Matchday 38 #3
Oliver catapults himself, one-legged, onto Anthony before anyone else seems to register they’ve scored—Leo’s scored—Camden has tied the match.
When it hits them all, Anthony takes off running, Oliver still hanging on to his back, flanked by every reserve and the coaching staff, racing full tilt across the field toward Leo, who has slid forward on his knees with his arms thrown skyward, the dictionary definition of triumph, the rest of Camden FC sprinting in his wake.
Kilburn is fit to be tied, screaming for more time, but seven minutes has come and gone, the match is over, the clock stopping and the scoreboard reading three and three.
All the draws that killed Oliver this season, the ones he considers losses, are dust in the wind compared to this feeling, the sweet sensation that’s almost better than victory for how closely they snatched it from the jaws of defeat.
Fourth place, he thinks. Not too fucking shabby.
Davies-Villanueva with the penalty. He loves the sound of it, even only in his own head.
Oliver hasn’t even gotten to Joe, much less Leo, for congratulations. He’s still hobbling out of an unexpected, tight, full-body embrace from Marcos when Woodsy lets out a roar, snatching a phone out of one of the physio’s hands.
“United lost! They bottled it!” A good chunk of the squad half-climbs over each other to get to him and get a look, squinting at the tiny screen while Woodsy’s shaking hands pull up the highlights.
“God, they’re shite, aren’t they?” Joe says, then hollers to the whole team: “They fucked it! United lost!”
They’re still in a huddle as Woodsy searches again, this time for the Chelsea-Liverpool contest. “Four-three,” Woodsy breathes. “Liverpool came back. They beat Chelsea.”
Someone shrieks while someone else makes a grab for the phone; Oliver has slumped right to the ground as if he’s been reinjured again, seeing stars.
It’s impossible, it’s bedlam, but it has to be true, or else he wouldn’t feel this way, like he’s being reborn.
He would’ve given anything to be fourth; he hadn’t bothered to dream about third.
The sun is slipping under the edges of the ironwork, coating them all in brilliant pink light, and all the screams in the stands have died out, Rovers unwoven.
“Dear God, we’ve killed Harris,” Finn is saying, hoisting him back up by his armpits. “Come here, you idiot. It’s good news. Third place!”
“I know, I know,” Oliver repeats, stumbling on his exhausted legs, salt water dripping off his nose.
“I just can’t believe it. Davito? Where’s Leo?
” Finn hands him over, Joe pulling Leo to them, depositing 6 and 16 into each other’s arms. Leo smells rank and his hair is collecting blades of grass like the beginning of a bird’s nest. Oliver has never loved something so dearly as he does right then, never looked at anything and known it was his and perfect and for keeps.
He pulls some greenery out of Leo’s headband and bundles him into his chest, squeezing tight.
“I told you. It was for you,” he tells him.
“If you didn’t mean it,” Leo says, muffled, into the crest of Oliver’s kit, “don’t tell me until later.”
Oliver is no longer weeping the delicate, manful joy of a winner; he’s unleashed a biblical flood from his eyeballs and his nose, wailing into Leo’s head and making him even filthier than he already was.
He wants to tell him how proud he is, how much it means to be with him now, but anything additional in his heart would probably literally kill him, and he’s not even had a party about this yet.
“I meant it” is all he says.
Leo wriggles himself free and gleefully socks Oliver in the shoulder, once, twice, thrice, and it hurts and it feels so good.
“You are a madman,” Leo laughs, eyes damp. “And you need to go to the doctor.”
· · ·
In the end, Oliver didn’t even make it out to celebrate; by the time Anna had finished looking over his leg he was ready to drop dead from sheer sensory overload.
From the exam table, he’d seen a suspicious champagne stain on her sweater, which set him to giggling uncontrollably, even after she swatted him with her stethoscope.
“It’ll be okay. No recurrence of the tear at all, you just gave it a good strain. Well, Wheatley did,” Anna said. “Nothing to worry about, Oliver. Take two weeks of vacation before you start your unhinged summer running plans. I won’t tell Willem.”
Leo, on the other hand, did make it out for at least one round of antiseptic-strength vodka sodas, because Oliver can smell it on him when there’s a midnight knock on his front door.
“What happened to my passkey not being secure?” Oliver asks, tucking his hands into the top of the doorframe and leaning against the side, showing off just a little, all stretched out in nothing but pajama pants, putting himself on display.
“Things were different then,” Leo replies. “I was sober. Are you going to let me in?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Let me show you,” Leo says, but he hardly needs to, because Oliver doesn’t want to playact anymore and is pulling him in by the collar, grinning.
