“Oh, I want—” Leo said, or started to say, thumbing over Oliver’s jawline; then, as if all at once, the sun sank fully and the floodlights kicked on, reality coming with it; they’d pushedapart like they half-expected Sebastian to appear again and catch them at it, saying quick goodbyes and taking off before it became unacceptably late to be out the night before a match. When they’d parted in the stairwell, though, Leo for the door and Oliver for the showers, their fingertips met and brushed in a tiny acknowledgment, and in that touch Oliver felt all his worries assuaged, safe in some unspoken confirmation of their camaraderie and friendship and something else, something new and bigger than either of them.
“See you tomorrow, then?” Leo had called from the doorway, half of him already in the hall.
“I’ll be wearing green,” Oliver said back, privately pleased with how deadpan it sounded, even over the roar in his eardrums and the rapid thrum of his pulse.
• • •
So, somehow, he’d left the Crossing and time enough passed that now it’s Sunday and Oliver is in the dressing room tightening his laces so they can go off and play Manchester United. Everything feels like background noise until he’s warming up pitchside, Regent Road refusing to be outdone by even the handsomest of distractions. Even when said distraction is ten feet away, prettier than a Christmas present, wrapped up in Camden colors and stretching, low and lithe, with Ahmed. Oliver gets to play with him today, with nothing to come between them, only the ball and the goal and eleven red shirts. He’s the luckiest man south of Edinburgh. Leo comes up behind him and snags him by both shoulders on their way back to the tunnel, shaking him slightly.
“Step lightly, Harris,” Leo warns, gripping him tight. “Slippery, innit.”
Oliver allows himself to be led, marching soldierly to their places in line. When they pass Willem, their coach gives them both a strange look, the kind that suggests he suspects he’s been dupedbut isn’t altogether displeased with the result. Oliver goes mental for a second imagining the manager’s reaction to learning exactly how much relationship-mending his prize midfielders have engaged in recently.
The Red Devils don’t seem to care for the great Harris–Davies-Villanueva reconciliation; however, nor are they bothered by Georgie opening the scoring after fifteen minutes. For a team supposedly in even worse shambles than Camden, they aren’t going quietly, and they score twice to prove it. At halftime they all brace for shouting or for the slant of reproach in de Boer’s eyebrows, but Willem bounds into the changing room after them with the energy of a much younger man.
“Only the scoreline counts,” he tells them. “But I don’t expect it to stay as it is. We’re pressing high and they don’t have the energy to hold it off. Play against yourselves now, gentlemen. Do not let up, trust that the opportunity will come, and for God’s sakes”—he points accusingly, but not unkindly, at the clump of strikers—“put your shots on target. The energy is fantastic out there. Don’t you know how lucky we are? Give the fans what they’re cheering for.”
As lectures go, it’s remarkably effective. They listen to Willem, keeping up the pressure even when it doesn’t pay off at first, and after twenty minutes Camden finally cracks the defense. Leo and Matty are exchanging lateral passes in their own half of the pitch, unthreatening as you like, when Leo takes off galloping and is almost into the opposing penalty box before anyone sees him coming. He drops a neat little pass to Emmanuel, who has a look at goal, all the United players scrambling for a block, before outwitting the lot of them and sending it across to Trevor, who buries it one touch, no problem. Tie fucking game.
Oliver remembers what Willem said when they played another team from Manchester and had a point to show for it. That’s not the result they need, nor the one they should want.Oliver doesn’t want to draw. He said it the day he came back from injury, in that insipid press conference: there’s not much left to this season, but he isn’t counting Camden out. He wants to win. That’s what he’s thinking about, half-formed ideas all he can afford while this is still underway, but he clings to them like a talisman when they get into stoppage time and he receives the ball from Garcia. Oliver sidesteps the man marking him and keeps possession, nothing to sneeze at, thank you, and keeps on running. He knows that Leo is with him, able to keep up with Oliver’s thoughts and his pace. He trusts in it, all the way to the center backs, who converge on him, but not before he slips the ball away to Leo. He’s set the other man free and clear, he knows, but he keeps up a sprint in case of a deflection. To his surprise, the ball returns to his own feet, making Oliver the one unmarked in front of the goal. On instinct more than strategy, he takes a shot with his first touch, then there’s thatwhooshing sound, the one that only happens when the ball hits the netting and the world explodes.
