Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
Fin’s morning wood woke him at quarter to six with its usual penchant for punctuality.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem. He could choose to do something about it or ignore it depending on his mood and the traffic updates on the radio.
Still wrapped around Sweeney with the smell of his shampoo wafting from her hair?
It was a huge fucking hairy deal.
What if she woke and felt it pressing into the cleft of her buttocks? He assumed she knew enough about men to understand that the early morning male erection was almost universally common and not related to her presence.
But would she believe it? Hell, the bigger question was, did he believe it?
Not yet ready to examine something so confronting—not without caffeine in his system, anyway—Fin gently eased away, sliding his arm out from under her head with only the slightest stirring from her before she settled back to sleep.
Not allowing himself to spend a second longer in bed with her, he rolled out the other side and tiptoed to the bathroom.
She’d gone for coffee yesterday, he’d reciprocate today.
And, as he walked, he’d think about today.
Not last night. About the games today, not the way he and Sweeney had slotted together like a pair of nesting dolls.
About strategy, not how he’d drifted to sleep on a cloud of such thorough contentment he hadn’t moved a goddamn muscle all night.
About getting his little team to the quarter finals, not how much his boner was about her rather than male biological/diurnal rhythms.
It was another warm one as he exited the room three minutes later, leaving Sweeney still fast asleep.
The streets were quiet on this Easter Saturday as his legs ate up the distance to the diner and, despite trying not to think about last night, it was inevitable that he did.
But not about their impromptu cuddle session.
About what had precipitated it. Sweeney’s confession of what she’d been through with her mother after her father’s death.
He’d been stunned by what she’d spilled, broken-hearted for the burden that had been placed on her shoulders and kicking his own ass at his lack of awareness.
He still remembered that terrible day her father died.
It was etched into his brain. He’d been thinking about that confusing spin-the-bottle kiss when the siren had squealed down their street.
He’d never forgotten the look that passed between his parents when they realised the ambulance had pulled up outside Sweeney’s house, nor the way they ran—his mother never ran—down the street, his father yelling, ‘Stay with your granny,’ as Fin had tried to follow.
He’d never forget them coming back hours later, long after the ambulance had left, his mother leaning heavily on his father, her face puffy, her eyes red-rimmed as she told Fin that Malcolm Bailey was dead and that he was going to need to be there for Sweeney.
He’d never forget Sweeney the next day, pale and devastated, the stuffing completely knocked out of her. He remembered thinking this is what a broken heart looks like and feeling wholly inadequate to deal with her gut-wrenching grief.
To be there for her.
Which he clearly hadn’t been. Bloody hell—he’d been a terrible friend.
Why hadn’t he seen that she’d been suffering far more than she’d let on?
Had he been that self-absorbed? He remembered his relief every time she’d laughed at one of his jokes or crowed when she’d whipped his ass at Mario Kart because he’d hoped it meant she was getting better. That she was getting over it.
Idiot.
He had wanted to raise the subject of her dad and how she was feeling—many times.
But he hadn’t felt adequately equipped emotionally to go there.
What if he made her cry again? Her inconsolable sobbing at the funeral had stayed stuck on repeat in Fin’s brain for a long time.
It had scared him to see his normally strong friend so distressed as those curtains had closed around the coffin, and he’d have done anything to stop those tears.
Of course, he’d realised as he’d grown older that Sweeney’s outpouring that day had been healthy.
And he realised now that her having to suppress it all in the weeks, months and years that followed, in deference to her mother’s grief, had not been.
Stepping up the way she had as her mum fell apart had left Sweeney no space to process her own loss.
Fin, for all his fucked-up guilt, had been granted the luxury of space.
And it really sucked that Sweeney had not.
But he knew now what she’d been through and was determined to make amends.
Whatever happened after this weird little interlude in Ballyshannon, he would make up for being a lousy friend all those years ago and be the best damn friend she could ever hope for, going forward.
Friend.
The word itched under his skin and stabbed at his eyeballs and swelled at the back of his throat as if he was having an allergic reaction.
How could they ever be just friends again?
After their forced proximity playing fake fiancés.
After kisses—of all varieties—and waking up smooshed together this morning.
And wasn’t that exactly what he’d feared when this whole debacle had begun?
But they had to make it work. Because if they couldn’t be friends, and they definitely couldn’t be lovers, then that left them in a very strange limbo that would have wider repercussions for their mothers.
They had to pick one—and he was choosing friends.
No more going months and months without any communication.
They’d already made a pact to catch up face-to-face at least once a year but they could do more.
Like monthly Zoom sessions. A WhatsApp group where they could chat in between sessions.
He would make up for not being there for her when she’d been twelve.
Mind made up, he yanked open the door to the diner and greeted a smiling Dolly.
*
Several hours later, Fin and Sweeney were standing on the sidelines with a bunch of other parents, watching the Banshees play in the quarter finals.
He wasn’t sure how it had happened but, while the older team had bombed out, his team had just scraped into the top four.
The kids had been ecstatic, the parents had been over the moon, and Donny had morphed into some kind of bard, waxing poetically about the mighty game and the romance of the old country.
William Butler Yeats he was not.
