Matchday 27
Will we be seeing you on the coach?
Oliver groans. Willem is addicted to sending ransom-note WhatsApps, asking questions that clearly have only one right answer. He just did seventy-five minutes of core-strengthening exercises and he’s too sweaty to play mind games.
I’d be happy to come to the match if you’d like, boss,he writes back, as he knows he’s meant to. There hasn’t been a match since Liverpool—just the long days of cross-training and watching Leo out of the corner of his eye, feeling strangely bashful whenever anyone on the squad starts dancing—but the slate of competition is picking up again.
Wonderful. Wheels up at 11:30.
It takes just under three hours to get from London to the Midlands, but that doesn’t stop them all from rolling up to the team coach packed as if they’re being shipped off to war indefinitely. Every single luxury neck pillow and portable gaming system on the market are represented. Oliver distributes the requisite hand clasps and makes his way toward the back of the coach, climbing over Joe to take his spot by the window. Last time he was at Mum’s flat, Oliver filched a weathered copy ofPride and Prejudice—he has to read every line of dialogue twice to comprehend it, eventhoughthey’re speaking English,but he’s determined to make it through, if only so he can tell Maggie that he did and feel smug about it. Besides, it’s kind of romantic, all the old-fashioned little gestures adding up until they turn into love.
Thirty minutes outside the city, Leo flops into the open row in front of them, then climbs up to sit on his knees and sticks his face between the headrests.Like this,Oliver remembers, for the millionth time.
“Whatcha doing?” Leo asks. Joe has his eyes closed and his earbuds in; it’s a question for Oliver.
“It’s a book, mate,” Oliver says. “There are words on the paper. If you read them in sequence, it tells a story.”
Leo is unfazed by this. It’s a great relief to Oliver that his horrible crush hasn’t stopped him from taking the absolute piss out of Leo at every opportunity, and that Leo seems to actually kind of like it now.
“Whoa, dude,” Leo replies, all American stoner. “Who’s pride and who’s prejudice?” Oliver rolls his eyes and doesn’t reply, trying to focus on a passage about the Bennets meeting Bingley at a ball—the dancing kind, not footy. He gets about ten words further before Leo interrupts again, waving his hand in front of the page and blocking it. “I never pegged you for a literary type, if I’m honest,” he says.
“We all left school at sixteen and now we get hit in the head with balls for a living,” Oliver snipes back. “Forgive me for trying to develop some sort of an intellectual life while my brain cell count is still normal. Besides, Harris men have been peddling books for generations. We weren’t all raised by bankers.”
Leo rolls his eyes, but when Joe goes back a few rows to talk about keeper things with Nick, Leo inserts himself into the vacant seat and starts to read over his shoulder. He’s too quick, though, and keeps trying to turn the page before Oliver finishes. Eventually, Leo gives up, and before they’re in West Bromwich,his head has lolled onto Oliver’s shoulder and he’s dozing, making snuffling noises into the collar of his sweater. Oliver sits stock-still, staring at the same paragraph, afraid to move, drinking in Leo’s warm breath as it washes over his collarbone and spreads all down his body.
• • •
The match isawful,simply out-of-this-world embarrassing. Oliver can take it against Chelsea and the like—he’s lost his fair share of matches, but rolling over and showing their bellies to West Brom (West Brom!) is a bridge too far. He knows there’s going to be footage of him in the stands shouting and looking murderous, which will be bad for morale and makes him feel like a bit of a wanker, but he couldn’t help it. They were just so bad, slow and bumbling. Even Leo and Finn, running faster than Oliver ever could, even if he was healthy, were chasing shadows for an hour and a half.
While he’s winding his way through the unfamiliar concrete labyrinth of the stadium, aiming for the visitors’ locker room, he sees Terence Morgan, of all people, waiting for the elevator in a navy waistcoat and tapping away at his phone.
“Hey, gaffer,” Oliver says to England’s National Team manager, his other, non-Willem boss. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Terry smiles in that paternal way he has, neat mustache crinkling, as if he’d known precisely when and where he’d be running into you but is chuffed it worked out anyway.
“Oliver Harris, there he is. You better be rehabbing like you’ve not ever rehabbed before, mate. They’re missing you—so am I.”
Oliver expects to be pleased at the praise, and on some level he is, but mostly he wishes Camden would play the way he knows they could, champions of some alternate-reality Premier League.
“Ah, you know how it is. Just when you think you can’t take itanymore, you turn around and win one that changes the rest of the season,” Oliver says, trying to mean it. Terry reaches over and taps him on the biceps companionably, then the elevator finally dings and they go their separate ways.
The mood in the dressing room is bleak and stale. Charles’s jaw is so tight it might actually snap; Joe is hiding with a towel over his head. Willem sits on the edge of a table by a whiteboard, flicking through his leather notebook with pursed lips. Oliver moves to perch on the wooden ledge sticking out from Woodsy’s locker and tries to be invisible. After a spell, Willem snaps his notebook closed.If he can talk us out of this one,Oliver thinks,maybe he is brilliant.
“You were rubbish, gentlemen” is what their manager says instead. A low snort rattles through the room. “It happens sometimes. That’s what makes the wins special. Unfortunately, we’ve had more than our fair share of it going around recently. It’s not indicative of the talent in this room, which makes it worse. I don’t feel entitled to any victories—I know we have to earn them. But I think we’re capable of much better than where the league table says we belong. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think so.” Oliver looks down at his feet, thinking about the buzzing sound an MRI machine makes and how much money Camden would get for selling him. “The blame falls partly on me. Clearly there’s something I haven’t been able to tap into,” Willem continues, and God, he seems tired. “Some of you will go away for the international break, and I wish you luck with your countries. The rest of you will be working your absolute hardest in training. We have barely sixty days left in the season. Get your heads right.”
He stands to leave; Oliver has the strange urge to clap or to cheer, anything to break the awful, resigned silence. Sebastian follows him, stopping by Leo’s locker and pointing toward thedoor. Then it hits him:Oh. That’s why Terry’s here. Leo is going to get called up to play for England.
His pride doesn’t feel wounded—honestly, a midwinter set of friendlies isn’t much to envy. And as he mulls it over, the idea of Leo playing for England as well as Camden, standing next to him in the only other kit that matters, becomes tempting. Oliver wonders if he’ll say yes. Making it as a professional footballer is one kind of pipe dream; being selected to represent a national team is something else entirely. His agent told him once that fewer than ten percent of players with full-time professional contracts ever wear their country’s kit—he said it so Oliver would understand the magnitude of what was being offered to him. Oliver wants Leo to have that honor, too, to know what it feels like to look at your name on that shirt. Then he wonders if he might be waiting for a call from Spain instead? Once you play for any international team at the senior level, that’s it, for life—forget what your passports say. To play for England, or to choose not to, would be a very public declaration of loyalties.
When Leo slinks back into the room several minutes later, gobsmacked, Oliver makes a beeline down the row of lockers and grabs him by the elbow.
“What did you say?” Oliver asks, desperate to know.
“Oi, wizard!” Leo whispers back, eyebrows up in his hairline. “How on earth do you already know? Did he ask for your blessing?”
“Educated guess,” Oliver replies. “Stop dodging.”
Leo huffs a laugh and swats at him. “Give us a minute to think. It’s a big decision.”
