Chapter 11
Finn
Rain lashes against the windows of the Comfort Pines, Leicester. We’re all gathered in the foyer as Lydia distributes room assignments, though I’m hanging out—hiding—near the vending machines because I already have my key, and because I may have just caused a little trouble in paradise.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Lydia says, looking over her clipboard. “But there was a request for Aiden and Finn to share and—”
Abs interrupts. “But Pi and me always bunk together.” He turns to his best friend. “This is bullshit.”
“What? Don’t look at me for answers,” Pi replies, holding out his hands as though he’s got nothing to hide. “I didn’t file the request. Maybe someone else did?” He shoots me a furtive glance, but I dart behind the machines. I could do with a mirror on a stick right now.
Harry folds his arms like a toddler having a tantrum. He speaks to Pi, but his eyes are narrowed in my direction. “Why the fuck does Eggo want to share a room with you?”
By the set of Pi’s shoulders, I know he’s not going to glance over again.
But he’s aware I’m here, watching, observing.
“It’s just Eggs, isn’t it? He’s probably only doing it because it’ll rile you up.
” In all fairness, that does sound like something I’d do.
“Also, it’s Pi and I, not Pi and me,” he whispers.
I smother my smile with my palm and inch my way backwards to the lifts like Homer Simpson disappearing into a bush. I scan my key card against the panel and slip into the mirror-lined box, my heart beating like one of Logan’s toy drums.
Room 3025 is at the very end of the corridor, meaning we’ll have only one set of neighbours to our right.
For some stupid reason, the idea thrills me, but then I remember how paper thin these walls are and my stomach flips.
I need to talk to Pi in private about what happened last month, and I can’t have any of the other Cents listening in to our conversation.
I throw my bag onto the closest bed and pace the room. The carpet is new, but there are already scuff marks on the skirting boards.
I pace.
The “view” from my window is a breathtaking vista of the concrete car park with ten-foot-wide puddles. It’s not even worth my attention, so I continue to pace.
I’m trying to remember my square-breathing exercises.
I’m trying not to mess my hair up so much.
Pi and I have spent a full month ignoring each other at training, ignoring each other in the locker room, and sitting at opposite ends of the restaurant at team meals.
He doesn’t want to talk to me, that much is obvious, and I’m not the type of person who’ll drag up any kind of discomfort if I can help it.
But I need to clear the air. I need this awkwardness between us to stop, or it’s going to start affecting the way we play. I’m imagining a future when we run onto the pitch together but won’t even look at each other. Won’t pass to one another. Won’t celebrate a try with a hug any more.
I’m imagining him telling someone, and it gets leaked to the press.
It wouldn’t exactly be career ending. I don’t think anyone gives a shit these days if you’re gay or bi—take Owen Bosley and Gadget for example—but I’m not sure I’m ready for the world to have this info about me.
Not that I’d deny it if anyone asks, it’s just that .
. . no one’s ever asked. I have a kid. I have a girlfriend.
People see what they want to see about your sexuality and dump you into whatever box suits them best, and god fucking help the person who dares to live outside that box.
Or the person who denies the box’s existence altogether.
And I’m not forgetting the impact this has had on our friendship.
Before the kiss, we were such good pals.
Hell, we were even planning on doing a couple’s costume for the party.
Since then, it’s just been weird. No laughter, no pranking, no frolicking around on the pitch together. I miss the frolicking.
If we could rewind time and go back to before Halloween, when I hadn’t kissed my teammate, that’d be grand. Hopefully, we can move past it all, figure our shit out, and be buddies again.
Or maybe . . . maybe . . . there could be something more—
A shadow appears in the sliver of hallway light at the bottom of the door.
I hold my breath. A few moments pass before the room’s electronic lock whirs and clinks.
The handle turns down, the door pushes inwards, and framed by the jamb is Pi, his holdall slung over his shoulder, suit bag in his other hand.
Ten or fifteen seconds tick by. Neither of us moves, neither says a thing. I hear him swallow.
“It’s so dark in here,” he says, stepping inside. The door closes behind him. The locks click heavily back into place.
“It’s raining,” I say, even though the real reason it’s dark is because I haven’t put my card into the little “electricity on” slot yet. “We . . . need to talk.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” he jokes.
