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It’s the greatest night of their cricketing lives. They’ve won the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and retained the Ashes. It’s a second innings victory for the series: they bowled the Aussies out for the unimaginably low total of ninety-eight in the first innings.
It gets more ridiculous every time Jimmy thinks about it.
They’ve jumped and cheered and sprinkler-danced and drenched each other in champagne, and now they’re in the dressing room, getting merry on tasteless Aussie beer and taking it in turns to pose for daft photos with the tiny Ashes urn.
Jimmy, serenely pleased with himself after his four-wicket contribution to that ninety-eight all out, spots Ali. The opening batsman is reclining on a bench against the far wall, legs stretched out in front of him, beer dangling lazily from one hand, cap-clad head tilted up towards the ceiling, tanned throat invitingly exposed.
Space next to him.
Before he can really form the thought, Jimmy’s weaving his way across the room, trying to make it look casual, accidental, like he just happened to be wandering aimlessly in this vague direction and – oh! – just happened to fetch up against this bench.
He grunts a greeting and lowers himself down beside Ali, carefully measuring out how close he thinks he can get away with. (About an inch? No, more; leave room for elbows. Jimmy feels his skin prickling, like Ali’s thigh carries a static charge.) The two of them exchange dazed grins and clink bottles with gusto. (Jimmy brushes his arm against Ali’s as he withdraws his bottle; the move comes out clumsier than it looked in his head.) In unison, they each take a lengthy swig. (Jimmy leans fractionally to his right as he settles back against the wall. At this rate, his shoulder might be touching Ali’s in about three hours. No rush.) They each give a contented sigh at the same time, too, which for some reason reduces them both to giggles. (Excuse to briefly touch Ali’s knee in the throes of mirth, and end up just that little bit closer again. There’s a strange sort of bubbly feeling in Jimmy’s stomach, which is either excitement or the stupidly fizzy beer.)
Then the Ashes urn is two inches from his nose, and Swanny’s shoving his way in between them.
“’Scuse me!” he’s saying. “’Scuse me! The filling’s arrived for this Cooky-Jimmy sandwich!” He bats impatiently at Jimmy’s arm. “Hutch up, Jimmy.”
Jimmy slides along the bench with bad grace as Swanny worms his way into position. But he can’t stay grumpy for long, not tonight, and especially not when Swanny hands him the urn and throws his arms around him and Ali, pulling them both towards him.
Jimmy brightens, realising he has the perfect excuse; he slides his own arm behind Swanny’s back, lining it up with Ali’s. Just touching.
“Say cheese!”
Matty lines up the camera. Jimmy leans into Swanny, and raises the urn with a smile. Flash. But all he’s really aware of is the contact of skin and skin, and the way Ali isn’t moving his arm away. He presses in just a little bit more firmly.
Swanny turns his head and plants a loud kiss on Jimmy’s cheek. Much laughter.
“Looks like Cooky wants one, too!” shouts Broady.
Swanny obliges, to cheers.
Before Jimmy can get up the courage to follow suit, Matty is calling Ali over to inspect the photos. Swanny bear-hugs Jimmy’s head, then releases him, and makes a face. “And now I have another mission,” he says. “To rescue this party’s music.” He wanders off.
Jimmy watches Ali as he laughs with Matty and Ian over the photos. The beer has made him restless, and reckless. He stands up. If Swanny can do it, why can’t he? Harmless banter, and all that.
“Come here, Cooky,” he says, “my turn for a smooch.”
He grabs the startled batsmen with an arm about the shoulders, pulls him in close, and lunges for his cheek.
Contact: Ali’s skin, he discovers, isn’t as smooth as it looks; tiny bits of stubble catch at the Jimmy’s lips as he brushes them up towards a perfect cheekbone. He tightens his grip on Ali’s shoulder as he does so, enjoying how firm the muscle is there, imagining his fingertips leaving an imprint, briefly.
But he’s taking too long. He realises with growing panic that what was meant to be a big pantomime smacker has turned into something else entirely (in front of the entire fucking room you idiot), can’t decide if Ali’s breathing has quickened or whether it’s just his hopeful imagination, hears the laughter around them falter a bit, knows they’re starting to be watched in a new way, has to find a quick way out of this now—
He turns the feather-light kiss into a loud raspberry blown into Ali’s temple. Everyone roars, and he turns back to the room with his arms in the air, mock triumphant.
