Chapter Ten
Sebastian – “I’m always in a good mood”
“So, you’re in a better mood today?” Randal asked, his palms pressed firmly on Sebastian’s boots.
They were on the field at the Mustangs club, bodies spread across the grass around them.
Some jogged along the boundary line, others stretched in loose groups, and a few had joined Randal and Sebastian in doing a light bodyweight workout before Jacob started the actual session.
Conversations carried across the oval in pieces, broken by breath, boots, and the occasional thud of a football being handballed between players.
It was midday. The high sun had already made the ground too warm, and Sebastian could feel heat gathering under his shirt, sticking between his shoulder blades and along the back of his neck.
He had barely been out here long enough for it to annoy him properly, which meant the day was already going badly.
His mind was still back at Stella’s with Loren.
Still caught on his father’s surgery and the way Loren’s hand had sat over his in the café.
Still tangled somewhere around Felicity’s name being dragged back up after he had spent every month after the move making sure it stayed where he could ignore it.
And, underneath that, fighting for its way to the centre of everything, there was Marcos.
So, no, he wasn’t in a better mood.
“I’m always in a good mood,” Sebastian lied in between situps, twisting his body as he reached his knees, then bringing it back to the ground.
“Really?” Randal questioned, scanning the field. “Fuck. Remind me not to be around you when you aren’t then.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I was at the goal posts and still saw you.” Randal chuckled. “Looked like one of those cartoon characters with the steam coming out of your ears.”
Sebastian forced himself to smile as he focused on what his body was doing.
He rose, twisted left, lowered himself back to the grass, then rose again and twisted right.
His core burned as he flexed and controlled each movement, which was at least something he understood.
Pain that belonged to effort. Muscles doing what they were told.
The thought that people had seen him act the way he had sat uncomfortably under his skin.
Of course, most of them had seen him aggressive before.
They had played against him when he was at the Rams. Some of them had probably worn the edge of him in tackles, bumps, late pressure, and the kind of contact that sat right on the edge of being called illegal, but never called.
That was football. Anger was allowed if it stayed useful.
Aggression was praised if it ended in a clearance, a mark, or a goal.
This had been different.
This wasn’t an unfair call made by the umpire, or a sharp elbow into his ribs that had set it off.
It wasn’t something that could be clipped and turned into a hard-player highlight with some stupid caption about passion.
It was Sebastian being too inside his own head and giving in to his own frustration before he had stopped to check whether the world was actually how he thought it was.
At the time, he had been right to be angry.
At the time, it had felt clear.
No one else would understand why, though.
Even if Marcos had said what Sebastian thought he had, most of the team wouldn’t have heard it.
Most of the team probably wouldn’t have cared.
Worse things had been said on fields and in changing rooms with less consequence than a bad look across the benches.
They would have called it heat, or banter, or a line crossed by half a step then quietly walked back.
How could Sebastian explain why he did what he did without them looking at him differently? Without someone piecing it together?
“For the record,” Randal started, eyes following Sebastian’s movement, “I reckon you could take him.”
“Thanks,” Sebastian murmured, letting his back fall to the ground and spreading his arms out.
Randal got to his feet and held out his hand. Sebastian took it, letting Randal haul him up. His stomach tightened as he stood, the muscles protesting from the exercise and the rest of him protesting from everything else. He brushed grass from his shirt just as a whistle ripped across the ground.
“Laps! Everyone!” Jacob strode across the oval, Jeremy a few steps behind him. “Jeremy will set up some drills, and everyone will listen to him when they’re ready.”
The team pulled in closer to catch Jacob’s words, a loose agreement filtering through them before they started to break away.
Players turned on their heels and jogged toward the boundary line, toward those already running, conversation picking back up almost immediately.
Boots shifted. Someone groaned about the heat, while someone else laughed and shoved him toward the line.
Sebastian’s eye caught Marcos off to the side with Parker.
Parker had one hand clasped on Marcos’ shoulder, leaning in as he said something Sebastian couldn’t hear.
