“Oh, leave him be,” Joe says, having the time of his life. “Ollie’s married to Camden. He’s just being faithful.”
“Well, the least Camden could do is give him a free pass while he’s injured,” Ji-Hoon says fairly. The four of them keep up the good-natured bickering, Oliver’s unforgivable lack of sexual follow-through mostly forgotten, but he has a strange twinge of nerves in his stomach that’s from something other than the late-night coffee. It feels off to him that Leo had observed the whole interaction silently, so very out of character for him, almost judgmental.
“Sorry, mate,” Oliver says to Leo as they wind their way back to the restaurant entrance. “The night got away from us. I hope you enjoyed the salad, at least.”
“More the merrier,” Leo says, smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I still think you owe me one, though.”
• • •
Regent Road has a cloud of forbidding air settled over it as the fans trickle in before the match against Hull City. Oliver doesn’t blame them: they’ve not exactly been on a streak of form that inspires confidence. As he hangs his coat in the team box, James Finch beckons him over. It’s the first Oliver’s seen of him since Willem told him about the conditions of his hiring, and it makes Oliver feel almost violent to see the big boss now, holding court with his model of a wife and their son in a full kit, knowing he’d ax them all without a second thought.
“Oliver!” Finch says companionably, smiling as if they’re the best of chums. “There’s a good lad. Have you met Jenny? And Junior?”
“I’ve had the pleasure, yes.” Oliver fashions his face into a smile and crouches down to the kid’s level, mostly to avoid getting sucked deeper into the conversation. “When will we see you out there, huh, Jamie?”
“Not soon enough!” Finch booms on his behalf. “And when will we getyouback, Harris? I must say, they look like they’re missing you.” It’s somehow both a compliment and a threat.
“Just as soon as they let me, boss,” he promises as he extricates himself, making a beeline for his seat.
He’s getting sick of the sidelines—he’sbeensick of them, but now more than ever. By every metric, Camden should be ready to smash Hull City. The beauty and the blasphemy of football, though, is that it doesn’t care about the metrics. Every statistic evaporates over the green of the pitch, and it’s anyone’s game to lose or to win, if they’re only strong enough to run it down and take it. Camden isn’t strong enough. Frankly, they look a bit shit. Oliver’s teeth are achy from grinding them when he holds back a curse.
The first half is muddy and unlucky, full of bad bounces,overhit shots, and underhit passes. Willem motions for Leo to come in right when play resumes, along with Noah. The two of them come out sprinting, changing the pace of play completely.That’s it,Oliver thinks, watching Leo shove back when one of the defenders grabs for his shirt. He keeps playing scrappy, skirting the edge of nasty. Beckett used to always say that football isn’t a gentleman’s game, it’s for artists and ruffians, and all the better if you can play at both. Leo certainly can; it pays off in the dying stages of the match. Anthony slides in hard to keep one of Hull City’s forwards out of Joe’s box, and Woodsy chases down the loose ball, hoofing it forward in Leo’s general direction. That’s enough to be going on with; Leo takes off after it, whacking through a smear of opposing kits and bodying his way into the penalty box. He pokes a shot with his weak foot, sending the ball right and the keeper to the left, and there it is, right in the back of the net.
“Go on, then!” Oliver roars, jumping to his feet and clapping, even smacking a high five to James Junior’s little palm. “Get after it, Davito!”
Down on the field, Leo runs toward the home dugout, waving madly up toward the stands.
“There we are,” Finch says at the referee’s whistle, like he had anything to do with it. “Look at him go! I knew I kept him around for a reason. I tell you, Harris, it’ll be quite a nice return on investment with you two in midfield. I didn’t pay a pound for either one of you!”
Oliver is pleased enough to shrug good-naturedly in reply. He doesn’t sit back down, sliding his way out of the row and back toward the box so he can make his way down to the dressing room.
He’s surprised the whole stadium isn’t shaking from the cacophony downstairs, where the lads are having the time of theirlives. You should never take for granted how a win feels, even a narrow one. Even one you didn’t play in. Oliver accepts the smelly hugs and fist bumps, gives Willem his best respectful nod, and weaves his way through the revelry over to Leo and claps him on the shoulder.
“Hey, big man,” he says. “Welcome home.”
“Hi” is all Leo says back, beaming ear to ear, sweaty and glowing.
“How’d it feel? Like you imagined?”
“It was uglier than I thought it would be. But it was perfect.”
“You just keep at it, you’ll get your wonder goal,” Oliver tells him. Before he can think better of it, he ruffles Leo’s hair, mussing the curls even further. Leo doesn’t shake him off, still smiling, warm and damp under the palm of his hand.
“Are we going out, then?” Georgie, the idiot, asks the room at large, which currently includes Willem. Oliver thinks it’s a sign of great maturity that he slips out before the bloodbath rather than hanging around to watch and laugh.
• • •
The rest of the month is a strange blip in the league schedule, a listless ten days without matches. Oliver always forgets how much time is structured around those ninety minutes until he feels lost in their absence. He’s lost in something else, too, this strange hunger that gnaws in his gut every time he looks at Leo, an insatiable feeling he has no idea how to quiet.
There’s a clip on the club’s Instagram, filling in for the lack of match content with clips from training, the squad goofing off between drills. Oliver was there when it was filmed, tossing medicine balls just a few yards over, but he can’t stop pulling up the video on his phone anyway, helplessly charmed by it. On his phone’s screen, Leo sings into an orange plastic cone, the kindthat Sebastian marks the practice with, acting like it’s a megaphone. Every time one of their teammates takes their turn at shooting practice, Leo picks a tune for them and shrieks it terribly.
“Banshee! Harpy!” Georgie shouts from out of frame.
“He’s incorrigible,” Noah whispers to the camera, ducking his face in front of the viewfinder, on his way back to join the back of the line.
“Work work work work work work,” Leo trills, undeterred. “Shoot your shot, Georgito!” The camera zooms, capturing the glint in Leo’s eyes and the bouncy, shining swoops of his hair. Exertion looks good on him. The tired sheen of a difficult training session is missing, leaving only the sweet, heady endorphins showing on his face. Oliver rewinds the clip over and over, watching Leo smile, watching him bop up and down to an inaudible beat, watching him in his element, teasing and laughing until it’s his turn to shoot, still smiling as he kicks the ball hard and high, sailing into the goal with such force it nearly takes off the ceiling of netting. Maybe it’s the way he dances or the way he plays football or the way he looks like he belongs there—it’s certainly not his singing voice—but Oliver is intoxicated. He watches one more time before bed, then dreams about it for good measure.
You’re expected at 8!Nina has texted buoyantly, the next morning.See you then!
