Page 35 of Contested

But his own head was the issue tonight.

By the time his street came into view, Marcos’ legs had lost the clean rhythm they usually found on the way home, though he wasn’t sure if he ever found it tonight. He slowed before the corner, giving himself a few more seconds before the house came into sight.

He needed to walk in as if he had only gone for a late run. As if his cheek didn’t hurt, his lips weren’t still swollen, and his body wasn’t carrying the memory of Sebastian’s hands and mouth in places he couldn’t scrub out on the footpath.

The house appeared ahead, mostly dark except for a low light somewhere deeper inside.

Marcos stopped at the front gate with one hand on the latch.

It looked like most of his family was asleep, except maybe one of them. He could manage one.

Marcos breathed through his nose, trying to put his face into a shape that belonged to him. The version who had left the house hours ago could walk through that door. The version who had got into some stupid fight at training, who had gone for a run, and now needed a shower before bed.

He tried to settle his shoulders and loosen his hands. It didn’t work. His body kept holding itself wrong, too tight through the chest, too careful through the mouth.

He knew he was failing, but he stepped through the gate anyway and toward the front door.

The lock turned too loudly under his hand. Marcos froze, listening, then eased the door open and slipped inside. He closed the door behind him and stood there long enough for his eyes to adjust.

Marcos threaded through the house as quietly as he could, stepping over the creaking floorboards and avoiding the end table that stuck out a little too far from the wall. He moved by memory more than sight, past the front room, past the doorway to the kitchen where the bench caught a faint line of light from somewhere down the hall.

He headed straight for his room, his gaze stuck to the light coming from under Paula’s closed door before falling on his own.

He didn’t stop. If he stopped, he might have to decide whether to knock on her door or keep going, and he didn’t trust himself with choices right now. Choices had got him across half the city. Choices had got him into Sebastian’s apartment. Choices had left him standing in an elevator unable to look at his own reflection.

His bedroom door was already half open.

Marcos slipped inside and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, bending to take his shoes off. His fingers went to the laces, but his hands shook too much to make sense of the knots. One lace had tightened strangely where he’d forced his shoe on earlier, and the more he tried to loosen it, the more his fingers fumbled against each other.

He gave up and forced the shoes off, leaving the laces tied.

Paula was standing in his doorway, still dressed from the day, watching him with a furrowed brow. Her hair was loose, falling down her back, and the sleeves of her jumper were pushed up past her elbows.

‘You were gone a while,’ she signed, stepping further into the room and propping herself up on Marcos’ desk.

‘Long run,’ Marcos replied, forcing a grin. ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’

‘Assignment.’

Marcos nodded, dropping his gaze to the wooden floor, following the scratches and scuffs that had accumulated over the years. Most of them had been there since he was younger. Some from moving furniture. Some from boots he had forgotten to take off at the front door.

Paula clicked her fingers, dragging his attention back to her. ‘What’s wrong?’

Marcos stared at her, watching her head tilt as she waited for an answer. The problem was he didn’t have one.

‘Just sore.’ Marcos gestured to the bruise on his face.

Paula’s gaze shifted to his cheek. Her expression tightened. ‘Why did he hit you?’

Marcos sighed. He had already told his family what had happened at training. The game and the fight. He didn’t say much else about it other than that it happened. At the time, that had almost been true. He hadn’t known enough to explain it. He had known the punch, the bench, Jacob’s voice cutting through them, and Sebastian leaving the field with anger still held in his shoulders.

Now he knew too much.

About what happened. About Sebastian. About himself.

How was he supposed to explain that to Paula?

‘It’s not the first time,’ Marcos replied with a shrug.