by Laney Cairo
Shane, on the other hand, had a solid portfolio, spread across real estate and resource stocks, with a small debt load and minimal risk from changes in his income or the market.
For a kid from the country who couldn't do anything except play footy, he was doing alright.
The long, sweeping flight of stairs to Budgie's front door was difficult, and Madison stomped ahead of him, her stiletto heels hanging over the edge of each step. She couldn't have helped him up the stairs anyway; the reality was that she was so thin and light that she wouldn't have provided anything except moral support.
Far too many stairs, plenty of time to consider the fate of players who had retired with injuries. This was what Shane's middle age would look like.
He was going to be living somewhere without steps.
Digger's wife, heavily pregnant with her fourth child, was waiting at the top of the stairs, ready to relieve Madison of the car keys.
"Come on through,” she said. “We're all out the back on the patio. Taxi vouchers are on the table beside the front door."
Club policy, after the spate of player drunk driving convictions the year before had caused a public relations disaster. Much cheaper to taxi everyone everywhere.
* * * *
The drunker his team-mates became, the more depressed Shane was. He leaned over the edge of the balcony, looking down at the river, reflected lights rippling across its dark surface.
Inside, somewhere, Madison was off her face on Shane's painkillers, and he could hear her shrieks of laughter over the sound of the dance music pounding through the house.
He was sober, having used his mangled shoulder as an excuse to avoid the beer swill, and he regretted it right then. If he was wasted, he might not feel so bleak.
From his vantage point on the interchange bench, Shane was sure he'd seen Dale in his corporate box. Frank was always there, every home game, and the dark-haired figure beside Frank could only have been Dale.
What did it mean, if Dale had come back to watching matches? Had he forgiven Shane? Forgotten him?
The idea that Dale might be over the break-up, and moving on with his life, hurt Shane physically. He couldn't afford to hang onto the memory of Dale or he'd go mad with regret. Letting go and moving on had failed, too.
His hand went to his throat, where the heavy silver choker Dale had given him still pressed against his skin.
Budgie, reeking of bourbon, slung an arm over Shane's shoulders, making Shane wince and rub at his face hurriedly.
"Oops,” Budgie said. “Sorry, mate. You right?"
Shane looked at Budgie's face, where the scar from the kick to the face he'd received the year before interrupted his smile.
"Can I ask you something?” Shane said.
"Sure,” Budgie said. “Long as it's not too technical."
"Between games, how do you feel?"
"Feel?” Budgie asked, his face creasing as he grappled with what was obviously a new idea. “You don't mean just sore and tired, do you?"
Shane shook his head.
"Dunno,” Budgie said. “I love Denise and stuff, but mostly I just can't wait to play again."
"What about when you can't play?” Shane asked.
Budgie's features rearranged into a sympathetic grimace. “If you're worried about missing matches because of your shoulder, you shouldn't be. Gordon won't drag you down to the reserves or anything, just because you're hurt."
"I'm just dreading having to get through those weeks off,” Shane said.
Budgie punched Shane gently on the arm, luckily on the uninjured side. “You got Madison,” he said. “She'll look after you."
"Guess I'll go find her,” Shane said.
"Good idea,” Budgie said. “You should marry her."
Madison was bouncing off the walls in the entertainment room downstairs, eyes closed, karaoke microphone held to her mouth as she warbled through a Madonna track, so Shane went in search of Denise, who was in the kitchen, stuffing used paper plates into a garbage bag.
"My shoulder's killing me,” Shane said, and it wasn't a lie. “So I'm going to head off. Can you let Madison know I've gone?"
"Sure, babe,” Denise said, tying the bag off. “Just let me write that down."
Shane watched Denise scribble a note to Madison on the kitchen whiteboard. ‘Shane's tired, going home,’ she wrote.
"Thanks, Denise,” Shane said. “Budgie is lucky to have you."
