Chapter 9
NINE
When Lee returned to the room, Alex was already sprawled on the bed, his bare back a lovely curve that ended with the waistband of his boxers. A book was open in front of him, and the familiar sight of it settled something in Lee’s stomach.
“All right?” Alex arched his back in a way that emphasized the swell of his behind, glancing over at Lee with a subtle spark in his eyes.
Ah, so he really was doing it on purpose—strutting around near-naked, showing off his body at least partly for Lee’s benefit.
They were athletes, of course, and changing around each other came with the territory, but Alex seemed to have developed an aversion to clothing that exceeded normal levels.
Lee closed the door. “Yeah, all good.”
“So Oliver only wanted to talk?”
“Something like that.” Lee crossed the room and tugged off his T-shirt because hey, two could play that game. Alex’s gaze dropped before it returned to Lee’s face.
“‘Something like that’ means…?”
“He, uh.” Fuck, Lee really should have figured out how to break the news to Alex.
“He figured it out, sort of—that something happened between us. So I told him.” Lee turned to face Alex fully.
“I know it wasn’t really my secret to share, but he’d half-figured it out already, and he’s my best mate, Alex. I trust him without question.”
It took a few seconds, then Alex sighed. “It’s fine.”
“Yeah?” Lee asked quietly.
“I knew there was a good chance you’d tell him.” Alex’s lips twitched into a slight upwards curve. “I mean, a mind-blowing kiss like that—of course you’d want to tell your best mate about it.”
Lee snorted. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”
“I’m not… It’s…” Shaking his head, Alex snapped the book shut and rolled onto his back. “I’m not ashamed. I swear, that’s not it. It’s just personal, and telling people feels…”
“Scary?” Lee suggested gently.
“Yeah. That.”
“I can vouch for Oliver—he won’t tell a soul.”
“I trust your judgement.”
It sounded an awful lot like ‘I trust you’, and Lee wasn’t quite sure what to make of the little zing of pleasure that warmed his face at the thought.
To hide his reaction, he walked over to his bed and switched on the small reading lamp beside it, identical to the one that bathed Alex in a golden glow. “Glad to hear it.”
“Yeah, well.” Alex didn’t immediately continue. “So how did he react?”
“Told me to get lucky.”
“Sounds about right.” The words carried a stifled grin, Alex propping himself up on his elbows in a way that drew attention to the line of his torso and the trail of dark hair that disappeared into his boxers. Cheeky bastard.
Lee sighed as he pulled his gaze away. “Can you not?”
Alex’s laugh blended with the quiet evening, humid air flowing in through the open balcony door. “Just following captain’s orders.”
Lee spared Alex another look. “Still a bad idea.”
“I thought”—Alex batted his lashes—“you trust him without question?”
“Within reason.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” Alex’s voice lightened, and he dropped all pretense. “Anyway, so I figured it out.”
“You figured what out?” Lee asked carefully.
“Why you won’t tell me what it is that you’re reading.”
Oh, that.
Lee countered Alex’s smile with an unimpressed eyebrow raise. “Is that so?”
“It’s gay erotica.” Alex gave the statement a second to settle, grinning up at Lee. “Which—I’m not judging, right? But since you won’t give me the time of day, the least you can do is share so I can live vicariously through your pages.”
Lee fought the upwards tug of his lips. “It’s not gay erotica.”
“Must you break my heart?” Alex fell back onto the bed with all the flair of a second-rate actor miming a deadly shot, and this felt different—the impish gleam in his eyes, the playful curve of his mouth.
As though they’d found a new kind of balance, now that everything between them was out in the open.
“You’ll live,” Lee told him dryly.
“But what a sad and empty life it will be.” Alex let his head loll to the side so he could send Lee a pitiful look. “So what is it, then?”
Ah, what the hell.
“Right now? Thinking, Fast and Slow.”
“That’s that Nobel Prize guy, right? Daniel… something? A psychologist of some sort.”
“Daniel Kahneman, yeah.” Lee loved Oliver, but Oliver would have struggled telling Daniel Kahneman from, say, Genghis Khan.
That Alex had at least a vague idea was…
really quite attractive. “It’s about how we make judgements and decisions.
Like, we think we’re much more rational than we really are.
For example, we like and trust a company more if it sounds familiar, even if we have no clue what they do, and we trust a politician more if we happen to smile when listening to their speech.
And they had people count the passes in a basketball match, and about halfway through, some guy in a gorilla costume walks in and pounds his chest—and half the people missed it completely because they were too focused on counting passes. ”
Alex’s smile was slow and sweet.
