Chapter 17 Saturday 21st June 2025
Lando
Based on the guys Harry said he liked at Penrose, I should have known better. Should have put two and two together. I’d been expecting a big surly security guard with muscles and a moustache and maybe a bald head. What I did not expect was for Lionel to look . . . well, kinda like me.
He’s tall and skinny with oodles of floppy black curls.
His skin tone is darker than mine and he’s older than me by about a decade, and let’s be fair, I wouldn’t be caught dead in his defender-man costume with the multi-pocketed high-vis vest, but he does have a moustache, so at least I got one thing right.
Beside me, Harry is tugging on his earlobe and pacing.
“You’ve got good taste. I’ll give you that,” I say, as Harry and I watch Lionel—and Harry’s mum, Donna—setting up the security for Owen and Mathias’s big community rugby match.
Right now the sky is overcast, and I’m hoping it stays that way for the game. I don’t fare well with sudden changes in my immediate climate.
Team Boss—Owen’s team, and the team Harry and I are playing for—are facing off against Mathias’s team, Team Wild Card, in order to raise money to fix the roof of the pub. They’ve already smashed their fundraising targets, and all extra cash will go to local and national charities.
Over five hundred tickets have been sold, and the stands are filling up, and people from all over the world will watch as the match is pay-per-view live-streamed online.
Everyone is nervous. I’ve spent most of the morning on the toilet, but Harry seems anxious for a completely different reason.
“Should I go over and speak to him?” he asks. His ear is bright red from how viciously he’s been manhandling it.
“If you think you’re ready,” I say, trying to keep all judgement from my voice. He’s not ready. Not by a long shot. Unless of course guys in their thirties enjoy looking after drunken idiots who are obsessed with asparagus.
“Fuck, no,” he says. “Not sure I’ll ever be ready.”
“Do you want to practise your ‘come hither’ look?”
Harry takes a step back and looks me up and down. He gives me what I assume is supposed to be a seductive squint of his eyes and lip bite.
“Babes, watch out. You’ll get me trampled to death by everyone in the stands,” I mock.
“Urgh! I suck at this!” he whines, raking his hands through his hair and then hiding behind them.
“Okay, I have a radical idea.”
Harry perks up. Removes his hands from his face.
“Why don’t you . . . try taking things slowly with him,” I say.
Harry’s already rolling his eyes. “He might not even care about your inexperience. I bet loads of older guys would love to . . .” I cut my sentence off because in my head the words didn’t seem so bad, but out loud they have a certain “groomer” quality to them.
Also, I started seeing a therapist about a year ago on my father’s orders, so I’m by no means an expert, but there may be a chance—a teeny weeny microscopic possibility—that Harry has deliberately chosen Lionel because he’s . . . out of his league.
Not physically or mentally out of his league, but emotionally. Lionel’s an actual adult, whereas Harry and I are still kinda ad-hocing this whole shebang.
I’m certain I’m onto something here. Might need a little more pondering, but Harry can sometimes come across as a person who likes to blame all his failures on other people. He’s doing it with Mathias now, making Harry’s less-than-exceptional performance on the pitch all Mathias’s fault.
Is he doing the same with Lionel? By choosing a guy who’s ten, twelve years older than him. A seasoned gay who hasn’t even once looked over at Harry.
Is Harry setting himself up for failure on purpose? Maybe. Maybe he is.
I need to distract him from his thoughts. The game itself should be plenty enough of a distraction, but we have a good couple of hours until that point.
“After the match, I have a surprise for you,” I tell him.
It works a little; Harry stops pacing. He’s still holding on to his ear like a thumb-sucking toddler, though.
“Is it a sexy surprise?”
“Actually, yes, but fair warning, I’ve had a lot of nervous poos today, so if I were you, I’d stay away from my end.”
Harry laughs, and I take that as a win.
“Let’s get changed while it’s still fairly quiet,” I say, guiding him to the little concrete hut where only two months ago I’d foiled Mathias and Owen’s mutual-masturbation fun times with my explosive bowels.
Only Tom and Bryn are in the locker rooms when we arrive. They’re an older married couple who are regulars at the pub and live just down the lane from me. Tom is having a mild freak-out about his kit shorts.
“It says ‘picnic eggs’ on my fucking ass! I can’t wear this, oh my god,” he whines, pulling up his striped shirt and trying to read the lettering on his backside.
“Honestly, it’s not as bad as you think it is,” his husband Bryn says, his Welsh accent cracking with his barely suppressed laughter.
Thankfully, both Harry and I are on Owen’s team, and we’ve been sponsored by Zia’s Pizza not Cluck & Crumb: Picnic Eggs.
