This, for some reason, is the thing that rankles. Oliver’s not brave about anything. What does Leo know about it? They barely know each other. They’re not friends.
“Anyway, your dad was, like, what?” Oliver asks. Leo seems appropriately chastened by the change in subject.
“Oh, when you fell, he said that it might finally be my lucky day. I was so pissed at him—I mean, you were hurt and nobody knew how bad it was. But I guess he was right, in a way? I’ve been waiting and waiting, wondering if I might get a real shot here. I hoped, maybe, when Willem arrived, but you know, that came and went. Then he rings me, all serious, telling me it’s time to move back to London. You’ll have to tell me how I’m doing, because I’ve been bricking it.”
Leo shrugs, dusting off those lingering nerves, and grins at Oliver.
Where to even begin? The happily hyphenated Davies-Villanueva clanjajaja-ing it up at Oliver’s suffering? Leo praying for some long-awaited big break, like it’s his to lose and not to earn? Oliver wonders, distantly, how much trouble he might be in if he took Leo out to the practice grounds and stomped right on his ankle. He needs to get out of here.
“I’m going to change,” Oliver says, even as he’s already halfway up and toward the door.
“Do you want to watch somewhere else?” Leo queries, somewhat meekly.
Oliver doesn’t reply, only lets the silence speak for him, but ten minutes later when he’s sitting in the canteen with a second coffee and a scrambled egg on toast, right ahead of kickoff, Leo reappears. A few admin staff, an academy kid, and Marcos, who didn’t make the match squad, are all sitting at other tables, but Leo takes the seat next to Oliver without a word, both of them clad in matching black joggers and team hoodies—Leo’s are creased with newness, never worn before.
They watch Finn kick it off to Trevor, who swiftly loses possession to Bournemouth, one of their big hulking strikers playing aggressively from the jump.
Silence isn’t awkward during a football match. Sometimes, Oliver yells along with the best of them, cursing the ref and the opponents and God himself, but when he’s really watching, with his head and not just his heart, he’s quiet. He observes the footwork, picks out the upcoming passes before they happen, and because he’s not made of stone, touches the rose on his chest and prays Camden will score. Leo seems to innately grasp this, sitting stock-still with his chin in his palm, tracking the ball back and forth like a cartoon character at Wimbledon. They spend forty-five minutes plus stoppage time this way, nary a sound or reaction passed between them. It probably helps that the match is a disastrous, scoreless slog that never leaves the very center of the pitch. The shrill pierce of the halftime whistle brings Oliver back to the present time and place, coming up for a gulp of air after a deep dive underwater. Leo looks at him and grimaces—even pulling faces, he has perfectly symmetrical features.
“What did you think?” he asks Oliver, who just shrugs again. Whatever de Boer asked of him, Oliver didn’t promise to obey the spirit of the law rather than the letter. And he isn’t particularly eager to reveal any useful information or thoughtful commentary. “If you were playing, would you do anything differently?” Leo tries again.
“Score, maybe,” Oliver snaps. Leo’s pretty face turns downcast; for the first time, he seems to understand that Oliver’s responses are short and sullen on purpose.
“Did I say something wrong? Or have you always been such a dick?” Leo asks, hotly, a touch sulkily.
“Oh no, you’re grand. I’m super thrilled to be taking care of your fledgling career instead of focusing on, I don’t know, the Premier League.”
They’re sizing each other up across the table now, bristling and glowering. Oliver notices for the first time that Leo has astupid gold hoop in his nose. It’s a miracle no one has yanked it out of him yet.
“Well,” Leo hisses back. “You’re doing a great job. You’ve said ten words to me and been supremely unwelcoming. I guess I should be flattered that you’re so threatened by me.”
Oliver laughs sharply, all teeth and no smile.
“Listen, mate—”
Leo cuts him off before he can say anything further.
“I’m not yourmate,but I am your fucking teammate, okay?”
Oliver takes a deep breath. He’s going to get up and walk out of here and hopefully never have this lengthy of a conversation with Leonardo Davies-Villanueva again. He leans in and lets his voice drop to a whisper, carefully enunciating every syllable while looking squarely, unblinking, into a pair of furious, enormous eyes.
“Tell the gaffer whatever you want, but this”—he waves a dismissive hand between them—“isn’t my job. If you’re still in the picture in a couple months—which, for the record, I highly doubt you will be—I look forward to working with you. Otherwise, get back to Spain in one piece, yeah?”
• • •
Even once he gets home, Oliver’s skin still prickles like he’ll have to choose between fight or flight at any minute and he can’t even properly pace the house with one working leg. He’d listened to the second half of the match from his phone in the shower. It was as bad as the first, the team limping to a scoreless draw and looking dead on their feet for the entire hour and a half. Now he’s sitting on the sofa in his media room (a fancy name for where the big TV lives), ostensibly watching the news but actually frowning up at the ceiling.
What is it about Leo that makes him want to earn himselfanother red card? One hour around this guy and he’s seriously considering fisticuffs. It’s kind of embarrassing—heisthreatened, but he shouldn’t be.
Usually, he loves having an academy graduate around, having been one himself. Camden FC produces clever and precocious footballers, roses to their very core. There’s something to Leo, though, that makes Oliver’s blood pressure rise. Does he think a triumphant homecoming to the first team and a once-in-a-generation playmaker for a mentor were his destiny and not an extremely rare combination of hard work, skill, luck, desire? And his whole vibe! The nose ring and the tan and the fluffy hair. What a complete prick. Leo doesn’t look like a footballer; he looks like he did a master’s at the Royal College of Art with Maggie—oh, he should call Maggie.
Seconds later, her flatmate answers, chirping brightly down the phone.
“Oliver! Oliver Harris! How are you? Coming by anytime soon? My boyfriend literally cannot wait to meet you, you know, everyone always thinks it’s justbrillthat I know you,” she barrels along cheerfully. The last time Oliver saw her, when he’d come to meet Maggie for dinner just before Christmas, she’d recently sworn off men forever and was courting a beauty from the artisan candle shoppe in the Maltby Street market. Talking to Millie is not unlike experiencing whiplash, but pleasantly.
“Mills,” someone calls from the background. “That’s my phone! Let him go!”
“We’re catching up! Wait, give me that!” she says, but clearly Maggie has recovered the phone because now it’s her voice saying, “Hi, hi, Ollie.”
