed hard. “Sorry, Coach. Personal stuff was going on, and I lost it.”
Marcos shifted beside him. Not much. Barely anything. But Sebastian felt it through the side of his thigh and hated that he noticed.
Jacob watched him. “I get it. But, fuck, you can’t bring that shit out against your own team. Now, obviously, I don’t want you to take swings at anyone, but pick your fucking battles.”
Sebastian nodded, his head knocking softly against the lockers behind him. His fingers picked at the skin around his nails, finding a rough edge and pulling until it stung.
“I was serious yesterday. This shit has to stop. I am not dealing with it.” Jacob took a breath. “You guys are good. But if I need to pull a reserve in for you, I will. Understood?”
Sebastian and Marcos muttered a shallow, “Yes,” and Jacob nodded.
The word landed weakly between them.
Sebastian hated that too. They sounded like boys in trouble.
Not professional athletes. Not grown men who had fought their way into contracts and starting positions.
Boys who had been hauled away from everyone else because they couldn’t be trusted to stand in a group without making the club look stupid.
Jacob’s gaze shifted from one to the other.
“I need the both of you to understand how serious this is.” He took a seat opposite them, on the small bench splitting the room.
“You were lucky there was no one watching the mock game. Cameras, stories, fucking TikTok posts. The news cycle would come out with God knows what bullshit. How do you think that’ll look for you guys?
Or the club? Or me? Do you know how bad it would be if what you two did got out? ”
Sebastian’s breath caught.
His gaze darted to Marcos, then dipped to the floor between his feet. He knew he should be thinking about what happened on the field. The punch. The fight. The anger. That was what Jacob was talking about. What this whole thing was about.
That wasn’t where Sebastian’s mind went, though.
It steered him somewhere quieter. Somewhere more private.
His apartment. On his couch. Marcos’ hand on his chest and his breath on his lips. Sebastian on his knees between Marcos’ legs, tasting him and taking in his scent.
If people knew about that, what would happen? If cameras had seen that, what would happen?
Sebastian’s throat tensed before he could stop it. He could imagine the story forming around him. Not the fight, or the punch. Something that would take every part of his life he had kept separate and flatten it into one thing people could point at.
Footballer.
Gay footballer.
He pressed his thumb harder against the torn skin beside his nail.
Marcos mumbled something beside him, and Sebastian snapped out of his thoughts, looking up to see Jacob staring at him.
“Did you hear me?” Jacob asked, and Sebastian cleared his throat, looking toward Marcos, who still stared at the ground. “I said, you two need to learn to work together.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sebastian said quickly, nodding too fast, too many times.
Jacob stared at him, eyes sharp.
Sebastian stopped nodding.
“Good. Because from now on, until I say otherwise, you two will be practically holding hands whenever you’re training.
” Jacob stood, pulling paper from his clipboard and handing it to Sebastian and Marcos.
“Drills together. Stretches together. Gym together. Hell, I want you to have lunch together. You two are going to learn how to be on the same team. Or, so help me fucking God, this conversation is going to be very different next time.”
Sebastian dropped his gaze to the paper Jacob had handed him.
It was a schedule.
Drills, training, workouts. All laid out plainly with his and Marcos’ names next to each other.
If they weren’t training with the team, they would be off doing drills together or in the gym together.
Same time. Same space. Same expectation that they could stand beside each other without tearing the club’s morning apart.
Marcos’ copy shifted in his hand, the page bending slightly under his fingers.
“Zach has restructured your workout routines to line up with each other. Same exercises, same days.” Jacob tucked his clipboard under his arm again, letting out a sigh. “Alright. Now, get back out there.”
Once again, Marcos acted first, getting to his feet and stepping past Jacob.
The absence of contact on Sebastian’s thigh became far too obvious for his liking.
It had been nothing. Less than nothing, probably.
A thigh pressed against his on a bench while their coach told them to stop behaving like dickheads.
But the moment Marcos stood, the place he had been touching cooled too quickly, and Sebastian’s attention dropped there before he had a chance to catch himself.
He pushed off the bench and went to follow Marcos, but Jacob’s hand landed on his chest.
Sebastian stopped.
He watched Marcos leave through the doorway, paper still in hand, shoulders set in a way that told Sebastian whatever relaxed feeling Marcos had next to him was gone.
Then Marcos disappeared into the hall, and Sebastian was left with Jacob’s palm against his sternum and the faint, ridiculous awareness of where Marcos’ leg had been.
“While I am required to remind you of this, I’m also doing it because you’re a good kid and I’d hate to see you go down a bad path.” Jacob searched Sebastian’s eyes. “Dr Veech is available if you need her. We can organise something.”
Sebastian stared at him.
Dr Veech was the Mustangs’ psychologist. Most clubs had one, and if they didn’t, they outsourced the service.
Usually, they were used to manage nerves or when players had been injured and were in their own head about whether they could play again or when they’d be back.
Sometimes for grief. Sometimes for pressure.
Sometimes because a player had started doing stupid things in ways the club couldn’t keep ignoring.
Sebastian knew that.
He also knew what it meant for Jacob to say it here, in the locker room, after the fight, after the warning, after dragging him aside when Marcos had already been sent out.
Jacob wasn’t asking because he knew anything.
That was the only thing Sebastian could hold onto.
He didn’t know about the apartment. He didn’t know about Marcos leaving. He didn’t know about Loren in the café that morning, or Felicity, or about his father’s tumour and him needing surgery. He didn’t know about any of it.
He only knew Sebastian had punched a teammate in the middle of training.
That was enough.
Sebastian let the thought settle, the words sitting between them. He nodded. “I know. I’m good. Thank you.”
“Alright, well, if you’re not careful, it won’t be a choice.”
Jacob’s hand dropped from Sebastian’s chest, and he spun on his heel and headed toward the exit, leaving Sebastian alone.
Sebastian’s mind was too loud for the silence pressing in around him. For a moment, he stayed where Jacob had stopped him, paper held loosely at his side. Noise from the oval drifted in through the hall, muffled by distance and walls.
Sebastian’s eyes fell to the schedule again.
He breathed, slow and controlled. He folded the paper once, then again, until the crease cut through both his and Marcos’ names, and shoved it into his pocket.