But when he glances back there’s something else there, for a split-second, in Ali’s dark eyes; some glint, some hint, some… hope?
Wishful thinking.
Across the room, Swanny smirks at him and raises his beer, changes the tune on the iPod to something faster. But it is a smirk, not a grin, and there’s something considering in his expression.
Does he know? Has he guessed?
Jimmy takes another gulp of his beer, then pushes his way out of the dressing room, muttering about needing a piss. No-one’s listening, no-one seems to notice him go; they’ve already moved on, cheering as Broady shakes his arse like a good ‘un in the middle of the crowd.
--
Jimmy doesn’t know who he’s hoping it will be when he hears footsteps enter the deserted gym. He hurriedly bends over the random kit bag on the bench beside him, and is both disappointed and relieved when Swanny’s voice rings out.
“There you are! Are you coming back to the party?”
He pretends he’s digging through the kitbag.
“In a minute, yeah.” Just as soon as he’s been away long enough for everyone to have forgotten what just nearly happened.
(So possibly never, then.)
Rather than turning back, though, the other man comes further into the room. “Hey, Jimmy... Can I ask you something?”
“For the fifteenth time, Swanny,” Jimmy says, still rifling through the bag that definitely isn’t his own, “I don’t care who’d win in a fight between a bear and a shark.” He’s pretty sure he keeps finding the same pair of dirty socks. “It’s a stupid scenario anyway. A shark can’t fight on land, a bear can’t fight in the sea.”
“Bears can swim! They absolutely can, I saw a nature documentary once. Or maybe they were just eating fish that jumped out of the river, not going in after them—Anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you.”
“Oh?” Same fucking socks again.
Swanny parks himself on the bench. “Lost something?”
“Lucky socks. Thought they might be in here.”
To his surprise, Swanny doesn’t respond immediately; no joke, no nothing. (Even though he must know, if he’s looked at the bag at all, that it isn’t Jimmy’s; Graeme normally spots stuff like that.) Instead he grabs an inflatable exercise ball from the floor, and hugs it to his knees.
“So…” he says at last, and Jimmy feels a sudden shot of panic, knowing just from his tone, from the way he draws the word out, what’s coming. “You and Cooky. Is there something going on?”
“Going on?” Jimmy swallows, frowns at the socks he’s forgotten he’s holding, stuffs them back in the bag. “Like what?” He feigns a half-hearted laugh. “You know I’m married, right?”
A pause. Mistake, thinks Jimmy, swallowing again. Overdid it. He should have left it to Swanny to cross that particular line, not leapt over it himself.
His hands are shaking. He buries them in socks. Doesn’t look up.
“That wasn’t—” Swanny sounds slightly taken aback, but rallies quickly. “Well… yeah. You fancy him, don’t you?” He bounces the ball. There’s a softness in his voice. “You’ve got a thing for our Cooky.”
It sends a shiver down his spine to hear it said aloud.
“I mean, I don’t blame you,” Swanny is saying, already switching gears back into teasing. “He’s a very handsome man. I certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
Jimmy grinds his teeth. He needs to salvage this. “Swanny, piss off. This is even stupider than bear versus shark.”
“No, no, no. I saw what happened back there! Come on, that was the most romantic, the most lingering raspberry I’ve ever witnessed. You—”
“Will you keep it down?” Jimmy has shoved the kit back into the bag and taken a step towards Swanny before he can stop himself.
For a long moment Swanny stares at him in silence, eyebrows raised and hands half-lifted, defensively, that bloody inflatable ball between them.
Jimmy turns away first. What’s he going to do? Hit his best mate? Over this? He’s going mad. He makes himself breathe, and thinks about what Swanny himself would do in this situation.
(Go for the joke. Obviously.)
Putting on an exaggeratedly mournful expression – not that hard, for him – Jimmy looks back at Swanny and tilts his head. “But you told me we’d be together forever!” he says in a mock wail.
(Well, okay, more of a sullen mutter.)
