“Of course I am!” The words fall out of Oliver’s mouth before he even thinks them. He’ssupposedto be thinking about training; all the thoughts about Leo are the unwanted aberrations. “You jumped me and then full tilt ran out of my house like a burglar. I have to make sure, don’t I?”
“Sorry, Harris,” Leo says, in a tough-guy kind of voice—last-name basis now, two people who have never had their tongues in each other’s mouths. “I never thought it would get that far.”
“Just how far did you think it would fucking get?” Oliver demands. Now they’re facing each other again and Leo has an ironic almost-smile on his face, both baffled and baffling in equal measure.
“I mean, consciously? Nowhere at all,” Leo tells him. His eyes flutter closed as he makes a rough, exhausted noise. “Stupid Ahmed, he was right: it’s so easy with women. I’ve never had to even think about it. That’s simpler, but it doesn’t mean I’ve not always fancied blokes too. Celebrity crushes, like. Which is more or less what you were to me, even in the academy, really, until a couple months ago.” He shakes his head at himself, tugging at his hair with one hand. “I didn’t ever think about acting on it, obviously. And I’ve never,everlooked at any teammates. But I just kept thinking maybe you wanted me to. To look at you.”
Oliver is guilty as charged. Of course he wanted him to look. He was preening for it, for Leo’s friendship and affection and attention, since the very first day. Even when Oliver played at antagonism, he wanted the full weight of Leo’s focus, wanted tobe at the center of his gaze, any direction he looked. All year, he’s wanted Leo to think of Camden, of London, of England, in terms of Oliver. He still wants that, even as any possibility of it recedes from view. Oliver forces the grown-up words out of his mouth, rather than the ones he wants.
“I should never have put you in that position,” Oliver says. “I’m older. Supposed to be wiser. I wassupposedto help you. That’s what I was trying to say, when I told you I was being careful. We’re teammates. We have to play together. Whatever I want is less important than that.”
“Whatever you want?” Oliver shakes his head, pushing the hopefulness in Leo’s tone right out of his mind. If he clenches his jaw hard enough, he might feel nothing at all. “Okay, I get it,” Leo says, voice hollow. “It was my idea anyway. I misread things.”
“We don’t have to talk about it ever again,” Oliver says, like he wasn’t the one who brought it up, like he didn’tabsolutelyask for it, in a thousand ways, meaning each of them entirely. Leo hasn’t misread fuck all. “We can just go to training tomorrow and that will be that.”
Oliver turns to go; he’s said his piece and when he closes the door behind him it will be done with forever. Leo follows him out. He’s on him before Oliver quite realizes what’s about to happen.God,does Leo move quick when he’s going in for a kiss. It’s stunning that he knows what Leo’s like when he’s kissing. This one is shorter, one firm press and two more little ones peppered to the sides of his mouth, then the two of them are apart again, wide-eyed on the threshold.
“Sorry, I—I just wanted to know if it would feel the same a second time,” Leo whispers. Oliver wants to reach for him, consequences be damned—if he could just get into his arms again, it might all make sense, but the space between them is thick, impassable once more. He wonders what the verdict is, thoughhe can’t seem to make his voice work so he can ask. For what it’s worth, it felt about the same to him: so good it’s obliterating.
Oliver takes one step backward, completely into the hallway. Leo’s mouth twists but he doesn’t say a word. Their eyes stay locked as Leo steps back too and releases the door, looking at each other all the way until it shuts between them. They’ve got training tomorrow: it’s time for him to go home.
• • •
Oliver is finally taking the pitch. It’s laid out before him, calling him home—it’s better than last week, when he was testing his limits alone and finding them lower than he wanted. Now he’s on display, in the sort of way that makes him feel powerful instead of scrutinized. He’s shoulder to shoulder with Joe, jogging past Finn and Trevor, on and on until the rest of the world gives way to a sea of green.
He knows Leo is there too. Oliver can see him climbing up the stairs and starting his stretches from the periphery of his vision. But if he keeps him at the edges, it’s almost normal, almost as if nothing ever happened between them at all.Almost.
Willem is sideline-surveilling, tongue poking at his upper lip, head nodding in time with their strides. He waves one of the equipment managers over to a ball bag and then the whole squad is only visible through a hailstorm of passes.
