The Towel Boy - The Grand Finals
#10 of The Towel Boy
It's finally here, the last chapter of The Towel Boy. It's been a long and educational road. I can't thank my readers enough and I look forward to giving you engaging stories in the future. Thanks again to those in the Writing Corner for helping with this story. (Interested in joining us? You can find it here: https://t.me/joinchat/CPoeZhclggenrOEh0yYwvg )
It's the Grand Finals but the Brumbies are going up against the West Bengals. How will the Bengals overcome this obstacle?
The annoying electronic beeping of Robbo's alarm clock rang out into the darkened bedroom of the apartment, dragging Michael out of his slumber. He wrapped the sheets tighter around him and grumbled without opening his eyes, "Wake me when you get out of the shower."
The alarm clock continued its incessant beeping, and Michael rolled over in the bed to shove the dingo awake but slapped the mattress instead. Michael opened his eyes to see that he was alone on the bed.
The kelpie begrudgingly crawled over and slapped the clock. With the annoying beeping silenced Michael was able to hear sizzling coming from the kitchen.
Michael dragged himself out of the bed and shuffled out into the living room. He squinted at the light on in the kitchen where Robbo was cooking sausages and eggs.
"How long have you been up?" asked Michael, leaning against the back of their couch and using his fingers to comb his disheveled bed-fur.
"Little over an hour," said Robbo as he cracked open another couple of eggs into the pan, "Couldn't sleep."
"Is it because of the game later tonight?" It was the morning of the finals and the West Bengals were facing the Brumbies on their home turf.
"I just couldn't sleep," Robbo put some cooked eggs and sausages onto a plate and set it on the island bench for the kelpie. He turned back to the stove to keep an eye on the remaining eggs and sausages.
"Something kept you up." Michael sat on one of the new stools he insisted they get to stop eating on the couch and dug into the breakfast.
"It's fine," said Robbo, trying to wave Michael's concerns off, "Don't worry about it.
Michael slapped down his knife and fork, "No, it isn't. Remember what happened last time you wouldn't talk about what's bothering you?"
Robbo's ears drooped and his tail tucked between his legs.
"Please," begged Michael, "Tell me when something's bothering you. I shouldn't have to find out through Nikau or Alex."
Robbo stayed silent, his back turned to Michael and busying himself cooking his breakfast.
"Please," Michael begged again.
Robbo turned off the heat and plated his food. His ears still drooped, he made his way around the island, sat on a stool next to Michael and looked at the russet kelpie. The dingo thought for a few moments before saying, "The Brumbies haven't won the cup in years, since before I joined the team."
"And you're worried you won't be able to beat the Bengals?" asked Michael, getting back into his food now that he got Robbo to open up.
Robbo hid his face in his hands, his voice muffled by them. "They've been on a tear all season. They shouldn't be doing this well with new players."
"Told you so."
Robbo threw his hands up, "The horse alone is a fucking beast. I mean holy shit! The way he just fucking floored the Australops' Fly Half last month." He shook his head, "We're on our home turf, and we're likely gonna lose."
Michael put a hand on the nervous dingo, "Then if that's the case, make them fight for that win. Make them fight to hell and back for that trophy. There's always next year if we lose."
"But what if the fans-"
"The fans aren't that fickle. As long as you give them a good game they'll still cheer for you."
"What about last season when the fans-"
"The Pillagers did an illegal and dangerous tackle," Michael interrupted before he grabbed the dingo's head. He looked into his boyfriend's worried eyes and told him, "Stop looking for excuses to psych yourself out. Win or lose, tonight's game is going to be one of the best of your career."
"_One _of?" Robbo asked, his ears starting to perk up.
"You still have six years till you turn thirty," Michael said.
Robbo snorted, "I can still play when I'm thirty."
"Eh," Michael shrugged. "Thirty is ancient for an athlete."
"Doesn't mean I can't play," grumbled Robbo.
Michael hopped off his stool and walked past Robbo hunched over with his plate and said in an exaggerated, elderly voice, "Whatever you say, old man."
Robbo lunged to smack Michael on the arse who scampered out of his reach with a giggle.
Michael rinsed off his plate and put it to the side of the sink. "I'm gonna go have a shower. You finish your breakfast and get ready."
