Chapter 1 #3
The match continued, as matches did. Alex stuck to Lee like glue, no further ventures to the other side of the field even as Alex’s teammates tried to fight fire with fire, the game sloshing back and forth, small inaccuracies piling up as the minutes ticked down. And then it was over.
A tie.
It meant Manchester Athletic would stay at the top of the standings while Liverpool Rovers climbed to second place, tied for points with Arsenal but with a better goal difference.
They’d come so close to winning—ten minutes and a flip-of-a-coin penalty call because no way, no way had that been an obvious one.
Alex would take a look at the video later, sure, but he’d be willing to bet that Lee had milked it for all it was worth, made it look far more dramatic than it had been.
The two teams exchanged half-hearted handshakes, Alex steering carefully clear of Lee, who paid him the same courtesy.
After applauding the fans for their support and stopping for a quick courtesy chat with Oliver, Alex managed to get through a post-match interview without accusing either Lee or the referee of, respectively, theatrics and gullibility.
“It felt clean to me,” he repeated a couple of times, with a regretful smile.
“Pretty sure I played the ball, but I guess I’ll have to rewatch it to understand what the ref saw. ”
Once the reporter grew tired of trying to elicit a scandalous statement from him, Alex finally got to trudge back towards the locker room, the noise of the crowd fading as soon as he stepped into the tunnel. Jeff caught up with him a few moments later, falling into step.
“Damn Lee Taylor, eh?” he muttered. The vague admiration in his tone raised Alex’s hackles.
“And the Oscar goes to…” he countered.
Jeff gave a quick, sharp laugh and draped an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “We’ll pay them back next time.”
Next time. Alex bit down on his bottom lip and ignored the strange wiggle of discomfort in his stomach. About to reply, he was interrupted by someone shouting both their names from behind them.
“Jeff, Alex! Got a minute for me?”
Jeff, his arm still around Alex’s shoulders, turned them as one, and oh, holy shit. That was Kieran Foxwell, national coach as of a month ago. He approached them with a massive smile, light on his feet and looking a decade younger than his, what, fifty years or so?
“Congrats on a fantastic game,” he said, shaking both their hands with an affable air after Jeff had dropped his arm.
“Real nail-biter of a match. Just never gets old, does it?” He didn’t carry himself like a living legend—youngest player to ever score for England during a World Cup, second only to Peter Shilton in sheer number of appearances for the national team.
Then drugs, bankruptcy, rehab, and finally a second career as a coach, where he’d had to work his way from the third division back to the top.
“Would’ve been even better if we’d won,” Jeff said with a regretful shrug.
“Can’t have it all, can you?” Foxwell’s smile didn’t fade. “Now, lads, is there somewhere we can talk for a sec? Your coach said there are meeting rooms further along that hallway.”
Did that mean—shit, it had to, right? Foxwell wouldn’t pull them aside just to tell them he wasn’t going to nominate them for the World Cup.
Or would he? Alex glanced around and found the sparse corridor largely deserted, most players already gone with only a few other people still milling around, casting curious glances their way.
“I’m sure we can find an empty room, yeah.” Alex turned his attention to Foxwell, along with a big smile. When in doubt, Alexander, you show respect. “If you want to follow us, Mr. Foxwell?”
Foxwell’s face twitched into a playful grimace. “Kieran, please. I’m old, but Mr. Foxwell is still my dad.”
“Kieran,” Alex repeated carefully, and oh, wow.
He would be… He’d… Holy fucking shit, he’d be on the national team.
Probably, almost certainly. Wearing the white jersey with the team crest on the left side of the chest—three lions and ten Tudor roses, placed right above the heart.
Even if commentators largely agreed that England had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this time around, it would be… God.
It would still be a dream come true.
Alex must have gone a little wild-eyed because Jeff kicked his foot. “Right this way,” he told Foxwell. Kieran.
They started moving, and Alex remembered his manners just in time to ask Fox—Kieran about how his start in the national team had been since he’d taken over on uncommonly short notice, after the previous coach had resigned on charges of tax fraud.
Kieran’s chuckle was loud in the narrow tunnel.
“Ah, it’s been a ride. But what would life be without a little excitement and unpredictability, am I right? ”
“One hundred per cent,” Jeff agreed while Alex, who organized his life around routines, simply nodded.
The first room they tried was indeed empty, with a tactics board in one corner and a big screen at the front to review match footage.
The faint smell of dry-erase markers hung in the air as Kieran closed the door and gestured for them to pick a couple of the chairs scattered around the space. “Have a seat, lads.”
God, it felt good to sit. Alex shoved sweaty hair off his forehead and stretched out his legs, abruptly aware of his aching muscles. This was the Premier League and no match was a walk in the park, but Lee had pushed Alex to the limits of his endurance.
He’d need to train harder.
“All right.” Kieran leaned against the edge of a table at the front of the room, hands clasped in front of him. “I’ll cut to the chase—Jeff, Alex, I want you on my team.”
Jeff leapt from his chair, his whoop bouncing off the walls.
“Fucking A, man!” He pulled Alex up and into a hug that Alex returned, electricity crackling along his spine.
The national team. The fucking national team.
Millions watching, judging, and what if Alex wasn’t good enough?
What if he was thrown into the fire and found wanting?
It was so much easier to be confident with a ball at his feet.
“Thank you,” he managed, tucking his doubts away and trading them for a huge smile because this was massive. “That means so much, Kieran.”
“You’ve earned it,” Kieran said. “Both of you.”
Jeff let go of Alex, walked right over, and pulled Kieran into a hug as well while Alex watched, frozen. Rather than show surprise, Kieran just laughed and patted Jeff on the back. “That’s the spirit. Keep it up and you just might be in the running for team captain.”
Captain. Oliver Bramwell was captain of the national team, and he was certain to return as its goalie. Equally certain to return was Lee Taylor because only a madman would leave the Premier League’s top scorer behind. Kieran might be many things, but mad wasn’t one of them.
So. Alex would get the dubious repeat pleasure of playing on the same team as Lee then—teammates with someone who’d decided to hate Alex for no good reason when Alex had been a mere eighteen years old, fresh to the Under 21s and a little scared even though he’d tried to hide behind a big smile and a quest to make everyone like him.
Maybe Lee had seen right through it, spotted the insecure boy behind the happy mask and fancy title.
Pretty boy. Exposing Alex as a wide-eyed kid with a cute smile and a smidgen of charm—largely irrelevant.
Fuck Lee.
Alex grabbed onto that anger and used it to stifle any echo of doubt in his mind. He’d prove that he belonged—to his parents and Lee and the world, and maybe a little to himself, too.
He’d prove that he deserved this.