Page 45 of The Fullback
“Don’t worry about it. I’m already up. Gimme twenty minutes,” he said. I could hear him moving around, probably trying to find some clean pants to put on. “You called anyone else?”
“Not yet. I was gonna call Jonny but I’m not sure what time he gets up.”
“So I get turfed outta bed but your brother doesn’t?” he asked teasingly. “Call him. You know he’ll be pissed off if you don’t.”
“Yeah, I know.” I really hoped Jonny wouldn’t skip training to drive down here. It wasn’t like he could do anything and there was no point all of us lingering in the car park.
“Alright, I’ll be with you in a bit. You had any breakfast?”
“No.”
“I’ll grab us a Maccies on the way.”
“Cheers,” I said, my stomach giving an interested rumble. The idea of a sausage and egg McMuffin and some hash browns did sound pretty good right about now.
Once Bacon had hung up and I’d checked to see if there was any more news on what’d happened and when we’d be allowed in, I called Jonny. I wasn’t expecting him to answer, but he did. “Aiden? Everything okay?”
“Er, not really,” I said as I glanced at the building. “We’ve had a pipe or water main burst where my kitchen is. The whole place is flooded. There might even be sewage.”
“You’re shitting me?”
“Wouldn’t be calling you this early if I was.”
“Yeah… right, okay… I can be in the car in ten minutes, and it’s, what, just over an hour? I’ll be there by seven,” he said. In the background I could hear another voice murmuring. Devon. Somehow I’d forgotten he’d be there. Jonny said something to him, voice muffled, and I guessed he’d put his phone against his chest so I couldn’t hear him.
I didn’t know why. We didn’t exactly need secrecy.
“Okay, I’m going to come to you. Devon will go to training,” Jonny said firmly as he came back on the line.
“You don’t need to do that,” I said. “Bacon’s coming and you can’t exactly do much. We’re not even allowed in at the moment.”
“Don’t care, I’m coming anyway. You’re my brother and that’s what family does.”
I wanted to tell him our family didn’t, but that would be a dick move. Jonny and I had worked really hard to get closer over the last few years, and I appreciated how much he cared. We’d fought a lot growing up, mostly because we’d been close in age and similar enough that we grated on each other for simply existing. It hadn’t helped that, at times, I’d been frustrated bythe fact he got to do things I couldn’t, simply because my body didn’t fit the requirements.
But Jonny hadn’t ever held that against me, and the first thing he’d done when he’d gotten a professional contract at eighteen was get me into a private clinic for the official diagnosis I’d need to start T and then start paying for my prescriptions. Which he still did. He’d helped with the ridiculous amount of paperwork, paid for my name change, my top surgery, and my hysterectomy—everything and anything I’d wanted.
No questions. No obligations. Just because he was my brother and he loved me.
He’d even come down to stay for a few days after each surgery, despite the fact he was a shit nurse and I was a worse patient and we ended up at each other’s throats after twenty-four hours.
It was why my middle name was John. A fact I still hadn’t told him because I was allergic to big emotional moments.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see you in a bit. Drive safe, yeah? Don’t rush.”
“I won’t. See you soon.”
He hung up and I was left staring at the screen with a strange feeling gnawing at my stomach. Without really thinking, I opened WhatsApp, where my group chat with Hunter and Bailey lingered at the top. Bailey had named it Sex Squad one morning over the summer while they’d been in Ibiza, and none of us had changed it.
I reread the messages from the previous night, a smile pulling at the corner of my mouth and nudging away my anxiety as I looked at the picture Hunter had sent of the two of them on the sofa, grinning brightly at me with sparkling eyes. Bailey was still slightly pink from the summer and I understood why Hunter had been so persistent about him wearing sun cream.
Hunter’s rapid messages, where he’d poured out his heart and frustrations, were in another chat, but their consequences were smiling up at me from the screen.
I hadn’t expected him to confide in me about his eating disorder, and I was oddly touched by the gesture, especially as it didn’t sound like many people knew. He’d been more concerned about Bailey, though, worry bleeding through his words as they poured across the screen, desperately hoping I could help him.
Help both of them.
They were so close and yet so far apart, their feelings a monstrous sinkhole they refused to acknowledge. And their clear care for each other tugged at the soft, gooey spot in my heart that I mostly refused to acknowledge. How could I not want to help them?