Unfortunately, even if they scored in these dying minutes of the game—which was highly unlikely—the other team, hopped up on trashy Easter chocolate at half-time instead of healthy orange segments, were killing them.
Not that Fin cared. The team had come much further than he’d thought they would and all the kids had enjoyed themselves, which was the way it should be at their age.
Donny, on the other hand, was growing so morose he was going to have to switch from poetry to country music lyrics.
But then, with only one minute left, something happened. ‘Oh my god,’ Sweeney murmured, suddenly raising the camera with the zoom lens to her eye. ‘I think she’s going to score.’
Fin, who was crouched doing up yet another shoelace, looked across the pitch to find Winnie, dribbling the ball at pace.
Despite being one of the more coordinated players on the team, Winnie hadn’t ever scored a goal, but she was way out ahead of the pack at the moment in what appeared to be full control of the ball.
Tori and Nellie were the closest, but she was still several metres in front of them as they yelled, ‘Goooo, Winnie! Go!’
Then every parent on their side of the field took up the refrain.
Winnie’s grandparents were screaming the loudest, followed closely by Donny, but the little girl was so utterly focused on her target that Fin doubted she was hearing anything.
His heart leaped into his mouth as he tracked her progress, also calling out encouragement.
‘Please tell me you’re getting this,’ he yelled to Sweeney above the din.
‘Every moment,’ she yelled back, the rapid clicking of her camera barely audible over the spectator noise.
Suddenly the goalie from the opposite team ran out to meet her, his eye on the ball, his chin jutted in determination.
Fin’s pulse picked up. But Winnie, it seemed, was not going to be intimidated by a boy a foot taller and a significant amount of kilos heavier, who was going in for some fancy, skilful slide tackle.
He may have been bigger but she was more nimble, something she demonstrated when she sprang over him like a freaking gazelle as he careened along the ground towards her, aiming to take out her legs.
And she just kept running, pushing the ball forward with her toes until, with one final punch, she kicked it into the centre of the net.
Every parent on the team, every random person watching the match—of which there were now many as the knocked-out teams became spectators—and even supporters from the other side went wild at what was, without any bias, the goal of the match.
Possibly of the entire meet.
Every kid on the team started running in her direction, yahooing like a pack of real banshees as Winnie just stood there, staring at the ball now sitting square in the goal, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d done.
Then she turned to face her team, threw both hands in the air as if she’d just kicked the winning goal of a grand final game at Croke Park, and bellowed, ‘Yaaaaasssss!!!’
Every Banshee stopped in their tracks. Every team parent on the sidelines fell into startled silence. Her grandparents stared agape. Sweeney’s camera stopped clicking. Hell, Fin swore his heart stopped beating. For one second. Two. Three.
‘Did you get that?’ he murmured to Sweeney.
‘Yup.’
Tori and Nellie recovered first, eating up the remaining distance in seconds, crushing Winnie into a three-way embrace.
The sideline cheering started again, Sweeney started clicking again and, before Fin’s pulse could fully recover, Gordon and Hilde were running onto the pitch as the entire team threw themselves into one giant team hug.
The huddle quickly collapsed, toppling into a cheering, screaming, giggling heap on the ground.
Donny slung an exuberant arm around Fin’s neck. ‘Did you see that?’ he yelled excitedly. ‘Winnie spoke!’ Then he was off again, to high five and hug more people.
And that was the reason why Fin loved his charmingly idiotic cousin so damn much—Donny had wanted to win this game bad because defeat meant they left the comp and he’d wanted to win for Michael, but his jubilation now was not about the goal, it was about Winnie speaking.
His cousin was a dad first and foremost. And a footy fan second.
‘You did good, Sharky,’ Sweeney whispered, nudging him with her arm as they watched Winnie’s grandparents pull her from the wriggling bodies and hug her tight.
Fin smiled as their gazes met, his heart brimming with happy, his soul bursting with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment he doubted he’d ever got from a spreadsheet of figures, no matter how many zeros they involved.
And the fact he got to share this experience with Sweeney? That was probably the best part of all.
‘We did good.’ Every person on the team had accepted Winnie with open arms and wrapped her up in acceptance and security. And every person had pulled together to help get the team to this event.
The final hooter went as the team disentangled themselves and then every Banshee parent ran onto the pitch, picking their kids up and throwing them on their shoulders and taking off with them around the perimeter of the pitch in a victory lap, each kid thanking Winnie—perched on her grandfather’s shoulders—using AUSLAN.
She signed thank you back then high fived them as they passed her by.
The kids on the other team—who had won by a significant margin—stood silently, their expressions PC versions of WTF?
It probably wasn’t very fair to them, stealing their thunder, but Fin had little time to worry about the optics before he and Sweeney were also picked up by Banshee supporters and hoisted onto shoulders to join the team on their non-victory lap.
Sweeney looked momentarily startled as she clutched at the two heads belonging to the two shoulders she was balancing on, her camera swinging from her neck.
But then she was laughing and soon after, obviously feeling more secure, she started snapping away again, catching the sheer and utter joy of the moment.
She looked radiant, totally swept up in the spontaneous parade as she clicked and laughed and high fived, and Fin couldn’t help but think she was exactly where she belonged.
On a pedestal, being idolised.