I leaned forward onto the railing of our hotel room’s balcony, propping my elbows on the narrow strip of painted steel that ran along the top, and allowed my hands and forearms to dangle over the edge. Just across the street I could see ANZ Stadium, the curve of the stadium’s arch lit up against the slowly darkening sky, and little knots of people walking across the Olympic Park precinct toward the stadium from the nearby railway station. I couldn’t see much from where I was standing, seeing as I was eight floors off the ground, but I was willing to bet that a lot of them, if not most, were dressed in red, white and navy blue.

Tonight was the night. After seven months of games – six months of the regular season, and a month of finals games – it all came down to eighty minutes of play between the Sydney Roosters and the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. It was a game I’d been looking forward to since the Roosters had made the finals a month earlier. And judging by how early Taylor had bought our tickets to the game – the day after the Whyalla show, if the Ticketek envelope that had been on his fridge for the last week was anything to go by – he’d been looking forward to it just as much.

“Hey.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see Taylor coming up behind me, and I gave him a smile that he quickly returned. He’d had a shower since we’d come back to the hotel after dinner and changed into black cargo shorts, his bright red Converse sneakers and his Sydney Roosters jersey, and was tying his still-damp hair into a low ponytail. “I’ve never seen you in your colours before,” I said, taking in the way the deep navy blue of his jersey made his eyes look so much more intensely blue than usual. “You look good.”

“Yeah?” he asked, and I nodded. He grinned, his eyes lighting right up. “Ready to go?”

I straightened up and turned to face him, stepping forward so I could drape my arms over his shoulders. “Almost. I just need to have a quick shower first. Can you help me with my hair once I’m dressed?”

“Yeah, ‘course I can. Leaving it a bit late though, aren’t you?”

I pretended to think about it for about half a minute. “Nah. We’re so close to the stadium that we could leave here at five past seven, and we would still make it to our seats in time for kickoff. We’ll be fine, Tay.” I raised myself up on tiptoes so I could kiss him. “But I’ll be quick.”

“Just be careful, yeah?”

The word ‘always’ was right on the tip of my tongue, but the scar that now ran nearly the whole length of my left forearm was proof that I wasn’t always as careful as I tried to be. Instead I nodded. “I will.”

I showered as quickly as I could and changed into my own jersey and shorts, sending up a quiet ‘thank you’ to Mother Nature that while it was hot outside, it wasn’t humid – unless that somehow changed, I likely wasn’t going to need another shower after the game. I tugged the hem down over the waistband of my shorts and straightened the neckline, and took my comb and an elastic band out of my toiletry kit before heading back into the room, my towel draped over my right shoulder.

“How many grand finals have you been to?” I said as I sat down in the chair in front of the writing desk. “They’ve made it to, what, six during our lifetimes?” I quickly counted off on my fingers. “2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, and this year.”

“All but 2002 and 2004. So, three of them before this year.”

I glanced up from my phone at his reflection in the mirror above the writing desk. He had taken the towel off my shoulder and was using it to scrunch my hair dry, head down, and even though I couldn’t see his whole face I could see his eyes. They had gone the same almost-black they did whenever I hit on a subject he wasn’t keen on discussing.

“I won’t ask where you were or what you were doing the last time the Roosters won the Grand Final, because I have a pretty good idea,” I said carefully. “I know it’s a sore point for you. But did you get to watch it eventually?”

He was quiet for a little while, but I didn’t push him to talk – I knew he was thinking. “Eventually, yeah.” I watched him toss the towel backwards onto the end of the bed behind him and pick up my comb from where it sat next to the room’s telephone. He started to run the comb through my hair, carefully working the knots and snarls out. “Zac recorded all the Roosters’ finals games for me that year, seeing as I couldn’t watch them when they were actually played. I was either sleeping off the chemo or I was just too sick to concentrate on watching TV.” He put the comb down on the writing desk, and I could feel him divide my hair into the three segments that would make up my plait. “Anyway, he waited until my birthday to give me the tapes, and I ended up spending that weekend holed up in our practice space watching them.” I glanced back up at the mirror above the writing desk just in time to see one of the biggest smiles I had seen in quite a while break out on Taylor’s face. “Honestly, apart from being turned loose a week before my birthday, that was one of the best presents I got that year.”

“He’s a good brother.”

He half-shrugged. “When he wants to be,” he replied, and I smacked one of his hands. “Hey!”

“Would Isaac have taped your games for you?” I asked. “Would Joshua? Or any of your sisters?”

“Okay, okay, yes, Zac’s a good brother,” he conceded, and I managed to bite back a smile. “Now are you going to let me finish plaiting your hair or not?”

“Yes, okay. Sorry,” I offered in apology, and in the mirror I saw his reflection give me a smile.