Down the steps, carefully, and out into the deserted suburb, the noise of the party fading behind him. He'd flag down a taxi on the main road, well away from the party. Shane had taken a taxi voucher, just for appearance's sake, but he didn't intend to use it. He only ever paid cash for taxis to where he was heading, and always got out of the taxi a block away.
He'd go home early in the morning, before Madison roused from her hangover, and shower and change, ready for the doctor's appointment, but until then he needed to be alone.
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Chapter Three
Life's a one way street, and if you take the wrong turning, you're lost.
Full of resolutions of virtuous tidiness, a week after he'd decided to sell the apartment, Dale parked his car in a visitor's bay at the apartment block. The apartment had a garage, but Dale's frantic searching through the mess in his office had only revealed the door key, not the key to open the garage.
Wouldn't kill him to lug the boxes to the car.
He'd swapped cars with Frank for the weekend, since Frank drove a beast of a wagon which would hopefully hold all the boxes of mess from the apartment.
Dale hated all apartments in general, thought they were god-forsaken hell-holes that crushed the spirit out of the occupants. He hated this one in particular, as a symbol of how wrong he'd been about Shane.
The power was still on, the utilities were all paid, but his memory said he'd left the place in a mess after the last argument with Shane.
This was supposed to have been their hideaway, an anonymous apartment in an anonymous block, private and discreet. This was supposed to have been their compromise with the rest of the world: they'd stay off the radar, protect Shane's career, keep it quiet; and the world would leave them alone.
Dale was in a vile mood.
The key still worked on the lobby door, and on the door to the walkway. No elevators. That would imply security and cameras and all the other things they'd wanted to avoid, but the apartment was only up one flight of stairs.
His key fitted into the lock and it turned easily, and Dale pushed the door open.
The apartment was in darkness, it was dusk outside and all the blinds and drapes were closed, so Dale flicked on the kitchen light, and the living room one, too.
Dale had expected more dust, and the air didn't smell too bad, just kind of stale, but he had always tried to take the garbage out when he left, after the first time.
He sat on the couch, leaned back and closed his eyes. It still hurt, far more than it should, despite all his brave words to Frank.
Morose introspection sucked, so he made himself open his eyes again.
He folded together one of the flattened boxes he'd carried up from the car and began to pack. Books from the coffee table went into the box, and the newspapers went into a pile, to be hauled out to the rubbish. Magazines were rubbish, coffee mugs with their own desiccated biosphere in the bottom were, too. He didn't want to keep anything.
Debris cluttered the bookshelves; notepads, books, CDs, and journals filled with Dale's scrawl.
He opened a journal at random, out of curiosity. He hadn't written a word since Shane had left, but there'd been a time when he'd wanted to record every moment. Even then, he must have subconsciously known Shane wouldn't stay.
He'd been so in love then, and the fragments of poetry brought it all back. No one had ever seen these words except himself and Shane. Some things were too important to share.
In the bathroom, as he dried his hands, Dale realised he didn't recognize
the towel he was using. Other things were wrong, too; toothpaste and brush on the sink, a different razor, tell tale white powder traces on the laminated surface.
It was one thing to know that Shane still had a key, but something entirely different to think that he'd been back to the apartment, presumably more than once.
Curiosity made Dale open the door to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, clothes were dropped on the floor, pill bottles beside the bed. He sat on the bed and found himself reaching out to touch the rumpled sheets with a disbelieving hand. Shane, with his pretty life and his painful choices, had slept there.
Dale had no way of knowing what had driven Shane back to the apartment, what had gone wrong in his life to make him come back, and if Dale was honest then he liked the idea that Shane still used the place as a bolt hole.
He found vodka in the freezer, but no whisky in the bottle that was stuck to the shelf by dust and old liquor, so he rinsed one of the abandoned tumblers that were in the sink and poured himself half a glass of vodka. He needed a drink desperately.