“What?” Lee asked.
“That might be the most words I’ve heard you say in one go.”
“Sorry.” Lee ducked his head, and Alex’s smile widened.
“I wasn’t complaining.”
“Right. I guess I get a bit nerdy about stuff like that—psychology, how the brain works.”
For a few seconds, Alex was quiet. Then he shifted up against the headboard, and this time, it didn’t seem like a ploy to draw attention to his body.
“Your mum,” he began, stopped, and started again.
“Your mum being bipolar—is there a genetic component? Like, are you worried about yourself? Or your sisters?”
“Straight for the jugular, huh?” Lee drew a measured breath and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Answer’s yeah, a bit. Estimates vary, but it’s maybe fifteen per cent hereditary.”
“So between the three of you…” Alex’s teeth tugged on his bottom lip, his entire focus on Lee. “That’s a pretty big chance that one of you may have inherited it.”
Lee’s worst nightmare, dragged into the light. He drew another breath. “Yeah.”
Alex didn’t immediately reply. When he did, it was close to a whisper. “I’m sorry you have to worry about that.”
“It’s like… It’s this thing, you know?” Lee tucked his hands between his thighs and looked away from Alex. “Me, there’s a good chance I’ll be fine—low prevalence among pro athletes, and half of all cases start before twenty-five, so…”
“You worry about your sisters, though.”
Lee swallowed. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex repeated, low. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he got up and closed the gap between them for a gentle touch of Lee’s jaw. “I’m so sorry.”
There were plenty of things Lee could have said.
“Thank you”, for one, or “Not exactly your fault, is it?” or “I really, really like you”.
In the end, he simply nodded and closed his eyes for a second, leaning into the contact.
When he straightened and looked up, there was something painfully soft about Alex’s expression that Lee chose not to examine too closely, his brain already caught up in the memory of Alex saying, “I like you, I find you attractive.”
Instead, Lee cleared his throat. “It’s getting late. Guess I should get ready for bed.”
Nodding, Alex stepped back, his hand falling away. “Yeah. That’s… uh, yeah. It is getting late.”
They stared at each other for a beat, then Lee exhaled and smiled. “Hey, Alex? Thank you.”
“Anytime.” The dim twin glow of the reading lamps brought out the brown undertones of Alex’s eyes. It was Lee who looked away first, chest a little tight.
He’d made the right call. Hadn’t he?
With tension running high ahead of their final group-stage match, dinner was a loud affair.
Lee sat back while Jeff dissected the strength and weaknesses of various Moroccan players, Oliver chiming in on occasion with his own opinions, and Alex notably quiet after a phone call he’d taken halfway through the meal.
Once the servers started clearing away the fruit platters, Jeff trundled off to “talk to a girl”, wink wink nudge nudge, Oliver leaving soon after to call his wife.
“And then there were two,” Lee commented idly.
“Seems that way.” Alex’s tiny smile just about broke Lee’s heart. “We should head off too, I suppose.”
As if he’d get even a wink of sleep if they got ready for bed now.
“How about a quick walk first?” Lee suggested, and relief washed over Alex’s features.
“Sounds great.”
“You know…” Lee scooted his chair back and got up. “For someone who comes across as fairly confident, you sure are terrible at asking for things.”
Alex rose as well, sending Lee a small frown. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no shame in saying, ‘Hey, Lee, would you be up for a walk? I need to clear my head and could use the company.’”
“Hey, Lee?” The left side of Alex’s mouth twitched. “Would you be up for a walk? I could use the company.”
“There you go.” Lee shot him a grin. “Wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
“Six out of ten, I’d say.” While Alex grinned back, it faded rather too soon.
They headed for the pool, turquoise water shimmering in the quickly fading light, the crunch of gravel under their feet mixing with the soft, repetitive whistles of an owl.
“So,” Lee asked after a minute had passed in silence, “want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Alex exhaled, running his fingers through brown, wavy hair that fell over his forehead.
“I talked to my parents, and it’s like… They’re hosting a dinner party next week, and the way they’re talking, it’s like they fully expect me to be back by then.
” Even just at the mention of his parents, his enunciation got crisper.
“As though we’re guaranteed to lose tomorrow. ”
Lee scoffed. “Right, sure—because they’ve become overnight soccer experts.”
“They might be right, though.”
“They won’t be.” Lee made sure to wrap the words in certainty, for his own sake as much as Alex’s. “We didn’t win against Japan because we got complacent. We won’t make that mistake again.”