For a moment it’s just like that first night, kissing in the foyer, and it feels good in the same way it always does, Leo smudging his top lip with the tip of his tongue, Oliver pressing into the gentle rasp of Leo’s stubble against his cheek.
“There’s so much I want to say to you,” Leo whispers, up on his tiptoes, into Oliver’s ear like he’s telling a secret. They’re giving their weight to each other and swaying with it, holding each other up. “But I don’t think I can do it in English. I’m…well, Garcia was pouring my drinks.”
“It’ll keep,” Oliver says, intimately familiar with what that means, but Leo buries his face in Oliver, hooking his chin over his shoulder and holding on tight, and keeps talking.
“Siempre quiero estar aquí, contigo,” he says quietly, muffled into the warm skin over Oliver’s scapula. Oliver can’t understand what he’s saying, but the words sound so sweet. “Cuando me tocas, es diferente a todo lo que conocía antes. Te quiero. Sigo amándote más.”
Me too, he thinks. Whatever you feel, I feel it too.
Oliver wraps his arms around his waist and Leo follows his line of thinking instinctively, letting himself be lifted and twining his legs around Oliver’s hips.
Anna said not to run, she never said Oliver couldn’t lift anything, so he carries Leo up the first flight of stairs.
He presses them against the wall in the hallway, halfway to the sitting room, but as far as Oliver can go without having Leo.
Flush together like this, he can feel every inch of Leo, all of their similarities mirrored against each other, muscle for muscle.
He wants to stay like this forever, or at least until it’s time to play football with him again.
Leo turns around, palms flat to the wall, hips angled outward, like he’s offering himself, and Oliver wants to look at him, but maybe not quite as much as he wants to touch him, plastered along his back and kissing Leo’s neck.
Leo fumbles for his jeans and Oliver follows suit, slipping out of his pajamas and palming himself once, then tucking his leg between Leo’s, pushing into the hot, warm skin between his thighs.
“Ah,” Leo groans, touching himself in time with Oliver’s rhythm. “God, I don’t want to wait. Please, I want to feel you come.”
That’s about all it takes, hearing the low rumble of desire in Leo’s voice, knowing that Oliver’s pleasure makes Leo feel good.
He gasps and gives himself over to it, riding the hard, pulsating sensation until he’s spent with it.
Beneath him, Leo moves for a moment more, then whimpers and goes still.
“Every time we’ve done this,” Leo says, panting, “I thought it would be the last one. Maybe someday I’ll get used to it, but—I just kept hoping it was real.”
“It was, Leo,” Oliver tells him, squeezing one hand at his hip. He leans forward and kisses the first part of Leo he can reach: the side of his temple. “It is real.”
Everything is still so very real in the morning, miraculously so.
Leo followed him into the shower, naked and smiley, and Oliver’s been luxuriating in the steamy feeling of holding his damp body up against the tiled wall.
He ignores a persistent buzz of his phone on the countertop, dedicating all his focus to tonguing at Leo’s collarbone and feeling the resounding, gratifying tremors along his upper thigh in response.
All the congratulations and schemes for day drinking can wait until he’s done with this, the single most urgent thing in the universe.
Another ring joins the echoes, Leo’s phone lighting up as if in response to Oliver’s. Leo looks distracted from his kissing, looking over his shoulder to try to spot the screen.
“I’m doing some of my best work here,” Oliver sighs.
“They both keep ringing!” Leo protests. “We’re going to miss the party.”
“This is the party,” Oliver sighs, but releases Leo so he can tiptoe, dripping water everywhere, to the edge of the bath mat and check on the missed calls. “Huh. It’s my agent.”
“Mine too,” Leo says. “Think they want us to sign lifetime contracts?”
Oliver rolls his eyes and hits return call.
“Hello?” a harried voice answers. “Oliver? Hold on a second, let me patch in the others.”
“The others?” he asks, but the line turns to jazzy hold music. Next to him, Leo’s phone vibrates once more and he makes to pick up his own call.
“Diga?” Leo says to whoever’s on the line, while he gives Oliver one confused purse of his lips.
“I have Nina Clarke, Willem de Boer, and James Finch,” Leo’s agent says over speakerphone. “Hold for Oliver Harris and team.”
“Oliver?” the first voice says over his own phone. “We have the whole group now.”
“Hi,” he replies nervously, taking one reflexive step away from Leo so the acoustic feedback doesn’t give them away. “What can we—I, I mean—do for you?”