He and Willem must have been sitting there, talking and thinking, for more time than they’d realized. Willem is still smoking when Nina sticks her head in the door and sighs at the sight of them.
“There you are! Willem, honestly, where did you run off to? We’ve been waiting for ages! And, Oliver, when did you get here? Leo’s just arrived. Could you both come with me? Now! And put that cig out, Willem, for God’s sake,” she snaps when both of them look at her blankly instead of immediately jumping up and following her out the door.
The coterie of people from the morning’s conference call are all milling in the hallway, besuited and whispering. Leo stands out and apart, two paces closer to the door in one of Oliver’s old baseball caps, the very face of misery. They lock eyes and, before Oliver can speak, Willem emerges behind him and Leo’s features go blank, jaw agape. Leo pushes past Nina and their agents—sliding behind Finch without so much as a word—and snatches Oliver’s sleeve in his fist, then yanks the pair of them right back into the locker room, kicking the door shut behind them with an air of finality and an audible slam.
“You arse—” Leo starts, but what kind of arse he is Oliver will never know, having flung his arms around Leo’s waist and picked him up off the ground, kissing his slack, shocked mouth for all it’s worth.
“Leo,” Oliver says, once he’s put him back to his feet. Now it’s Leo’s turn to interrupt, with his fist, landing a pretty impressive hook with his nondominant hand, catching Oliver right in the gut and knocking the wind out of him—not an unfamiliarfeeling where Leo is concerned, albeit a slightly more painful version.
“Don’t kiss me,” he says.
“Hey!” Oliver exclaims back. “Don’thitme!”
“You deserve it,” Leo hisses. “Hijueputa!I will not be broken up with through Willem, you fucking coward, so go ahead and say it to my face.”
“Listen to me,” he insists, catching Leo’s clenched hand before it strikes him again. “I’m in love with you. I know I’m slower on the uptake than you are, but I’m here now, I swear. We’re not going anywhere, unless you want to, and if you do, then we’ll go together. Leo, Leo, Leo—” His name sounds so good, Oliver wants to say it over and over. Instead, he keeps talking. “I’d rather let Wheatley have another go at my hamstring than break up with you, right? I want to do this, I want to do it for real, I want to do it forever. I’ve never loved anything like I love you, not even football, because it wouldn’t be enough anymore, not if we aren’t playing together. I want to spend my career and my life with you. I love your stupid nose ring and the sound of your voice when you speak Spanish and your perfect fucking face. You are it for me. On the pitch and everywhere else.”
“Ollie,” Leo says, voice breaking.
“It’s all going to be okay, I swear to you,” Oliver says, sliding down to his knees and clutching Leo around the legs, which has the added benefit of leaving him out of range of future punching, just in case. “I told Willem, too. Some of it, at least. But I thought if he sold me, you could stay and they could just blame me, call me a creep or a bad influence.”
“No,” Leo starts to protest, but Oliver is into the rhythm of it now and he can’t shut up.
“He doesn’t want me to, though. He wants us to come out, publicly, like. We can stay here, Leo, we can stay at Camden. He said the club will stand with us. He can explain it better than Ican. Do you trust me?” Leo nods, blinking rapidly and saying nothing. “Come on, then,” Oliver whispers. “I love you.”
Leo doesn’t reply, but he does pull Oliver back to his feet and kisses him, up on his tiptoes with his arms around Oliver’s neck. Then Leo allows himself to be led by the hand out into the hallway, where everyone is diligently ignoring their previous outburst, nodding hello like they’ve just shown up.
Oliver will probably never remember the conversation that follows, since he only hears it all through the filter of the roar in his ears. But he was right that Willem could explain it best, weaving a tale that leaves him feeling faint, unsure if it actually resembles his life over the last six months or has been embellished for maximum impact. At several points someone asks, “Is that true, Oliver?” or says, “Oh, you poor darling,” and Oliver can’t say if he even responds. Somehow, they’re moving easily into discussing logistics and timing now; no one has yet said Oliver is immoral or going to hell or destroying the stock valuation, even though Finch’s face is taut and closed off. Nina is taking notes with a slightly manic smile on her face, reminding them that everyone should arrive for the press conference by noon and saying she’ll confirm there’s enough space for guests to watch from an adjacent room.