We ended up not heading over to the stadium until about fifteen minutes before kick-off. By the time we had scanned our tickets at the turnstiles and entered the stadium the pre-game entertainment was over, with the parade of retiring players nearing its end. The hum that surrounded us as we made our way to our seats in the third row of the section between aisles 129 and 130, almost right on the 40-metre line, was one of excitement and anticipation. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling that this was going to be a particularly memorable game.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I was right.

After a rocky start that saw the Roosters taking first possession and a Manly player injured in the first thirty seconds of play, the first half of the game mostly belonged to the Sea Eagles. The roar of the crowd surrounded me as the year’s two best teams traded possession back and forth, a thrill of excitement going up my spine whenever the Roosters regained control of the ball. Beside me I could hear Taylor yelling at the very top of his voice, the yelling giving way to groans of frustration whenever a Roosters player somehow managed to lose hold of the ball and when Manly scored the first try of the game – a try that, much to my relief, stayed unconverted when a kick by Manly’s captain soared wide of the goalposts.

It wasn’t until the twenty-fifth minute of play, a bit more than halfway through the first half, that things started to look up. By now the Eagles were ahead six points to nil, following a penalty goal more than five minutes earlier. The cheer I let out when Daniel Tupou dove over the try line to score the Roosters’ first try of the night, followed by another cheer after a conversion courtesy of James Maloney to level the scoreline to 6-all, was nothing short of relieved. It had taken nearly half an hour, but both teams were finally on the board. I could only hope that the scoreboard turned in the Roosters’ favour in the end.

“It’s about fucking time,” I could just hear Taylor saying over the roar of the crowd.

“Took them long enough,” I agreed.

“What do you think the final score will be?” he asked as play resumed, the Roosters taking possession once more, and I thought it over as I watched the game.

“It’ll be close,” I said at last, just as James Maloney kicked a second goal, a penalty goal this time, to put the Roosters in front by two. “Chooks by a converted try.” I looked over at Taylor and studied him for a little while. “What about you?”

“Hmm.” He frowned a little and leaned forward in his seat, propping his elbows on his knees. “Chooks by ten,” he replied after a few moments.

“You seem very sure about that.”

“What can I say, I know my footy,” he said with a small shrug, before flashing me a quick grin. “Just as well you’re tipping the Chooks to win. I might’ve had to leave you behind after the game if you didn’t.”

Here I threw him the forks. “Bite me, Hanson.”

“Maybe later, if you’re good,” he snarked, giving me a second grin that caused a flock of butterflies to start fluttering somewhere in the region of my stomach, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

At the sound of the halftime siren, something like fifteen minutes later, Taylor eased himself to his feet. “Just need to stretch my legs,” he said at my questioning look. “Want me to get you anything while I’m up?”

“I’d love some ice cream,” I said, trying not to sound too wistful. The heat was beginning to get to me, and if not for the fact that I was more or less totally invested in the game’s outcome I would have left the stadium and jumped in our hotel’s pool still fully-dressed. Not that I didn’t plan on doing almost exactly that as soon as the game ended, but still. “A Frosty Fruit if they have them, please?”

Taylor gave me a bright smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

By the time Taylor came back to his seat, the players were coming back onto the field for the second half of the game and I had managed to scroll the whole way up the top of my Twitter timeline. I was in the middle of reading a recap of the game’s first half that had been posted to the NRL website when the seat next to mine creaked, and I looked up to see a Frosty Fruit dangling in my face. “You are amazing,” I said as I took it from him and ripped the wrapper open. “What did you get?”

“Icy Pole,” he replied, and held up the still-wrapped iceblock in question – a raspberry one. “I feel like it’s a good omen.”

“What, because it’s red?” I asked as I took my own iceblock out of its wrapper and bit into it. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we’ll find out in forty minutes if you’re right.” The halftime music faded out as the referee blew his whistle, with the Roosters kicking off for the second half of the game. Just forty minutes of the 2013 season remained now – forty minutes that would decide who went home with the premiership trophy. All of a sudden I was nervous, in a way I hadn’t been since the day I’d found out I’d got into university more than ten years earlier.

Not even five minutes later, the Roosters supporters were in uproar. The touch judge had ruled a try by one of the Manly players after he had been tackled without the ball by the Roosters’ Mitch Aubusson, sending the decision upstairs to the video referee to determine whether it was a penalty try or not. “That was not a try,” I heard someone saying behind me. “He didn’t even have the ball!”

