Oyster (Island Love #2)

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Any closer to the pitch and I’d be listed on the team sheet as first reserve. No young Hollywood starlets keeping the seats warm this week, merely a couple of world-famous former PSG players and their wives seated on my right, and at my rear five handsome sheiks, huddled together, deep in conversation. Anxious at my presence being scrutinised or even challenged, éti had reassured me all kinds sat in the VIP seats—scouts, agents, investors, competition winners, as well as family and friends. I would be unremarkable, she reassured; I’d be left alone. With that comforting thought, I flicked through the match programme, awaiting the game to begin.

To my left, a ripple of activity alerted me to the even more well-known figure of PSG’s captain and number-one goalkeeper, Fabien Pépin, easing his way along the row, stopping to shake hands and exchange backslaps and a few words with fans and friends in the row behind. Very cool. Max would be jealous as hell. Two identical little boys, miniature versions of Fabien and dressed in matching number ten Salvador shirts, trailed in his wake, chattering to each other and sucking on lollipops. Quelling my inner fanboy, I switched my attention to the teams warming up below. In my periphery, one of my footballing idols arranged each of his sons before arranging himself on the seat next to me. And then held out one of his fucking enormous goalkeeping hands.

“Hi, you must be Nico, right? I’m Fabien. Good to meet you at last.”

“Oh, right. Um… hi. Yeah, Nico.”

My face prickled into a blush. Oblivious, Fabien carried on. “étienne said you might come up on the train to watch. He’s been wanting me to meet you for a while.”

I was stunned. And overawed. And also experiencing my default emotion on hearing éti’s name: pleasure. A combination rendering me dumbstruck.

“You’re in for a good game today,” he added, like I was a person of some importance. “Marseille are only four points behind us and won their last three matches. That new German manager has turned them around.”

I gulped through a dry throat. “You’re not playing today?”

Fucking idiot. Of course he wasn’t. He was sitting in the stands with his kids, dressed in a suit.

“Boy number three arrived yesterday morning.” Fabien cast a proud eye over numbers one and two, then chuckled. “The wife says we’re building our own soccer team! The club have given me the weekend off. So I thought I’d bring these two scallywags along, keep them out of the way of the missus and the mother-in-law for a few hours.”

He ruffled the hair of the nearest boy beside him, excitedly waving to one of the reserve players in the dugout, who waved back.

“Congratulations,” I got out.

He inclined his head before performing a modest little wave himself as, ah, merde, the big-screen camera panned around the stadium. Hovering over the players' area, it then zoomed in on him, television commentators all over the world no doubt offering the same explanation why he was missing the game. Yep, there it was, my anonymous, scruffy, and now beetroot-red mug being beamed around the globe too, as I chinwagged with France’s number-one goalkeeper.

Within seconds, my phone buzzed. And then again, and again, as, one by one, the patrons of L’Escale did a double take. Speculation about the identity of my mystery girlfriend with access to the best seats at the match—thanks, Max—would abound well into the night, the truth as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.

“Thanks. Though my wife has done all the hard work. You’re an oyster fisherman, aren’t you? étienne says yours are the best he’s ever tasted. They must be good—he’s a very fussy eater.”

An image of éti, lips coated in lemon juice, laughingly planting a sloppy kiss on my mouth, flitted through my head. I pushed it to the back of my mind. Did he know? Surely not. He deadnamed éti for a start, and he used the wrong pronouns.

So, what had he surmised? That I was gay? That éti was gay? Or that I was nothing more than an island friend?

As the match kicked off, and with sweat pouring down my back, I found myself having a pleasant chat to el capitano and proud new father about our nation’s love of quality seafood and the best white wines to pair with oysters. Fabien was a charming and enthusiastic companion, funny too. I could easily imagine him drawing out éti’s playful side and was glad she had a good friend up in Paris, even if she couldn't confide her whole truth in him.

As Fabien had predicted, the game was close. PSG’s substitute goalkeeper put them on the backfoot early on, fumbling an easy save to let the ball roll through his legs into the back of the net. Next to me, Fabien swore, briefly clutching his head in his hands before shouting encouragement at his junior teammate.

“I’d have missed that one, too.”

I disagreed, but his modesty and support made me warm to him even more. “Poor Matthieu. No matter how many great saves you make, they only remember the ones you miss.”

The error, however, fired éti up. Making a couple of searching runs, she danced through the midfield, leaving defenders in her wake. éti didn’t have the flashiness of tricksters like Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic—she didn’t need it—but her stunning simplicity was equally menacing. As a hapless Marseille player brought her down in a desperate two-footed tackle, leading to a yellow card, his teammate had his hands on his hips, wondering what the hell had just flown past him.

Fabien laughed. “I feel your pain, buddy!” He turned to me. “Trust me, Nico, chasing Salvador around feels like when you're twelve years old playing football with your sixteen-year-old brother and his buddies. The guy didn’t stand a chance!”

“How do you mark someone like that?”

Fabien laughed again. “Simple. You make the sign of the cross. And pray.”

éti rose to her feet, wincing and rubbing her shin. Later, I’d enjoy inspecting for bruising, but right now, she was off again, this time striking gold with a perfect pass across the front of the goal to Dubois, who neatly flicked it over the goalie and into the back of the net. One all.

Fabien jumped to his feet. “Christ, did you see that, Nico? And the run leading up to it?” Shaking his head in disbelief, he sat down again. “He’s on fire this afternoon. That cross was unbelievable.”

“Left-footed, too,” I agreed.

Fabien shook his head in wonder. “Most of us have one foot that can kick and dribble anything and another that can barely wiggle its own toes. I reckon if he put his mind to it, Etienne could learn to play a cello solo with either. Know what I mean?”

“Um… yeah.”

The memory of éti—halfway through a hand job, licking her palm, informing me she was ambidextrous—scorched my eyeballs. I pushed that image to the back of my mind, too, to join all the others. It was getting rather crowded.

“Salvador is putting on a show, that’s for sure,” I said carefully. Calling my lover étienne stuck in my craw. Hearing Fabien repeatedly misgender her set my teeth on edge; even though he didn’t know any different, it was all I could do not to correct him.

