Chapter Seventeen
Sebastian – “Take control”
“Can I be honest?” Marcos asked, looking down at the plate Sebastian had slid across the counter to rest in front of him.
Sebastian glanced at him, then at the sandwich on the plate, already knowing exactly where the question was going by the way Marcos’ mouth had pulled slightly to one side. He slid onto the chair beside him and dragged his own plate closer.
“Go for it,” Sebastian said.
“When you said you were going to ‘blow my mind,’ I thought you were going to cook some Vietnamese food that I’d never heard of.”
Sebastian let his eyes drop to the grilled cheese sandwiches sitting on their plates, golden and slightly too flattened in the middle because he had pressed it down with the spatula more than it needed. The cheese had melted out at one edge and crisped against the bread.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is this not to your satisfaction?” Sebastian placed his elbow on the counter and angled himself toward Marcos.
“No, no. It looks great.” Marcos chortled.
“I’ll have you know that grilled cheese sandwiches may as well have been a Vietnamese dish when I was growing up.”
“You had them a lot?”
Sebastian took a bite of his sandwich. “After training and my grandparents weren’t home? Grilled cheese. After school? Grilled cheese. Midnight snack? Grilled cheese.”
“Your poor stomach,” Marcos said, and Sebastian shrugged.
“My stomach is great. Thrilled with my dietary decisions.”
Marcos smiled down at his plate, but there was still that careful edge to him.
Sebastian noticed it now in the way Marcos picked up half of his sandwich, paused, then set it back down before lifting it again.
The way his thumb rubbed against the side of his plate.
The way his shoulders stayed loose only because he seemed to be forcing them.
They ate for a while without speaking. The silence settled into the little sounds of the apartment: Marcos chewing, the soft scrape of Sebastian’s plate when he shifted it closer, and the low hum of the game still playing in the background.
Marcos was the first to break it. “Were your grandparents not home a lot?”
Sebastian let the question sit.
It came gently enough, but that didn’t make it easier. Marcos wasn’t prying in a careless way. He had heard the gap in what Sebastian had said and followed it because he was trying. He wanted to get to know Sebastian.
Sebastian inhaled deeply before he answered, “They were busy. Did a lot to pay for a lot of things for me, you know.”
Marcos nodded slowly, his eyes still lowered toward his plate. “So, you sort of looked after yourself a lot?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t know. I never really thought about it growing up.”
He hadn’t thought about it at the time because it was normal.
He would come home, make food, do homework when he could force himself to care about it, pack his own gear, wash training clothes badly enough that his grandmother sometimes sighed over them the next morning and redid them while Sebastian was asleep.
He had learned which bus got him closest to training.
He had learned that if he forgot something, no one was coming to fix it in time.
Back then, that had just been life.
Sebastian watched as Marcos shifted, his jaw working as though he was deciding if he should say something or not. His fingers moved near the edge of his plate, then stopped. When he spoke, his voice was quieter.
“I never really saw people with you at games when we were younger.”
Sebastian’s heart thumped loudly against his ribs, and his pulse was heavy in his fingertips. He swallowed. “Yeah, well, as I said, they were busy. They came when they could.”
He hated how defensive that sounded.
Marcos didn’t flinch from it, which made Sebastian feel worse. He only nodded again, slowly. “I always had at least one of my parents there,” he said quietly. “And always Paula.”
Sebastian forced a smile and tried not to think about what it would have been like to look across a junior ground and know someone had come just to watch him.
Sitting there through rain, bad umpiring, shit coffee, and teenage boys throwing themselves around as if any of it mattered to the wider world.
“I don’t know why I never assumed she was your sister,” Sebastian said, keeping the focus on Marcos.
“Yeah,” Marcos said, finishing off his sandwich and pushing the plate away, before he brought his hands back together in front of him. “Can I ask a question?”
“You don’t have to ask if you can ask a question.”
“I know, it’s just…more personal, I guess.”
Sebastian straightened, letting his shoulders roll back. “Okay.”
Marcos didn’t ask straight away. He looked at his hands, then at Sebastian, then down again.
The silence that followed was not like the earlier one.
This one knew where it was going before either of them said anything.
Sebastian felt it moving through the room and toward the thing they had both been circling since Marcos stepped through the door.
“Why did you kiss me?”
