Chapter 4
AUSTIN
—Stressed Out
by Twenty One Pilots
I am pacing. I never pace.
My bare feet are dragging soft lines across the cool tiles in my hotel room as I talk to Sandra on the phone.
Back and forth. Back and forth. My mind is spiralling and looping, doing that fun thing where it refuses to land on anything useful.
I mentally kick myself for letting Sandra drag me into this mess.
I have deep respect for Johnson. Always have, he’s literally a hero in my eyes. And my respect for him just tripled with the way he handled our encounter just now.
Except at the back of my mind, I think he doesn’t believe me and it’s a trap.
I was going to talk to him eventually, but when I saw him on the first day of training, I panicked. And now, like always, my thoughts don’t stay where I put them. They start drifting and then get stuck on him.
Roland Johnson is hot. There’s no better way to say it. He is tall and broad, with thick arms, a wide chest, and strong thighs that look like they could pin me in place without effort—which is not a thought I should be having right now, but here we are.
His skin is dark and smooth, always pulling my attention back to him even when I’m actively trying to look elsewhere.
His face is handsome in an unfair way. Strong jaw and calm dark eyes that miss nothing.
He doesn’t need to be loud or flashy. When Johnson walks into a room, people feel it.
And I felt it too, long before I was ever close enough to justify it.
I stop pacing and press my palms into my eyes, groaning. This is not helpful at all. It’s the opposite of helpful.
Gosh. I used to think there was no way I could ever meet him.
Roland Johnson lived in a different world.
A loftier one, and I didn’t belong anywhere near his calibre of people.
Then my parents died, and my entire life was flipped upside down.
Sandra’s parents took me in, and I went from being as poor as a church rat, wearing clothes two sizes too small, to wearing designer clothes with names I can barely pronounce.
Even now, I don’t understand why the Basseys did it, opening their home and letting me stay, all because Sandra asked them to.
That part still messes with me the most because we barely knew each other back then.
I was an almost malnourished twelve year old boy and she was two years older than me, but we sat together at church and made silly faces about some of the teachings.
It wasn’t as if we were best of friends then.
How could we be when I didn’t belong in the glitzy life she had?
But it felt like she wanted company, being an only child and who else is best to give her that other than me?
It was really a win-win situation, although I don’t know what I did to deserve it.
Moving in with the Basseys gave me structure, comfort, and a future I could actually point at and work towards.
For the first time, I let myself believe I could make something out of my life.
That football shouldn’t just be a sport I play with my friends in the street and that I could actually pursue my dreams without worrying about funds.
That maybe I could stand on the same pitch as Roland Johnson one day, even if it were just in passing.
He became my motivation, a standard to aspire to, and he still is.
The man I measure myself against every time I train harder than my body wants to.
When my legs burn, I think of him. When I want to quit, I think of him pushing me to keep going.
When I suffer through one more drill, it’s because I imagine him watching and being proud of my perseverance.
“Austin, babes. You are taking this harder than I imagined you would.” Sandra’s words pull me out of my thoughts and remind me she’s on the other end of the call.
“Like you didn’t put me in an impossible situation,” I shoot back.
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Because I think he wants to kill me,” I half shout before pausing. I have no idea why I don’t just tell Sandra that Johnson already knows the truth.
“He’s a nice man, you are not in any danger here,” Sandra says with a small laugh.
“Or he’s setting a trap for me. Maybe I should just pull out of the World Cup.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Watch me!”
“You can’t just pull out.”
“I absolutely can,” I snap back. “People do it all the time. Injury. Personal reasons. Sudden mysterious hamstring issue. Emotional trauma. Global crisis. Literally anything.”
And yes, I could keep going. I have a list of excuses, but I’ve made my point. I mean, technically, he says to mingle with the team. But my brain is telling me to hide under a blanket and never come out.
“You’ve waited your whole life for this,” Sandra interrupts my spiral.
“I don’t think I can play like this.”
“Why are you still scared of him? He’s been cordial with me, polite, really. He’s never said anything about you, and as far as you’ve told me, there haven’t been any issues with the team icing you out—you’re the one who’s been avoiding them.”
Well, let’s see.
Because when I was a nobody kid with no parents and no safety net, Roland Johnson was proof that someone like me could make it.
That greatness could look like us. Because I’ve had a crush on him since I was thirteen when I didn’t even have the words for it yet and thought I just admired him because of his skills.
Because wanting him was easier when I wasn’t going to see him every day, when he was married to Sandra and there was a clear boundary between us that I couldn’t cross.
I’m standing there, frozen in the middle of my hotel room, when it finally strikes me what my fear is really about.
I cannot handle Roland Johnson knowing something about me.
I always assumed I could ignore him during matches by nodding politely and keeping my head down.
But now that he has cornered me with that handsome, calm face, those steady eyes, and the scent go him lodged in my mind, my body is interpreting it wrongly.
As a matter of fact, I would have rubbed one out if Sandra hadn’t called the moment I entered my room.
“I just am,” I say instead. It’s the only answer I can give.
Sandra tuts, unconvinced. “You’ve always looked at him funny,” she says.
My heart slams so hard against my ribs I’m surprised it doesn’t knock me backward. “What?” I ask, very carefully.
“Don’t pretend. I know your tells.”
“I don’t—”
“You get quiet when he walks into a room,” she continues. “You defer to him even when you don’t need to.”
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. My brain completely blanks. I try again. Still nothing. “That’s normal,” I finally squeak out. “He’s a legend.”
“You think I don’t notice? You’re my best friend.”
Oh no.
The room suddenly feels like it’s shrinking. My palms start sweating and my stomach does that horrible flip-flop like I am about to drop from a great height, or confess to a crime.
“You admire him,” she says.
I more than admire him and he can do no wrong in my eyes because he is just so perfect.
“That’s not—”
“He’s very handsome,” she adds casually. “And you’re bisexual. Of course, you find him attractive.”
I glance around, half expecting the person in the next room to hear. “You can’t just say that out loud.”
“Relax. It’s not like I’m outing you. I’d never do that.”
“That’s not the point,” I mutter, rubbing at my face. My brain is overheating. “The point is . . . Oh God, the point is—Ugh, never mind.”
“You so want him,” she says, chuckling.
A quiet laugh tumbles out of me, more breath than sound. How can she even be joking about this? She was still married to this man just last week.
“You can do something about it, you know?”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“I’ve just got the greatest idea,” she says, and I hear her clap. “You can seduce him.”