Matchday 27 #2
Anthony drifts over from his locker to stand next to Oliver, snapping at him with the wet end of a ratty towel.
“Jealous?” Anthony asks.
Oliver shrugs. “Not like I could take a spot right now anyways. I’m happy for him.”
“Very diplomatic,” Anthony says, goading.
“Shove off,” Oliver laughs. “He goes out there and charms Terry now, I get better, then the England midfield is coming up Camden. It’s good news.”
“I know that. I also know if I tried to tell it to you, you’d knock my teeth in.” Anthony has a shit-eating grin on.
Oliver hates him, but his retort dies in his mouth when he hears Carda talking across the room, holding court in his tiny underwear:
“My question is this: How is it that you are not getting any, Davito?”
Leo, red as a beetroot, tells him to shut up, then something else in Spanish that sounds ugly.
“I’m serious!” Carda presses on. “We might be a nightmare, but you’re the talk of the whole damn league. For the rest of our sakes, hombre, please do not waste this moment. Or at least send some of the girls my way.”
“It’s insane to me,” Ahmed weighs in. “You should see this man operate. When we were in the academy, there was a nonstop stream of birds in his DMs, like mad, I’m telling you. He was converting one hundred percent of the time too. Made it look easy.”
Oliver feels ill. He’s rooted to the floor, watching the interaction unblinkingly.
That’s the game, isn’t it, he thinks. Goals get the girls.
All this time he’s been reimagining one song’s worth of a moment, but Leo probably took someone else home.
That’s how it’s supposed to be. Oliver is the fool for dreaming, even a little bit, about it going differently.
“Don’t be gross,” Leo says, pushing Carda down from his wide-legged stance up on the bench.
“Sex is a natural part of life, my sweet,” Carda replies, “sweet” sounding like thweet.
“I don’t want to talk about this with all of you, thanks!” Leo’s tone still hints at joking, but it’s rising in pitch. “I’ve been focused on my game, on the season, which I happen to think is slightly more important than girls, unlike some of you.”
“Yes, you’re very noble,” Carda says. “But if someone snuck herself in here in a laundry cart and begged you for it, would you say no?” He shimmies his shoulders at Leo suggestively, running one finger down his chest and trying to flick at his nipple.
Everyone is watching now, half-laughing and half-listening.
“I’d call security,” Leo says defiantly, throwing up his fingers in a vee when the lads start to boo.
“You are as bad as Harris,” Henri pronounces, tragedy in his voice. Oliver doesn’t even think to protest; the locker room suddenly sounds tinny and far away while he processes Leo’s vehement devotion to celibacy.
· · ·
When do you leave? Oliver texts, after they’ve trudged back to London and gone their separate ways, allowing the gremlin in his brain to ask for what it wants, which is for Leo to come over and be near him, all the time, even if he knows better.
Wednesday morn x, Leo replies immediately, even the short text radiating giddiness.
Free Tuesday? I can cook something warm. No salad
No salad???
Special occasion.
I’ll be there. With an alarm set so I don’t forget to pack.
Oliver has figured out the mentorship thing.
He’s aces at it, actually. Friendship, unspeakable romantic urges—those he’s less sure about.
But his mum, not to mention Anthony, would box his ears if he didn’t show Leo that he’s proud of him, that getting called up for England is the rarest, most incredible thing.
Plenty of people never make it to that level, even if they play in the proper position at a good club for their whole career.
Leo has just now hit his stride; he’s already unstoppable.
When Leo comes around a few days later, showing up right as sundown hits, clad in a soft wine-colored jumper and holding a matching bottle to boot, Oliver has committed to roasting a chicken and is feeling not a little embarrassed about the evening’s obvious, tangible effort.
“It smells so good in here,” Leo says, passing off the bottle into Oliver’s waiting hands and following his nose toward the kitchen. The wine label has been scribbled all over, covered in Leo’s particular brand of permanent-marker doodles. “Have you been holding out on me?”
“You’re the one who brought his own vintage” is all Oliver says, brandishing the wine as he trails after him. He suspects he’ll keep the bottle forever, even when it’s empty.
“Only the best,” Leo replies distractedly.
He’s stopped in the small hall off the landing, taking in the array of pictures on the wall.
He touches one hesitant pointer finger to the edge of a frame, lingering on the clipping from the New York Times.
It consists of a slightly faded photo of Oliver as a spotty teen in a crimson England kit, suspended jubilantly in midair after a goal, hovering immortal over a block of newsprint.