I move my bags from the first bed to the one by the window so that Pi and I don’t end up playing the Hokey Cokey to unpack.
“Abs is fuming, by the way. I’m assuming we’re saying that your only motive was to piss him off?” He dumps his stuff.
“Who’s he sharing with now?” I ask.
“Snatch.”
“Damn, I was hoping for Gadget.”
“That’s fucking cruel,” he says, but he’s laughing, evidently not that bothered by it. “Gadget’s next door. So . . .” He scratches his moustache. “We’ll have to be quiet.”
“That’s fine.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Whatever we need to say, we can say it quietly enough not to be overheard.”
Pi cocks his head to the side. “Say?” And then he launches himself at me, pulling my face down and crashing his lips into mine.
Something akin to an explosion happens inside my chest. I pull away. “Oh my god.”
“Oh, shit. You actually wanted to talk?” Panic flashes behind his eyes.
“No, fuck. Um . . . Holy fuck. No, I’d much rather be doing this than talking . . .” I say eloquently, before grabbing his face and kissing him again.
Neither of us hesitates this time, and unlike Halloween, which was comparatively gentle and exploratory and restrained, there’s an urgency pressing against the moment. It’s as though someone could walk through that door any second.
Or, more realistically, we’ve both been waiting, storing up our feelings, our urges, for almost a month.
Pi tastes of mint, and something in the back of my brain registers that this kiss is premeditated.
He’d probably munched a sugar free Polo in the lift—he loves those—knowing full well he’d be shoving his tongue into my mouth in a moment’s time.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead, hadn’t for one second expected we’d be making out, and regret not being a little fresher for him.
Though going by his grip in my hair and the fingers squeezing my shoulder blades, I reckon he doesn’t mind too much.
He pushes me backwards until my ass knocks into the room’s sideboard. The TV remote tumbles to the floor, but neither of us reaches for it.
We break to catch our breath, and then immediately resume. My hands slide underneath his Cents branded travelling shirt, grabbing every part of his flesh I can fill my palms with.
I’m rock hard, and Pi is too. We’re both wearing sweatpants, so there’s very little cushioning between our cocks, but by the stiffness of his posture, I sense that he’s holding himself back. That he’s desperately trying not to rub his erection against mine or my hip.
I wish I possessed his restraint and levels of self-preservation, but I’m weak-willed and fucking horny, so I flip our positions, throwing him against the drawers instead and crying out at the blissful friction as the tip of my cock is crushed against the waistband of his joggers.
Pi swallows down my moan. “I’ve never done this before.” His breath is ragged, like we’ve been running laps. “I’ve never been with a guy, I mean.”
“Me neither,” I say, just as short-winded as he is.
“What . . . um . . . how far do you want to . . . What do we even do?”
I laugh. “I don’t know.”
Do we jerk each other? Jerk ourselves? Suck each other off? Sixty-nine? Do we fuck? And like . . . how does that work?
I’ve watched enough porn to know what goes where, but I also hear stuff about prep, and .
. . what the fuck does that involve? Gadget won’t eat anything more than a side salad when he wants Owen to put him through the mattress.
Shit, I should have done some actual research, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’m more than happy for us to continue snogging and dry humping each other until one or both of us need to change our trackies.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
Pi’s eyes flit to my mouth and back to mine. “A little, you?”
I see-saw my hand. “Yes and no.”
“Same. Fuck, I never imagined I’d be in this position with you of all people,” he says.
I can’t bear to not be touching him any more, so I slide my thumb underneath his jersey and skate it up along his abdominals.
“I’ve not stopped thinking about this. About kissing you.
I thought that if I requested a room together, we could finally talk about what happened on Halloween and clear the air.
I never for a second imagined we’d be doing this.
” At these words, my cheeks flush with colour, but I pretend I’m as cool and collected as ever and don’t notice it.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it either,” he says.
“I kept wanting to say something at training, but it never felt like a good time. Abs or Snatch were always . . . there, and you never said anything to me. So somehow I’d convinced myself that you hadn’t meant to kiss me, that you did it because you felt sorry for me or you were drunk, or that you’ve decided since then that you hated it. ”
I shake my head. “I meant to kiss you.”
He leans closer, but I brace him with a palm on his chest.