“It’s fine,” Lando replies. “You weren’t to know.”
We walk over a cattle grid—at least I think that’s what they’re called—and begin making our way towards a blank expanse of plain blackness silhouettedagainst a patchwork of stars. A building. It looks like a church or a school or . . .
There’s no waythatis Lando’s house. No way. He must live in a flat within a section of that building.
The dirt path morphs into a gravel drive, and the closer we get, the more obvious it becomes that yes, this is where Lando lives.
“Holy shitballs! You’re fucking loaded.” If it wasn’t covered in horse crap, my foot would already be wedged in my mouth.
“Well, my father is.” He looks over at me and takes my hand. “I don’t bring many guys here. Actually . . .” He shakes his head. “You’re the first one.” Lando chews on his lower lip, and his eyes search mine. It’s difficult to know if he finds whatever he’s looking for. “You’re . . . okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not the type of guy I usually fuck with.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I keep my mouth shut.
“I mean that in a good way. I tend to go for guys who . . . who . . . well, they’re dicks, basically. They’re usually a lot older than me, sometimes married, sometimes ‘straight,’ and always, always selfish assholes . . . That way I don’t feel guilty when I ghost them. I get mine, they get theirs, and I never have to see them again.” Lando drops my hand and shakes his head like a dog ridding itself of water. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
“Will you ghost me? After we’ve fucked. If you still want to fuck, that is.” I hold my breath while I wait for his answer.
Again, an entire minute of silence stretches between us. “Probably. Is that a deal breaker?”
I think about it for half a second. “No.” And then, because my well of uncool could apparently be deeper than it currently is, I say, “You’ll be my first dude. I’m actually kinda nerv—”
I don’t finish my sentence before Lando is pressing his mouth to mine and urging my lips apart with his tongue.
11
Friday 2nd May 2025
Lando
Choosing Harry Ellis might have been a mistake. I may live to regret this.
I make a habit of going for hot guys. Hot guys with fat wallets and even fatter egos. Hot guys who’ve sometimes had more revolutions around the sun than my father. Hot guys who’ll turn themselves into a desperate mess just for one moment of my time, who’ll beg, who’re willing to throw everything away for a quick fuck.
And okay, Harry is hot. Not in the typical alphahole way I’m usually drawn to, but in a . . . cute, accessible way. He’s like a teddy bear—short, thick, with stressball cheeks that beg to be grandma-pinched, dimples, and I cannot stress this enough, phenomenal cakes. He’s wearing a salmon-pink T-shirt that clashes horribly with his ginger hair, and tatty Vans that are now covered in manure. He’s shy, and goofy, and easily embarrassed. He blurts out randomthings, fumbles his words, and for a professional rugby player, he’s kinda clumsy. He’s also patently inexperienced.
I want to squeeze him and stroke his hair and feed him wagyu beef and Almas caviar and venison and other pointless rich-people foods he probably would never have tried.
I also want to run, as fast and as far away as I can, before I actually start to like him as a person.
The worst part of this whole situation is that I chose Harry in advance.
Having Daisy Bosley, daughter of rugby legend Owen Bosley, as a bestie hasn’t helped. Especially when ninety-five per cent of her conversation is about rugby, and has been since she was a kid.
I’m used to watching the games with her, used to her sharing Instagram reels with me—including, one time, a thirst-trap montage of Harry. In the video, which I accidentally saved to my favourites and have zero regrets about, Harry is shown spraying water from a bottle all over his face, stretching his quads, stretching his triceps, wiping sweat from his brow with the front of his own shirt, and lining a ball up for a conversion kick. Everything’s in slow motion, and it’s frankly a work of art. The comments were all horny rugby wives and sports gays. Things like:
“I now identify as that guy’s water bottle.”
“Ladies, theys, and gays of taste, we meet again in the comments.”
“I got pregnant from watching this.”
I liked each one. Daisy had sent me the video a few months after it was initially posted. Her message to me read,“This is the kid who has beef with Matty.”
I’d replied with,“I’ll take two.”
Then I’d promptly forgotten all about him until last week, when Mathias mentioned a joke Harry had made at the celebratory dinner the Cents lads went to after their win against Leicester. The joke was about bottoming, and suddenly I was sitting up and paying attention.
There I was thinking this hot ginger koala bear of a man was straight. So then—and here’s where I cemented my poor decision-making skills—I’d spentthe next few days googling everything I could about Harry Sebastian Eugene Ellis . . .
