Rough Conduct

He sat in disbelief for a minute or so, shutting his laptop screen and staring into the vacancy of his bedroom, letting the numbness consume him. He'd been suspended. No playing this weekend. A Friday night game, a huge clash against Carlton, and he was going to be watching from his living room by himself.

And that charge. It'd be on his record. For the rest of his career now. He knew it was an accident, that he never intended to do anything to hurt anyone on the field, that he'd never do anything that wasn't fair game in the eyes of the sport's law. And yet he felt so defined by it, so branded . Like he was a common thug or something, or hadn't been playing the game the right way all of his life.

Just the thought had him feeling hot and flushed. He loosened his tie, pulling it off completely and sighing in relief, before shrugging his formal blazer off, too. 'Stupid suit', he thought to himself as he stripped himself of it completely. He couldn't believed he'd dressed up for this Tribunal hearing and sat there for two hours, palms sweaty, knees shaking, only to be disappointed in the end.

He threw on the first T shirt he could find, a baggy gray tee, then shed his suit pants and slipped into a pair of comfy white sweat shorts.

As he swept his hair off his face and opened his bedroom door, he braced himself for the inevitable questions that were going to come.

"How'd it go?" Nick would ask.

"What'd you have to do?" Justin would follow.

And on and on it would go.

So when he walked out, he kept his head low, headed straight for the kitchen to get a glass of water, because fuck his lips were parched after two hours of giving testimony on how he wasn't some malicious bastard.

Predictably, it was Nick whose voice he heard first.

"Just read the news Rowy," Nick said softly, sounding nervous, unsure if it was too soon to offer consolations. Justin was equally uncomfortable. Was it even worth offering consolations over? Was one week out of action something that warranted a particularly emotional response?

"Fuckin' sucks, bro," was the best Justin could offer. Neither he nor Nick moved off the couch. They didn't even make eye contact with James in the kitchen. They just turned their attention back to the TV, where they were hooked on Big Brother.

"He's so fuckin' annoying hey," Nick moaned at the tellie, and Justin just groaned, threw a cushion on the floor in frustration, like a hyperactive child being harassed by a fly or something.

"Does my head in!" He said in agreement.

James made his way over to the living room, seating himself in the vacant space on the L-shaped couch between the two boys, immediately sensing how tense his presence had made the atmosphere in the room. He darted his eyes around at both of them, noticing how they were trying not to give away how unsure they were of what to do when a mate cops some really shit news that isn't really that shitty in the grand scheme of things. He knew he shouldn't be moping around feeling sorry for himself. Eleven days. That was all it was going to be until he could play his next game.

He'd taken longer than that to write assessments for uni or to heal from surgery on a broken hand.

And yet, he felt pathetically flat about the whole thing. How could he not? They only got 22 opportunities to run out onto the field with their teammates and do what they love doing, a few more if they were lucky to make it deep into finals, and now he'd just lost one of those opportunities for something he had no control over.

But his two mates acting as though someone had died certainly wasn't helping the mood, either. He made a conscious decision to try and change the subject. Kill the awkwardness and alleviate his mates' fears that he was gonna break down and weep hysterically in the middle of the living room.