The vodka made his eyes water, and tasted vile, but he turned off the lights and took the second tumbler of it back to the bedroom. It was his apartment, his bed. Sure, he'd bought the bed specifically for sex—solid construction, just the right height—but that didn't mean he couldn't lie down on it once the vodka hit him.
He added his jacket to the mess on the floor, bunched up one of the pillows and buried his face in it.
* * * *
The walkway light was blown, but that was one of the things Shane liked about the place. No one had ever glanced at him, never mind spoken to him, in all the times he'd stumbled to the flat.
He let himself in with his key, the one that Madison thought was for his mother's house.
He ignored the kitchen light, and the hall, too, and flicked on the bathroom light. He needed a shower, he could smell the stale sweat on his skin, and he would feel a little less sick if he showered. Hot water might even ease the pain in his shoulder.
The team had lost its away match with the Golds in Brisbane that afternoon. The Hammers had been pulverised, by a seventy point margin, while Shane watched helplessly on the TV.
Shane stood under the scalding shower, the water pounding his aching shoulder. Somewhere, on the other side of the country, the team would be in a hotel function room getting trashed under the watchful eye of Gordon, Lindon, and the other assistant coaches. There'd be no post-loss nightclub excursions and fights for the team, not after the arrests of last year; just massive hangovers and then the flight home to a recovery training session and a bollocking from Gordon the next morning, which Shane would have to attend.
Until then, Shane was hiding from everyone, including himself.
It wasn't until he pushed the bedroom door open and the light from the hallway spilled into the room that Shane realised he wasn't actually alone.
Dale was struggling out from under the covers, bleary and rumpled and dazed, and Shane thought long and hard about throwing up.
"Shane?” Dale said, blinking and rubbing at his eyes.
"Oh fuck,” Shane said. “I'm so sorry; I'll get dressed and go."
His clothes were on the bathroom floor, and Shane tossed the towel that had been around his waist into the sink and grabbed for his jeans, dragging them on over damp skin. He could see Dale in the fogged-up mirror. Without turning around, Shane reached for his shirt and said, “I'll give you back the key, I'm so sorry, I had no idea you still came here."
"Don't apologise,” Dale said, and he sounded exhausted. “This is the first time I've been back."
Shane went to squeeze past Dale, his shirt only half-buttoned, and Dale put an arm across the doorway, blocking it. “Why do you come here?” he asked.
If someone ever asked Shane what his idea of hell was, he'd know the answer.
"Please,” Shane said, and he pushed Dale's arm aside and barged past.
He needed to get his medication from the bedroom. That was the only thing he really couldn't leave behind. Anything else that was here wasn't essential, not even his stash.
But of course, this was Dale, and a simple break for freedom was just not going to happen. The bedroom door slammed hard, making Shane jump from where he was crouching over the bedside table, scooping up vials.
He dropped the pill bottles, scattering them across the floor so some of them rolled under the bed, and Dale's hand clamped on his sore shoulder and hauled him upright.
"Tell me!” Dale said, and Shane's hands shook.
He couldn't make himself look at Dale's face, focussing instead on the buttons of Dale's rumpled shirt.
"Please don't do this,” Shane said. “Just let me leave."
Dale had never struck him, but Shane had seen him in enough rages to know he had a vicious temper. Perhaps he had mellowed over the previous year because this time his hand just dropped from Shane's shoulder and he sat down on the bed heavily.
Shane knew that the moisture on his face wasn't only from his dripping wet hair, but if he could just keep moving, he'd be able to get out of there anyway.
"I feel like you owe me an explanation,” Dale said, as Shane knelt down again and scrabbled through the clothes on the floor, looking for his muscle relaxants and sleeping pills.
Shane paused, sleeping pills in his hand, and looked up at Dale.
Dale looked bereft.
"You're right,” Shane said quietly, and he sat down where he was, abandoning the sleeping pills and pressing the heels of hands against his eyes to try and stem the flow of tears.
Dale leaned forward and touched Shane's hands gently, guiding them away from his face, and his eyes were watery-blue when Shane dared to meet them.
