Matchday 21 #2
“Why not both? Celebrating your arrival and letting it perk us up,” Oliver says magnanimously, going for yet another, gratuitous cheers.
Leo’s smile crinkles at his eyes, and the two of them spend a long stretch of breaths looking at each other, maybe for the first time, really.
For the life of him, Oliver now can’t remember why he hated Leo so much, why his arrival announcement sounded like an alarm bell or a death knell.
Only the peal of the starting whistle snaps them out of it, drawing their eyes away and up to the screen again.
The rest of the match passes joyously, Finn scoring his first goal since his transfer from Eindhoven and Emmanuel closing the door completely even after Swansea pulled one back in the second half.
When the ninety minutes are up and the squad is jogging happily offscreen, Oliver is full and warmed, a bit drunk and a lot happy.
Woodsy has a Camden scarf tied around his head and Leo has given up his chair to stand behind them both with his arms flung over their shoulders.
“Increíble,” Leo pronounces. “Espectacular.”
“Olé,” Oliver agrees, slumping forward onto the bar. “Now it’s bedtime.”
“You’re wasted, man!” Woodsy hoots. “You can’t go out like this.”
Oliver waves him off irritably, burrowing deeper into the pillow of his elbow. Of course he’s not going out anywhere, he’s going to sleep.
“I’ll walk him home,” Leo says. “Let the wind wake him up.” That promise is good enough for an annoyingly sober Woodsy, who promptly pays the whole tab and leaves them to it. “Come on, Harris, on your feet.”
Oliver cracks open one eye for the sole purpose of being able to glare.
“I’ll call a cab. Lemme sleep,” he grumbles. There are worse things than being left alone with Conor Bishop.
“My job isn’t secure enough to leave you here, Ollie.” Leo hauls him up by his collar until he’s reluctantly vertical. “Let’s go, champ.”
Oliver becomes lucid again somewhere along Prince Albert Road, skirting the perimeter of the park, the blurry world revealing some familiar green landscape.
He’s still on his feet and an investigation of his pockets reveals his phone is on him too.
Leo holds up Oliver’s keys, jangling them and shaking his head reprovingly.
“Oof,” Oliver mutters to the cloudy sky, deciding not to mention his house has a keyless entry. “I think I’m already hungover. We didn’t even say goodbye to Con.”
“I did,” Leo says. “Just wait for tomorrow, Harris, and you’ll wish you felt as good as you do now.” They keep walking, heading up the path of the water toward Oliver’s place, in between the noise of the city and the quiet between them.
Oliver has lived here, somewhere around these blocks, for so long—every building means something to him: a devoted fan’s house, or a cranky neighbor, or a restaurant that he loves, the corner store where he used to buy shampoo before he started paying someone to do that for him, the newsstand that bears his picture on the papers every week.
He wants to tell Leo what they’re passing, to show him around, but the last grip of the alcohol and something like shyness makes his tongue thick.
He means to say at least that he can walk himself now, Leo can go, but that he doesn’t want to do.
When they reach the canal bridge, Oliver pauses, scuffing the toe of his shoe into the ground just to have something to do with his limbs.
Leo stops too, head turning toward him with a seeking look.
Oliver manages a smile and reaches for the keys.
For a brief moment they hold the lanyard between them, second-degree touching, and Oliver’s heart hammers at the tenuous connection, then Leo lets go and Oliver starts for his door clumsily.
When he limps up his landing, he looks back, and Leo is still standing on the bridge, flanked by water on all sides and watching Oliver with the wind in his hair.
· · ·
Monday training sounds exuberant, from what Oliver can hear on the hard plastic of the physio table.
Everyone, even Willem, is well pleased with the weekend’s triumph.
Their next two matches are against Burnley and Watford at home—winnable, easily winnable, even.
They could be in fifth by the end of the month, close to where Finch is insisting on.
In the changing room, it sounded like the boys had been resoundingly triumphant with the Welsh girls in Swansea on Saturday night as well.
The one advantage of not traveling for matches is the reprieve from that aspect of his social life, where Oliver either gallantly offers to be the drunken-teammate minder or otherwise slips out the second nobody is looking, like a thief in the night.
