Page 55 of Contested

Gentle.

Which confused Sebastian more than it should have.

The Mustangs didn’t stay in the lead, and lost by thirteen.

The flight home was quiet. Sebastian sat by the window with his headphones in and music playing loud enough to cover the engine. Marcos sat across the aisle.

Halfway through the flight, Sebastian felt movement near his arm and looked down.

A bottle of water sat on the empty armrest between the seats.

Marcos didn’t look at him when Sebastian lifted his gaze. He only leaned back, eyes forward, hands folded loosely in his lap.

Neither of them said anything.

The Perth Stars came next, and by then the losing had started to feel less like separate matches and more like one long lesson in almost.

The Stars were cleaner from the start. White and gold opened around the ground in bright stretches, and the trip itself seemed to sit in the Mustangs’ bodies before the game had even settled. Long flight, hotel beds, time difference, routine shifted just enough to make every familiar game-day step feel a fraction off.

The first quarter went badly.

The second tightened, barely.

Then the third and final quarters became another lesson in how close wasn’t enough. The final siren came with the ball in the Stars’ hands and the Mustangs one point behind.

The review after Perth was terrible. Jacob made them watch the final six minutes twice.

Sebastian watched it all without blinking much.

Marcos sat beside him through the review. Their shoulders didn’t touch. Their knees didn’t either. But when Jacob replayed the centre clearance from the third quarter, the one that led to Corey’s goal, Marcos’ hand shifted on the bench between them.

It landed right next to Sebastian’s. Marcos’ pinkie slid against Sebastian’s more than once. Enough to feel deliberate.

He didn’t move, and neither of them said anything about it.

Then came Round Five. Home at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Eighty thousand people were expected.

The morning of the game, Sebastian woke before his alarm again.

Routine carried him through the morning, though his mind lagged behind his actions. The city outside looked too normal for what his body was doing, but the closer he got to the ground, the more Melbourne began to shift around the game. Scarves on footpaths. Families moving in large huddles. Cars with Mustangs flags in windows. People in opposition colours cutting through the same streets, all of them heading toward the same place with different expectations.

Inside the locker room, the air was already heavy with expectation.

The MCG home rooms were better than what Sebastian had gotten used to over the past few weeks. The Mustangs logo was fixed to the wall, not temporarily dressed over someone else’s space, and the difference settled something in him as the team prepared.

Sebastian changed without speaking much. Randal tried to get something out of him once, then gave up and clapped him on the shoulder instead. Phetmany sat two lockers down, headphones on, eyes closed. Harry crossed the room with a certain kind of calm, speaking to players in low bursts. Jacob stood near the door with a tablet in one hand, watching everything.

Marcos was across the room.

When Sebastian looked, Marcos was pulling his jersey over his head, arms lifting, shoulders shifting under the fabric. His hair was tied back loosely for once, curls still threatening to escape around his temples.

Jacob’s pre-game address was more forceful than any of the others. Not louder. He didn’t need to be loud. The winless start had done enough. He spoke about the shape of the season so far, about being close meaning nothing if they kept coming back to the rooms with the wrong result, about contest and composure and finishing the work.

There were games a team lost because they weren’t good enough, and games a team lost because they didn’t do enough of the things they were capable of doing.

The Mustangs had run out of excuses for the second kind.