Chapter Eleven #2
On the second Wednesday, Sebastian walked into the gym mentally preparing himself for his leg workout.
As usual, Marcos was there waiting for him.
Bar already set up, weight already on it.
Marcos glanced up as Sebastian walked over and tilted his chin down.
Sebastian couldn’t tell if it was a gentle nod at him or a random movement.
He ignored it either way.
Marcos took a step to the side and motioned to the rack. “Is that good to start?”
Sebastian paused, taken aback. The past two weeks had turned basic communication between them into a myth.
Marcos’ voice landed quietly between them, practical and almost careful.
Sebastian recomposed himself and looked at the weight. It was a little more than what he’d done last week, but he was pretty sure he could do it.
“Yeah,” he said quietly, and stepped under the bar. “I can do this.”
Marcos moved behind him.
The mirror threw both of them back at Sebastian. His own face first, focused and tight. Marcos behind him, tall enough to see over his shoulder, hands held near Sebastian’s ribs but not touching. His expression gave nothing away.
Sebastian unhooked the bar, and the weight settled across his back. His feet were planted, knees pointed out slightly, core braced.
Then he started.
Marcos moved with him, not too close, not too far, knees bending slightly as Sebastian lowered. When Sebastian drove back up, Marcos’ hands rose beside him.
By the fifth rep, Sebastian started to think the weight might have been too much for him.
The sixth made his legs shake as he drove himself up.
The seventh, he stayed at the bottom of the rep a little longer than normal, lungs tight, back rigid under the bar.
By the last one, his legs pushed hard, and the weight moved, but it didn’t go all the way up.
His body halted, and fatigue rushed down his legs, followed by pain as his muscles strained.
Marcos hovered close, fingers grazing Sebastian’s side. “You can do it. Come on,” he said, voice low.
Sebastian felt Marcos’ breath at the back of his neck. Felt his hand move closer to his body, no longer grazing him, but sitting firmly at his side.
Sebastian closed his eyes tightly and forced a breath harshly out of his lungs as he pushed everything into driving his body up.
His legs burned. The bar shifted slowly. And he reached the top of the rep, slamming the bar into the racking and onto the hook. Sebastian stepped out from under the bar and stepped aside, gulping in a few breaths of oxygen.
Marcos nodded, then took his position. He didn’t start right away. He set up his body, gripped the bar, then lifted his gaze, catching Sebastian’s reflection in the mirror. His eyes flicked down again, and he unracked the bar.
The gym continued to work around them, and their actions blended into it as they continued their routine.
By then, Sebastian had learned the shape of Marcos’ almosts.
The almost-look across the locker room.
The almost-smile when Sebastian completed a difficult set.
The almost-touch when they packed weights away and Marcos’ fingers landed too close around the same plate.
Sebastian didn’t know whether Marcos was trying to move toward him or trying not to.
Maybe both. Maybe that was the whole problem.
Marcos had always been easy to understand on the field because football gave him rules.
But outside that, he seemed to keep reaching the edge of something, then stopping before Sebastian could decide if he was being offered anything at all.
It followed him through each day. Into gym sets and centre drills, into review sessions where Marcos sat two seats away and spoke only when football gave him something safe to say. Then he’d look at Sebastian across the room, quick and unreadable, and the whole thing would start again.
The week wore Sebastian down.
Not badly enough for anyone else to notice. He still trained. Still ran repeat efforts until his lungs burned and his legs turned heavy. Still took the ball cleanly when Marcos tapped it down to him. Still got through gym blocks, meetings, and recovery.
But by Friday afternoon, his patience had thinned into something brittle.
The session had been long. Jacob ran them through match simulation, stoppage work, repeat sprints, and then another block of centre clearances. By the time they finished, Sebastian’s legs were heavy, and his shirt clung to his back.
He walked into the changing rooms with the feeling of Marcos’ attention still on him and no idea what to do with it.
The room filled around them in the usual rush.
Boots coming off, tape being ripped away, players talking over one another, towels grabbed from hooks, showers turning on.
The air warmed quickly with bodies and steam.
Sebastian threaded through it all, pulling his boots and socks off, peeling his clothes off, grabbing his towel, then heading for the showers without looking to see where Marcos had gone.
The shower helped his body more than his head.
Heat loosened the back of his neck and washed sweat from his skin.
He lowered his head and braced his hands against the tiled wall before he forced himself to straighten.
Around him, players moved in and out of stalls.
Voices echoed off the tiles, joking, complaining, planning the weekend.
Sebastian ignored it all. Only listening to the sound of the water slapping against his body and the tiles.
By the time he turned the water off, there were no other showers running, and there were no voices carrying around him.
He grabbed his towel, quickly dried himself, and then strung it around his waist before walking back to his locker.
There were only two others still there, and Marcos was one of them.
He stood a few lockers down, pulling his shirt on, but otherwise fully dressed and ready to leave.
His hair was still damp and curling tighter as it dried.
He had his back partly turned and placed one hand in his bag once his shirt was on.
Sebastian turned away. His towel hung low around his hips as he searched for his clean clothes.
His skin cooled in the room’s air. The healed cut on his chest had faded to a thin mark now, visible if someone knew to look.
His bruises had gone. What remained of the past few weeks existed less on his body and more under it.
He pulled his underwear from his bag and dropped his towel to put them on.
That was when he felt it.
Attention.
Sebastian didn’t know how he knew. He just did. The tiny shift in the room. The prickle between his shoulders. The old instinct from years of playing in front of crowds and under coaches’ eyes, sharpened now by two weeks of trying to track every glance Marcos did or didn’t give him.
He straightened slowly and turned.
Marcos was staring at him.
Not at his face.
At his body.
Sebastian held still, gripping the waistband of his underwear. Marcos’ gaze was on his chest first, then lower, taking in skin, muscle, the faint line where the cut had been. His expression wasn’t blank now. It wasn’t hidden behind panic or the hard focus of training.
It was open enough that Sebastian forgot, for one dangerous second, that they weren’t alone.
Marcos’ eyes lifted.
He caught Sebastian watching him.
For two weeks, Marcos had looked away first. In the gym. In the hallway. Across the oval. Every time Sebastian got close to seeing something, Marcos had stepped back behind lowered eyes, silence, or whatever careful restraint he kept forcing onto his own face.
This time, he didn’t.
Marcos met Sebastian’s gaze and held it.
Sebastian was the one to shift first, gaze dropping as his body turned. Then he heard Marcos pick up his bag and leave the locker room.
A breath rattled out of Sebastian as he dropped his gaze, the weight of Marcos’ attention still sitting on his skin.