Unaware, Fabien chuckled. “His salary is bigger than the GDP of some countries, but he’d do it for free.”

“You think?”

“For sure. étienne gets what soccer means to some of these fans. People here today follow us all over the globe, people who scrimp and save to afford the ticket price. It’s more deeply felt than religion. Big clubs like PSG are a theatre, and we’re on stage—étienne is on stage, dancing for them. He puts on a show; he gives them their money’s worth.”

Another reason éti and Fabien were firm friends: they both liked to chat. “He’s more than a great player,” Fabien carried on, waving his arms around, encompassing the entire stadium. “He gives them his everything. He’s the last to leave training and the first to arrive. He leaves every last part of himself out on the field, whether we’re playing against Milan in the Champion’s League final or a comparative minnow, like Nantes, struggling at the bottom of the table.”

He paused, looking at me sidelong. “And in return, mon ami, away from the pitch, he asks to be left alone. Not an unreasonable request, non?”

“No.” My pulse suddenly picked up speed. “Everyone should be allowed some privacy away from the cameras.”

Our conversation halted for a few minutes while Fabien attended to one of his little boys, and I pondered whether his words held a deeper meaning.

So what if they did? éti trusted him enough to confide about her male friend coming to watch; perhaps he took that at face value. As half time swung around, Fabien gladhanded while I stayed in my seat and texted Zo? for a family update. Dad was enjoying the game on the big screen at L’Escale, Mum was sleeping, and OMG having me on the telly was sooo embarrassing .

A few minutes into the second half, Fabien returned, with a beer for me and a water for himself. I thanked my new friend, and he shot me an envious glance as I took my first mouthful. “Can’t be seen to be having that on live telly,” he explained. “So I’m living vicariously through you.”

As the match settled down, Fabien turned to me once more. “Can I ask, Nico? Were you at the Nantes game, when étienne blasted it into the top right, out of nothing?”

I grinned. An unforgettable evening. “Yeah, incredible. Contender for goal of the year for sure.”

He nodded as if I’d confirmed something. “I thought you might have been. étienne enjoyed that more than he usually does, too.”

When Fabien smiled, my heart thudded, and I realised what I’d done. He seemed glued to the match restart as he spoke again. “I’m glad he’s found such a good friend at last, Nico. As you say, he can have his privacy, away from the cameras.”

I supped in silence while my heart turned somersaults. Fabien knew. I sensed it. Not the full story, but the extent of mine and éti’s relationship. And he was telling me he’d be an ally, if and when we needed one.

In the dying minutes of the second half, a foolish tackle on Ruiz sent éti lining up for a penalty. Fabien’s boys were cheering madly even before she conned the goalkeeper to dive the wrong way and slotted the ball in the back of the net. I should have taken their cue instead of sitting there shaking with my heart (and my fist) in my mouth. My groan of relief had Fabien’s eyes all over me, and they never wavered, not even when éti escaped the clutches of her teammates and raced over to wave and blow kisses to the thrilled little boys. But the heart shape she made with her hands was for no one but me. I experienced an insane urge to vault the barrier, run into the middle of the pitch, and kiss her until every fucker in the stadium heard her name on my lips.

“It’s been great meeting you, Nico,” said Fabien, shaking my hand as the final whistle blew. His eyes twinkled. “And enjoy tonight’s celebrations. Though make sure Salvador gets some sleep. We have a heavy week of training and several big games coming up.”

Still with flaming cheeks, I greeted the driver waiting for me by the VIP turnstiles, the same driver who had picked me up at the train station. With a heap of media stuff to wade through, éti issued me the code for her apartment and cleared me with the concierge so I could await her return in comfort. The driver scarcely gave me a second glance, the concierge neither, the first just doing his job and with no idea whose apartment he was driving me to, the second assuming I was yet another PSG employee or media bod being given the all clear.

éti had already walked me around the apartment on her phone, but even that didn’t convey the sterility. Nor the size, because waouh, as éti herself would say. It took up a hell of a lot of Parisian prime real estate. Sure, a few clothes were dotted around—sportswear mostly—and half a baguette and an empty coffee cup rested on a kitchen worktop, but the rest of it? The sleek grey, hotel-room-style décor and overengineered gadgetry? All belonged to someone I’d sure as hell never met. If I had to describe it, I’d say it was the home of a busy young rich someone who’d handed the design over to a company specialising in corporate slick, not caring about the result as long as it had a decent bed, a stocked fridge and a good view. In fact, the view across higgledy Parisian rooftops with the white domes of the Sacre Coeur in the distance was the best thing about the place.

Therefore, I spent most of the next two hours staring out the window, certain I was about to get arrested for trespassing or something, and strangely homesick, even though I’d only left the island that lunchtime.

A soft snick at the door told me the owner had returned, and a thrill of anticipation zipped up my spine. Putain, I hoped someday no one woke me from this dream because I didn’t think my heart would stand it. Dressed in a stylish suit, éti had a small sports bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair was tied back in a neat bun, her face devoid of makeup. She regarded me thoughtfully, to an outsider every inch étienne Salvador, the soccer player adored by millions. But not to me. To me, she was awesome. My single regret was that the world didn’t get to see it.

“I forgot I’d look this way when I came home to you.” She glanced down at her suit, the proof in her wary expression and balled fists. “I was in such a rush to get here—I skipped the post-match physio, the massage and everything.”

The hand gripping the strap of her bag gripped it even tighter. “I’ll… I’ll quickly go and change.”

I crossed the room in two strides. “Hey, you don’t need to rush off.” Slipping my fingers underneath, I took the bag and placed it on the ground, then threaded her fingers through mine. “I need a kiss first, sweetheart.”

“With me like this? I… I at least have to shave, Nico. And to get out of these clothes.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t need to do any of that shit for me.”

It was only our mouths at first, a small press of my lips against her less receptive ones. As she eased a fraction, I slid my other hand under the suit jacket, around her waist to the small of her back, and kissed her again, feeling a slight trembling underneath my palm. I pulled her closer until her head nuzzled under my chin.

“You don’t have to change, éti. But if you want, go ahead. If it makes you more comfortable.”

