“If all else fails, give the lads your phone to film each other and their days. It’ll probably be nonsense, but it’ll be funny.”
“It’s not a bad idea.” Neither was Danny’s idea to get Adam and me, or the coaching staff involved in training, and I already knew he’d be very happy to gloat about how clever he was. And I’d be happy to reward him. “Danny suggested Adam and I join you for training as well, and Jaden and Mason suggested something about coaches versus players too.”
Clive laughed. “If you want me to veto that, just say so. I don’t know if I can cope with an afternoon of Gavin’s drills. I could maybe do a couple of the games Tommy uses, but I’d have to lie down afterwards. My body is fucked, mate. I spent two dayslying on the floor after that drag game. Alan kept shooting me this smug look saying he’d told me so.”
I sipped my coffee to try and hide my laughter. “Veto it, please. I can’t cope with Danny calling me an old man. Although my body aches are from being wildly irresponsible in my twenties.”
“Bit of a party boy?”
“Something like that.”
“Don’t let the boys drag you out then,” he said. “From what I hear, it can get messy. They take care of each other, though. Always have. They’re a good bunch of lads, even when they do dumb shit.”
“Hey, if you can’t do it with your friends, when can you?”
“Exactly.” He paused for a second. “Danny hasn’t said anything yet, but when he does, they’ll sort it out and they’ll all be fine. He might annoy the shit out of them sometimes, but that’s just being a winger. He’s their brother, though, and they love him. That’s not going to change.”
“West said something similar,” I said. “He went to talk some stuff through with Danny last night, and I think that helped.”
“Yeah, West’ll sort it. He’s good with people, and he gets it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up as England captain someday.”
I nodded. “He is. I don’t know what he said, but I got the feeling they’ve got similar backgrounds.” I couldn’t say more, but Clive probably knew more than me anyway. I hadn’t asked Danny much about his conversation with West, and I didn’t plan to. It was private and I didn’t feel the need to know what they’d talked about.
If Danny wanted to share, I’d listen, but if not, I’d be fine never knowing.
As long as Danny was happy, that was all that mattered. Because he meant everything to me.
He’d breathed life back into me while I was fragile and broken, carefully putting me back together and reminding me that even if things were shit, there were still things to look forward to. Danny had given me a reason to start living again. And I was going to live every moment to the full.
“Take care of him, Ezra,” Clive said with a smile. “He’s a good lad, and he deserves to be happy.”
“I plan on it,” I said, taking a long sip of my coffee and draining the mug.
I took care of everything that was mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Danny
I bouncedup to Ezra’s office in the best mood I’d been in for weeks. Barring a few minor hiccups, everything had gone much better than I’d anticipated today and now I was finally going to get fucked over Ezra’s desk. And if it didn’t happen now, I was going to throw such a fucking tantrum because, after the shitshow of the last twenty-four hours, I deserved this.
Charlie had asked what I was doing after training and I’d made vague allusions to waiting for Ezra so we could go home together, and he’d been sensible enough not to ask for more details.
I didn’t bother knocking—because who else was going to be coming into his office?—and instead stuck my head around the door with a grin on my face.
“Don’t you ever knock, puppy?” Ezra asked, not looking up from where he was tapping away on his keyboard, eyes fixed on his monitor.
“Why should I? You know it’s me.”
“I could be in a meeting, or Adam could be here.”
“But you’re not, though,” I said, sliding through the door and shutting it behind me, flicking the lock across and giving the door handle a wiggle to make sure it was secure. I didn’t want anyone disturbing us.
“Next time, knock please. Or you won’t get what you want.”
I grinned as I walked over to him, watching with glee as he tried to ignore me. He was trying to play all big, bad, scary boss man, and it was hot. He wasn’t going to be able to keep it up, though. “You keep telling me there’s going to be consequences, but so far I’ve not seen any. I guess you could spank me again. That would be fun.”
He chuckled quietly, the sound going straight to my dick, because it wasn’t an amused laugh. It was one that said I was getting in deep and I wasn’t going to like what happened. But I definitely would, though. There hadn’t been anything we’d tried that I hadn’t enjoyed.