“ ‘Can This Teenager Save English Football? He’s Not so Sure They Need Rescuing,’ ” Leo reads aloud.
“You’re really bloody famous, you know that?
” It suggests a joke, revenge for the teasing Leo gets from him, but there’s a quaver in his voice tilting toward awestruck, like he’s just remembering that Oliver the person and Harris the midfielder are one and the same.
“Fat lot of good that headline did,” Oliver admits, turning Leo’s shoulders away from the picture to set him straight. “I’m not a poster boy anymore and I don’t have any trophies to show for it either. It’s your turn to save England now, mate.”
Leo consents to follow him to the breakfast bar, but he rolls his eyes as he does it.
“Don’t let Charles hear you say that,” he says darkly.
Oliver looks up from the ribbons of carrot peels he’s resumed scraping into the bin. Leo’s top half is sprawled over the marble counter, weight on his elbows, chin in his palms. The slant of his eyebrows is a dead giveaway.
“Hey,” Oliver murmurs, coming around to his side of the room and leaning lightly against Leo’s side. “None of that.”
“Some of that,” Leo replies, tone going sharp. “He’s never going to accuse you of not really being English.”
“Did he say something?” Oliver asks immediately, preparing for war at the thought of someone—let alone one of their teammates—ruining this moment for Leo out of bitterness or jealousy.
“I know he thinks it.” Leo lets his arms slide out from under him, head resting on the stone surface. Oliver hazards the gentlest poke at his forehead, which makes the corners of Leo’s mouth quirk up.
“Listen: I’ve been playing with Charles, or against him, since I was a sprog.
I’d trust him in a knife fight, but he’s an idiot.
You came through the academy! You fought like hell to end up back here.
We’re not a team that gets a lot of calls from Terence Morgan, you know?
You’re a Camden lad and you’re a credit to us. End of story.”
Leo sighs and turns his neck so they’re face-to-face. He glowers, cutely, then pokes Oliver back in his own forehead.
“I know they asked first,” he says slowly. “But I wouldn’t have said yes if this wasn’t home. I know I can’t take it back.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s mad complicated, like I said before. When you look at me, you see Colombia, you hear Spain. But I’ve got as much fucking right as any of you. More, maybe, if I’m good enough.”
There’s a hardness, a resolve, revealing itself in Leo, who’s usually so smooth around the edges when he’s not playing football.
Oliver thinks he might do anything to protect him from whatever is causing it—but he also thinks the look in his eyes right now, the determined, match-winning-goal one, is impossibly attractive.
“When I look at you,” Oliver says, carefully, “I see a lot of future headlines. No matter what kit you’re wearing. Besides, there’s nothing more English than committing to a lost cause.”
Leo sweeps upright and reaches across the distance between them, squeezing Oliver’s shoulder with one solid touch.
“You give good pep talks. And you have a very nice house.”
This means the conversation is over, Oliver surmises. The compliment is still nice.
“I’ve already started cooking,” he tells Leo, standing up fully and moving back toward the oven. “There’s no need to butter me up.”
· · ·
“I mean it,” Leo says later, while he’s absently picking remnants of roasted potato and crispy shards of onion out of the casserole dish and popping them directly into his mouth.
He’d offered to help clean up, but Oliver didn’t realize he meant by being a literal hoover.
“This is a grown-up home. An adult lives here.”
Oliver laughs and feels the beginning of a blush bloom on his cheeks—he somehow wants to preen and not take credit simultaneously.
“Cheers, mate,” he replies. “It’s hard to settle into a rental, I think. When you buy something, you’ll make it your own and become a proper host.”
“It’s more than that,” Leo says thoughtfully, fiddling with one of the cabinet knobs. “You have good taste. It’s not, like, boyish.”
Oliver pushes down the little prickly feeling that suggests his manhood is being questioned in favor of the pleased one that Leo seems to like him that way.
“That’ll be Maggie,” he admits, in the interest of fairness. “She told all the decorators what to do before I even finished the paperwork.”
Leo doesn’t respond immediately, reapplying himself to the leftovers and munching for a moment.
“Maggie’s your ex?”
Oliver nods, eyes on the tea towel. It’s convenient that everyone in his life usually knows this by default, which saves him from having to explain the precise nature of their relationship and directly lie about the breakup. He feels under scrutiny about it now.
“It doesn’t bother you, to live somewhere where she picked everything out?” Leo asks, still not looking at him.