Sebastian stared at him. “That’s not really personal,” he said with a smile. “Pretty sure I’ve asked you that question.”
“I have more.” Marcos’ mouth pulled tight, though upturned.
“Uh, okay.” Sebastian cleared his throat. “I don’t really know. You were there. I was a little drunk. I’d just been punched in the face. There were a lot of emotions. I…wasn’t really thinking.”
The simplicity of it made Sebastian feel stupid. There had been alcohol in him. There had been blood, pain, humiliation, anger, and the sudden unreality of Marcos appearing on the street when Sebastian had least expected to see him. There had been too much in his body and nowhere good for it to go.
But none of that explained why Marcos had become the place it went.
“Why did you get in a fight anyway?” Marcos asked.
Sebastian’s fingers tightened around the edge of his plate before he made himself release it. “I…was at a gay bar. Well, I was leaving one.” Sebastian tilted his head. “And some people don’t like gays. Threw a glass at me.”
He got to his feet before Marcos could respond, grabbing both plates and walking around the counter to place them in the dishwasher. The motion was too quick to look casual, but sitting still felt worse. His mind wandered back to that night before Marcos had found him walking the street.
He’d only gone out for a few drinks to clear his head.
That was all it had been meant to be. A place where he didn’t have to be Sebastian Nguyen from the Mustangs, didn’t have to think about the contract, the position change, Marcos fucking Reyes taking ruck, the pressure of a season that hadn’t even started yet and already felt like it had a hand around his throat.
No one had recognised him—one of the benefits of wearing glasses off the field and looking just different enough from the version of himself that people yelled at through fences and screens.
He’d barely left the building when a jackass had tossed a glass in Sebastian’s direction and followed it up with a punch.
Sebastian had pushed him off, tasted blood, and kept walking because it wouldn’t have been worth it to get into a fight.
“That’s shit,” Marcos said.
Sebastian glanced over.
Marcos’ face had gone tight, the easy embarrassment from a moment earlier replaced by something heavier he clearly didn’t know where to put.
He looked angry and unsure at the same time, as if the right reaction hadn’t come into his mind fast enough.
His hands were flat on the counter now, fingers spread, and his eyes stayed on Sebastian like he was worried looking away might make it seem as if he didn’t care.
“Yeah. Ruined my shirt. Fucking hole in it.” Sebastian leaned on the counter, his eyes still on Marcos.
The line did what he needed it to do. It made Marcos blink, then breathe out in something that might have been a laugh if the room had been lighter.
“So…” Marcos brought his hands together and picked at the skin around his fingernails. “So, you’re…gay?”
Sebastian’s heart jumped at the word.
He was. He had known that for a long time. Long enough that the word itself was not new or strange. It fit him. It had fit before he was ready for it, and it still fit now, even when hearing Marcos say it across the kitchen counter made his whole body tense.
He had gone to gay bars. Hooked up with guys.
Let strangers put their mouths on him, their hands on him, their attention over him in rooms that belonged to a different part of his life.
It had always felt separate. A clean divide between the Sebastian who could want openly for a few hours and the Sebastian who walked back into football the next morning with every door shut properly behind him.
Marcos was not from that life.
Marcos was centre bounces, review rooms, shower tiles at the club, and a rivalry that had followed Sebastian from junior grounds to professional contracts.
Marcos belonged to the life Sebastian had spent years keeping separate from this part of himself, and now he was sitting at Sebastian’s counter with the word ‘gay’ in his mouth and his hands worrying at his own skin.
Sebastian shifted uncomfortably, taking his weight off the counter. “Uh, yeah.”
Marcos nodded, his fingers still working at his skin. “I don’t think I am.”
Sebastian waited, watching Marcos closely. His lungs felt like they weren’t getting enough air, but he forced his breathing to stay even.
“I like women,” Marcos continued, his voice going quieter. “But I…like you, too.”
The words hit Sebastian harder than he expected. He adjusted his weight, shifting it from one foot to another, before shifting it back because nothing felt quite comfortable.
“You think you’re bi?” Sebastian asked.
Marcos stared at his hands. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.” Sebastian walked around the counter slowly and stood next to him. He placed a hand on Marcos’ back, high between his shoulder blades, and felt the tension there before Marcos eased into the touch by the smallest amount. “You don’t have to.”