When the video referee overruled the touch judge by awarding a penalty try, the shouting and swearing from the half of the stadium housing the Roosters’ supporters became so loud that if there had been a roof above our heads, I was willing to bet that it would have been lifted right off. I started a little as Taylor shot to his feet and joined in, before putting my head down and trying not to laugh at him too loudly. “Can you not laugh at me please?” he asked as he sat back down, just in time for Manly to convert their penalty try. “Oh fuck off,” he groaned as the ball sailed straight through the uprights of the goalposts. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

“I love it when you get passionate,” I told him. “Really, I do. But sometimes when you swear you sound like a little kid who’s trying too hard.”

“Bite me,” he retorted.

“Maybe later, if you’re good,” I teased him, echoing his earlier comment, and he let out a peal of laughter.

Just as with the first half, it took me until roughly midway through the game’s second half to start feeling properly hopeful of a Roosters victory. There were now only two points between the two teams, with Sydney having scraped ahead with eighteen minutes left to be played. I shifted forward in my seat until I was nearly perched right on its edge, not wanting to look away for even one moment in case I missed something. Beside me, beneath the roar of the crowd, I could hear Taylor’s very shaky, anxiety-filled breathing, and I reached back to grab onto his closest hand. Every time the Eagles got even remotely close to scoring I couldn’t help holding my breath, and an almost miraculous converted try courtesy of Michael Jennings and James Maloney in the seventy-fourth minute had Taylor squeezing my hand so hard I thought I was going to lose all feeling in my fingers. With just six minutes left of the game and eight points separating the two teams, it was going to take a miracle for Manly to win.

Manly ended up not getting their miracle. When the full-time siren sounded and the Roosters’ team song played over the stadium’s sound system, the scoreboard reading twenty-six points to eighteen in favour of the Roosters, the stands around me erupted in cheers and screams of triumph, and I let out a cheer of my own.

“Holy shit,” I heard Taylor say, and I looked back at him. He looked stunned, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. “We won. We fucking won.”

“Yep. We won.”

I slid back in my seat and shifted as close as I could to Taylor’s side, putting my head down on his shoulder. At the same time, he slipped an arm around my back, and I let out a contented sigh. The world could have ended and I wouldn’t have cared one bit, because in that moment I was exactly where I belonged.

“I love you,” I said, and lifted my head off Taylor’s shoulder so that I could look into his bright, bluer than blue eyes. “More than anything.”

The smile he gave me could have lit up a dark room. “I love you too.”

---

“We should play truth or dare.”

Zac’s birthday party had been a roaring success. His actual birthday that year had been on a Tuesday, so rather than keeping things low-key so that the younger Hansons didn’t end up staying up late on a school night, his party had been delayed to the following Saturday. It had also meant that Taylor and I hadn’t had to skip TAFE – Taylor had class on Tuesdays, and I would have had to skip my Wednesday classes purely because I would have been far too tired after the journey home from Newcastle. I would still be tired after the train trip home that awaited Taylor and I the next morning, but the extra three days of recovery time would make all the difference in the world.

“We’re not playing truth or dare,” Isaac said. The six of us – Taylor, his brothers, Nikki, Kate and I – had headed downstairs to the brothers’ old practice space after dinner and cake, leaving their parents, younger siblings and the Hanson cousins upstairs. “How old are you again?”

“He just wants to dare someone to nick a witches hat and then streak through town wearing it,” Taylor said from where he was lying on the practice space’s lounge with his head in my lap, his eyes closed. He had claimed it not long after we had all retreated downstairs, and for the last ten or so minutes I had been running my fingers through his hair. “Wouldn’t be the first time either.”

“Do I really want to hear this story?” I asked.

“No,” everyone else chorused in unison, with Zac’s voice the loudest, and I bit back a snicker.

“He nearly got one of his mates arrested, that’s all you need to know,” Isaac said.

“We could play cards,” Kate suggested. “I haven’t played Donkey in a while.”

“Sounds good to me,” Zac said, and he got up from his spot on the floor. “I’ll get the cards from upstairs.”

“You don’t have to play,” Taylor said as Zac disappeared upstairs, and I looked down at him. He’d opened one eye and was squinting up at me, the smallest sliver of blue iris just visible through his eyelashes. “Not if you don’t want to. We tend to get a bit…” He trailed off, as if he was trying to figure out how to put what he wanted to say.

“Passionate?” I hedged as Taylor sat himself up.

“I was going to say violent, but passionate works better.”

I let out a chuckle and let Taylor help me to my feet. “I’m not sure why I expected anything less.”

