Page 18 of Contested
“Fuck you.” Sebastian grimaced. “You don’t know anything.”
The last part came out too quickly. Not out of anger, but more so slight intoxication.
Marcos kept his gaze steady.
Sebastian’s glasses sat slightly crooked. One lens had a smudge across it, and there was a small cut near his cheekbone that had already dried.
Marcos checked down the empty street, then up toward the windows of the apartments above them. “You live around here?”
“Street over. On the main strip.”
Marcos whistled. “Fancy.”
“Just leave.” Sebastian reached up to touch the bruise on his jaw and flinched. Something slipped out when he did, low and tight: “Mẹ kiếp.”
Marcos didn’t know the words, but he knew enough to catch that they weren’t English. Vietnamese, probably. It sounded sharper in Sebastian’s mouth than Marcos expected, clipped by pain and irritation.
“As much of a pain in the ass you are, I’m not going to leave you stumbling in the street.”
Sebastian scoffed, straightening again and starting down the path.
“What?” Marcos questioned. “We’re a team now. I can’t have you not able to play.”
“I don’t need your help—”
Marcos grabbed his arm and slung it around his shoulders before Sebastian could finish. “Yeah, yeah. You’re stubborn. We get it.”
Sebastian stiffened. For a second, Marcos thought he might shove him off. Then his weight settled, not fully, but enough that Marcos knew he’d been right to step in.
He kept one hand around Sebastian’s wrist where it rested over his shoulders and the other around Sebastian’s waist. Careful. Enough to guide him without dragging him. He didn’t know what hurt yet, and Sebastian clearly had no interest in telling him.
They walked slowly. Too slow for Marcos’ legs, which had been in a running rhythm a minute ago and now had to match Sebastian’s uneven steps. Sebastian’s breath caught now and then when his foot came down wrong, or his torso twisted too far.
Marcos glanced at his face a few times, trying to get a read off him, but he wasn’t able to get much. A tense jaw. A wince. A glare that didn’t have its usual force because one eye didn’t want to open properly.
Marcos adjusted his grip and kept going.
They turned down one street and then another until the brighter main strip opened in front of them. More people moved here, though still not many. Someone sitting outside a bar watched them pass. A pair of women walked around them, one glancing at Sebastian’s bruised face before looking away. Marcos straightened without meaning to, making himself broader beside him.
After a short while, Sebastian turned his body, directing Marcos toward a building to their right, and Marcos followed the motion. They shuffled up the steps together. He had no idea how much help Sebastian actually needed, but he thought it was better to be safe than sorry. He didn’t need his ruck-rover injuring himself further before they even got to pre-season games.
The building’s glass doors reflected them as they approached: Marcos in running gear, sweaty and too large beside Sebastian’s neater clothes and damaged face. The sight looked wrong enough that Marcos avoided it after the first glance.
Sebastian pushed through the large glass doors and gave a half-hearted wave to the man sitting at the reception desk. The man eyes lifted, gaze touching on Sebastian’s face, then Marcos’ arm around him.
Sebastian directed Marcos toward the elevators on the other side of the lobby.
Marcos’ eyes scanned around him. Pristine floors and polished walls. A front desk with a large flower arrangement. The light was white and clean, bouncing off every surface until the whole place felt expensive in a way that made him aware of the sweat dripping from his body.
He let out a low whistle as they reached the elevator and called for it.
Sebastian shook his arm free from Marcos’ grip and pulled away from him. “Alright. I’m good. Thanks.”
Marcos looked him up and down, shaking his head. “I’ll take you up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on,” Marcos drawled. “I have a chance to see inside the elegant Sebastian Nguyen’s apartment. Not gonna give that up.”