Her arms came up around the broadest part of my back, and she hugged me close, like I might run away if she didn’t. “I’m scared you won’t like me if you see me this way.”

“I know.” I inhaled to the bottom of my lungs, breathing in the scent of her hair. Warm and welcoming, like the pebbled beach at home after a day drenched in sunshine. Nothing had ever smelled as good. “And I’m telling you I love you however you are, my sweet.”

There. I said them. The words flying around inside, words I could no longer imagine ever saying to anyone else. That had me seeing beyond fame and fortune and beyond hard flat bodies dressed in men’s suits. Words that, instead, had me seeing no one but the woman standing in my arms, a beautiful one, inside and out. A woman with a row of empty oyster shells lining the coffee table of her barren, unloved apartment to remind herself this was temporary and the real éti lived a full existence elsewhere. A woman who spent most of her waking hours pretending to be someone she wasn’t. A woman living half a life.

But this woman was not half-loved. My éti was too full of joy. I adored all of her. With a love that came without warning and, yes, also encompassed the half masquerading as a man.

“I love you too,” she said in reply. “However you are. Happy or sad.”

I smiled at that. “Right now, that makes me very happy.”

“Would you… would you like to come and help me change?” She picked up the sports bag again, with a little wince. “I might need your assistance walking to the bedroom, to be honest. My legs have gone. I ran hard tonight. My everything is sore.”

“And there was me believing it was me making you weak at the knees.”

We assisted each other. And it took a lot longer than it should. In between unfastening buttons, untying neck ties, and pushing down trousers, we kissed, with the hungry urgency of new lovers enduring too many nights apart. But then there she was, naked except for a pair of crisp white boxer shorts.

“Do you love me when you see me like this?” she asked, hands at her sides. Her gaze flicked towards a pair of soft, feminine pyjamas, hung from the door. “Because as much as I’d like things to be different, this is all I’ve got.”

I could stare into her eyes the whole night. Dark and wide and full of uncertainty. Except I also wanted to drink in her mouth, curving into a shy smile for me, and her smooth chest, high and proud as a warrior’s, and her trembling legs, strong yet lean. I wanted to kiss her, too, cover every inch of her with my mouth, including the parts she was fearful of me seeing. I’d press my love into every soft curve and every hard angle, whispering it across her silky pale skin, imprinting it forever with the shape of my lips.

I craved to make love to her, to stamp my desire for her on the inside, too.

“I love you even more, for sharing your body with me.”

Hugging her arms across her chest, she adjusted her view downwards. “When I look at myself in the mirror, it doesn’t feel… like my home. I wear it like an uninvited guest, as if it belongs to somebody else and I’ve crawled into it by mistake. A hermit crab or something.”

“I know you do,” I answered. “I can’t ever understand, but I know.”

She rolled her shoulders with a rueful expression on her face. “And right now, it aches like buggery.”

“I’m no expert, not like the backroom team at PSG, but I can give you a massage, if you like?”

“Does anyone ever decline?”

I drew her towards the bed and under the covers. Bare flesh on bare flesh, for the very first time. I took the lead. As I pulled her into my arms, she became an endearing mix of hesitance and wariness. Desire burned brightly behind.

“I’ve never before offered it. Turn over. Do you have anything I can use?”

Silly question. The woman was a pampered princess. She had an oil for every mood, and I picked one at random, the label boasting a sensual mix of coconut, orange, jasmine, and winter ocean spray. Winter ocean spray ? The rotten-egg scent of decomposing algae? Nice.

I straddled the tops of her thighs, warming the oil between my palms, and éti snuffled with laughter into the pillow. “Just so you know, seeing as you’re new to massage and everything, my masseur at PSG doesn’t sit like that.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Fabien does sometimes, though, when I get a stiff neck.”

“He’d better be fully clothed.”

She giggled. “Nah. He wears something skimpy. Sometimes we invite Ruiz along too. Light a few candles, put Gainsbourg on the stereo. Make an evening of it.”

I began at her shoulder blades, working the oil in with my thumbs. “Fabien knows about us, you know. Or thinks he does.”

“I’ve spoken about you a lot,” she answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was putting two and two together.”

And coming up with three. Her mess of chestnut curls splayed like a fan; her head sank deeper into the pillow. “He can think what he likes. I trust him—he’ll keep it to himself. He wants me to be happy.” She moaned with contentment, her cute bum wriggling under me. “La vache, Nico, I’m in heaven.”

Any more moans and wriggles like that and I’d be in heaven too. Coconut and jasmine filled my nostrils—rich and sultry, not a hint of winter ocean spray, thank fuck. I took my time, loving the yield of her supple flesh under my palms, the rippling of her corded muscles as, one by one, they softened to my touch. Her features slackened, her eyes shuttered closed, and that mobile mouth fell quiet for once. As her breaths grew long and steady, in the twilight and shadows of the cool room, I worked the aromatic oil in and the tension out.

I couldn’t help adding a few kisses along the way, one onto each irresistible knob of her spine.

“My masseur at PSG doesn’t do that either,” she observed, sounding sleepy. “Nor Fabien. Maybe I should introduce it into our daily routine.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, my love.”

I worked the oil down the sweep of her taut flanks, her warm skin as silky as the finest nacre worn smooth by the waves. Another sweet moan fluttered through éti’s parted lips; with a little roll, she snuggled her hips deeper into the plush mattress, and I smiled to myself at the flex of firm thighs under my arse. Leaning forward, I brushed my lips against her ear.

“Does your masseur at PSG make you want to do that?”

Face flushed crimson, her eyes remained steadfastly shut. I rose to my knees, so the length of my erection dragged against her white boxers, and my lips found the warm hollow at the back of her neck. She flexed again, with another delightful noise, so I did it once more, and a shiver cascaded down her spine.

“He most definitely has never. I would have remembered.”

Aiming lower this time, I palmed some more oil. Her back dimples were the perfect size. “These were made for my thumbs,” I murmured, circling them. Then shifted even further, rubbing my swollen shaft down the back of one thigh. “And my tongue.”