“It’s decided, then?” Willem asks, like it’s as simple as the lineups for five-a-side. “Oliver and Leo, you’re prepared to speak tomorrow?”
“I mean, yes? If that’s okay with Leo, of course,” Oliver adds, finally finding his voice usable again and only slightly terrified of the answer. When he turns to face Leo, he’s looking at him like he hung the moon. “Is it okay?” he asks in a whisper. Leo responds by throwing his body at him, hard, the kind of embrace usually reserved for heroes returning from war. Oliver holds on tight, letting Leo bury his face in his neck.
“Er, sorry,” Leo says when he finally pulls away and seems to remember they’re in a room with their bosses. “I, well. Willem and Oliver said it all. I want to do the press conference. I want to tell the truth. And the truth is that I’m in love with you, with Ollie.”
James Finch, billionaire and incredibly likely Tory voter, surprises them both by finally nodding in agreement.
“What a story this is!” Finch says not quite emphatically, like he’s trying to convince himself in real time, talking with exclamation marks included. “Optically, this is the only option. Imagine what the press would say if we didn’t keep you. Not to mention, imagine what the table would say next season.”
Oliver is not so sure he needs or wants Finch’s support, coming so cynically, after this season, but he’ll keep taking his paychecks, no problem. Finch releases them and turns back to Nina, asking for media strategy documents, leaving the two of them a pace away from the rest of the group, Leo still holding Oliver about the waist like he couldn’t be removed with any amount of force. The business end of the operation is proceeding full speed ahead and they’re alone on the train platform. When Oliver nods toward the door and Leo shuffles toward it without letting go, no one tries to stop them.
“I brought my bike,” Oliver says, once they’re out in the sunshine, still attached at the hip.
“Yeah, I noticed, when you bolted out of the house and I thought you were riding away to go and get me sent back to Spain,” Leo tells him blithely.
“You know that’s not how it went,” he pleads. “Don’t tell people that’s what happened, please.” Leo hums noncommittally, but the purse of his lips suggests he’s holding back laughter. “You take a cab,” Oliver continues. “And I’ll meet you back at mine in a spell?”
“I love you,” Leo says again. Oliver is getting the sense that Leo’s been trying not to say it for so long, now he can’t stop. He feels the same.
“I love you, too.”
He heads for the bike rack aimlessly. He could beat Leo home on two wheels, easily, only there’s no rush anymore, no urgent need to solve a season of football or a scandal: he’s on vacation, he’s just another person who lives in Camden. Tomorrow he’ll put everything back on the line and tonight he wants to be home with Leo, make him dinner and suck him off like a gentleman, but for the length of the path down into Regent’s Park and back home he wants to be alone, so he can test-drive being the version of Oliver Harris who has no secrets. He walks the whole winding path once, twice, again, wheeling his bike along with his headphones in, passing the swaying narrowboats and the burbling fountains, the footbridges and the perfectly clipped hedges and the trickling waterfalls.
Home looks different, almost saturated, like the world has more color or maybe he’s just using more of his eyes than he was ever allowed to before. He’s well sprung, done a bunk, freedom as sweet as anything he’s ever tasted, besides Leo’s mouth. The truth is still making itself known within him: the self-protection he’d always cultivated and craved is nothing if it traps Leo, if it holds him prisoner in a separate cell. And if there’s a microphone in his face asking Oliver to say he doesn’t love him, he couldn’t lie, not on pain of death. It’snoton pain of death, because they’re going to continue on as they have been, right after they tell the truth. He’s going to wear green next season. He’s going to be a Rose. They both will. Oliver could scream, he could call the BBC, he could swim the Channel without taking a breath.
“Oliver,” someone is saying from behind him, a sharp inhale. He turns, expecting to need an escape, worrying it might be aphotographer. It’s not. It’s his mother, walking fast and wearing scrubs.
“Mum,” he replies. “What are you—”