"Tell me,” Dale said, and regret bit at Shane's heart.
It hurt so much, felt like someone was tearing his chest apart, hurt far too much to feel ashamed about crawling over pill bottles and shoes to bury his face against Dale's jean-clad knee and sob.
Dale's fingers stroked the hair that clung wetly to Shane's neck, gentle touch. He smelled of sleep and sweat, and it was so fucking easy to crawl the last little distance into his lap.
Shane's shoulder hurt, slicing pain that shot down his arm, but that was nothing compared to the sheer relief of being held by Dale after so long.
Ten minutes later, Shane wiped his face on the sheet, slumped back against the side of the bed and said, “How embarrassing was that?"
His voice wasn't steady, it wobbled and he sounded like shit. He kept his eyes tightly shut, and Dale's fingers stroked at the creases on Shane's forehead.
"Right up there with the time you threw up in my mum's garden, I'd think,” Dale said. “Is there any coffee in this place still?"
"Yeah,” Shane said. The bed beside him creaked and the butterfly touch of Dale's fingers stopped.
Shane waited until he heard the tap in the kitchen run and the kettle clatter before braving opening his eyes. Ten minutes ago he'd been desperate to escape, but now it was all he could do to drag his body onto the bed so he could stretch his spine out and try and ease the muscle spasm.
He stayed like that until Dale appeared in the doorway again, holding two mugs of coffee. “I was going to put these in the living room, but you don't look like you can move,” he said.
Shane nodded carefully, so as not to jolt his neck and shoulder.
The coffee smelled good when Dale put the mugs on the bedside table and squatted down beside the bed. “Is this what's been going on?” he asked.
"Some of it,” Shane admitted. “My body's fucked, completely fucked. My whole life is fucked."
"Got a habit?” Dale asked.
"Depends,” Shane admitted, eyes fixed on the cobwebby ceiling. “Do prescription meds count?"
"Depends,” Dale echoed. “But they probably do."
"I've gotta have a long break after the season is over."
"Doesn't explain why you're here,” Dale said, and he brushed one knuckle over Shane's cheek.
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"I come here when I can't stand being anywhere else,” Shane said, and the chest pain started up again, only he knew it wasn't physical. “When I feel like this."
"You don't need to give me back the key,” Dale said. “I won't come here again, or sell the place."
Shane made a gulping noise involuntarily and his vision blurred. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.
"Why don't you take whatever it is you need to?” Dale said. “And go to sleep?"
The clock said it was quarter past three in the morning in numbers that glowed accusingly in the dark room, and Shane felt himself beginning to succumb to the gentle seduction of the chemicals in his blood stream. Muscle relaxants, opiates, sedatives, all of them taking the edge off reality enough for his brain to shut down.
Dale hadn't left, and the light from the living room shone under the closed door.
Dying looked tempting, but the thought of the mess he'd leave behind stopped Shane from reaching for the pill bottles.
He would go to sleep and hope that the next day wasn't as bad. Maybe, if he slept long enough, Dale would go away and he wouldn't have to face the man ever again.
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Chapter Four
Life's a one way street, and if you drive too close to the kerb, you scrape the paint off parked cars.
A few hours before, Dale had been in a vile mood. He probably wasn't quite as bitter now, but how he actually felt was on the long list of things he didn't want to think about. Drinking himself into oblivion was his first impulse, once Shane had gone to sleep, but he'd lose the moral high ground if he did that, and the moral high ground was the only thing between him and complete collapse.
No more vodka then. He sat in the living room, on the stained couch, and stared at the wall. He had loved Shane once; he probably still did love Shane. Love was something that Dale didn't let go of.
Shane was a walking disaster area; that was clear. Dale should get the hell out of there; leave Shane to whatever fucked-up mess he'd made.
Only he'd seen more genuine feeling from Shane in the previous hour or so than he'd seen in the last months they'd been together.