Page 63 of Contested

Marcos turned the shower on.

The water came out cold for a few seconds, causing Sebastian to tense before it warmed. Steam began to rise softly around them.

“Is that okay?” Marcos asked, looking down at Sebastian.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said quietly.

Marcos’ lips drew tight, and he nodded. For a moment he watched the water fall onto Sebastian, landing on his lower stomach and legs. It ran over skin, catching on muscle, before spilling down into the waistband of his underwear.

Marcos leaned across the wall to get some bodywash, then came to kneel next to Sebastian. The tile was hard beneath his knees, and he felt it immediately because every part of him had already been worked through the match. He ignored it.

He took his towel and held it under the water, letting it soak all the way through, warmth running over his fingers and wrist.

“Uh, do you want to…?” Marcos held the bodywash in front of him.

Sebastian’s eyes flicked between the bottle and Marcos before he took the bottle with a restrained grin and started squeezing some into his hand. He rubbed it carefully over the bloodstains on his chest first, then up along his neck and jaw. It made the dried patches turn darker before they loosened, streaking faintly down with the water.

Marcos kept his gaze on Sebastian.

There was no need for Marcos to do this. To be here. Sebastian could clean himself up. He would have done it hundreds of times already in some form or another.

But here they were.

Both knowing the truth, yet neither saying it.

“So,” Marcos started, bringing his gaze to match Sebastian’s. “You wear contacts on the field, or have you been blind the whole time?”

Sebastian smirked, layers of bodywash now thick over his jaw and chest. “You think I’d be able to kick your ass on the field while being blind?”

“I don’t think you’ve ever kicked my ass on the field,” Marcos said, taking the towel out from under the water and resting it on Sebastian’s chest over the blood.

“Disagree. Remember that junior’s game in Ballarat when we were fifteen?”

“When it didn’t stop raining, and the field was like a pool? Yeah.”

“Kicked your ass in that game.”

“You pinned me to the ground and elbowed me in the ribs.”

Sebastian chuckled, looking down at Marcos’ hands pressing the towel against his chest. “You’d been asking for it all game.”

“Yeah, by winning.”

“By running your mouth.”

“Running my mouth?” Marcos paused, leaning back slightly. “What’s running my mouth?”

Sebastian tilted his head. “You know. Talking shit.”

“Oh.” Marcos bit his lip, then shook his head and shifted the towel around.

Sebastian stared at him.

Marcos could feel warmth sitting in his cheeks, and it had nothing to do with the shower. English wasn’t hard for him. It had never been hard. He knew the words. He knew what people meant most of the time. But every now and then a phrase landed wrong, too literal in his head for half a second, and Sebastian’s attention made that half second stretch.

Marcos pressed the towel harder than he meant to. Sebastian’s breath caught.

Marcos eased off at once and moved the towel lower. The dried blood started to shift off Sebastian’s chest, slowly and stubbornly. It caught in the thin trail near his collarbone and clung along a spot below his throat where the jersey must have rubbed it into the skin. Marcos worked carefully, circling the towel with his fingers inside it, trying not to irritate anything already scraped raw by the match.