Chapter 4 #3
Before Alex could reply, Finley and Callum barreled into them, shouting their own congratulations, and yeah, it was just a practice game—but any goal against Oliver was hard-earned.
Alex stepped back to make room, absently noting how Lee’s jersey clung to his athletic frame, which…
enough already. With that thought firmly in mind, Alex turned away to start trotting back towards the other half of the field.
Enough.
Lee liked routine, always had. Maybe it was down to how he’d been deprived of it as a kid, his mum just as likely to let them skip school so they could spend the day at an amusement park as she’d been to stay out all night without any notice.
In that sense, rooming with Alex was easy.
Alex’s alarm went off at the same time each morning, and while he rolled out of bed and into the shower, Lee either dozed for a few more minutes or eased into wakefulness with the guided meditation app Kieran had recommended.
Once Alex was done in the bathroom, radiating energy as he moved to dig out his clothes for the day, Lee went to brush his teeth and take a shower himself, careful not to let his thoughts stray too closely to Alex in just a pair of skimpy boxer briefs, parading around the room and perfectly oblivious to how bloody distracting it was.
When Lee was finally ready to leave for breakfast, he collected Alex so they could head down together, typically finding him out on the balcony, enjoying the morning freshness as he tapped away on his phone.
At breakfast, they sometimes sat at the same table but more often split up to find Oliver and Jeff.
It worked, for the most part.
The one time Lee dared to complain about Alex’s choice of underwear to Oliver over a plate of scrambled eggs, Oliver laughed at him.
“Sorry, mate.” Oliver lowered his voice. “Not feeling particularly sympathetic about you getting to share a room with the guy you’re into while my wife’s all the way back in the UK.”
“One”—Lee shot a quick glance at Toby and Finley, sitting across from them at the table and engrossed in a conversation about action movies—“I’m merely appreciating the view. Two, when you see her, you actually get to touch—I don’t. It’s hard, okay?”
“I bet it is,” Oliver stated casually, and Lee sent him a scandalized look.
“Oliver. Have you been spending time with Jeff?”
“He’s selectively amusing,” Oliver said.
“Just don’t…” Lee hesitated, fishing around for the right words only to settle on, “You know. Don’t let anything slip.”
Oliver’s eyes turned serious. “I wouldn’t.”
“I know,” Lee said, and he did, he did, but sometimes he just wished that things were a little easier, that he didn’t have to be so fucking careful all the time. If Ben had done it a decade ago, would it really be such a big deal if Lee came out now?
Probably, unfortunately—yes. Things had changed, but it was a glacial drip, not a landslide.
Lee wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of pressure and attention.
He’d have some people in his corner, sure, but he’d still have to essentially walk the road alone while Ben had been in a long-term relationship with his now-husband.
Or maybe Lee was a coward looking for excuses.
“Hey, what’s going on with you?” Oliver asked softly.
Lee raised his gaze from his plate, frowning. “Are you asking as my friend or my captain?”
“As your friend. You’re doing just fine on the field, and you know it.”
Lee did. He was quite possibly in the best shape of his life, and the Spanish summer heat bothered him less than it did others. Especially now that he and Alex had found a rhythm, he’d been able to score some pretty sweet goals in their practice games, even if he did say so himself.
“Yeah.” He pushed some parsley to the side of his plate. “And I don’t know. Just a bit tired of pretending, I guess. Or…” He lifted the corners of his mouth. “Maybe it’s just been a while since I got laid.”
“Anything I can do?” Oliver asked.
Lee arched a meaningful eyebrow.
A brief moment passed before Oliver got it, then he snorted. “Dick.”
“That’s the general idea,” Lee confirmed. “Also, you have been hanging around Jeff.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
Lee kicked him under the table, received a kick in return, and went back to eating his eggs, smiling.
Evenings followed a similarly predictable pattern. Unless training ran late, they got ready for bed around eleven, catching up on messages and reading for a few minutes before one of them turned off the light and the other followed suit shortly after.
While Lee always needed some twenty minutes to fall asleep, Alex seemed to drop off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, his breathing evening out within moments. Lucky bastard.
Except—not tonight.
Half an hour after they’d mumbled goodnight, Alex was still tossing and turning, taking quiet, shallow breaths on the other side of the room.
Lee could have ignored it. They had their first match the next day, though, and they weren’t friends, but they were…
teammates, at least, and there was an understanding between them built on nearly two weeks of sharing a space.
Damnit.
“Alex,” Lee muttered into the darkness.
“Sorry, am I…” Alex shifted to face Lee, the whites of his eyes just visible. “I’m bothering you, aren’t I? Sorry. I’ll stop moving around.”
