Chapter Fourteen
Marcos – “Not anymore”
The sound was deafening.
Even in the changing rooms, with concrete walls and closed doors, the crowd drilled through everything. It came through in waves, low and thick at first, then sharp whenever the song rose again outside. The stadium hadn’t settled. Melbourne hadn’t settled. No one wanted to go home yet.
Inside the room, it was worse.
The Mustangs were packed together in a huddle that barely held its shape, shoulders jammed against shoulders, arms hooked around necks, hands thumping backs hard enough to leave marks through sweat-soaked jerseys.
Boots slapped against the floor. Someone was still yelling.
Someone else had already lost most of his voice.
The staff stood around the edge of it, clapping, laughing, and shaking their heads.
One had even poured a bottle of water over a few of the players in celebration.
Sebastian was in the middle.
Marcos could barely see him now. At first, he had been able to, because the boys had dragged him in from the field with blood drying along one side of his face and his grin cutting straight through it. Then they had closed around him properly, and the maroon and gold swallowed him.
They were all singing the same song that was shaking the stadium outside.
We're running free, we're running strong
It's Mustang gold, or it's all wrong
March in maroon, keep standing tall
In Mustang gold, all others fall
Marcos stood somewhere near the back of the huddle, arms wrapped around Callum and Jaxon, because that was where he had ended up when it had formed.
Callum was still bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Jaxon had one arm tight across Marcos’ back and the other around Edgar, half shouting the words, half laughing them.
Marcos sang too, or thought he did. His mouth moved, and the sound came out, but he couldn’t hear himself over the rest of them.
He kept trying to look through the chaos in front of him.
Sebastian’s kick had been perfect. There had been no stumble, no hesitation, no rush once the ball left his boot.
It had carried through the light above the ground, above the line of defenders who already knew they couldn’t do anything, and through the goal with the whole match narrowed to that one exact line.
Marcos had known before the goal umpire moved.
The second the team realised it was going through, they collapsed on him. Bodies from every direction. Hands in his hair, arms around his shoulders, someone catching him around the waist and dragging him off balance.
Sebastian had turned to face Marcos as soon as the kick landed.
For one moment, through the noise and the players surging between them, they had both frozen.
Marcos had wanted to run over to him. To celebrate and congratulate him.
To be the first one to reach him, to grab him before anyone else did and say something stupid because his heart had been smashing hard enough to make his ribs feel too small.
He had wanted to touch him while the whole stadium roared and pretend, for one bright, dangerous second, that it didn’t matter who was watching.
His legs didn’t carry him.
Callum got there first. Then Parker. Then half the forward line. Sebastian disappeared beneath them, and Marcos stayed where he was, breathing hard through a grin.
And now, his legs were carrying him away.
The team hit the last line of the song again.
The huddle shifted, bodies jumping, boots scraping, voices breaking.
Marcos’ arms slipped from Callum and Jaxon, and no one noticed at first because everyone was closing in every direction.
He stepped back once, then again. The grin stayed on his face because it had nowhere else to go, but the rest of him had gone thin and strange.
He would still celebrate the win. He was happy. He was more than happy. They had needed this, and Sebastian had given it to them with blood on his face and pressure sitting on his shoulders.
Sebastian deserved to enjoy it without whatever Marcos would bring to it.
“Good contesting,” Jacob said, his hand coming down roughly on Marcos’ shoulder.
Marcos gave him a nod, keeping his jaw tight. Jacob’s palm was heavy, hot through the last layer of sweat still drying on his skin.
Jacob’s fingers gripped a bit harder. “Enjoy for now. Still things we need to work on.”
Marcos nodded again. Of course.
Jacob walked away, already striking up a conversation with one of the assistant coaches, and Marcos stayed where he was. The words sat against the back of his neck.
Around him, the changing room kept rolling forward without him.
Staff passed through with clipboards and towels.
Players hugged each other again. Someone started the song for a third time and got shouted down by someone else who told him to save his voice for the pub.
