Matchday 23
Midweek matches bring late kickoffs. Which means Oliver has the whole stupid day stretched in front of him, the first whistle looming hours and hours away.
He wants to fuck off completely, sleep for hours or maybe hack off his left leg to avoid telling Anna what he’s done to it, but he hasn’t been back to Regent Road since the day of his injury and it will surely be noticeable if he doesn’t attend, again, today.
Part of him wonders how much Leo doesn’t want him there, if he could somehow spin his own selfishness into benevolently giving Leo space.
He’d also thought about inviting Maggie, but Oliver hates using her as a crutch, especially in public where people will inevitably speculate about their relationship.
It feels particularly rancid to spend the night experiencing acute gay panic about a teammate only for The Daily Mail to run a picture of him with his ex-girlfriend, an “effortlessly beautiful girl about town,” the very next day.
Every time he checks his phone, he’s not sure if he wants time to be passing faster or slower.
When five o’clock actually does roll around, Oliver feels paralyzed on the couch.
It takes another ten minutes before he can force himself to get moving.
As he gets dressed, he feels himself taking pains with his appearance—reaching for his nicest trousers and the designer jumper with vertical stripes, fussing with a little product in his hair.
You are such an idiot, he tells himself, viciously, as he smooths an errant strand behind his ear.
Regent Road’s staff entrance is tucked along a private side road that winds through the park’s mix of wild greenery and manicured garden hedges, then dips to an underground garage beneath the stadium.
He heads straight from there for the stands, avoiding the friends and family box where all the wives and girlfriends will watch, and the changing room itself, opting instead for one of the front-row seats that injured or suspended players can reserve.
Noah is there too, still benched but arm finally free of his sling, coat buttoned up to his chin.
“Oi oi,” Oliver says, and plops down next to him, squirming against the rigid green plastic.
“You cut it a bit late,” Noah replies. “No hellos? Didn’t show up to kiss Finch’s arse beforehand?
” Oliver grumbles in response—as long as Finch is thinking about selling Oliver in order to start over without him, there will be precisely no arse-kissing at all—and leaves it at that, swinging his legs up onto the rail in front of them and tipping his head back to take in the crowds above.
It is a nice night—comfortably chilly, air buzzing with conversation.
A few moments later, the team streams out from the tunnel to warm up, a long line of forest-green shirts moving in concentric circles.
Noah lifts his fingers to his mouth and lets out an impressively sharp whistle, drawing the attention of their teammates.
A small band jogs over to the edge of the pitch to greet them, laughing and chatting with Noah, but Oliver clocks the exact second Leo notices him.
He’s at the fringes of the group, bent down in a wide stretch, drinking in the view of the crowd with wonder.
As soon as he sees Oliver, Leo’s face darkens and his eyes narrow.
In an instant, he composes himself, rises, and turns his back, jogging over to Ahmed and refusing to look in their direction at all.
An icy breeze sweeps over Oliver, though he’s not sure what else he might have expected.
He forces himself to smile and wave to the rest of them, even as his heart pounds with a horrible, sickly feeling.
“Go on, then,” Noah yells cheerily. “Do your jobs!”
The squad disperses to alternately settle in the pitch-side dugout or head back down the tunnel and line up as the starters.
Leo takes to the bench with no discernible expression on his face, resolutely looking anywhere but behind him.
The red-cold backs of his ears look mad, to Oliver.
The pre-match pomp and circumstance continues, both teams marching out to the center of the pitch, each of them holding hands with a starry-eyed local child.
Watford’s kits are a garish shade of yellow, making the lot of them resemble a cluster of lemon sweets.
A faction of loyal away fans is chanting away in the east end of the stadium, but most of Regent Road is wearing green and singing The Libertines, invoking tin soldiers and their long, devoted crawl to Camden.
The players take their places on the pitch, stretching from the keepers in each goal to the line of strikers in the middle, clustered around the ball.
The referee blasts one piercing whistle, and they’re off to the races.
It’s a strange contest, frantic and physical in places but mostly flaccid in the eighteen-yard-box, where it counts.
Camden scores early, one of Matty’s gangly, loose legs making contact off a low corner cross and beating the keeper.
