Page 121 of Contested

Marcos’ chest loosened, and his stomach stopped feeling like it was shrinking. “When the season ends.” He nudged Sebastian and got to his feet. “Maybe?”

Sebastian pushed himself up and nodded. “When the season ends.”

“Alright.” Marcos clapped Sebastian on the shoulder. “Let’s fucking do this shit.”

|| Chapter Twenty-Six ||

Marcos – “I’m fine”

LATE AUGUST

A light blinked above Marcos.

The inconsistency of it was making his eye twitch. It stayed on for ten seconds, flicked off, came back on for two, then disappeared again. Not enough to make the hallway dark when it was turned off, and not enough to make it fully lit when it was on. It was just enough to keep dragging his attention upward when all he wanted was to stare through the vending machine’s glass and try to will something worth eating into it.

He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face, then over his neck, keeping his eyes closed until his hand came to rest by his side.

When he opened them, nothing had changed.

The light still blinked.

The vending machine in front of him still had nothing he wanted.

It sat half-empty at the end of the hall in the hotel where the Mustangs were staying, humming to itself quietly. A few packets of lollies sagged behind the glass, alongside a few chocolates. Two gross-looking protein bars sat in the bottom row, and a single packet of sour cream chips sat in the top corner. Someone had clearly tried to shake the machine at some point, because it was angled slightly away from the wall.

It was the night before the final game of the season, and they were playing Marcos’ old team, the Bendigo Bandits.

Marcos had no idea why they were staying at a hotel in Bendigo when it was only a few hours away from Melbourne, but he wasn’t one to argue with the club’s travel choices. He did what he was told, and got on the bus, then put his bags in the room they had assigned him and Parker.

He had tried to sleep, which did not go as planned.

Now, he was standing barefoot in a hotel hallway close to midnight, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, staring at food he didn’t want because that was easier than letting his thoughts stop him from sleeping.

His eyes scanned through the options again, slower this time, as if that would make the choices any better.

Nothing.

He groaned and leaned his forehead against the glass of the machine. Cold pressed against his skin.

The fact he was awake wasn’t because he wasn’t tired. He was. His eyelids were heavy and struggling to stay open, and his feet had dragged every step of the way down the hall. His body wanted sleep. His brain wanted the rest.

He should have been asleep hours ago.

But every time he closed his eyes, Bendigo was there.

Not just the jumper or the colours. The people and their voices and the way Marcos’ name used to be threaded through it all. It was the way the rooms had sounded before games and how the field had been his home ground for two years before the Mustangs.

The rhythm of his teammates that still lived in his bones. Faces he had trained beside, played beside, lost beside. Men he had celebrated with after the kind of wins that made a season feel like they were going to make it to the grand final. Or worked harder with through each loss so they could climb their way back up the ladder.

Tomorrow would be the first time he’d play against them since the move to the Mustangs.

The fixture had placed them together only once, right at the end of the season, which had seemed lucky back in March when Marcos had been too busy figuring out the Mustangs to think about the Bandits.

Then the season rolled forward, wins and losses piling on top of each other. Training sessions and drills blurred together. And the Mustangs’ climb up the ladder had placed too much pressure on the final round for anyone to think this was just another game.

Now Bendigo was here. Or, rather, Marcos was back here.

Marcos tapped his forehead once against the glass, a rough sound escaping him, then he straightened.