“And now here you are, trying to palm me off onto some pretty-boy opening batsman. It’s that Broady, isn’t it? You’re leaving me for—”
Swanny’s laughing, swiping at him with the inflatable ball, changing the subject. Panic over.
--
Alastair stumbles down the corridor away from the gym, heedless of any noise he’s marking, his only concern to put as much distance as he can between himself and the terrible mess he’s caused, somehow.
Swanny and Jimmy, arguing.
He was too far away to hear everything, but bits stood out: important bits, inescapable bits.
something going on
what happened back there
All Swanny’s words; it’s harder to eavesdrop on Jimmy, he’s too much of a mutterer. And then Jimmy rounding on Swanny like—
Alastair fled, unable to watch.
He’d left the raucous dressing room in search of more beer, or so he pretended to himself at the time, not wanting to admit he was hoping to accidentally bump into Jimmy in one of the corridors. What exactly he’d been planning to do if he found him, well, he has no idea. He wasn’t really thinking straight, what with the beer and the victory and the not-kiss he could still sort of feel trailing up his cheek. While the part of him that had automatically, guiltily sneaked a glance at Swanny just after it happened – was he laughing? was he cross? was he jealous? – was telling him this was a very bad idea, a tipsy, curious, hungry other part of him seemed to be controlling his legs and sending him towards the door only heartbeats (thumping heartbeats) after it closed behind Jimmy. Then Straussy sidetracked him on the way, and by the time he got outside Jimmy was nowhere to be seen, but somehow even that didn’t stop him.
Truth is, he’s fallen a bit in love with the idea of Jimmy and Swanny. As in, Jimmy and Swanny.
Okay, officially the bromance is just banter and everything, but he’s long felt sure there’s more to it than that. Secretly he’s been hoping that one day they’ll just tell him, up front, take him into their confidence. They’re his best friends in the squad, after all; he feels at his happiest and silliest when he’s with them, like their self-assurance off the field might rub off on him, who so often struggles with it: Swanny’s quick-witted humour, Jimmy’s laconic ease in his own skin.
The fact that they’re fighting now, because of him, fills him with horror. Swanny must’ve seen him leave the room, and assumed the worst.
Alastair stops, shoving both hands into his unruly hair. What was he thinking? He’s been longing to find out if the bromance was a romance, and now he has, in the worst possible way.
The idea that Jimmy and Swanny are a couple startled him at first, but soon he found he really wanted it to be true. Because somehow…
Alastair leans head-first against the rough wall, closes his eyes, makes himself say it in his mind for the first time.
Somehow it makes it okay. That he has a massive, ridiculous crush on James Anderson, the darkly brooding half of the equation. That managing to do something to bring up that rare grin, and the laughter lines it conjures up around his eyes, feels like hitting a really great cover drive. That standing at slip for hours on end isn’t a chore at all when a lithely powerful seamer with the best shoulders in cricket thunders down the crease towards you at regular intervals. Even if he is a grumpy git when you misfield off one of his deliveries; even then – especially then? – he’s distractingly attractive.
If Alastair’s being really honest, he’s always had a bit of a weakness for fast bowlers. Batting isn’t very glamorous, unless you’re KP; it’s all hard graft and slow accumulation, concentration and endurance. But there’s an aura about a fast bowler, mouthy and brash and commanding; all things he’s not, all things he’s drawn to.
The fact that Jimmy is also, apparently, taken – a golden couple made up of the hottest one in the team and the funniest one, of course they’re together – well, that also makes it okay. Has made it okay. It isn’t the first time he’s found himself just a bit too drawn to someone unobtainable, someone off-limits; he knows himself well enough to recognise it as a pattern. Feels safer that way; no disruption, no need to confront what any of it means.
Until this evening; lips against his cheek too long, arm holding him close, easily, trapping him in a way that felt far too good. The tiniest thread of a chance that Jimmy might not be as off-limits as he seems; the dangerous possibility that the desire might be mutual, and not within his control.
Leading him close to a mistake that could have ruined everything: the happy, bantering team dynamic that’s the key to their success, and the hidden relationship that he idolises and envies.
Well, no more. Alastair pushes himself away from the wall. He has no right to even think of stepping in between Jimmy and Swanny. And he won’t; never again.
As he heads back to the dressing room, he promises himself that.