Gently, I edged her boxers to her hips. My thumb strayed to the top of her crease. With my other hand, I kneaded a peachy buttock. “Does your masseur go as low as this?”

“No,” came her muffled reply. I followed my hands with my mouth, nibbling and sucking her taut cheek. éti shuddered, and so I did it again. By now, she was humping the mattress, making delicious sounds. Against the fabric of my underwear, my needy dick throbbed. I freed it, giving myself a stroke.

“All these years, your fancy masseur’s been doing it wrong.”

With her boxers cupping her two rounded cheeks, I stretched out above, keeping my weight on my elbows.

“This okay?” I breathed in her ear as my dick settled against her crease.

“More than.”

Her face twisted to mine, and we shared an awkward kiss as I circled my hips up against her, the sweet slipperiness of the oil doing its thing. Like it knew exactly where it wanted to be, my dick glided between her tight buttocks. Every light brush against her hole brought with it a shuddery exhale. éti’s sweet breath was hot against my cheek.

“Is that good, my love?”

“Mmm, yeah.”

I pressed a little harder, circling her entrance, holding my leaking dick in my hand. Putain, the resistance of that tight ring felt so nice. “You like that, too?”

“La vache, yes. Inside, Nico.” Sweat glistened on her forehead; her eyelids fluttered. “I want to feel you inside me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Mon dieu , yes. Just do it. Now. No… no condom. Just you. Now.”

A pulse of desire skittered through me, slowing my thoughts. My dick inside. No condom.

More oil. From spending too many nights listening to Florian, I at least knew to do that. Clumsily, I dribbled some into my palm, too much, not caring when it spilled across the sheets. My clouded brain was already drugged on the scent, or on éti herself, her whispery sighs, her flushed cheeks.

In a heady trance, I skimmed a slippery fingertip against her tight opening, feeling it quiver as I teased and coaxed, then pushed a fingertip inside. A sharp gasp from éti and my dick pulsed; already, the room felt warmer, and my skin burned, hungry to be pressed into her clinging heat.

“More, Nico,” she said in a breathy hush as she writhed underneath me. “I need more.”

One finger became two, the warm oil easing a slick path. Throbbing with need, I stroked oil over myself too, greedy for the feel of her clinched around me.

“Are you ready, éti? Can… can I…”

“?a alors, yes.”

With infinite tenderness, I pushed into her. Her hands clenched; I took them in mine up around her head as, inch by inch, we joined as one. She hissed sharply.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Another sound, lower and drawn out. “Mon dieu, you are a very snug fit. But keep going. I love it.”

With every slick glide forward and every tentative push back, my desire climbed higher. At last, I was fully seated, already intoxicated on the madness of it. Blanketing her body with mine, sobriety lost, my cheek lay next to hers. “You are amazing, éti, you know that? I feel drunk on love.”

“Me too,” she gasped. “Stay there, Nico. Like this. Just for a moment. Wait for me to catch up.”

“Am I hurting you?”

“Putain, no. Just… I’m… full of you. It’s a lot.”

She chuckled, soft and low, the vibrations like a caress to my balls. “You’re touching my heart, Nico. I feel you inside with every thump. Like you’re in my bloodstream.”

God, even my skin hungered for her. Gripping her hands in mine, I started to move, giddy from the textures of her body, marvelling at her hard, muscular shell yielding to such intense softness at her centre. We made love cautiously, with a slow tender beat, her edges and my edges blurring into one. Our breath mingled, my mouth capturing her hot gasps and pleasured sighs. My bare skin skimmed hers; my dick sank deeper and deeper as she opened up around me. A lengthening strand of need grew.

“I’m close, éti.” I gasped, sensing I could no more hold off the inevitable as the tides. “I can’t stop myself. You feel too good.”

“Me too.” One of her hands left mine; she thrust it underneath her, her hips rising. “I’m coming, Nico. Oh, God.”

She spasmed around me, clenching me even tighter. A guttural defeated moan escaped her throat, a bone-deep sound, a velvety, unrestrained hum of pleasure. Raggedly, I pounded into her, tumbling over the edge in a melting hot stream of bliss. “Love you,” I panted. “You don’t know how much.”

“I feel loved, Nico. So much.”

As my senses returned to me, one by one, I withdrew, flopped onto my back, and tugged her into my arms. A soft cushion of quiet nestled around us as she hung, drained and limp, across me, catching her breath. Her damp body pressed me into the mattress. An eternity passed before she spoke, so unlike my éti. What was going through her mind?

Nothing terribly prosaic, as it happened. “?a alors, Nico. By tomorrow morning, my bum is going to look like the Japanese flag.”

“Have you checked in with home?” Until éti stirred, I’d been drifting in a snooze. She tucked the covers more closely around us, cocooning us away from harm. I tangled my legs up in hers.

“Yes, earlier. Zo? says my mum is sleepy. But she’s been coughing all evening, so I’m not surprised. I asked if they wanted me tonight, and my dad said no.”

Regardless, I experienced a twinge of guilt. I’d phone home again first thing in the morning, before I set off. “We hardly used to see Zo? at the weekends, until all this. She had a much better social life than me—always out with friends or having sleepovers. Hanging out with a huge gaggle of annoying and excitable teenage girls.”

éti laughed softly. “You know, when I was about twelve or thirteen, I’d kick a ball around at break time with my mates. I used to watch the girls, out of the corner of my eye. Sitting out on the grass in groups of three or four. Giggling at their phones or at the boys or bitching about a girl they didn’t like. You know the types.”

“I do. My sister was one of them.”

“She was lucky. I used to love those types of girls. The ordinary ones. The others—the popular show-offs with big tits, of course, who all the boys wanted—they didn’t hold my attention. Nor did the nerdy weirdos in the corner. No, I became obsessed with watching the ordinary girls with everyday names. The Camilles, the Eloises. And not because I fancied them. ?a alors , no.”

She smiled at the memory. “I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to be one of them. An Eloise. Amongst a thousand Eloises. I wanted to hang out in the middle of that group of ordinary girls. Share their lip gloss, and at the weekends spend my pocket money buying cheap tops and earrings in Zara. Head to hairdressing college after I finished school.”