Although the game wasn't until after nightfall, they still had to leave early in the morning and spend the day with the team in pre-game conferences and last-minute planning. Michael could tell that despite the cocky and confident attitude they had during the conference the team's smiles faded too quickly and their movements too artificial, too rehearsed.
They gave up on all pretenses once behind closed doors in a meeting room for last-minute planning for the game.
Coach tapped a key on his laptop to switch the slide of the projector to two pictures of similar-looking red kangaroos. "Jack and Oliver Robinson. The Blindside and Openside flankers. The Bengals got them as a package deal from Mackay-"
"What the hell was a Bengal scout doing that far north?" interrupted Randal.
Charlie scoffed ."I'm surprised they were able to find them among all the sugar cane."
The two bovines continued riffing on the small city before Michael awkwardly cleared his throat, making the water buffalo and bull notice that Coach was glaring at the two.
Coach turned back to the slide and continued, "Being brothers they have more coordination-"
Ray interrupted with a scoff, "Fuck off. My brother and I are always at each other's throats. No way in..."
The border collie trailed off and looked at Coach. The old horse didn't even have to look at Ray to make the canine shrink back into his chair.
Coach continued, "Because they grew up together they were able to work together well from the get-go. They were also the best flankers in Mackay so try and keep the ball away from them."
"But before you have to worry about them you have to worry about the Front Row," Coach said as he changed the slide to two pictures of a heavy set brown bull and black boar.
"Noah Johnson and Ethan Taylor, the Loosehead and Tighthead prop respectively. These two are rather," Coach scratched his chin as he thought of a word, " __Stout_ _and if they managed to have the ball in a maul you are going to have a hard time getting them down. Go for their legs if you can. Trip them up."
Coach changed slides again and gestured to the projected picture of a brown-furred clydesdale, the West Bengals' Hooker. "Now, with their Hooker, uh, Ee... Ee-oh..."
The horse looked over to Michael who was already typing the name into his phone to get the name's pronunciation. The flat, electronic voice chirped, "Oh-win."
Coach looked back to the picture of the clydesdale, "With their Hooker, Eoin, whatever you do, do not let him past you." He said to the Forwards, "We don't want a repeat of their game with Australorps."
The team mumbled their acknowledgement, wincing as they remembered the state the Australorps' Fly Half was left in.
Coach checked the time on his laptop, "Alright, everyone head to the locker room. Michael, you go get-"
"Already got 'em," Michael said, picking up the bag of jerseys from underneath the meeting room table and following the team as they started filing out.
The team was quiet and serious, not their normal rowdy selves and idly chatting with each other while getting changed.
Because everyone was so quiet, Michael overheard Nikau say to Robbo, "Don't."
"Don't what?" asked Michael as he tossed them their jerseys.
Robbo went to speak but Nikau spoke over him as he worked his horns through the head hole of the jersey, "He wants to showboat if he gets the winning try."
"Why shouldn't he?" asked Michael as he balled up David's jersey and tossed it across the room to the grey kangaroo, "You would."
"That's cause he won't get the try," Nikau said.
"Oh? And you will?" asked Michael, taking the last jersey out and handing it to Alex as he walked past.
"Yes," Nikau said matter of factly.
"Fuck off," Robbo said, finally speaking up and shoving the ram.
A shrill screech from Coach's whistle got everyone's attention and announced his arrival.
He stood in the doorway and announced, "It's time."
The stadium was a sea of orange and maroon, roaring in anticipation and demanding the game to begin.
It did not go well for the Brumbies in the first half, with all the team's attempts to keep away and steal the ball from the Bengal's failing miserably.
The Robinson brothers proved why they were the best flankers in their old town by quickly and easily achieving turnovers whenever they were in a ruck.
Their Props proved near impossible to bring down when Nikau, Charlie, and Randal got into a maul with Randal nearly getting his ankle crushed when he tried to trip up the porcine Tighthead.
Their equine Hooker, Eoin plowed through every defence the team put up. In the final minutes of the first half, he gunned for David after the grey kangaroo managed to get the ball. The large clydesdale almost made it to the Brumbies' Fly Half before Nikau put himself between the two. Eoin slammed past him, driving the ram to the ground but was slowed down enough to let David score the first of only two tries in the first half for the Brumbies.