“You swap with me,” Tom says, slipping out of his shorts and rushing over to us the second we step inside the changing space. He targets Harry first. I assume because they’re more similar in size.
Harry dodges out of the way like Tom is offering him a case of Novichok, not Scotch-eggy shorts. “No way I’m being on Gadget’s team.” He holds his arms out to keep his distance from Tom.
“What have I missed?” Bryn says. Bryn is the nicest man on the planet, and I could have the wrong end of the stick, but I’m pretty sure he’s affronted on Mathias’s behalf.
“Harry’s Team Boss’s kicker, so he can’t change teams,” I say, offering a genuine reason for Harry’s comment.
Bryn doesn’t buy it. I can tell by the set of his jaw and the way he keeps Harry in his peripherals, but it’s cute that he’s so loyal to Mathias.
“Fine, you switch, then,” Tom says, shoving the shorts towards me.
“I don’t think so. One, they won’t fit me,” I say, counting it off on my fingers. “And two, ew.”
Harry snorts.
Nobody in this room knows how hard I fought for Team Wild Card to be the picnic-eggs-bearing team. That had been my secret little gift for Harry, and I planned to keep it secret.
Reluctantly, Tom pulls his shorts back on while his husband reassures him through stifled laughter that he looks “just fine.”
Harry and I kit up. Neither of us acknowledges how we watch the other get undressed then redressed, and despite the fact that I’ve probably seen Harry’s naked body more times than I’ve seen my own, I can’t help but treat it like it’s the first time.
It’s like looking up at the sky on a clear night.
There’s never a shortage of new things to discover even though it’s exactly the same as it always is.
And Harry watches me, pausing his actions to let his eyes wander over my flesh. It’s at once humbling and empowering.
Sometimes I feel like he really sees me, sees who I am beyond the Lando I present to the rest of the world.
“You look fucking cute in your little green uniform,” I say to him.
“I wear green all the time,” Harry replies. “You look weird as heck not wearing black for once.”
“I—”
“Ah, to be young and in love again,” Tom says from behind us, jolting us both out of the strange bubble we were in.
Neither Harry nor I correct him.
“Let’s go warm up,” Harry says, pulling my arm. He turns to Tom and Bryn. “You guys coming?”
“I can’t go out there with this on my ass!” Tom says again, hands on his butt cheeks.
“Why don’t you try to hide it with some mud?” I say, then turn away quickly because I may have suggested something extremely cruel.
Outside the hut, Harry grabs me, forcing me to stop. He holds the back of my head and angles my face downwards. He’s grinning like a maniac. “You are fucking diabolical. You know the lettering is white vinyl and the mud will just slide right off.”
I’m totally obsessed with the way Harry isn’t telling me off. If anything, he’s gleeful that Tom might walk out there looking as though he’s shat himself.
“Are we bad people?” I ask him, feigning innocence.
“Of course we are. That’s why . . . we’re besties.”
I’m ninety-nine-point-nine per cent certain that wasn’t what Harry had intended to say.
We warm up by jogging a few laps, and then we stretch.
Daisy comes running over. Her face is bright red, and her hair is flying out of her ponytail. She’s already wearing her referee’s uniform. “Guys, have you seen Mathias?”
Harry pulls a face that even Daisy doesn’t fail to notice.
“No, is he not in the hut?” I say.
“We were in the hut, but we saw some leaked photos on Instagram of him and Dad, and . . . he’s done a runner,” she says.
Before Harry can respond with something negative, I shoot my hand out behind me to stop him in his tracks. I’m aiming for his gut or sternum, but I’m not looking and accidentally clobber him in the dick.
“Oof!” He crumples to the ground, hands between his legs. I should feel guilty, but at least he’s not slagging Mr B’s boyfriend off to his daughter.
“Maybe Matty has the shits,” I say. I know this isn’t true, but one crisis at a time, please. “I’ve had about six nervous poos this morning.”
“Lan . . .” Daisy says in that way she does, half exasperated, half reprimanding.
“I haven’t seen him. I’ll come and find you if I do, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.” Daisy jerks her head towards Harry, and mouths, “Are you two fucking?”
I shake my head, and she nods in acknowledgment.
“You alright down there, Abs?” she says.
Harry simply groans in response.
I wave Daisy away, and kneel beside Harry. “Sorry, but you were just about to drag Mathias in front of his future stepdaughter.”
“I wasn’t,” he says, his voice a few octaves higher than usual. It’s as though he’s talking on an inward breath. “I have enough decorum to not be a total cunt in front of other people.”
“Right, okay. So your ‘being a total cunt’ is specially for me?” I ask.