Sebastian was being passed from person to person, shoved, clapped, lifted enough that both his feet left the ground.
Every time he landed, more blood shifted along his jaw and throat.
Marcos turned away.
Parker came to stand next to him, arm wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him in with enough force that Marcos nearly stumbled.
“Drinks after here, right?” he asked, a smile widening on his face, and his voice barely audible over the rest of the noise.
“Maybe.” Marcos chuckled, flexing his legs. “I’m pretty cooked.”
“Yeah, you fucking ran, man.” Parker glanced over at where Sebastian was, still surrounded by everyone else. “He’s probably gonna wanna sleep off that knock, hey. Bro’s head is gonna be killing him tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Marcos muttered.
Parker shook him once, hard, then let go and headed toward the team. He was already calling out to Lachie before he reached him, his voice somehow cutting through the noise.
Marcos rolled his shoulders back. His body kept doing small things by itself.
Flexing his fingers. Shifting his weight off one sore leg and onto the other.
Pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek where he had bitten it during the third quarter.
He watched Andrew drag Sebastian into a hug from behind.
He watched Darcy slap Sebastian’s chest and then wince when Sebastian shoved him away, laughing.
He watched Jacob catch Sebastian by the arm and point toward the corridor.
The media team had already been hovering near the door.
Sebastian made a face at Jacob, but he followed. One of the medical staff stepped to him, spoke low, touched two fingers lightly near the cut again, and Sebastian nodded.
Then he glanced back.
Marcos looked down before he could find out whether Sebastian was looking for him.
Eventually, the team split properly. The win loosened into routine. Boots came off, and tape was ripped away. Players limped toward the showers or stretched the game out of their muscles and groaned when they bent down too fast.
Marcos sat on the bench in front of his locker.
His jersey sat beside him, turned inside out where he had dragged it over his head, and his boots were tucked under the bench with the laces still loose and muddied.
Sweat, dirt, and grass marks sat across his body in patches he would need to scrub off properly, but he had stopped halfway through getting ready for the showers.
His shorts were still on. His socks were pushed down around his ankles.
One shin had a streak of dried dirt running from knee to calf.
He checked his phone and got distracted messaging Becca and Paula instead.
Becca had been giving him the rundown of what his family had been saying throughout the entire match.
His father had been the most vocal, which didn’t surprise Marcos.
The other thing that didn’t surprise him was that his father had yelled about how Marcos could perform better.
How he could’ve won more contests. How his kicks and clearances could have been cleaner.
How he should have used his body earlier, held his ground harder, read the play faster.
All of which he knew he would hear about when he got home.
His mother had been too stressed to sit through the entire game. Becca said she had gotten up and left the room several times, speaking quickly in Spanish, then come back in only to stand near the doorway with one hand pressed to her chest.
Paula’s messages, on the other hand, were more pointed about the game itself.
How much she thought Marcos had improved. Especially playing with Sebastian.
Marcos rolled his eyes at that, even though he knew it was true. He could feel it in his body now that the room had gone quieter around him.
Marcos stared down at the message a little longer, then shook his head.
Paula’s other insight was how attractive some of the Wolves players were.
Marcos grinned down at his phone.
The changing room kept emptying. Doors opened and shut, and bags were dragged from lockers.
Shower noise filled the back room, then faded as players moved out, dressed and laughing, toward whatever the night was going to become for everyone who had a better answer than sitting half-dressed on a bench reading texts from his sister.
“You decide if you’re gonna come?” Parker’s voice cut through Marcos’ thoughts, and he glanced up.
The changing room had cleared out quite a bit, with most players already gone or about to leave.
Parker stood in front of Marcos, dressed with his bag slung over his shoulder and his eyebrow raised.
His light brown hair was still damp from the showers, and he looked too awake for someone who had just run out a full match.
Marcos glanced at his phone again, then back to Parker. “Probably not. Next time, for sure.”
Parker hummed and then shrugged. “Alright, whatever, man.”