“Sure I am. S’my job to win,” Oliver says. He feels a little woozy, so close to Leo without any anger or jealousy behind it. He wants to win at something else, something impermissible. There’s not enough oxygen in the cramped room and it’s running out faster the more his breathing quickens. Leo is looking at him strangely, like he’s waiting for him to say something or do something. He’s in Oliver’s face now that he’s crouched, much closer to him than even the close quarters necessitate. Oliver must be imagining how charged the air feels, because it’s too much like what he’s been dreaming about these last few days. There’s a sheer drop off a sharp cliff and a wide gulf spanning between whatever it is Leo’s expecting and all the thoughts lining up in Oliver’s head.I could teach him how to win,he thinks.I could teach him a whole lot, if only he wanted to learn.He wants toget it right, whatever it is he’s going to say, but before the words come to him, someone hollers in the distance and Leo claps one hand over Oliver’s mouth, hushing them both.
“Harris! Davito!” Anthony is calling. “Stop gloating, you bastards! You’ve won!”
“See?” Oliver says, vindicated and muffled against Leo’s open palm. “Told you so.”
Leo rises and sticks out his other hand to help Oliver up. He’s still imagining things, he’s sure, because it feels like they stand there for a long moment; Oliver is the one to step away first.
Back at his locker, when the real training is over and he’s been stretched and observed and poked at by the physios with no concern about the new source of pain in his hamstring, Oliver can’t shake the happy idiocy that comes after an adrenaline rush.
“What’s gotten into you?” Joe asks, sidling up to him with a strange look on his face. “Quiet and smiling? Are you having a stroke?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Joseph.” He sounds drunk. He feels a little drunk, truthfully, experiencing a sense of relief like it came in a shot glass. “I’m celebrating. I won hide-and-seek day,” Oliver insists. Leo picks that moment to join them both and ask if Oliver will drive him home.
“Ah,” Joe replies, enlightenment dawning. “And you won with your new friend.”
“Who, me?” Leo asks, the corners of his mouth perking up.
“Hush,” Oliver says to both of them, all holier-than-thou. “I’m a very happy and friendly person, today being no exception. It is not breaking news when I’m having a laugh.” Joe doesn’t even pretend not to smirk, but Leo, mindful of their tentative reunion, fights to keep his face mostly neutral.
Oliver can see Sebastian walking toward their group of three, so he quickly escorts them out the door before anyone else cansay something to embarrass him, into the relative safety of commuting, where the only risk is his own big mouth and London’s traffic.
“It absolutely is news when you’re having a laugh, in case you were wondering,” Leo tells him when they pull up in front of his apartment building, idling on the cobblestones.
“Cheers. I’ll keep that in mind,” Oliver shoves him lightly, more to get him out of the car than for what he said, and maybe, a little bit, for the chance to touch him again.
Leo departs but turns back after one step and motions at the window. When Oliver rolls it down for him, Leo sticks his head back in. The air smells crisp and wintry, all the streetlights flickering to life and glistening against the slight dampness that cloaks everything from November to March.It’s a perfect evening,Oliver thinks.
“If you want to come in early on Thursday,” Leo says, running his fingers through his wind-rustled, post-training hair. His cheeks are already pink with cold. “I’d swim some laps with you. So you have company.”
“You think you can behave yourself?” Oliver asks. “Won’t try to drown me or nothing? It went badly the first time we had a swim together, you’ll recall.”
“That had much more to do with you than it did with me, if we’re being fair about it.” Leo rolls his eyes. Oliver has no retort for that, because Leo is unfortunately absolutely correct. “Come on, Ollie. I miss the beach. Don’t deny me my pool time.”
“Poor Davito. Can’t have you going as pale as me, you’re right. But I’m not waking up early. We’ll do it after your training session, yeah?”
“Whatever you like,” says Leo—still very tan, still very handsome—as he smiles in the pleased, half-smug manner of someone who’s recently gotten their way. It looks good on him, but Oliver suspects most everything does.
• • •
“Okay, explain this to me, because I’m lost,” Maggie says after she drains the last sip of her drink, fairly slamming it back down onto the tablecloth. Oliver reaches for the red wine they’re sharing, sloshing the glasses full again and licking a stray drop off his wrist.
“What’s there to explain?” he asks tipsily, stretching over the restaurant booth until his back cracks. Wine makes him feel loose and sleepy, a bottle of basking in the sun after an afternoon nap on the beach. The day’s easy, pleased mood has carried through the night and magnified with time, until he’s sloppy and giggly with it.
“A lot!” Maggie whisper-shrieks, pointing an accusing, ring-adorned finger at him. “You hate the usurper, you reluctantly mentor the newcomer, you bond with your teammate, you fight with your friend, you have a crush, and now…what?” As she speaks, she counts the list out on her hand until she’s waving an open palm in front of him. “What comes next, Ollie?”
“Nothing comes next, Mags,” he says, swirling his drink around to avoid eye contact. “I had a shit end to last year, then I didn’t know where I stood with the team, with Willem and his plans. It took a bit of trial and error, and now I do know. Leo and I get along after all. We’ll probably fit well together on the pitch too. End of story.”
“I don’t believe that.” Maggie shakes her fringe out of her eyes and grabs for his hands, jerking him forward so he has no choice but to look at her. She sweeps the dining room with a glance, checking to see if they’re alone enough, then continues. “Are you really going to just keep pretending nothing is going on? Football as usual, just a bunch of straight teammates having normal, straight feelings for each other?”
They’re alone, but the word “pretend” in front of “straight”still makes Oliver wince, popping the balloon of the evening’s atmosphere.
“Be quiet,” he hisses, then continues in a whisper. The soft, sweet wine feelings have evaporated. “I have to do football as usual, don’t you get it? I wouldn’t last one second in the changing room ifanyoneknew. The press would crucify me, I would never play again, and my life would be over. No one’s ever done this, not at my level, and even anyone who wasn’t any good still had their whole lives fucked up when they tried. It’s not, like, fun for me to lie about this, Maggie—it kills me. But I have to. People already call me names, and they don’t even know. What would they do if they did?”
Her beautiful face falls. She slides across the bench seat and winds her arms around his neck. He tucks his chin over her head: easy, familiar motions.
“You know something?” Maggie says, from the crook of his shoulder. “When you told me, when youdumped me,actually, I wasn’t even sad for myself. I was the one being broken up with, but all I could think was about how lonely you would be.”
“I’m not lonely.”
