“That’s how it’s meant to be,” he replies. “Good on you. I know I’m missing your first couple go-rounds, but if you have questions, or you just want to talk, I’m here.” The words feel weighty and clumsy in his mouth, but he finds that he means the offer genuinely. Leo is wary, his eyebrows scrunching into two puffs. Oliver goes for broke. “I’m sorry too, while we’re at it,” he confesses. “I was upset about a lot of things the other day, not just you.”
“And you’re not upset now?”
“Not with you,” Oliver hedges.
Leo runs his index finger across his lower lip. Oliver dutifully maintains eye contact.
“Will you drive me home?” he asks. “I don’t have a car yet.”
Oliver flashes an affirmative thumbs-up. “I can do that. Let’s go.” Leo gives him an address in Marylebone, just as close to Regent’s Park as his own home, only a little ways south. The drive is short and silent—when he agreed, Oliver hadn’t considered how claustrophobic it would feel for them to cram into a sports car with only each other for company. He responsibly keeps his eyes trained directly in front of him as they glide down the outer edge of the park and then across Baker Street, before Leo directs him to a side street and a chic building that might pass for a boutique hotel. A shiny-capped doorman is holding the front door ajar for a man in a three-piece suit talking animatedly into an earpiece, displaying a polished marble lobby visible even from the car.
“You have expensive taste,” Oliver tells Leo, who blushes again.
“Give it a rest, I needed a quick lease. I’ve barely unpacked,” he replies. “I’m not fancy.” Oliver can’t really argue, what with his own almost-mansion.
“No one said that,” Oliver chides. “Not in that jacket. Expensive, maybe. Fancy, no.”
Leo’s mouth forms a moue, but jokingly—the pout doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re teasing me,” he says matter-of-factly. “Like friends do.” It lands with a wallop.
“Maybe we’re going to be friends, then,” Oliver suggests. They aren’t looking at each other, but he can feel the hot weight of Leo’s attention like a physical thing.
“I tried that already,” Leo reminds him. “Now it’s your turn.”
Oliver makes a concerted effort to turn his whole body, so that they’re facing each other over the center console the same way they did across the car park this morning.
“Fair play,” he says. “Should we shake on it?” Leo rolls his eyes and starts for the door handle, but for the second time in twenty minutes, Oliver grabs for his arm. “I mean it,” he insists, sincerely. “You were right, before. We’re teammates. No one could accuse me of being a mentor, but I’ll try that too, if you want.”
Maddeningly, Leo leans into the touch, leaving Oliver gripping the muscle of his biceps and resisting the urge to squeeze.
“No one could accuse you of anything, Harris.” Leo puts his hand on top of Oliver’s to detach it from his arm, letting his forearm flop back into his own lap. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you.” He closes the door and Oliver puts the car in gear, wondering if he’ll ever have an interaction with Leo that doesn’t leave him driving home in a fugue state afterward.
• • •
The next few days are less emotionally charged, infrequently eventful. Oliver gets his medical treatment but feels about the same, spins or swims till his mind goes blank, then freezes his arse off in the stands while everyone else does strange bonding activities. They take Sunday off and that’s as close to normal as anything’s been in weeks. Oliver shows off by making his mother a chicken korma before she brings him back down to earth when she mercilessly thrashes him at Scrabble, then lets him fall asleep on her sofa under the ancient wool afghan like he’s a teenager again.You look like your dad, more and more every day,she tells him when they’re saying good night, and it’s more than they usually talk about him, and hearing it sounds like the highest compliment. All the racking turbulence in his heart settles down to a gentler rocking motion, one that doesn’t make him nauseous.
Monday rolls around in a liminal space—the week is fresh but there’s still five more days without a match. If Oliver were healthy, he’d be restless and itching for competition; while he’s injured, he just feels marginally achy and listless. Everyone else seems to be enjoying the break, though. It’s actually quite discomfiting to have your doctor smile while they make you stretch your torn hamstring until it throbs in pain.
Inevitably, the wanton destruction of the relative peace in his life and routine comes from Willem, delivered via Sebastian. It’s downright balmy for London in January; Oliver’s vantage on the sidelines could almost be sunbathing. He’s tipping his head up to the sky and hearing the city rumble just beyond the fence line, drinking in the cloudless blue, when someone calls his name. When he comes back down to earth, Sebastian is standing above him with an air of impatience.
“Join us, Ollie. No legs required.”
He’s of the mind that nothing with no legs required is quiteworth doing, but it wasn’t phrased as a question, so he clambers to his feet over the protestations of his hamstring.
“Trust ball,” Sebastian announces to the larger gathering. Everyone is appropriately confused by that nonsense, but he continues on regardless. “Stand across from your partner, put a meter between you. Pass the ball back and forth, heads only. I want to see you maintain a rhythm.”
“There’s a twist,” Willem shouts from the edge of the pitch. Of course there fucking is. There’s a groan, in unison, from every man over the age of twenty-six. Oliver bites back his own dissent. “By the end of the exercise, I want you to be able to tell the squad something about your partner we don’t already know.” Everyone mutters apprehensively, the musty scent of mutiny lingering in the air. The manager is unperturbed and continues what must be a prepared monologue. “The game,” Willem says, undeterred, “is to hear each other over all the noise. You each could make these passes asleep and blindfolded. But forthis,you have to listen. Strive to allow your partner’s words in. Shut out other noise. Be someone they can count on. Put all of your energy into this moment, on being part of this team. Talk to each other, not to yourselves. Let’s begin.”
It’s some business-degree nonsense, Oliver can tell, better fit for primary school than the Prem.Team-building.It’s extremely undignified but intuitive enough; the squad starts to assemble themselves and Oliver tests his weight on each leg, feeling out his range of movement.
“Going to tell me all your secrets, Harris?” Finn asks, moving to stand across from Oliver and raising one eyebrow suggestively.
“You couldn’t handle them, Finny,” Oliver warns, but he throws him the ball regardless.
The drill is less exciting than Willem tried to make it—there’s not much the team doesn’t know about each other, and the only things left to tell are the pieces Oliver guards close to his heart.Every other pass, when Oliver tries to share a fun fact, Finn replies, “Duh.”
Finally, Sebastian calls them off, neither satisfied nor upset with their performance. Oliver fears they’re about to be quizzed on what they’ve learned, but he only tells them to switch the lines up and go again. When Oliver looks up from tying his shoelace, Leo is hesitant at his side, clearly having been directed there by Willem and probably also by Joe.
