I tried to open my eyes, but they didn’t move. Some powerful fucking glue was cementing them closed. I made a feeble attempt to blink when I heard the soft mutterings of my brother, and the distinct sound of bottles being thrown in the bin.
When my eyes stayed firmly shut, I conceded that they were obviously meant to stay that way.
‘Oi.Arsehole,’ George bellowed from somewhere, possibly my kitchen… or maybe my bedroom. Where did I pass out again? I couldn’t remember. ‘This is fucking pathetic.’
Something large and very fucking hard hit me across the back. I groaned. A sound of material being thrust open, followed by the immediate flooding of light that burned my corneas even with my eyes shut.
I shifted away from the assault, burrowing my face intosomething soft—either my couch or bed. I stretched out my fingers, feeling the material under the tips.
Nope—definitely my couch. It wasn’t soft enough to be my bed.
Ice water suddenly splashed across my back, soaking my hair and the cushion beneath. My eyes flew open.
‘Jesus.What the fuck, man?’ I croaked, shaking my head like a dog, only to be met with a pounding headache that stopped the motion in its tracks. I wrangled my body enough to turn over, only to be met with George towering above me, a now empty glass in his hand. His face was a mask of irritation, lips pressed in a thin line.
‘What the fuck?I’ll tell you, it’s two in the afternoon, and you’re face down on the sofa surrounded by, I don’t even know how many bottles of alcohol, stinking like a hoarder who hasn’t seen a shower in a decade.’
I gingerly sat up, holding my throbbing head. ‘Could you maybe take it down just a notch?’ I squinted up at him.
‘Sure, not a problem.’
I sighed, resting my elbows on my thighs and cradling my head like a newborn. The peace and quiet only lasted a few seconds before the stereo was flicked on, and George turned it up to full volume.
The heavy drum beat of Fall Out Boy came through, cleaving my skull in half.
I clapped my hand over my ears and glared at the arsehole standing next to the stereo, an innocent expression on his face. He cupped a hand to his ear, ‘Sorry? What was that? I can’t hear you!’ he yelled over the racket.
I grabbed the first thing my hands could reach and threw it at him. My aim was terrible—thank fuck—because what I had seized in my effort to shut down the noise was an empty bottle of beer. The glass shattered against the wall a full metre and a half away from where George was standing.
The music blissfully turned off.
‘I don’t know whether to be offended at the fact you threw that at me or concerned that your throw was piss-poor.’
Not feeling an ounce of guilt, I glowered up at him.
‘I didn’t ask you to come over. So why the fuck are you here?’
George wasn’t put off by my brusque attitude and walked back over to the coffee table, taking a seat before me. His knees knocked against mine. Our relationship as brothers had always been deep, often edging towards friends rather than siblings. But the connection we shared had waned since I’d been away travelling, an unnamed distance between us that I knew with every cell in my body was my own bloody fault. George had always been the one to pick up the phone and send me texts. Resorting to emails when all of those went unanswered. I hid behind the guise of work, but in reality, I hated how easily everything came to him. I could barely keep a relationship going when I lived in the same house as the person, so how was I expected to maintain one that was thousands of miles away?
’Dad said you weren’t answering his calls. Your PR manager called me and said you stopped replying to his texts, and I got a really weird DM from a pap who saw you enter a liquor store at three in the morning and tried to extort me to suppress the pictures.’
‘I’m guessing you were a loyal brother and paid the guy off.’ I leaned back, the earth still not as stable as I’d like, and eyed George through half-lidded eyes.
He frowned, eyebrows pulling together in a look so similar to our father that I couldn’t help but feel I was being scolded. George reached behind him and threw a magazine onto my lap. The headline and pictures were juicy enoughthat everyone was probably making a lot of money off my suffering right now.
I squinted down at the article.
Disgraced footballer goes off the rails. Booze, drugs, women. Is Oliver Blake over for good?
Underneath were a few grainy but perfectly recognisable pictures of me walking out of the liquor store with a bag full of bottles, a cap sitting askew on my head; my middle finger blurred out as I flipped off the cameras.
’Thanks for the save.’ I shunted the magazine off my lap and onto the floor, where it joined the rest of the clutter. Old Chinese food containers, pizza boxes and several bottles of vodka and tequila. ‘Fucking love that hat, though,’ I said flippantly. Mostly to piss off George.
‘That’s not how I’m saving you, man. This is. Get off your arse and into a shower because if I have to sit in this stench for a minute longer, I’m gonna pour bleach straight on top of you. Then, we’re going to work.’
‘I don’t have a fucking job anymore,’ I said, my tone strangled.
‘Yes, you do. Until you get back on the field, you’re coming to work for me.’