The atmosphere of the locker room was morose and demoralised. Coach was pacing around the locker room, thinking as the team sat in silence.
"You sure you can still play?" asked Michael as he checked Nikau's shoulder and back.
"I'm fine," winced Nikau, rolling his shoulder, "Just give me some ibuprofen and I'll be right."
"Mhmm," said Michael but gave him some anyway and a drink to wash it down.
Michael left the ram to himself and went over to Robbo. Passing by Randal, Michael stopped to see if he was alright but the water buffalo stomped his hoof on the ground before Michael could get a word out and told him, "Just a graze."
Michael continued past him and sat next to Robbo. The dingo was slouched on the bench and looking at his foot paws in silence. Michael sat next to him and not knowing what to say to try and cheer him up, held his hand.
Coach stopped pacing, "I'm not going to lie to you. It's not looking good."
"You think?" asked Randal, "They have us at eight to twenty."
"Yes," said Coach and held up a finger, "But that's the thing. They have a massive lead and it's the final game of the season."
Ray scoffed, "Thanks for the reminder."
Coach was leading up to something and Michael knew it. He also knew that the old horse was trying to guide the team to figure it out for themselves. The gears quickly turned in his head figuring it out, but Robbo perked up and beat him to it. "They'll be cocky in the second half and start making mistakes."
"They've dominated all season," said Ray, "Why didn't they make any mistakes then?"
Michael spoke up, "Because it was gradual. The longer their streak went on, the more and more overconfident they would've become."
Robbo continued for Michael, "And this is the last game and seeing they got such a large lead in the first half. They're gonna think it's a shoe-in and start getting lazy and start making mistakes."
"Exactly," Coach said with a smile, "But it still won't be easy. At all. They've dominated for a reason. We must also make sure we don't try to make any desperate moves."
"We can't just stick with our normal plays either. They would've studied us like we did them," said Alex.
"True," said the horse, "This is one of the things we'll do..."
***
The roar of the crowd was ecstatic and expectant as the Brumbies ran out of the locker room. It saw that the devastating first half did not seem to demoralise the team which meant they had a plan to make up for it and they fervently demanded to know what it was.
Coach was right about a comeback not being easy, but the Brumbies slowly took advantage of the Bengals' over-confidence to close the gap between the two team's scores.
The Bengals' first mistake came when the Robinson brothers decided to try and toy with the Brumbies when in rucks just for the Brumbies' own flankers, who were playing along initially just as Coach had ordered them, to swoop in and steal the ball away. The kangaroos wisened up quickly to the play but not in time to prevent the Brumbies from scoring two tries.
When the Bengals' Tighthead Prop was dragged into another maul with Nikau and Charlie trying to bring the Porcine prop to the ground, Randal dove into it with a vengeance using his own and the boar's weight to finally drag him down. The Brumbies gained the ball and, before the Bengals could mount a defence, quickly passed it down to Robbo who tore down the field past the now defending team and scored a try. Finally tying the two teams' scores.
But all of the Brumbies' gathered momentum ground to a halt when the Bengals' Hooker started getting serious again. He easily smashed through the team's defences, gunning for David after the grey kangaroo had the ball passed to him.
When the horse was almost on top of David he quickly passed to Nikau, getting the horse off his tail but setting him on the ram.
He thundered towards Nikau and crashed into the ram, driving him into the ground. One of his horns catching and tearing a short, deep furrow into the pitch.
Nikau slowly picked himself and, blinking, he wiped his stinging eyes and that's when he noticed the blood flowing down his face and staining his wool. The referee blew into his whistle and Nikau was sent off the field to get treated.
Michael stood behind the doctor, handing the lop-eared rabbit what he needed to clean Nikau's cut as he sat hunched over with a hand gripping his knee, unmoving on the bench and looking out intently onto the pitch.
"It's just a small cut," said the rabbit, softly dabbing some gauze on the small cut over the ram's right eyebrow, "It's just because of the colour of your wool and it being on your face that it seems so bad."
Michael looked over the grey rabbit's shoulder. The cut was barely a centimetre long and he was amazed at how much blood had come out and stained the already grass-stained wool.