“Until my mum became ill, my little sister Zo? was exactly like that.”

“Great. I envy her that freedom. And I hope she finds that person again one day.”

I swept my hand up and down the curves of her spine as she curled into me, intermittently trailing her fingertips around one of my oyster tattoos. “God put you in the wrong body,” I said. “When did you realise that?”

She huffed a laugh. “Around the same time that I realised there couldn’t be a God. Or maybe there was one, but with a very warped sensed of humour. Because whoever is up there sweetened the pill by making it amazing at kicking a football.”

It was amazing at a few other things too, one of which we’d just performed.

“But seriously, I think I’ve always been aware. Though, when I was very young, it was hard to put into words. And it was my normal, you know? That feeling of wrongness? I didn’t know that everyone else wasn’t walking around entertaining those feelings too. But I also realised early on that talking about it wasn't cool.”

I nodded. It made sense. Florian said something similar about being gay. Instinct telling him to tuck the feeling away until he grew older.

“Did your parents know how you felt?”

“Ugh. My parents.” She shook her head with a hollow laugh. “That, mon amour, is a question to which we’ll never have a straight answer. They’ll both take that secret to the grave. But yes, I think they did.”

I tried to imagine a younger éti, alone and questioning. That serious face, those straight brows furrowed in thought. Perhaps using football to push her inner turmoil to one side until she had the maturity and independence to figure herself out.

“I think they’ve always known I’m queer but pretended it wasn’t happening. If they ignored it, if we never spoke of it, then it would go away. Most likely, they prefer to believe I’m a closeted gay. I don’t think they’ll ever understand that gender identity and sexual orientation are very different concepts. I don’t think they want to, either. I did once try to explain, just before I renewed my contract with PSG and hit the big time. I must have been about sixteen, seventeen.”

“How did it go?” As if I needed to ask.

“Badly. My dad walked out in disgust and Mum asked me if I was doing it for attention, then dismissed it as a phase I’d soon get over.”

Again, I pictured young, small éti, plucking up the courage to expose herself, begging for a hint of understanding. “And you still talk to them? After that.”

She huffed. “Yeah. Sort of. I mean, I owe them a lot. It’s complicated, Nico. I wouldn’t be who I am today without them. I wouldn’t have had anywhere near this level of success without them pushing and encouraging. And the sacrifices they made.”

“You could have had all that and yourself if they’d been more understanding. At least in private, anyhow.”

“I know,” she agreed, with a heavy sigh. “But so many trans people have money worries, are homeless, or can’t access medical care; they have many human rights violations thrown at them, to put it bluntly. I count myself as lucky, because what my parents did for me, in terms of my football, means I’ll never suffer.”

“You are a very good person,” I told her. “I don’t think I’d be so generous of spirit.”

Turning her head into me, she kissed my neck. “Thank you. Hearing you say that means a lot. Where I can, I give some of my good fortune away, to help trans groups. As much as possible without outing myself.” She sighed again. “One day, perhaps, I’ll be in a position to help more.”

I squeezed her tight, hoping life was never cruel to her again. That bad people never tainted her goodness. Even though I was curious about them, I had no desire to ever meet her parents. “So why did they do so much for you? What are they like?”

“My dad was—is very driven. He was an athlete himself. He represented France in the long jump back in the early eighties. He had some moderate successes. He went to a World Championship; he even held our national record for about a year. When he realised his time had been and gone, he turned his attentions to his only child. By then, he’d got into coaching, and our local Ligue 2 club recruited him as part of their fitness training team. Very soon, the soccer took over. So, when I showed some potential, I became the focus of everything. My mum went along with it because complying was always easier than not.”

“Is that why you went along with it, too?”

She laughed. “A bit. But mostly because I was fucking good at it and loved besting these two-metre-tall boys who thought they could run rings around a cocky little squirt. That never gets old, believe me. I still enjoy it now. Did you see me, today? That connard who took my legs from under me? Not quite so happy when I nutmegged him in the second half.” She made a pffing sound. “He defends like a fifty-year-old apple tree. Except less productive.”

I grinned. éti’s scathing opinions of weaker players were some of my post-match highlights. “Whereas you are nearly as good a striker as Neymar?” I teased. “Hey, you should call your biography that. Nearly as good as Neymar. Has a nice ring to it, non? Now you’ve told me your life story, I’ll start writing the first draft.”

For that comment, I was flipped onto my side and wrestled into the mattress. And then kissed like she’d been shipwrecked on a desert island, and I was the first rescuer off the boat.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered when we managed to leave each other alone and settle into sleep. “Don’t let anyone ever convince you otherwise.” Her warm body fitted snugly against mine, her strong back a solid wall against my chest. “I’m sorry your parents don’t see you that way.”

And so, the worst day of my life began in the best of ways. Sated, in love, and wrapped around my sleeping lover. It lasted until seven a.m., when the insistent repetitive jangling of my phone ringtone dragged me from blissed-out unconsciousness with the efficiency and precision of a woodcutter wielding an axe. My brother’s name filled the screen with a photo of him next to it, taken during happier times.

“We need you to come home now.”

A few bleak sentences chopped our existence into two neat halves: the precious years sharing the love of two people who understood that children were born to be real, not perfect, and the abyss of a motherless future.

“éti.”

She lifted her head from the pillow of my chest, her loving, unaware, and sleepy smile giving me a memory to cling to and cherish in the coming days. “Max just phoned. My mum’s gone into the hospital. An hour ago. She woke up very breathless. She’s going downhill fast. I need to get back.”

éti’s quick thinking wasn’t restricted to the soccer pitch, dodging defenders. All at once alert and concerned, she leaped up. “Okay, let me get dressed and I’ll drive you.”

“There is a Metro station at the end of the next street. It will take me all the way to Saint-Lazare station. I can walk.” Or sprint.

She shook her head and threw me my clothes from last night, abandoned on the floor when our only urgency had been to touch one another. “No, I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“But… it’s in La Rochelle. You have… you have…” I tailed off. I didn’t know what éti had. My brain had slipped down a dark alley inside my own head, stuffed with panicky and jumbled thoughts. Busy days, I knew that, and responsibilities here, in Paris. To the team, to investors, to fans.

