Chapter 18 #2
The rows around them filled with players and staff, darkness thick outside the windows as the bus left the underground garage, replaced by city lights once they turned onto Madrid’s roads.
The hotel was just a short drive away, its park-like property already familiar from the other two times they’d stayed here after a game, the white belle époque facade bright against the night sky when the bus pulled up.
It was where Alex had come out to Jeff, wasn’t it? It seemed like a century ago.
Alex was about to get up when Kieran took to the aisle and clapped his hands. “Lads. A minute of your attention, please?”
What little talking there had been tapered off.
“No one feels like a party right now, and that’s fine.
” Kieran inserted a deliberate pause, and when he continued, his voice was serious.
“But I want you to know that I’m so fucking proud of you all.
We didn’t lose the World Cup, okay? We won second place.
Germans have this term that translates to ‘vice world champions’—that’s us, and that’s bloody amazing. ”
Alex glanced around at tired, disappointed faces. Jeff slid lower in his seat with his arms crossed, chin tucked against his chest.
“I know,” Kieran said. “It doesn’t feel amazing right now. I get it. But I hope that when you wake up tomorrow, you’ll start to appreciate it. And”—a wicked smile—“in four years? We’ll give them hell.”
It drew some scattered applause and a few nods. Kieran seemed unsurprised at the lackluster reaction, his smile softening.
“All right, guys. See your families, get some sleep, and I’ll see you all in the morning.”
There was no one waiting for Alex. Of course there wasn’t—there never had been.
He’d be alone tonight, Lee tied up with his mum and sisters, and Jeff with his parents, brothers, and Isabella.
Alex knew that Jeff would happily invite Alex to hang out with them, but Jeff introducing a girl to his family so soon was kind of a big deal, and Alex didn’t want to get in the way of that. It was fine.
He parted with Jeff after a hug and caught Lee’s eyes for a brief smile as he made his way towards the room where he’d already dropped his stuff earlier, Lee helping him with his suitcase so Alex wouldn’t overexert himself. “Best boyfriend ever,” Alex had told him with a wink.
“Only boyfriend ever,” Lee had countered, and there was that.
“Best romantic partner ever.”
Lee had laughed softly, almost like he didn’t believe Alex when it was true—Alex’s previous relationships hadn’t been bad, not at all, but they’d been…
superficial. Fun and mutual attraction, never anything that chipped away at the protective layers he’d wrapped around himself.
It might have been his fault entirely, keeping everyone at arm’s length in a way he simply hadn’t managed with Lee. Hadn’t wanted to, maybe.
Before Alex could argue the point, Jeff had barged into the room to speedtalk about some thing or another, the way he got before important matches.
Since Alex wasn’t about to declare his romantic notions where Jeff could hear and make fun of him, it had put an effective end to whatever he might have told Lee otherwise.
It felt like a missed chance, now that their last night in Spain brought reality crashing in.
Yeah, they’d agreed that they didn’t want this thing between them to end and Lee had called Alex “babe” a handful of times, hadn’t corrected Alex referring to them as boyfriends either—but they’d made no plans for after. They’d been busy, though.
Silence spun out when Alex closed the door to his suite.
He didn’t turn on the light, just ditched his duffle bag by the bed and stepped up to the window front, the multi-colored glow of the city keeping the darkness at bay.
Bone-deep tiredness weighed him down, but his mind was still buzzing, snatches of the day replaying behind his lids each time he blinked—Lee’s goal and Oliver’s face as he’d retrieved the ball after Brazil had taken the lead; Jeff on the ground and Lee just standing there; the weight of the silver medal as it had been placed around Alex’s neck.
God, he didn’t want to be alone tonight.
Suck it up.
Since he wasn’t about to sleep anytime soon, Alex sat down in an armchair, propped up his foot, and dug his phone out of his pocket. Might as well do some research, right?
Just… in case.
A quiet knock some ten minutes later made Alex look up.
It came again, so he got up and crossed over to the door, checking the peephole.
Lee. He was looking off to the side, discomfort twisting his mouth, and Alex quickly let him in, bodies brushing as Lee moved past Alex into the room.
After a quick glance to confirm that the corridor lay empty, Alex closed the door and turned with a smile.
“Hey. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
“Good surprise?” Lee asked, like he was honestly not sure. Huh.
“Great surprise,” Alex told him, and the line of Lee’s mouth relaxed slightly in response. “But I thought your mum and sisters were staying over?”
“They are. Bit of a tight fit, though—four people to a bed, and I didn’t want Shelly to sleep on the carpet.
She said she didn’t mind, but, you know.
” Lee lifted one shoulder in a shrug, and Alex nodded, not quite sure what he was supposed to do with his hands.
Put them in his pockets? Put them on Lee?
The air felt heavy with something Alex couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“What did you tell your mum?” he asked, partly to fill the space between them. “About where you’ll sleep tonight, I mean.”
“The truth.”
“You mean…” Alex trailed off because—the truth. Did that mean to Lee what it meant to Alex? “How did she take it?”
A faint smile quirked one corner of Lee’s mouth. “Gave me a hug and told me to be with my boy.” The words, said lightly, were at odds with the weight of Lee’s focus on Alex’s face.
Lee’s boy.