Marcos nodded, or maybe only moved because Parker’s hand made him.
He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t looking across the field.
He seemed smaller from this distance, which was ridiculous because Marcos Reyes had never been small.
They were just about to follow the others when Jacob’s voice cut through the air again.
“Not you.” He pointed at Marcos, gesturing for him to come closer. Jacob then turned to face Sebastian. “Or you.”
A prickling sensation ran up the back of Sebastian’s neck as his gaze shifted between Marcos and Jacob. He clicked his tongue and dragged in a deep breath before stepping toward both of them.
“With me,” Jacob said shortly, pivoting toward the club’s building, the grass stiff under his boots.
Marcos fell in line after him first. Head down, eyes on the ground. Sebastian watched him, letting the distance build before he followed. His boots didn’t lift properly, scuffing against the grass with every step. The sound irritated him, but he didn’t correct it.
He wanted Marcos to look back.
That was the stupid part. Not the only stupid part, but the one currently making his jaw ache.
After last night, after Marcos had left without being able to look at him, Sebastian shouldn’t have wanted anything from him.
He should have been relieved Marcos was keeping his head down and his mouth shut.
He should have been grateful no one had looked at either of them and seen the shape of what had happened.
Instead, he wanted Marcos to turn.
He didn’t.
The grass gave way to the narrow strip of concrete at the boundary, then the rubber matting outside the players’ entrance. Sebastian’s boots changed sound beneath him, studs dragging against the surface before he stepped through the side door and into the cooler air of the club building.
The hallway inside wasn’t made for spectators.
No polished front desk, no framed welcome sign, no careful version of the Mustangs built for sponsors or family days.
This was the working part of the club. White walls marked in places by shoulders, bags, and boots.
A row of hooks held spare bibs and resistance bands.
A whiteboard near the gym doors still had the morning’s blocks written in black marker, half rubbed away by someone’s forearm.
Through the glass, Sebastian could see the weights area sitting empty, racks loaded and benches pushed back into place after the earlier group had finished.
They passed the physio rooms next. One door sat open, showing a treatment table, rolls of tape stacked on a trolley, and a player’s hoodie thrown over the back of a chair.
Farther down, the recovery area opened briefly on their left, ice baths covered, towels folded on a bench, and stationary bikes lined up against the wall for rehab work.
Sebastian kept his eyes on the back of Marcos’ neck.
Not because he wanted to. Because there wasn’t much else to look at that didn’t make him feel worse.
The corridor had too many reminders of where they were and what he had nearly cost them.
Team schedules. Injury boards. A laminated sheet about media obligations pinned crooked near the meeting room.
The Mustangs’ logos printed across walls, doors, and training gear, each one a reminder that this place didn’t belong to either of them individually.
They were assets here. Talented ones, maybe. But still replaceable enough for Jacob to drag them inside while the rest of the team kept running laps.
Jacob pushed through the locker room door and stepped in first.
The room was larger than the one Sebastian had left behind at Geelong, though not by much.
Lockers ran along three walls, each with a nameplate, shelf space, hanging rail, and the usual mess players made.
Boots sat under benches. Tape, spare socks, drink bottles, towels, and training tops were already spread across the room.
A mounted screen sat black on the far wall, with a tactics board beside it marked up from the previous meeting.
The locker room was empty aside from them, which somehow made it worse. Too many benches. Too many lockers. Too much space for Jacob’s irritation to fill.
He threw his hand out in a loose gesture toward the benches. “Sit.”
Marcos lowered himself near the far corner, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together, eyes on the floor.
Sebastian let his gaze settle on him. Marcos hadn’t looked at him once since Jacob pulled them off the oval. Not in the hallway. Not when he sat. Not now.
Last night had already told Sebastian enough. He didn’t need Marcos to explain the way his face had changed after.
But this was daylight. Training. Lockers. Their coach standing a few metres away with a clipboard under his arm.
Marcos refusing to look at him here felt worse.
Sebastian gave his head a small shake, then sat down on the other end of the bench, leaning his back against the lockers.