She tugged on a PSG tracksuit. “I have nothing, Nico. Nothing that matters. They can all go to hell. I’m taking you home.”

“But… “

“But shush.” Her head disappeared under a hoodie. Clutching my jeans in my hand, I stayed rooted to the spot, like I’d forgotten how trousers worked. “I’ll take some personal days. What are they going to do? Sack me? Hardly.”

I couldn’t argue. “And by car I’ll get you there much quicker,” she added.

I couldn’t argue with that either. In a flurry of efficiency, she led me to an underground parking lot, shoved me inside something big and sleek with blacked-out windows, expertly manoeuvred it through central Parisian traffic, and drove like the wind.

Except for a rapid exchange of views with her agent, during which éti did most of the talking, in a clipped, no-nonsense, I-pay-your-wages kind of voice, we ate up the miles in silence. She gripped the wheel with a grim determination. Unable to magically teleport myself there any quicker, I stared out the window at the grass verges. Everything over the last few months should have readied me for this horrible day. The hospital appointments, the depressing conversations, the rows of painkillers, the syringe drivers. Zo?’s frightened tears, Max’s wobbles, my dad’s shattered face. And my mum, of course, fading by the hour in front of our very eyes.

So why had I never felt as unprepared for anything in my life?

South of Poitiers, we pulled into a service station for a quick refuel and to grab coffees. I did both, while éti lay low in the car, a baseball cap she kept in the glovebox for that express purpose squashed on her head. She even relieved herself behind a tree in an adjacent patch of ground rather than risk being spotted entering the public toilets. Fame came at a price.

Underway again, she took my hand, bringing it to her lips before dragging it onto her lap and holding it there. I almost burst into tears from the unspoken tenderness.

Max texted to say my mum was comfortable, sleepy, and there was nothing left to do but wait. And to beg me to hurry the fuck up.

“I shouldn’t have come to the match. I should have stayed with her.”

“You said yourself she was fine when you left. And she was fine at midnight. Don’t beat yourself up. She even told you to go!”

Roadworks ahead slowed us down for a couple of kilometres. éti’s long fingers tapped against the steering wheel.

“What if… if…” I began again. My old friend, the heavy steel band, made its presence known in my chest, like an ever-tightening barrel hoop.

“I’ll get you there in time. I promise. Tell me about her. How it was growing up as a kid on the island. Remind me that everyone’s relationships with their parents aren’t as fucked up as mine.”

Even now, she raised a smile. As we ticked off the miles, I related how my hungover dad used to drag himself out of bed on a Sunday morning to stand with other dads and watch my soccer matches, the only dad who never berated the referee, the only dad who never cared if we won or lost, because as long as I enjoyed myself, nothing else mattered to him. How my mum would make me a hot chocolate every time I came home after a day spent playing in the sea, cold and bedraggled, and how I’d sit in her lap and drink it while she’d comb the lugs out of my matted hair. Even when I was much too old to sit there. How, as a toddler, Max used to try to lick Zo?’s face after she’d eaten a chocolate mousse because he was such a greedy bugger, and how my dad would hoist her on his shoulders out of reach and jog around the kitchen, pretending to be the chocolate mousse monster. Silly stuff, inconsequential stuff, carried in my head, most of it packed away and forgotten until sharpened by death.

And I told her that, no matter how dark times were now, how murky the ocean and how grey the skies, I knew how lucky I’d been, to have always had all of that. Even though I felt terribly unlucky at the moment. And éti stayed quiet as I let it all out.

Then I stared out of the window again, fearful my heart would burst.

“I’m scared, éti,” I admitted into the silence. “It’s funny, because we thought nothing would be worse than the… the limbo of waiting around for this day to come. And, now it has, I’m fucking petrified.”

“That’s got to be normal, hasn’t it?”

“I’m scared I won’t know how to manage Max and Zo?. What to say to them. Nor my dad. I promised my mum I’d take care of them. And keep the business afloat through all of this. But I don’t think I’m going to be strong enough.”

Drowning in unshed tears, I counted the painted white lines running down the side of the motorway until I felt able to speak again. I tried to remember the last time I let the tears out and came up with nothing. Maybe they’d build and build until I cut myself by accident—and instead of blood, a lake of salt water would gush from the wound.

“You will be strong enough, Nico. You’ll be amazing, I know it.” She squeezed my hand hard, so hard I almost believed her. “We’ve got this, my angel.”

We. The both of us. A pair. I’d try to hold onto that in the coming days.

“My mum was… is a really nice lady. I would have liked for her to meet you. She would have understood you; I think.”

“If she is anything like her son, then she must be wonderful. Extraordinary.”

I almost smiled. If she thought I had any exceptional qualities, éti was deluded. “Not especially. She’s spent her whole life on the island. She married young, had children, and helped with the business. Family made her happy. So did sewing. She was kind too, and helped others. I’ve gone through my own life with people saying, ‘ Oh, you’re Marie’s son. She’s so nice.’ Max and Zo? and I have always joked about that.”

éti glanced over at me. “If that’s how people remember you, then I’d say that’s a life well lived, Nico. Wouldn’t you?”

The traffic thickened as we left the motorway. With every mile we crawled, La Rochelle loomed closer, alongside a dread of leaving the warm haven of the car. Maybe I didn’t need to. I’d make a home in the passenger seat, and éti would keep driving, down the broad autoroute pointing us toward the sunny Riviera. Or we could zigzag across the Pyrenees and into Spain, find a long sandy beach, drink jugs of iced sangria all day in the shade, and make love all night.

“I’m going to drop you off, Nico, then go home, to my real home, and change my clothes. To become more… me. Then I’ll be back, sitting in the car, waiting for you. For as long as it takes, for whenever you need me. I promise.”

Once, many years ago, I visited Amsterdam on a school history trip. The coach driver dropped us off right in the centre of the old town. I don’t remember much about it, except as the doors sighed open and our caterpillar of noisy French kids alighted, we breathed in diesel fumes (from the coach engine), strong coffee, and the overpowering heady aroma of marijuana. If you have never had the good fortune to visit, that’s what Amsterdam smells like. The odd thing was, the herbal, earthy scent was recognisable, even though most of us had never smelled it before.