Was this a declaration of some sort? It felt like one—and he’d told his mum about them. Granted, Alex had told his dad, but that had been less about Lee and more about blatant defiance.
Come to think of it… Well. How often was it Lee who’d jumped first—came clean about his sexuality and his mum’s condition, admitted he’d had a crush on Alex back when they’d first met, told Alex he didn’t want this thing to end? Lee, Lee, and Lee again. And as for Alex…
He’d kissed Lee first. But how big a risk had it really been when he’d known that Lee found him attractive?
Oh, it had backfired initially, sure—and even though they hadn’t discussed it down to that level of detail, Alex didn’t think it was just because Lee had been upset about Alex taking the long way towards honesty. No, it was more than that, wasn’t it?
It was… Okay, so Lee had mistaken it for Alex using him as a gay experiment.
But even after, once they’d cleared that bit up, Lee had been reluctant to act on their mutual attraction, had held on to the notion that for Alex, it was a convenient way to explore a side interest, just a bit of fun with an expiry date.
And then, Christ, how quickly Lee had leapt to conclude that Alex wanted an easy out—that morning when Alex had slipped out to talk to Jeff.
All Alex had needed were a few seconds to sort out his head, and by the time he’d returned to the room, Lee had been ready to let him go.
“Alex?” Lee asked, and right, yes, they were having a conversation.
Alex blinked. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
“Thinking.” Lee repeated it slowly, a careful undertone to his voice.
“Yeah.”
“About?”
Okay. Okay. Alex could do this—be the one to take the plunge, for once. He sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to him, smiling. “Here, let me show you.”
Lee was watching Alex closely as he approached and sat down, their knees bumping together. Alex unlocked his phone and passed it over. “Here.”
It took a moment—Lee’s eyes narrowing at the display, a frown washing over his face. Then he glanced up sharply, eyes clearing. “Is that…?”
“Some thirty-five minutes.” Alex nodded, still smiling, and fuck, it felt good to put himself out there. “Give or take—traffic, for one, and I didn’t have your exact address. But it’s not like Knutsford is that big, right?”
“No, it’s… Uh. It’s not. And I live near Tatton Park.” Lee sounded like words were proving just a little evasive, staring at Alex with what seemed like a mix of hope and uncertainty.
“Tatton Park, right.” Alex took the phone to enter the revised location, and the predicted travel time dropped from thirty-five to thirty-four minutes.
He glanced at Lee from underneath his lashes.
“So that’s driving from the Liverpool training center to your place, okay?
It’s a bit longer from where you train to my house—some fifty minutes.
So it might make sense for us to spend more time at your place than at mine, but I figure we can work out a schedule, see what makes sense.
Or maybe, you know, we could look for something that’s kind of halfway, like around Birchwood or so.
Not immediately, I mean. But… eventually. ”
Okay, so he hadn’t quite planned to add the part about Birchwood. But fuck it—no regrets. No regrets either about tripping all over his own words, about getting tangled up in discourse markers because he was done trying to satisfy his father’s voice in his head.
“Alex…” Lee drew a visible breath, his chest rising with it. He didn’t continue, though, and after a few seconds of silence, Alex ducked his head, a lot less confident all of a sudden.
“I mean—if you want?”
Lee exhaled, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a slow smile that pulled at his mouth. Without averting his gaze from Alex, he locked the phone and placed it next to them on the bed. Still he hadn’t said a word.
“Say something, please?”
“So, just before I left my hotel room”—Lee’s smile was fully pronounced now—“Shelly dared me.”
Alex frowned. “Dared you to do what?”
“To tell you I’m in love with you.”
Alex’s heart skipped a beat, then jumped up into his throat where it resumed its regularly scheduled service. “And are you?”
There was something intentional about the way Lee held Alex’s gaze, like he still needed to gather his courage to reply. Even though his smile didn’t fade, his voice was low. “Quite a bit, yeah.”
Brightness burst behind Alex’s ribs. “So you’re on board with keeping a toothbrush at my place?”
“Obviously.”
“And a holiday?” Alex gestured at his foot. “Once this ankle’s ready for action again because God, I want a holiday.”
“I’m on board with a holiday too.” Lee quirked a brow. “But aren’t you forgetting something?”
Alex shuffled around so he could tumble them both onto the bed, legs hanging off the side. He half-draped himself over Lee, grinning down at him. “Like what?”
“You know what.”
“Oh, that.” Alex dipped his head to drop a light kiss to the corner of Lee’s mouth. “Right. I love you, too.”
It wasn’t his first time telling someone that—but before, it had been intended to fill the silence or stall an argument, to satisfy expectations. This, now, was the first time he meant it, felt it, and that made the words resonate in ways they never had before.
Lee’s whole face changed, lit up. “You do?”
“Absolutely,” Alex told him and realized that yet again, Lee had been first to take the leap into the deep end of the pool. But at least Alex had already been holding onto him, just a step behind. He’d work on his timing.
“So you’re on board with keeping a toothbrush at my place?” Lee’s eyes were bright as he mirrored Alex’s earlier question.
Since actions spoke louder than words, Alex decided that kissing the grin off Lee’s lips was as good an answer as any. If the way Lee turned into him was any indication, he agreed.
They’d figure out the rest.