The lads tease him for being unlucky (or, sometimes, a cowardly little melt) and accuse him of still being hung up on Maggie, which is convenient enough to be getting on with.
It’s brain-dead easy to whistle and nod appreciatively when Georgie shows everyone photos of the lingerie models he’s seduced, to keep his head down and coast on the inherent straightness a professional footballer projects to the world.
Oliver’s never getting any to brag about anyway, or at least nothing he’d go telling the team about.
What would he even say? Hey, boyos, don’t you like when a guy holds you down by the back of your neck?
Like you’re a cat being held by its scruff?
Isn’t that kind of surrender the hottest feeling? He’ll keep that to himself, thanks.
Oliver is pondering that particular routine in the gym, toward the tail end of the session, trying his best to focus on form rather than extension, to feel the way his muscles respond to each movement, something more real than going through the motions, when someone raps the edge of the doorframe behind him to get his attention.
Oliver cranes his head to get a good look without ending the pose, then scrambles to his feet when he sees that it’s Willem, who’s even more imposing when he’s upside down.
“Gaffer,” Oliver says, half a hello and half a question.
“Don’t stop on my account,” Willem replies. “I’m only making the rounds.”
“Nothing too exciting here. Stretching for now, I was in with Anna earlier.”
“Dr. Zhang said you’ve been an exemplary patient,” the manager says. Oliver’s mouth pulls into a pleased smile at the mention of Anna’s praise and Willem matches it. “Keep on as you are. We’re missing you out there.”
“Thank you, sir. You lot got on pretty well without me, it looked like,” Oliver says, generous from the topical pain medication Anna administered.
“That we did.” Willem looks satisfied, close to proud, in a way Oliver can only recognize from de Boer’s playing days, the rowdy pleasure from scoring a goal or drawing a penalty.
It’s infectious. “Sebastian is having them practice spot kicks. Why don’t you come up and watch?
We’ll do a group meeting and then call it a day. ”
Oliver follows him out up to the pitch, a spring in his step, or rather, limp—two weeks ago, he doubts Willem even knew his way down to this dank corner of the gym, much less would want to come and fetch him from it.
Up in the fresh air, the grass is mist-soaked and emerald; the whole squad is bundled in long sleeves and beanies, hopping and jogging to and fro to keep the chill out.
They’re each taking turns staring Joe down from the penalty spot, trying to beat him with one single, perfectly placed kick.
It requires a great amount of physical control and mental stamina, especially with the keeper looking back at you with murder in his eyes.
At the touchline, Oliver and Willem join Sebastian, who gives Oliver a cautious, friendly nudge with his elbow without taking his eyes off the field.
They watch in silence as Finn steps forward but kisses the outside post when he shoots.
Leo is up next. Oliver feels an unexpected, queasy knot of nerves as he waits for Joe to set himself so Leo can go, like however their new teammate does will reflect on Oliver, like Oliver really wants him to do well, like he wonders if Leo knows that he’s watching, like he can’t help noticing the triangle of Leo’s shoulders down to his waistline are perfectly proportioned.
Oliver stops worrying the second Leo lines up.
His posture stays open and relaxed, like there’s no pressure at all, before he unleashes a rocket from his left foot across the goal: the shot is a bull’s-eye, too far right for Joe to reach, crisply lodging itself in the back of the netting.
Whoever thought he should play defensively was a fucking bellend; Leo was born to score.
“I think we’ve solved the problem of taking penalties while you’re injured, Harris,” de Boer says, nodding in approval while the lads whoop appreciatively.
Leo trots back to the end of the line, looking over toward the three of them.
Oliver raises one eyebrow. You know it was good, he thinks.
You don’t need me to tell you. Leo hears this somehow, at least part of it.
His ruddy-brown face pinks up ever so slightly and he shrugs, cheeky.
Can’t blame a guy for asking, Oliver imagines Leo’s shoulders replying.
· · ·
That evening, at Maggie’s—a tiny, chic box in Bermondsey, where he’s spent multiple days a week since the moment she signed the lease even though he has to stoop to get through the door—Oliver gets an Instagram notification from LeoDaVi.
Maggie is distracted over the stove, deglazing a saucepan of vodka sauce, so he lets himself tap the icon immediately. Leo has tagged him in a photo.