Ahmed wallops one too hard, ball sailing high and fast. It’s heading out of reach, in the vague direction of poor Sebastian’s ballsack, until Oliver gets his legs under him and two paces free of the group, reveling in the extension he can flex out of his left hamstring. He reaches out and is rewarded with the sexiest contact, nestling the ball in the cradle of his ankle and bringing it down to earth with incredible gentleness. It only took a second, but everyone clocked it anyway. Now they’re all hurrahing andshouting, enveloping him in a circle and gleefully whacking Oliver on the back in celebration.
Everyone whoops and shouts: Harris is back,oh baby,let’s fuckinggo. Harris is back, Harris is back. The city of London is reverberating with it, from Enfield all the way down to Croydon. His own name has rarely sounded so sweet in other people’s mouths. Oliver knows it was good—and when he sneaks a glance, he can see that Leo does too.
The rest of the session is less eventful, but it is illuminating. There’s only so much you can gather from observation alone. You really get the measure of a man once you’re playing with him. Oliver remembers the night of training after hours, when he felt Leo’s joy and strength fitting their edges perfectly around his own. There’s more to learn in a scrappy match or difficult drill when there’s someone actively trying to stop you. Oliver gets frustrated on the pitch all the time, but it builds like water coming to a boil until it bursts out of him when he’s alone, a scream into a towel or a thrown water bottle on the sidelines. Leo, though: he’s never impolite, but he will groan or curse when he fucks up, jogging it off before he gets back in line to run the drill again. He’s got a self-awareness of his level of play that Oliver certainly didn’t have three years ago and an ability to self-express Oliver lacks even now. It’s infuriating and it’s enviable, though Leo probably learned it from riding the bench and wanting more. Once Oliver starts paying attention to him, it’s nigh-impossible to look away. Willem had it right from the jump, he wasn’t talking any shit: Leo is sensational and he’s sensational for Camden. He fits into the midfield like a glove and even though Oliver can’t look him in the eye, he can find Leo with every pass. There’s so much potential simmering below the surface, Oliver half-expects Camden Crossing to be ripped in two by an earthquake.
After he blows the closing whistle, Willem lobs a water bottle at Oliver, who splashes it gratefully over his sweaty head. The manager approaches once Oliver is done shaking the water out of his hair and offers his hand to shake.
“Like I never left, hey?” Oliver says, casting the rod to fish for a compliment. Willem obliges with a smile up to his eyes and pumps their arms one more time.
“Better, even. Now we know what we were missing.”
“Ah, gaffer,” Oliver demurs, even as he’s thrilled down to his toes. “You’ll make me blush.”
“You won’t object to an appearance at the presser?” Willem asks in that way he has—a question answering itself.
Oliver nods; why not? Once he settles himself into the rigid podium chair, he remembers why not. Press conferences are intolerable: the kind of dick-measuring contests where he’s never once felt like he came out on top, even if he’s scored three times. Oliver clears his throat uselessly into the microphone and looks out into the sea of reporters, every forehead glistening under the fluorescents, every iPhone held in his direction and recording.
“Mr. Harris,” someone asks—the older reporter from theEvening Standard,he thinks. “To the casual observer, it might seem that the team’s place in the table belies the talent on the pitch. Other clubs certainly take fixtures at Regent Road quite seriously, but the upper middle of the table seems to be the—pardon me—standardfor Camden. Do you think your return might be some kind of catalyst for the rest of the season?”
Oliver swallows every foul word he knows and shrugs, pretending none of this ever occurred to him before.
“A catalyst? Truthfully, you never want to need a turning point,” he begins, carefully. “But I do think you’re right that we could be quite a lot better. The team is hungry, you can feel that in the room. There’s a lot to get out of this season yet. I want towin every match, I want to play my best football. I’ve spent the last couple of months just raring to go, to get back out there and see what we can do.”
“But do you think results will improve now that you’re healthy?” the reporter presses.
All the soundbites Oliver knows how to say are dust in his mouth.
“Mate, if I didn’t think that, I’d have no business having this job. But every other player in this league thinks so too, to a man. Ask them and they’ll tell you—” He points toward the locker room where his teammates are, challenging. “Every time any of us gets on the pitch, we think we could make all the difference. What matters is who’s actually right, on the day.”
