“You didn’t mention your mum has been absolutely frothing at the mouth for you to bring home a man,” Leo replies woozily.
“I think it might be that you’re such a catch, honestly.”
“Do you think they all really mean it?” Leo asks. “That it’s okay? Or are they just feeling guilty?”
“I hope they mean it,” Oliver says. “But if they don’t, Joe’s going to kill them, right? So it’s sort of out of our hands.”
“Lads,” Nina says, appearing between their elbows and smiling encouragingly. “Shall we?”
“You’ve got it, boss,” Oliver tells her. She swats at him cheerfully and guides them into the little hallway that separates the press room from the holding area. Willem is now waiting there, straightening his tie, with Terence Morgan at his side.
“Gaffer?” Oliver asks.
“Yes?” they reply in unison.
“Er, Terry, I mean,” Oliver says. “I knew you’d be here, Willem.”
The older men laugh, Willem tucking Oliver under one arm and Terence putting Leo under his own in a perfectly choreographed maneuver.
“I’m your manager too,” Terence says evenly. “And if I’m going to bring you both to the World Cup next year, I want it to be very clear where I stand on the matter.”
World Cup,Leo mouths at Oliver, eyes sparkling. The dark curtain tunnel they’re waiting in and the muted noise from next door drape over him like a shock blanket until Oliver’s senses ebb away. He remembers imagining the World Cup final, Leo appearing in his dreamscape unexpectedly. Maybe it was a premonition.
“Let them get through this, then we’ll talk about national call-ups, shall we?” Willem says to Terence before looking over the pair of them seriously. “Gentlemen, are you ready?”
Oliver shakes himself back to awareness, looking over at Leo to confirm, reveling in the fact that he’s allowed to now; he’s supposed to. He nods with the same ferocity he brings to the pitch and sticks out his hand defiantly. Oliver takes it tenderly, interlacing their fingers and holding on for dear life. It’s not so different from starting a match, really: he just takes one deep breath and steps out, right into the great flashbulb sea of light.
Friday, June 30, 2017: Camden Town, London
42 Days Until Matchday 1
The line at the coffee shop had stretched all the way from the till to the door, spilling messily onto the street. Oliver has nowhere to be and the wait would have been worth it regardless, because now he’s strolling home and Camden is in full bloom; roses are bursting and ballooning off every planter, coating the air with the smell of a spilled bottle of wine. It’s perfect like this, a midsummer morning’s dream—Oliver is, too, laden with latte and pastry, a rose himself, down to the red in his cheeks.
Every time someone recognizes Oliver now—somehow even more than before—the whole last month replays in slo-mo in his mind, plotting the distance between point A and here. It’s been a whirlwind of publicity, more than he bargained for, pushing at the upper limits of fame. There are newNew York Timesheadlines, and party invites, and the scary feeling of going to a concert hand in hand, scarier still when Robbie bloody Williams shouts them out in the audience and the whole arena roars when he says someone ought to make Oliver a knight (he’ll pass, thanks), and even after all that there have been the security threats, and keynote speeches, and this new frame around his life that leaves him split open in a way he still doesn’t want to take back. Every day of vacation, today’s normal, wonderfulmorning, is so much bigger and better than he dreamed, the line at the till time well spent, being stopped for photos by teenage girls with pink hair instead of their dads.
Oliver still flashes back to the press conference on most days, remembering the primal pull of it cut with levels of anxiety like being hunted for sport, rapidly overtaken by some kind of righteous indignation.
“Do you think your personal life will be the story next season?” a bespectacled journo had asked right at the start, looking at him over his glasses like he was personally disappointed with Oliver’s choices. “Will it be a distraction for the team, all this attention on who you’re…seeing?”
Willem had moved to interrupt, reaching for a table microphone like he was making to throw it, but Oliver had spoken first, before he could talk himself out of it.
“All due respect,” he’d replied, meaning it entirely disrespectfully, “I’m Oliver Harris, aren’t I? You lot were already writing about my romantic life. This is just par for the course, I should think.”
Then he’d shrugged affably and the room exploded, evenly split between follow-up questions from the reporters and suggestive whoops from the Camden squad.
“Take a bow,” Leo had whispered from his left, and the photograph of the two of them huddled together, Oliver grinning smugly and Leo smushed along his side, cupping his ear, makes it above the fold in nearly every major newspaper in the world.
Other memories float their way back to him, too, like his actual favorite press conference moment of all time, coming from Ryan Loxley, who announced in Kilburn’s respective end-of-season presser that he didn’t hate Oliver because he was gay, only because he’s a bellend, and he just wants everyone to be clear on that. Woodsy still sends the video clip of it to the team group chat once a day, like clockwork.
Probably the kindest response was the text from Conor Bishop, reading:Glad to know my radar for these things is still in working order. I’m proud to know you.
(“Come off it! That guy actually wants you so bad,” Leo had exclaimed, craning to look over his shoulder.
“He’s just got good taste. You staked your claim pretty clearly,” Oliver replied loyally, pulling Leo close and kissing the crown of his head.)
Probably hisleastfavorite reaction is still unfolding, in the form of Henri having asked Oliver for Maggie’s number, which, apparently, he figured was all well and fair, on account of Oliver not liking women. When she’d first said they were going out for dinner, Oliver felt a sudden urge to acquire weaponry.
(“Henri? Really?” he’d asked.