The six of us ended up sitting around the table in the pool area outside for our game – there wasn’t a table in the practice space big enough to fit all of us, and playing inside meant we would have had to keep the noise down. Zac was shuffling a deck of playing cards as the rest of us settled around the table, an unopened family-size bag of Smarties at his left elbow with a notepad and pen underneath, the two jokers from the deck tucked beneath the notepad. Our names, I could see clearly from my spot next to Taylor and across from Isaac, had been written out on the notepad’s first page. Once he had finished shuffling the deck he dealt out five cards to each of us, and took one final card off the top of the deck before setting the rest of the cards aside. I fanned my cards out in my hands while Zac opened the bag of Smarties and put five of them in a circle in the middle of the table – the seven of diamonds, the jack of clubs, four of spades, seven of spades, and the jack of diamonds. “Everyone ready?” he asked, and we all nodded. And with that, he took one card from his hand and passed it along to his right.

Nikki turned out to be the first to collect four of a kind. I had been keeping one eye on my cards and the other on the ring of Smarties, and I was one card away from collecting four sevens when she sneaked a hand out and grabbed a Smartie. She winked at me when I caught her eye, and I hid a grin. Neither of us said a word, but instead kept on passing cards around the table. One by one the rest of us took a Smartie from the middle of the table, until one of us was left – Taylor.

“Fuck all of you,” he groused as we all burst out laughing, and Zac grinned as he wrote a D next to Taylor’s name on the score sheet. “Why am I always first?”

“Happens every time,” Zac said with a snicker as he collected our cards, added the pile plus the mystery card to the deck, shuffled them back in and dealt a new round.

The game eventually wound up close to midnight, with a rather unfortunate Isaac declared the evening’s donkey after somehow managing to lose three rounds in a row. Not much longer afterward the others drifted back inside to collect their respective children and head home, leaving Taylor and I outside by ourselves. We were both quiet for a little while, the distant sounds of the city settling around us.

“Truth or dare,” I said to break our comfortable silence.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Taylor giving me a sidelong glance. “This feels like it could be dangerous,” he commented. “Truth.”

“You said that you promised your mum you’d never get another tattoo,” I said, and Taylor nodded. “Would you though?”

“Get another tattoo?”

“Yeah.”

I almost felt like he didn’t need to think about his answer. “Yeah, I would. I’m planning on it for when I reach ten years.”

That got my attention. “What would you get?”

“An origami crane, right here,” he replied, before touching the spot where I knew his second central line scar was.” Before I could ask why he’d decided on that particular tattoo, he got up from his seat. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

The two of us headed inside to Taylor’s bedroom, next to the laundry. I settled myself on the end of his bed and watched as he went digging around in his wardrobe. He finally unearthed a milk crate that had two large shoeboxes inside – shoeboxes that, I discovered as he set the crate down next to me and lifted them out, were full of colourful origami cranes.

“Did you make all of these?” I asked.

“Not all of them. I got the first twenty from a fan, and Sophie folded another six while she was teaching me to make them. But yeah, the rest of them are mine.”

“How many are there?”

“Two thousand,” he replied, and I let out a low whistle of awe. “The…the first time I was sick, Sophie told me about a Japanese legend where if you fold one thousand of these, you can make a wish and it’ll come true.” He picked up one of the cranes and carefully turned it over in his hands. “I managed to fold about five hundred before I got to go home from the hospital, and finished most of the rest during our recording sessions for Underneath.”

“What was your wish?”

“To make it to five years.” He put the crane back in its shoebox. “After I relapsed, my wish changed – I just wanted to get well again.”

“And you got your wish.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He reached into the other shoebox and picked out a tiny crane, one that was barely bigger than the pad of my thumb. “The second lot of cranes, I started folding them right after I made remission the second time. Finished them while we were recording Shout It Out.” I held out a hand and he put the crane right in the middle of my palm. “That time, my wish was the same as what my first one had been to begin with. And, well…you can guess how it turned out.”

“I’m glad your wishes came true.”

He cracked a smile. “Yeah, me too.”

I put the crane back in its shoebox, and Taylor shifted the crate down to the floor before sitting down next to me. “Truth or dare,” he said.

“Truth.”

“If I asked you right now to move in with me, would you do it?”

I looked down at my feet and dug my bare toes into the blue, red and white striped rug that covered most of the floor. “For real, or hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I would. I’d probably lose my pension, but I’m not sure I’d mind that too much. Not if it meant getting away from Centrelink and all their bullshit.” I nudged Taylor’s right foot with my left. “Plus it would mean getting to wake up next to you every morning.”

“And Sadie gets a backyard to run around in.”

I frowned at this. “Are you even allowed pets?”

“Considering I own my house, I should hope I’m allowed them.” Here his hand found mine. “Now I’m asking for real,” he said, and I looked up and into his eyes. “After the New Zealand tour, and after Christmas and New Year’s, will you move in with me?”

I barely needed to think about my answer – at least, not out loud. I leaned over and kissed him, my eyes sliding shut as he deepened the kiss, his other hand finding my shoulder.

“Was that a yes?” he asked once we had broken apart.

I nodded. “Yes.”

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