Matchday 35 #6
“Davito,” Oliver says. Leo had played it so cool out on the pitch, so much better than Oliver did when it happened to him, but it was an act, he can see that now. Of course it was. “That guy was out of order, you know he was. And we won because of you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Leo wriggles free and turns to face Oliver, then changes his mind and moves across the kitchen island. “Please, just let me say this.”
“Okay,” Oliver says cautiously. “I’m listening.”
“I am actually in love with you.” Leo’s cheeks are red and his eyes are dark.
He’s looking at Oliver like no one ever has.
He’s saying beautiful, insane things. “I wasn’t chatting shit when I said it before.
You are…Oliver, I love you, I can’t help it.
I’ve been—since I got back here, since the moment I saw you again—I’ve been falling in love with you.
Even when you were being such an arsehole to me.
I wanted you anyway. I thought I wanted to be you, when we were younger, in the academy, but now I know, I just want to play with you, to be with you, be by your side.
You drive me absolutely mad. I keep waiting for it all to be a dream.
And I—I can’t wait anymore. It’s not casual for me, and it never has been.
I want to win tomorrow, and I want to stay here, because Camden is my home, and you’re more Camden than anything.
But even if we don’t finish fourth, I’ll still want you.
I had to tell you that before the derby.
While I still have a chance.” Oliver can feel the weight of the words like a pressure around his windpipe, just as breathtaking.
He wants to say, Don’t, stop or maybe Don’t stop, but he can’t speak. “Say something,” Leo says.
He was stoic before, but he’s begging now.
Oliver wants to give Leo what he needs, he wants to give Leo everything, but he doesn’t know how.
And suddenly on the tabletop next to them Oliver’s phone is buzzing and displaying a picture of Anthony.
He fumbles for the screen despite himself, trying not to look at Leo’s face, which is now looking resolutely downward.
“Just give us a second,” he pleads before answering the call. “Captain?”
“Ollie boy,” Anthony greets him tiredly, sounding about a century old.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, anxiety spiking.
Leo’s head perks up slightly, like a dog smelling danger.
Leo starts to step away, toward the door, until Oliver catches his sleeve in his hand.
Please, he mouths. Leo doesn’t respond, but he stops moving, looking downward, away from Oliver, and screwing his eyes shut.
“My bum knee.” Anthony doesn’t need to say anything else—Oliver knows immediately.
It’s bad news and it’s not likely to be fixable.
Anthony wouldn’t call him like this, after a match, right before another, more important one, unless he needed help.
“Anna says I won’t play next year if I don’t stop now.
I might not anyway.” There’s resignation in his tone; he knew this was coming as well as the medical staff. “Our season’s not done, but mine is.”
“Hell” is all Oliver can manage at first. “Anthony, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry, you prick. I need you to be captain. Can you do that for me?”
It’s in the job description of vice captain to fill in when the armband needs somewhere to rest, but this is heavier than a usual substitution.
It’s the last match, their last chance, it’s a derby, it’s fucking Kilburn.
Everything is on the line now and the Rovers are across it.
He remembers, again, the Manchester City draw, his first game of the year, the match where he played with Leo for the first time and ruined everything by pretending he didn’t feel what he felt, when Willem listed all those names to frighten the team, but instead it woke them right the fuck up, which was probably his plan all along.
Oliver has to do this. The rest of it has to wait.
He can’t be whoever Leo was just talking to; he has to be the captain, has to belong to Camden alone, not to Leo, not even to himself.
He has to answer Anthony now; he doesn’t have the right words for anyone else.
“Of course I’ll do it,” Oliver says into the phone, but he’s looking at Leo’s stricken face while he says it.
“You don’t really have a choice,” Anthony says, half-joking. “But I’m glad you see it that way.”
“How do you figure this shakes out?”
Maybe he’s captain for now; he still needs Anthony, steady back-line Anthony Moss, to help him make sense of the world around him.
“There’s three ways out of this mess,” he says. “Maybe we stay in fourth, no harm done. Possibly we could drop to fifth or sixth. Mathematically, we could end up in third. It all depends on how Chelsea and United play.”
The trick of that is that all the matches will start at the same time, as is tradition with the final schedule of the season. Camden won’t know the scoreline they need, because it will be determined in real time, while they’re going scorched-earth mortal combat against Kilburn.
“We’ll say a prayer at halftime. Then we’ll fucking win,” Oliver says into the phone, willing himself to believe it as simply as he’s said it.
Leo has finally looked up from the floor and now he’s staring at Oliver with his jaw clenched.
He’s fiddling with the rosary under his shirt and nodding like he’s trying to believe it too.
“You might need to give a bit longer of a speech than that, Ollie,” Anthony replies gruffly. “Listen, I have kids to put to bed. I’ll be with you from the bench, okay?”
Anthony hangs up without letting him say goodbye and Oliver takes the phone down from his ear slowly, almost disbelievingly.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles to Leo. “I don’t know what to—”
“You don’t have to, Ollie,” Leo whispers back, the words punched out of him. “I understand. I could hear. This week, it’s for football. You’ve gotta be the captain.”
“But—” he starts.
“It’s okay,” Leo insists, slowly and deliberately. It must be, because he’s touching Oliver, one tentative hand at his waist. “Please don’t say anything else. Just—let me stay?”
Oliver couldn’t send him away even if he wanted to. He nods and pulls at Leo’s wrist until he’s back in close and Oliver can get his arms around him, for however long he’s still allowed to.