The doctor finished cleaning the cut, applied a small dollop of petroleum jelly on the cut, and covered it with a small bandage. He patted Nikau's shoulder and said, "You'll be right in a few minutes."
Michael stayed behind as the doctor left. He felt nervous, the whole time Nikau was being treated he didn't move a muscle. He still sat still after being treated, looking ready to launch himself back into the game, the wait for the go-ahead seeming to be the only thing keeping him stuck on the bench. His eyes following the rival hooker. as he stormed through the Brumbies time and time again. But, thankfully, never scoring any more tries.
Michael thought that the ram wasn't stupid enough to try and hurt the horse but the intensity of his gaze as he followed the hooker and the brutal look of his bloodstained wool was giving him second thoughts.
The horn for overtime blared and Nikau finally started moving again, squirming on the bench and grumbling to himself. Michael took a step back when Coach finally gave Nikau the go-ahead and he shot back into the game.
"You sure that was a good idea?" asked Michael.
"God, I hope so," said Coach, not reassuring Michael in the slightest.
It proved to be so, Nikau crashing into a scrum and quickly winning the ball from the Bengals' Loosehead, and passed the ball back to Alex. The ball quickly made its way down the team to Robbo who bolted further down the field with it with the Bengals' hooker and Nikau close behind.
Michael nervously tugged his headfur, "Oh god, he's not gonna make it."
He saw Robbo turn to pass the ball to Nikau, despite the Bengals' equine hooker being in between the dingo and the ram.
"What?! NO!" Michael shrieked in shock.
The move shocked the horse as well. He clumsily tried to catch the ball, but it flew through his arms and straight into Nikau's who quickly put distance between him and the clydesdale.
The large hooker quickly scrambled after Nikau, gunning after the ram as he got closer and closer to the end of the field. Just before Nikau reached the line the clydesdale side tackled him and drove him into the ground. But Nikau was too close to the try line and the tackle sent both players over the line, the ball slamming into the ground over the line but staying firmly in Nikau's grip.
The fan's roar drowned out the horn blaring out to announce the winning try. Nikau quickly got to his feet and spiked the ball. He roared in triumph, basking in the approving cheers of the crowd
Michael was cheering and hollering at the try when he saw Robbo quickly approaching. He braced himself and was tackled off his feet into a spinning hug and kiss. Michael broke the kiss and touched his forehead to Robbo's as he was rocked slightly from side to side, his feet dangling in the air.
Series of catcalls broke Michael out of reverie as he was reminded of the crowd in the stands, particularly of the sight of his mother in the crowd cheering and looking on the verge of tears.
"Can you let me down now?" Michael asked, embarrassed by all the onlookers.
Robbo gently let him down and immediately whisked him away onto the pitch to meet up with the team as they gathered around for the trophy being brought out for the cameras and photos.
The team all cheered, all pumping their arms up in the air as they clustered together for the photo, Robbo had Michael in a crushing side hug, and Nikau was cheering the loudest and holding the trophy one-handed above his head.
The celebrations continued off of the field and Michael's job demanded his attention so he split off from the team to retrieve the laundry bin as they made their way into the locker room, cheering all the way.
The team was still celebrating as Michael wheeled in the bin and weren't even close to getting ready for the showers. Michael rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone, scrolling through it in the silence of the rowdy locker room as he waited.
Michael paused and looked up from his phone, wondering why the team suddenly quieted down. Charlie and Randal were giving him big, goofy grins. Nikau was looking at him with his arms crossed and a smirk. The entire team was looking at him, expectant. Except for one, one was missing.
A knot quickly formed in Michael's stomach as he slowly started putting the pieces together. He slowly turned around and his heart leapt into his throat at what he saw. Robbo with ears folded back, tail slightly wagging and with a nervous smile on his face as he looked up to him from down on one knee.
Michael's legs felt like they turned to jelly and he reached a hand back to lean on the bin. He couldn't speak. He could hardly breathe. His eyes started stinging and he did the only thing he could do. He nodded.
His legs finally gave out and he dropped. Robbo caught him in a tight embrace before he hit the ground, easily sweeping him off his feet. Robbo brought Michael into a kiss as the kelpie returned the embrace in kind. The couple paid no mind to the celebrations resuming around, being only focused on each other.