Chapter Forty-Two
By mid-May, our friendship is firmly reestablished, so I decide to pick Lachlan’s shirt for the penultimate match of the season.
It seems like a nice gesture, and probably a safe bet: He has been on an incredible run of form these last few weeks.
He’s playing like he’s twenty-two again, a renewed vigor that’s spreading around the team like a virus.
The lads have been so incredibly supportive of him since the news about the divorce, so relieved that he’s happy again—or at least on the road to happiness—and I think their energy and positivity are feeding back and making him play even better.
So I pull number fourteen out of my drawer and slip it on, giving the Mersey badge on my chest a little pat before zipping up my hoodie.
The match today is in Leeds, about ninety minutes east of Liverpool.
They’re a bottom-of-the-table side and we’re the favorites by a long shot, but no one is taking any chances: We’re in second place by the narrowest of margins, and anything but a win today puts our title chances in serious jeopardy.
The mood on the bus is tense; even Bashie’s antics can’t do anything to alleviate it.
That tension carries through to the match, which is mostly drudgery with a few frustrating moments of unfulfilled brilliance.
The Leeds players are defending like their lives depend on it, and the Mersey attack can’t get anything going.
Lachlan has a good game, but I can tell he’s getting agitated in the midfield, doing his best to marshal his troops despite the very, very long season lodging itself deep in eleven pairs of tired legs.
In the Comms box, Sadie is pacing and Phil’s mouth is set into a grim line.
The traveling Mersey fans valiantly try to get some chants going, but their songs die on the wind.
We all watch the minutes ticking away, knowing that if we draw this game, our chances of winning the league become vanishingly slim.
As the game ticks to a close, it’s still zero-to-zero, and there are only four minutes of stoppage time for us to pull out a miracle.
Then, two things happen in quick succession.
The first is a gnarly foul on Kieran, as a Leeds defender aims a mean tackle squarely at his ankles.
The referee signals a free kick and the players get in position.
But then a wave of excitement ricochets around the stadium, unconnected to what’s happening on the pitch.
Phil whips out his phone: Manchester City, bitter rivals just ahead of us in first place, have lost their game—one they were widely expected to win. This is massive.
The Mersey fans who have traveled to Leeds go apeshit.
It’s a noise unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
They’ve all figured out what Sadie is rapidly explaining to me: If Mersey scores here, all we have to do to win the league is draw or win the final match next week.
All we have to do is not lose. All of a sudden, our destiny is in our own hands.
In the middle of the pitch, Lachlan and Kieran are having a whispered conversation about who should take the kick, and my stomach clenches as the weight of everything hits.
Then Kieran steps back and tosses the ball to Lachlan, who nods.
In the box, we all look at each other, the question in our eyes clear: Does Lachlan know the full weight of this moment?
Has the news about City losing somehow made its way to him down there?
The ball is in a good position—we’ve seen him score from this spot dozens of times in training, and it’s only a few yards away from the goal he scored in the very first match of the season.
Maybe that’s why Sadie’s nails are dug into my arm, and why Phil is white-knuckling his camera like it’s the last ledge on Everest. We all watch Lachlan twirl the ball once in his fingers before placing it on the spot.
He barks orders at some of the players to rearrange them in front of the goal, then he raises his arm.
In this moment, everything goes silent. I know it’s impossible in a stadium of thousands, but for a second, all I can hear is two heartbeats, his and mine, beating in unison.
I whisper a prayer into the silence between the beats.
Please let him score this. Please, after all he’s been through, give him this happiness.
If there’s an implicit “us” in the prayer, I don’t acknowledge it.
He drops his arm and runs toward the ball and it’s like I see everything in slow motion.
He takes three steps, then plants his left leg deep in the turf and connects solidly with his right.
It’s an absolute screamer: a picture-perfect ball that curves up and around the wall of defenders and past the outstretched fingertips of the diving Leeds goalkeeper before thumping into the upper corner of the net with a resounding swish.
Top Bins. In the infinitesimal silence after the swish, I hear his exhale. One low, steady breath out…
And then the place explodes. The traveling fans are screaming, Sadie is screaming, I’m screaming.
Phil is screaming but also filming, because Phil is Phil.
Down on the pitch, Lachlan is swarmed by teammates, the sturdy wooden stick in the center of a massive crimson popsicle.
But he’s breaking free, he’s running to the stand where the Mersey fans are, he’s grabbing the badge on his shirt and bellowing at them, and they’re bellowing right back, piling over each other as they try to get close to him, to their hero, to the man who may have just won them the league.
But then he turns away from them and runs toward the stand where we’re sitting.
He’s tiny down there, so far away, but his eyes find me.
His eyes find me in a sea of thousands, and that’s when I know.
I know with a deep, rooted certainty that this is it.
I am his, and he is mine. All the back and forth, all the hand-wringing, all the heartbreak and the guilt and the glory, all the flirting and the banter and the friendship, all of it has come to this.
I know because in a stadium of forty thousand people, he found me in three seconds.
And he’s pointing at me and I’m pointing at him and he’s mouthing something and I have a pretty good guess what it is because I’m screaming it back at him.
“You have to get down there!” Sadie hollers into my ear. She intensifies her grip on my arm, the pressure of her nails digging into my flesh the only thing that could tear my focus away from Lachlan.