Death held the same unique quality. A distinct, bittersweet, and stuffy odour, identifiable even to those who had never had the misfortune to share a small room with it before. As I took my place at my mum’s hospital bedside, I tried hard not to inhale the reek of pain and loss as it mixed with the familiar smells of home—my sister’s faint perfume, Max’s stale sweat, my dad’s beery warmth.

Despite being so shrunken, my mum’s gaunt frame dominated the scene. I swore she was half the size of yesterday. And twice as yellow. Awake and talking, though, so there was that.

My arrival prompted a flood of tears from Zo?. And not the first deluge, judging by the pile of scrunched-up tissues in her lap and how she clung to my dad like a barnacle. Max, his gangly limbs too big for the small plastic chair, was heading the same way, although trying his best not to show it.

“Here he is,” said my mum, and I swear her attempt at smiling came closer to opening my own dammed floodgates than anything else on this godforsaken journey. She was about to follow up, but a cough like rusted gate hinges took over instead, setting Zo? off even more.

“Do you need some fresh air?” I asked my dad. His voice was brittle, like glass, and his body rigid, like he’d shatter into a thousand pieces if I gave him a hug. “Why don’t you grab a coffee, take the others for half an hour.”

He gave my mum a kiss on the way out and whispered that he loved her, which I’d never heard him say, not ever. She knew anyhow—we all did. Perhaps that’s why he never felt the need to confirm it out loud to an audience.

I pulled up a chair. Like waxwork casts, my mum’s usually busy hands lay still on the covers, making me nervous about taking one. We weren’t a demonstrative family; I hadn’t taken her by the hand since I was big enough to walk along the sea wall unaided without tumbling down the wrong side. But as I shied away from them, afraid of how lifeless they appeared, I remembered how comforting éti’s hand had felt in the car. My mum might be even more scared than us. And I might never have a chance again. So I closed one of them inside mine, trying not to notice the bones pushing through tissue-paper skin or how cold it felt.

“Can I get you anything? Like a drink, or another blanket or something?” Or a magic carpet out of here, a new liver, a different diagnosis, a miracle? “Are you in pain?”

She shook her head and declined both, through cracked lips shiny with Vaseline. Zo?’s work, I expected. This close up, I smelled her favourite lemony hand cream.

“Did you have a nice time in Paris?” A dry huskiness had taken over her normal voice, each word painful to pronounce. “You were on telly. Max said your girlfriend got you a really good seat at the match.”

“She did. She drove me here this morning. Wouldn’t let me catch the train. That’s why I arrived so soon.”

“She sounds ever so nice.”

“She is. She’s… she’s the one, I think, Mum.” My love that came without warning.

Her eyes fluttered closed; a tiny smile played at her lips. “Did she take you out somewhere fancy after the match?”

“No. We had a quiet night in at her place. Which is fancy enough.”

That smile stayed, although she remained very still, like even smiling might hurt. “Will you keep an eye on your dad for me, Nico? He said he’s going to cut down on the drinking. He’ll listen to you. He won’t like you saying it, but I know he will.”

“Yeah. Promise.”

“Zo? and Max too. Make her go out with her friends—she needs it. And make Max go out with you. Get him away from that computer game.”

“I will. I swear. Don’t worry.”

After that, she drifted off. The others came back. A nurse came in too, and did some stuff, so we all left again, and then we all trooped back in. Next time I checked the clock, it was after seven; night had fallen without us noticing. In that darkened room, with my entire family huddled together, I’d never felt so alone. I wondered if the others felt the same. Mentally drained, emotionally numb, and spiritually fuck knew where. Talking in whispers, scrolling through shit on phones, dredging up polite smiles and making chitchat with the nurses slipping in and out, as my mum slept on, like it wasn’t the worst evening of our lives.

And then at about ten o’clock, realisation dawned. Our last glimpse of the cloudy blue of her eyes, or the sound of her gentle voice, had passed. She’d shared her last ever observation, asked her last question, laughed her last laugh. Her breathing changed, louder for a start, as though all she needed to do was clear her throat with a jolly good hack and everything would be fine again. And although we’d been waiting for this moment for the last three months and done nothing but wait for it the last few hours, when it came, it blasted us afresh: she was dying.

“I can’t do this,” blurted Zo?, in a sudden panic, about to scrabble out the window. We were on the fourth floor. “I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. Dad, Dad, I don’t want to see her like this.”

Clean out of hope and the right words to comfort his kids, my dad rubbed his face with his big rough hands and stayed silent, letting his expression speak as he stared at the love of his life, halfway out of this world with a foot in the next.

“Me neither.” Two words from Max, the first he’d spoken in hours, through gritted teeth, holding back his tears. He appeared so young right then. I wanted to walk over to where he was making himself as small as possible, give him a hug and tell him to go ahead, to cry and wail, like Zo?. But his spiky silence was fierce, shielding a hurricane too powerful for the confines of this little room, so I stayed where I was.

My mum’s shallow, noisy breaths filled the air. There was no escaping them. How many did she have left? Ten a minute made six hundred an hour. But for how many hours? Was she counting down her last thousand? How would we know which breath was the last, or that it had happened? How long did you wait for the next one before the certainty it would never come?

Against my shoulder, Zo? whimpered. I fingered my wave tattoo through the material of my clammy shirt. Three unmoored boats wrestling the ocean waves, losing the fight. A step along the timeline of my life. éti knew some of the story behind it, but I’d have killed the romantic moment stone dead if I’d told her I’d been the one to stumble across the body of my dad’s friend Jacques, washed up on the shore.

I hadn’t liked the man very much. Fascinated yet repulsed, I’d watched, as his bloated, lifeless shape was lifted into the back of an ambulance. The medics took great care, even though his essence—the thing that made him Jacques—was already long gone. Call it his soul, his life blood, his vitality, or even simply his irritating way of slurping his coffee while moaning about his wife, but the thing bundled up in that blanket wasn’t Jacques. What remained was a carcass made up of bones, hair, and clothes, discarded by a spirit departing this world and shuffling onto the next.

