Page 89 of Contested

“What? Nothing.” Sebastian winked, then opened the door.

Marcos watched him, his mind racing, placing images of Sebastian on top of him in the centre of his thoughts. His pants tightened, and he had to fight to shake it off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sebastian said, before another smirk slipped onto his face. “You good boy.”

“I fucking hate you,” Marcos said, voice low, before stepping over the threshold. Despite his words, though, a stupid smile was plastered on his face as the door closed behind him.

The smile stayed with him in the car, stubbornly sitting on his face. He drove home with one hand resting loosely at the bottom of the steering wheel and the other against his thigh. The streets slipped past him in quiet strips of light and shadow, headlights sliding over the windscreen, traffic lights changing for no one at empty intersections.

He didn’t put music on. He wouldn’t have been able to listen to it anyway. His mind was somewhere else and was barely paying attention to anything happening around him, other than the bare minimum required to drive.

The silence in the car didn’t press against him the way the walk home had last time. It didn’t make everything feel heavier or every streetlight seem too bright. There was no sweat cooling badly on his back, no shoes half-crushed under his feet because he had shoved them on wrong, no need to keep moving because stopping would let his head catch up.

His head had already caught up. When he pulled up outside the house, the front windows still held light behind the curtains, which told him his family were still awake. They often stayed up later the night before one of Marcos’ games. He wondered if they felt the same sort of nerves he did, but he never asked.

He sat in the car for a minute with both hands on the wheel, watching the house glow to his side. The front fence was uneven near the gate where he’d opted to jump over it instead of using the gate. The porch light threw a pale circle over the entrance as though it was waiting for Marcos to approach.

Marcos got out, locked the car, and walked up the path, turning the key in the door and pushing through.

“What were you doing out?” Greg’s voice met Marcos as soon as he walked in the door. “You have a game tomorrow. You need to be rested and ready.”

Marcos paused with one foot still on the welcome mat outside, his eyes squinting at the sound of his father’s voice.

His dad stood near the entrance to the hall, arms folded, wearing sweatpants and an old shirt, his face already set in the expression he used when he thought Marcos had made an obvious mistake. The television murmured from somewhere behind him, low enough that Marcos knew Greg had probably been sitting there half-watching something and waiting to hear the door.

“I am rested and ready,” Marcos replied, and his father snapped his fingers.

“English. Jesus.”

Marcos let out a breath through his nose. “I said, I’m going to bed now.”

Usually, the snap of Greg’s fingers would have irritated him enough to answer badly. Tonight, it barely found him. He was too tired, too loose, too full of something Greg couldn’t see.

Greg grunted and walked away from the entrance, mumbling under his breath.

Marcos shut the door and slipped out of his shoes, surprising himself. He stared down at his feet, socks slipping a little on the wooden floor, his shoes lined up next to the door.

His mouth twitched anyway.

Diana poked her head out from the kitchen, looking Marcos up and down. Her hair was pulled back messily, and she had one hand braced against the doorframe.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, thanks, Mama,” Marcos said, offering her a smile, which she returned before disappearing again.

The smallness of it landed somewhere soft in him. No questions from her. Not yet. Just food offered because that was what she did when one of them came home late.

He threaded through the house, keeping his steps light out of habit. The hallway felt narrower at night. Family photos, the old side table he had to swerve to dodge. Becca’s room was shut, music pounding through the door. He almost knocked just to annoy her, then decided against it.

Further down, Paula’s room had the light on, the door ajar.

Marcos slowed before stopping outside her door, hand hovering.

He shouldn’t go in.

Paula would know something had happened. She always did. She’d look at him, wait him out, and Marcos wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about the night yet. He wasn’t sure if saying any part of it would make it easier to hold or harder to keep still.

He sighed, then he stomped hard on the ground.