Suddenly he’s looking up at the sky rather than toward the keeper, catapulted horizontally from the change in velocity after trying to stop his body from running. It only takes a second for Leo to materialize above him, grinning like a madman, hair sticking in every direction out of his headband. Oliver takes his hand gladly, staggering upright and hugging him tightly—only briefly, but hard enough to make it count.
“You dunce,” Oliver says, voice smushed into a nest of curls. “That one was supposed to be for you.”
“Owed you one,” Leo insists.
Distantly, the referee is bleating a sharp whistle and the United squad disperses listlessly, muttering accusations, while the rest of Camden’s players run to join them. Oliver keeps one arm thrown casually over Leo’s shoulders as they receive them, gathering in a great tangle of an embrace.
Above them in the stands, the throng of the crowd is singing, belting out a footy rendition of The Beatles in two choruses, conducted by a balding, brilliantly mustachioed fan in the front row.
“Haaaaarris, yeah that’s our lad. Took a bad score and made it better,” one half bellows, before the other kicks in.
“Na, na, na, nananana, nananana, HARRIS!”
All of Regent Road is shaking with it, thousands of people jumping in unison, all the gruff tone-deaf voices blending into something primal and operatic. Oliver is no stranger to songs in the stands, both as insults and as praise, home and away, but he’s struck dumb by it anyway, the near-religious feeling of a crowd of people doing something so big. He could win a hundred more matches and not feel like he deserves this, the devotion and the fervor filling up the Camden air. This is what makes him who he is, this place and the great, booming sound of it. One hundred years from now, Camden will probably be a single giant shopping center owned by someone who’s never been to London, but if the fans keep on singing, Oliver is certain he could find his way home.
“The Beatles supported Liverpool,” Oliver says manfully, but he’s scrubbing at his cheekbone to wipe away the unexpected flood of tears.
“Not today they don’t,” Anthony tells him firmly as they start the journey toward Willem waiting by the bench. “Up the Roses!”
There’s an additional round of hugs when they get to the substitutes, everyone coming to meet them at the touchline.
“Arsenal lost too,” Carda shouts, waving someone’s phone delightedly. “We’re up to fourth!”
Fourth. That magic number where Willem doesn’t get fired and Oliver doesn’t get sent packing. It’s not first, but it might as well be for how good it feels to get there. Sebastian goes to shake his hand en route back to the locker room, but Oliver can’t dobusiness as usual, not when he’s so happy, so he goes in for a hug, lifting the trainer right off the ground in celebration and maybe in a long-overdue apology.
“Well done,” Sebastian wheezes once he’s been set back down, gobsmacked. Oliver feels a little sheepish, but it gets washed away immediately when he’s pulled into the next tide of celebrations.
• • •
Twenty minutes later, he gets caught up in something else entirely. Leo is fresh out of the shower, half-dressed, face scrubbed pink and clean, and when he reaches up to towel his head, the swooping arc of his pelvis disappearing into his waistband is just too much for Oliver to bear. He has to be alone with him or his heart will give out. When he approaches, Leo grins wolfishly, showing all his teeth.
“Na, na, na, nananana,” he trills up at Oliver, bobbing his head amiably.
“Yeah, yeah,” Oliver says, willing to forgive any amount of ribbing under the present circumstances, if he can only get to the point. “Give you a ride?”
He very purposely does not say “ride home.” Leo seems to note the phrasing of this as well, shocked, and then pleased, and then anxious in three quick blinks.