“That’s not…” Lee sighed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Lee stayed silent, waiting.
“Just thinking.”
Right. Lee let Alex’s words hang in the air for a moment before he nodded against the pillow, keeping his voice light. “Nervous, then?”
Alex inhaled sharply, then released the air in a whoosh. For a second, it seemed as though he wouldn’t reply. “Yeah,” he admitted.
Lee remembered how four years ago, he’d been just as nervous before the first match that had ended in a tie.
All players had been in individual rooms back then, no one he could have confided in even if he’d wanted to, and in the end, it didn’t really matter that he’d had a bad night’s sleep because he’d watched the entire match from the bench.
Alex would be playing—probably, almost certainly—and Lee needed him sharp. Good thing he had plenty of practice talking his sisters down from a variety of mental ledges.
“Perfectly normal that you’re nervous,” he told Alex, propping himself up on one elbow to show he was paying attention, yet leaving the light off to keep the shadows between them. Velvety night air filled the room through the balcony door they’d left partially open. “Wanna talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about?” Alex asked, but he didn’t sound contrary, just a little lost. “I just have to get over it, don’t I?”
Sure, because that’s how feelings worked. Not.
Lee hummed. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Is that supposed to be helpful?” Alex scoffed. “We lose. And I don’t play. Or I do, but I make an idiot of myself and prove my parents right.”
If Lee hadn’t been camped out in his very own glasshouse, he’d suggest that Alex could benefit from talking to someone about his bi-parental baggage. As it was, he left it at a nod. “Okay. And what’s the best thing that could happen?”
“We win, and I’m part of it.”
“And what’s more likely?”
“The Dutch are a good team. And they’ve got way more experience than we do.” Alex drew an audible breath. “Their playmaker has, like, a hundred international matches under his belt—I’ve got four. Even if I play—”
“You will,” Lee interrupted. Rude? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.
It seemed to do the trick because Alex shut up for a second, clearly redirecting his runaway thoughts. “How do you know?”
“Because you train hard and you’re really fucking good. Kieran is the kind of coach who rewards that even if you’re young and new. Also…” Lee let a deliberate smirk creep into his voice. “I will most definitely be playing, and you complement me well. So, you’re welcome.”
Alex’s quiet laugh melted into the night. “Modesty suits you.”
“It’s just one of my many attractive qualities.”
Another laugh, and Lee found himself tucking a smile into the palm of his hand.
For a moment, comfortable silence settled, distant noises filtering in from outside—a car passing somewhere further away and people talking in the hotel garden, too low to make out more than the rise and fall of Spanish voices.
“Thanks, Lee,” Alex said then, hardly above a whisper.
“I’m not trying to butter you up,” Lee told him. “Just calling it like I see it, yeah?”
“Thanks for talking to me, though. It’s not…” Alex paused. “You didn’t have to. Last I checked, it wasn’t part of the roommate job description.”
“Nah, but it’s part of the being-a-decent-human-being job description.
” Lee dropped his head back onto the pillow, suppressing a yawn.
Their alarm would go off at seven thirty, and then it was breakfast, a brief strategy session, and off to a hotel near Valencia so they’d arrive with plenty of time to spare. “Still nervous?”
Alex rolled onto his back. “Yeah. Maybe ten per cent less than before.”
“Think you’ll be able to get some sleep, then?”
A second passed as Alex considered it. “Possibly.”
“Mission accomplished.” Lee should leave it at that.
If he didn’t want Alex sticking his nose into Lee’s family business, it was only fair he showed Alex the same courtesy—after all, Alex had pried only a little a few days ago, after Lee’s fleeting need to vent to someone, anyone, about Brandon’s outlandish belief that he deserved to weasel around his daughters when he’d been a grown-ass man leaving a bunch of kids at the mercy of someone he openly called a nutcase.
Maybe his regrets would ring a little truer if they hadn’t coincided with Lee being promoted from the Under 21s to the national team.
Anyway. The point was that Lee shouldn’t stick his nose where it didn’t belong. He had approximately zero credentials when it came to counseling others on healthy family dynamics.
And yet.
“Hey, and just so you know…” Lee raised his head to peer at Alex’s side of the room, making out the dim glow of a bare chest. “Your parents are wrong. You absolutely belong on that field—can’t think of a better place for you.”
It was too dark to see Alex’s smile, but it shone in his voice. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well.” Abruptly self-conscious, Lee dropped his head back down. “Now go to fucking sleep, okay?”
“Okay,” Alex echoed softly, and it took only minutes for his breathing to even out. For once, Lee wasn’t far behind.