It was a joke he’d made a thousand times before, and my reaction was always the same. I scooped porridge onto my spoon and flicked it at him. He laughed like the sun and ducked out of the way.
When the threat was gone, he came around the counter and stood beside me. He was dressed for the day while I was still scruffing it in my sweats. His jeans were, as ever, sinfully tight, and his black T-shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, revealing more of his sinewy biceps than I could cope with. “I’ve got to go,” he said, apparently oblivious to the effect he was having on me. “I’m going straight to work after. Are you coming down tonight?”
“To the pub?”
“No, to the hair salon I work at. Of course I mean the pub. It’s Friday, remember?”
Without the structure of training and playing and a regular nine-to-five in its place, days of the week didn’t mean much to me anymore. Sam was my compass. “I’ll be there.”
“Sure? You don’t have to, you know.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Where else would I go?”
“Nice. So you hang out with me because you have nothing better to do?”
Again, the echo of a teasing conversation we had over and over played on a loop in my head, but my usual reply escaped me. Breakfast forgotten, I slid off my stool and gripped his shoulders. “I love hanging out with you, even when you’re too busy to stop by my table and call me a wanker.”
Sam’s wary gaze brightened with laughter. “I’ve never called you a wanker.”
“We’ve got the rest of our lives. There’s still time.”
“BFFs, huh?”
“For real.”
I let him go and he stepped away, but something unsaid hung between us. Was it so hard for him to admit he didn’t want to leave and for me to beg him to stay? To blow off school and work and spend the day with me in the bubble of hard-won monotony I’d built around myself?
Apparently so. Sam flashed me a slow, sweet smile, and then he left. And I ate my solitary breakfast with growing unease at how our normal had become so complicated.
I left for the gym with a heavy heart. Out on the street, the weather suited my mood: grey and damp, but with pockets of sunshine that made no sense. And that was my city all over. London had the unique ability to feel like home and the end of the world, all wrapped up in a bow dipped in poison. Dramatic, but my brain was leaning that way these days, and not in the fashion I was used to.
I was so fucking torn up over Sam. I’d literally never felt as confused about something, even when I’d first realised my obsession with Ryan Giggs had jack all to do with his ball skills. On the one hand, I’d meant every argument I’d made for protecting our friendship. On the other, kissing Sam had been so mind-blowing, I couldn’t contemplate living the rest of my life without ever doing it again.
Which is why you’re an idiot for doing it in the first place.
Fair, but he’d kissed me first, a fact I clung to late at night when I was alone in beda fucking weeksince those magical ten minutes we’d spent on the seafront. I barely remembered limping back to his parents’ house after... or eating two plates of his ma’s roast pork and crackling, and the train ride home the following day had been a blur of dread and excitement that was still my constant companion. But I remembered every millisecond our lips had been fused together, every brush of skin and snatched breath. I just wished I knew what the hell to do with it. And with Sam living his best life as though nothing had changed, I did the most ridiculous thing I could think of and confided in Freddie over a lunchtime workout.
He had his back to me as I rambled my life story from the last few weeks, sparring with the punch bag. I half expected him to laugh, but when he was done, he spun to face me with an expression I couldn’t decipher.
“So...,” he said slowly. “What you’re saying is that you finally realised the two of you are mad-hot for each other, hooked up, then five minutes later, decided to stay as roommates who moon over each other forever?”
That he hadn’t blinked at me throwing my queer angst in his face was one thing. That he’d totally misunderstood me was another. “Okay, number one, we didn’t hook up, not even close. And two, we don’t moon over each other. The fuck does that even mean?”
Freddie wiped sweat from his face and eyeballed me over his towel. “You’ve been surgically attached to him since you moved into his place. If you’re not talking about him, you’re with him. And I’ve told you a thousand times how he looks at you.”
I scowled. “And I’ve told you a thousand times that you’re a prick.”
“So you don’t want to discuss howyougaze at him the moment his back’s turned? How you’re a world away if he’s anywhere nearby?”
“Fuck off.”
Freddie snorted. “I thought you wanted my advice?”
It was more that I needed to speak aloud some of the thoughts rioting in my brain before I lost my fucking mind, and I couldn’t get a therapist appointment until after the weekend. Not that I needed Freddie’s opinion or confirmation that I’d had it bad for Sam since I’d met him. That shit was about as far from brand new as Sam’s grandparents’ flowerpots. “I don’t know what to do.”
I sounded pathetic, even to my own ears. Freddie’s expression softened. He glanced around, then dropped down beside me and draped an arm around my shoulders. “What would you have done if this had happened two years ago?”
“Two years ago? You mean when I was in the closet and getting my kicks from coke-fuelled hook-ups?”