My mum was still alive, but the second she crossed over the bridge to fuck knows where, the diseased cells and bones and organs and clothes lying in the hospital bed would no longer be her. They’d be nothing but random collections of molecules, making up a grey and lifeless corpse. I didn’t want to remember her that way. And neither did Zo? and Max.

“Take them away, Nic,” barked my dad. “They’ve said their goodbyes. You all have. Let me… let… I’ll stay.”

“éti’s bringing the car around now.”

We loitered outside the hospital entrance, breathing in the chilly night air. Zo? clung to my front like nothing else held her up. A couple of feet away, leaning against a wall and a large "no smoking" sign, Max puffed on a roll-up. The sky stretched for miles tonight, clear and beautiful. I’d yank down each perfect star, if I could, and stamp out their hopeful twinkles with my feet.

“She’s… listen. You’re going to recognise éti. But just park that for now, okay?”

Whatever. Max took another long drag and carried on staring at his feet, and Zo? blew her nose. I could have told them my girlfriend was a green alien with three heads, tumbled down to earth from one of those distant and too fucking pristine stars, for all the notice they took.

The black SUV glided to the kerb, éti barely visible through the tinted glass, her baseball cap slung low, loose hair shielding her face. Bundling Zo? and Max into the back, I wedged myself between them. With his face pasted to the window, Max hunched into a corner as if he couldn’t get far enough away from us all, while Zo? hunched into me, her wet eyes screwed shut. éti shot me a look filled with every fucking tender thing we couldn’t say in front of my siblings, and we set off.

Half an hour of silence, except for Zo?’s sniffles, and we were home. Or back to what used to feel like a home. Now, with the curtains closed and the porch shrouded in darkness, it was nothing but a cold and empty brick shell, four walls, a roof, and some windows. Sensing I wasn’t ready for her to leave, but hesitant whether to follow, éti trailed cautiously after us.

“Can you keep an eye on Max while I go upstairs with Zo??” Guard the door. Don’t let him run off into the night. Don’t let him near the tractor keys.

Somehow, I communicated all that with my eyes.

“Yes, anything. I’ll do whatever you need.”

Zo? cried herself to sleep—it didn’t take long. Face down, she sobbed wild, loud, ugly tears until oblivion took over. I had no magical soothing words of comfort to offer; the only person able to put an end to those tears was the cause of them. I slumped in a chair, envying her body’s acceptance of how she felt. How it opened up to let the hurt drain away. Mine and Max’s tears were like rain clouds, growing heavier, pressing behind our eyes, pushing down on our hearts. Like our bodies were too embarrassed to admit their suffering.

“Don’t tell me to go to bed,” said Max fiercely after I tucked Zo? up and returned downstairs. “I’m sitting here until he phones and tells us she’s gone.”

Grand Theft Auto played out on the telly; glued to it, my brother threw himself around the mean streets of Los Santos at dizzying speeds. Jabbing at the controller, his body language defied me to suggest otherwise. I blew out a long breath.

“Do what you like, mate.”

From the sofa at right angles to him, éti’s worried eyes landed on me, and I sank down next to her at last, broken and shattered and so unprepared. Her arms came up, pulling me close. I rested my head on her shoulder, a shelter for my grief.

“I know who you are, by the way,” said Max, in a voice edged with contrariness. “Trying to hide under that cap. Why didn’t you tell us, Nico? While Mum’s been dying, why didn’t you tell us you’ve been hanging out with étienne Salvador? Pretending you had some fancy girlfriend? Are you fucking him?”

In an instant, I was up on my feet, ready to punch him. “You nasty frigging piece of shit.” I could swallow the silences, the mood swings, the fucking disappearing tricks, even the snide dig at me. But not a swipe at éti. Not that. Not now and not ever.

A firm hand gripped my shirt tugging me back down. “Hey, that’s not helpful, Nico. It’s okay. Let him get it off his chest.”

éti’s hand found mine, giving it a squeeze, and Max’s hard gaze flicked up at us both. “That’s cute. No wonder you rushed off up to Paris. Did you actually give a shit she was dying?”

Swift and graceful, éti rose from the sofa. “Turn the TV off, please, Max. And stand up.” Her tone was soothing and commanding all at once, the kind of voice accustomed to being listened to and obeyed. My brother was no exception, although he took his time about it. I itched to punch him.

“I’m éti,” she said and held out her hand. “Not étienne. So please, I’d be very grateful if you don’t call me that. I would have liked to have met you under different circumstances and been able to explain. But right now, I’m here to support your brother. And we both want to support you, if you’ll let us.”

That we again. A pair. She said it so lightly, as if unaware of its weight and the succour I devoured from it.

Like sharpened knives, my brother’s suspicious eyes darted between the two of us.

“You’re the woman from the beach, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” éti nodded. “I am. I’m trans. We can talk about that too, if you like, but not now. I want to be your friend, Max, which means you can’t tell anyone about me. Okay?”

Fuck, my brother looked so young. So full of attitude, masking his fear. And, in the face of éti’s patient kindness, trying his hardest to be brave. In that moment, I hated him and loved him in equal measure. Her hand went unshaken, but he jerked his chin at her in vague acknowledgement.

“éti will play GTA with you, Max,” I offered. “If you’re staying up. She’s good at it.”

“Whatever.”

And with that exchange, the most surreal, miserable, and exhausting night of my life unfolded. Watching my girlfriend and brother play a game neither of them could focus upon, waiting for a phone call none of us wanted to answer. But we did of course, the news purveyed by my bewildered, ordinary dad, in a voice which forever onwards would be a fractured echo waiting for a reply that wouldn’t ever come. As if he’d lost a vital piece of himself and had already bled out from the pain.

Afterwards, I fell into éti’s welcome open arms. My brother did too. She blanketed him in her embrace, she petted his hair, crooned sweet nothings, promised we’d both be there for him. And as he sobbed and wailed and made a most godawful noise, seared on my brain for all time, somewhere in his fucked up, confused, distraught teenaged head, he accepted she was on his side.