“Onto the pitch? Security will stop me!” But I’m shaking all over because I know she’s right. I have to get to him right now or I might die.
“No, to the dressing room! They’ll blow the final whistle any minute and you’re going to get bogged down behind all the fans leaving the stadium.
Go!” She physically shoves me away from her and even though I’m stunned, I’m so grateful for Sadie and her laser focus on getting me laid.
I’m going to bake her a cake in the shape of a gladiator one of these days to thank her for all she’s done for me.
For now, I turn and run out of the box past cheering Mersey staff, blindly high-fiving along the way, and bolt into the concourse behind the stands.
Sure enough, throngs of Leeds fans are already shuffling out, their heads hung low in defeat.
I hear snatches of their conversation as I elbow past them, then I hear shouts of anger as the crowd thickens and I squeeze through the hordes of disgruntled men whose team is seconds away from losing.
But for once in my life, I don’t apologize.
I have to get to the dressing room. I have to get there now.
I still don’t really know what will happen when I do, but I’m pretty sure it will be the start of the rest of my life.
I spin down dizzying cement spirals, deep into the bowels of the stadium, until finally I’m on the lowest level.
I flash my badge at Ricky, the guard outside the Mersey dressing room, and thank God he knows me, because I am not stopping to explain myself to anyone.
I burst into the room, heart throbbing in my chest, and find…
nothing. It’s empty. The television on the wall is showing the dying moments of the match, and I barely have enough time to catch my breath before the final whistle blows and the sound of thousands of Mersey fans wends its way through the tunnel to where I stand, shaking like a leaf.
He’ll be here any minute, unless I’ve catastrophically misjudged what’s about to happen.
But no, I haven’t. Not this time. I’m certain of it, as certain as I’ve ever been about anything.
And then, yes: I hear his boots clacking down the tunnel toward me, and in a burst of crimson, he’s in the room and in my arms. His hug knocks the air out of me and I throw my arms around his neck and I’m laughing and crying and he’s muttering such beautiful things in my ear.
And then his fingers are tangled in my hair and my tears are mixing with his sweat as he pulls my face to his.
We stay there for a moment, his breath hot against my lips, his thumb stroking my jaw.
We have only seconds before the rest of the team will come clattering in and all hell will break loose, and though I’m dimly aware of this fact somewhere deep in my brain, my overwhelming urge is to stay exactly like this for as long as I can.
My fingers are on his chest and it heaves with his breath underneath my touch.
He’s there, he’s real, he’s mine. Everything we’ve been through has led us to this moment, and now all we have to do is take the leap.
“Dare you,” I whisper, my lips brushing against his with the words.
I feel rather than see his mouth hitch into a smile, and the sound that he makes deep in his throat will stay with me for years.
Then his lips are on mine, light at first, curious, testing.
Then heavier, pressing, urgent. The arm around the small of my back tightens and he pulls me closer, my body liquid against his.
He smells like sweat and mud and grass and tastes like Gatorade, a sweet, artificial taste, and I briefly think how convenient it is to be replenishing my electrolytes while we make out.
But the urgency of the moment knocks the levity out of me as he lifts me up into his strong arms—arms he famously can’t use in his silly little sport.
I cross my ankles behind his waist and shiver as his hand snakes underneath my shirt and his fingers trail up my spine.
I press my hands to either side of his head and pull us apart for a moment.
I need to see him, need to take him in, even though this brief separation is already painful.
He’s got his goal-scoring eyes on, but his smile is all sweetness and relief.
I run my thumbs along his cheekbones, looking down at him, this wonderful man.
Then we come together again in a rush of heat and desire and want.
My lips part open with a soft sigh and his tongue slips in, and that hungry hum comes from his throat again.
I press my legs tighter, trying to close any gap that might somehow exist between us; I never want space between us again.
I can’t help the soft moans pouring out of me as he kisses me deeper, and my fingers lace through the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck.
This is, of course, how the team finds us.
We don’t notice at first, too wrapped up in each other.
But then there’s a cough and our concentration fractures just enough to let other thoughts in.
And for me, the first thought is abject mortification, but fuck, it’s worth it.
I’m blushing a red as deep as the Ramsay jersey we’re both wearing, and I cover my mouth with my hand as Lachlan drops me gently back onto the ground and we both turn to look at the team.
The hush in the room is absolute; the team is staring at us like we’re a couple of monkeys in the zoo.
It could be five seconds or five years that we stand there, eyeing each other up, but then Bashie—who else—breaks the silence.
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” he screams. “Get in, lad!”
And then the room erupts, and it’s somehow even louder than thousands of fans cheering when Lachlan scored.
They know what Lachlan’s been through, and all they want is happiness now for their boy and the Yank.
We’re mobbed by his teammates as they swarm around us.
Bashie hoists me up onto his shoulders and Beto Gomez and the Spanish boys are passing Lachlan around above their heads like a tray of canapés.
I hold on to Bashie’s head for dear life as he careens me around the room, and I’m laughing and sometimes crying, screaming and sometimes singing.
It’s only when Vogler walks into the room that Bashie crouches down and lets me clamber off.
I want to let the team have some privacy to celebrate this moment, but I catch Lachlan’s eye as I edge toward the door.
He winks and it rockets straight through my center, curling my toes in anticipation of what happens next.
I bite my lip and slip into the hallway, feeling his eyes on my back as I go.