Oliver can tell it’s not to be, though—all the passing lanes and empty patches of grass are amounting to nothing, and Andrew Parker, the burly midfielder on loan to Watford from Derby County, is bodying his way through space and time, Camden’s defenders playing tin soldiers in place of the crowd.
He scores before the forty-five minutes are up and just keeps running like he doesn’t have time to stop.
The halftime break is nervy. Noah chomps away at his fingernails while Oliver taps a drumbeat on his thigh, eyes skyward as if new tactics (or a healthy hamstring) will descend from the heavens and let him fix this.
Nothing reveals itself except for Parker, again, streaking down the right wing and walloping another shot that Joe can’t reach after sixty-nine minutes.
A handful of moments later, Willem silently signals for a substitution and Oliver spots Leo standing from the bench and shedding an outer layer.
The ball goes out of play and one of the linesmen holds up the big neon sign announcing the change: number 8 for number 16.
Garcia runs across the pitch to switch places with Leo, who is standing with his toes on the white chalk line that forms the perimeter of the field.
They clasp hands momentarily, Garcia putting his mouth to Leo’s ear to whisper advice or encouragement.
Oliver can’t tell if Leo seems nervous or if Oliver just knows that he must be, the big 16 on his back looking like it’s weighing him down.
Leo crosses himself before he runs toward the midfield, before he takes a leap of faith directly into the Prem.
He is good, no one will deny that. Leo has an impressive debut by nearly every metric.
Fast and agile, claiming possession and refusing to cede it, looming dangerously around the attacking third.
Until the final whistle, all the commentators will say: Davies-Villanueva made a statement, left his mark for Camden, and announced himself as a contender.
For all that he was a nonentity in Spain, de Boer has figured out exactly what to do with him, where to put him on the pitch so that Leo looks lethal and experienced and like he’s worth a thirty-million-pound transfer fee.
It doesn’t mean anything. There’s no match-winning goal, not even one to draw them level.
Everyone is frustrated when the time is up, but Leo looks heartbroken.
No one ever imagines it is possible for them to lose their first-ever Premier League appearance.
Especially not when it’s taken as long to happen as it has for Leo.
“Dammit,” Noah curses as they shuffle their way toward the garage. “That fucking sucked, eh?” he adds once they’re safely away from the crowd. Oliver nods, letting out one low, frustrated whistle between his teeth. “I think I’ll hang around and try to cheer them up. You in?”
Oliver shakes his head, pointing to his parking space.
“I’m going home to give myself a lobotomy,” he says, ignoring Noah’s shouted reply:
“We’ll do it for you! Oh, come on, Ollie!”
Sitting in the driver’s seat, Oliver doesn’t pull away immediately.
He wants to get up and go after Noah. He wants to go down and find Joe to commiserate.
He wants, badly, to talk with Leo. If he can apologize and set things back to rights between them, maybe he’ll never have to confront again what kept him up last night, maybe he’ll be forgiven for everything he said and thought yesterday.
It’s easy to handle an unrequited crush; he has no idea how to cope with this kind of fraught, regretful pining.
Typing and erasing and retyping, he finally lands on a simple message.
He just wants Leo to know that he was watching and that he saw it all for what it was, that he kept his promise to watch him play.
You couldn’t have done anything more. Be proud. Even if you’re frustrated too.
For the rest of the night, Oliver lunges at his phone whenever it buzzes or lights up, but there’s no reply.
· · ·
Oliver is halfway down his street in the morning when someone shouts at the back of his car and smacks his bumper.
“Hey! What the hell!”
He slams on the brakes, skidding to an uneven stop and reaching for the door.
Before Oliver can get free of his seatbelt, expecting an accident and preparing himself to deliver CPR, Leo is standing there with a brown stain on the cuff of his white pullover sleeve, holding two partly crumpled paper cups and looking affronted.
“Jesus,” Oliver says, recalibrating his brain for the scene in front of him and rolling down his window.
“You drove right by me!” Leo sounds incredulous.
“And you just scared me to death, so let’s call us square.” His heart’s still pounding. “What are you doing, Leo?”