“Don’t!” Leo shouts back at him, shoving Oliver in turn, one hard push to his right shoulder, exertion, snot, and the trace ofa tear clogging up his face. “You just want an excuse to be mad because Ibeatyou. You’re so hot and cold with me, and it’s not fair. I thought—”
“What did you think?” Oliver asks flatly, cutting him off.
“I thought we were past all that bullshit! I thought you wanted me to do well. And that you meant it when you said we were friends.” Leo doesn’t even sound angry, but panicked, tearful. “I didn’t think we had to be against each other.”
The fight hasn’t gone out of him yet, but Oliver deflates slightly. They’re both red-faced and sweat-damp, standing in each other’s space with nowhere to hide. There’s some feeling bubbling up inside of Oliver, bigger than he can cope with, but he doesn’t know where it’s coming from or what it means. Leo’s constellations of freckles have collided together where his face is pinched up with emotion, mouth smushed into a tight line. Oliver couldn’t tear his eyes away from him if he tried. Unbidden, he reaches out, unsure if he means to push Leo away again or pull him closer, fight him or hold him. As Oliver makes contact, a voice rings out from the building behind them.
“Harris?” They both whip around and away from each other. Sebastian is approaching, crossing the grass with his swift gait, confused and displeased.
“What are you doing here?” Oliver demands.
“My line, Oliver,” Sebastian says coolly. “What on earth is going on?” His eyes are flitting between the two of them like he’s searching for clues, taking in their mussed clothes and close proximity. Oliver wants to make excuses, wants to get them both out of this conversation and out of danger, but Leo speaks first.
“Sorry, it’s my fault,” he says, sounding about one meter tall. “I was stressed about tomorrow. Oliver was trying to help.” He sounds so unconvincing it’s comical.
“I’m sure what would help is a good night’s sleep,” Sebastian replies, giving Oliver a significant look. “Why don’t you get out of here, Davito?”
Leo has no choice but to listen, looking pained, eyes flitting back almost mournfully toward Oliver as he trudges off. Oliver can’t stop him, especially with Sebastian glowering in front of him, clearly winding up for the lecture of a lifetime.
“I don’t know just what you were thinking—”
“Save it,” Oliver snaps. “Willem told me to help him, okay? I’m going home too.” He’s daring Sebastian to try to stop him, to fine him or report him, but Oliver doesn’t care. His world is sparking at the edges like it’ll burst into flame with no warning. He has to get out of here, away from whatever just happened.
• • •
Sleep is elusive. Oliver alternately kicks the sheets down and cocoons himself beneath them for hours, until he’s finally able to identify where the nagging straitjacket ofwrongwrapped tight around him is coming from, in addition to the fresh pain in his hamstring. It’s guilt, stemming from not just how he’s acted but from the increasing sense that he’s been lying to himself just as much as everyone else. Oliver’s lamented his empty bed on many an endless night, but now, sharing the mattress with the roar of his thoughts, he can’t drift off.
When he can’t take the lonely darkness anymore, he slips downstairs and starts to rummage through his backpack, where buried at the bottom underneath spare socks and deodorant is the scouting report Willem foisted on him all those weeks ago. Oliver hasn’t looked at it since.
He wrangles his DVD player to life and lets the grainy footage of Spanish La Liga matches play out while he sits on the floor directly in front of the TV. It’s cut like a series of forbiddendaydreams, the camera tracking Leo’s every move. Even when he’s only subbed in for a moment, it’s easy to believe he’s one of the most talented guys on the pitch, that the Spanish managers are wasting him, holding him back and missing out on something exquisite whenever they don’t let him play. Defenders try to get ahold of him, but Leo is too lithe—having possession doesn’t slow him down at all. He dashes past opponents and doles out assists like he’s passing out leaflets. It’s a highlight reel; Oliver knows Leo rode the bench in Valencia, then at Getafe, then Valencia again. But Oliver can see the truth of it, grainy and dreamlike on the screen: Leonardo Davies-Villanueva is brilliant, and he’s beautiful, and he’s got something in his left foot that no manager can teach.
There’s a roiling in Oliver’s stomach that’s different from anxiety and less pronounced than remorse; the longer he watches, the harder it impresses itself. Sun-kissed, freckled, bouncy-curled Leo is dancing through his field of vision and his every thought. He loathes him anew for a white-hot moment, before Oliver comes back down to earth. That isn’t it at all. He does run hot and cold with Leo. Itisn’tfair. What he’s feeling right now, what’s been building inside of himself, is beyond any rivalry or camaraderie he’s ever had with a teammate or a colleague or a friend. It’s bigger than what he gets from flirting with Conor Bishop or soliciting anonymous hookups on the other side of the world.
I’m attracted to him.The thought is fire then bile in Oliver’s gut.Iwanthim.
He’s never felt this way about someone real, someone who knows him, close enough to be a temptation and a risk. Every careful, grown-up part of Oliver wants to turn off the TV and run far away from the blast radius of this terrible, dangerous idea. The rest of him is helpless: he keeps thinking, his traitorous mind supplying an endless loop of imagery. Leo, impertinentand shirtless in an ice bath; Leo, plastered all along his side in a blustering pub; Leo, low-voiced and doe-eyed against a pillow of green grass.
“Fuck!” Oliver groans aloud, lustful and miserable. “Fucking hell.”
Tuesday, January 31, 2017: Watford at Camden
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 forThe Daily Mailto 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 turnshis 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!”
