I tried (yet again) not to think about the week that had passed since we’d slept in the same bed for a night. About waking up to the feeling of warmth lost, as he got up in the dark to head for practice. We’d barely seen each other since, with his Coach keeping him on a tight schedule to make sure he was fit for the game. There hadn’t been enough time to really talk. To figure out how things stood between us.
I was not managing to stop thinking about it very well. Even now, watching him play for the first time, willing him with everything I had to win. I couldn’t figure out whether I was rooting for my roommate, or my documentary subject, or my… what? Boyfriend was definitely too formal. I didn’t even know if he wanted to do anything like we had ever again.
Maybe he’d hated it, and that was why he’d thrown himself into training so much.
Or maybe he was just someone who loved playing football and wanted to give it his best, and I needed to stop overthinking it and keep my camera on the field.
I glanced at the clock again. I’d never been so nervous or tense in my life. They were in the lead, but only just. It would only take one slip for the other team to equalize the score or even get ahead. I could hardly bear to watch.
Come on, I thought, too scared to say it out loud in case it ruined the recording. Everyone around me was cheering and shouting but I didn’t want to influence my own tape. I was supposed to be the impartial documentarian, not a fan.
Only, I was a fan. A fan of one player in particular.
He was standing watching, hands on hips, the ball in play at the far end of the field. His team were wasting time on purpose, trying to keep the other team from getting the chance to try for an equalizer before the clock ran out. I should have been focusing on the action, but I’d never really been into sports. I wasn’t actually sure I understood the rules.
All I could do was watch him. His tension. He was nervous for the game to finish – to know whether they’d won. That same tension thrummed through my own veins, stretching out every second to an hour.
Someone, somewhere, blew a whistle – and the game was over.
The stands around me erupted as people leaped to their feet and cheered. On the field, players were running and hugging each other, bumping chests and shaking victorious fists in the air. A huge grin occupied my face as I shook with excitement, trying hard to keep the camera focused on Olly. It wasn’t easy – he ran to his teammates and then disappeared in a scrum of them as they cheered and celebrated. I found myself laughing out loud, experiencing their joy.
And then it washed over me that right in the center of that celebration was the man who had mutually jerked off with me less than a week ago.
I swallowed hard to overcome the massive turn-on I was feeling, trying very hard not to let any of that travel down to my pants. The last thing I needed was a visible tent while I was supposed to be filming documentary footage. That kind of thing could get you a reputation.
And this was the last scene – all I had to do was edit in this one shot of the celebration, and the project was finished and done.
The players were spreading out again, starting to walk back towards their locker room or else embracing girlfriends and family members in the bleachers. I hesitated. Should I go down there? What was I? Definitely not a girlfriend or a family member. Were friends or roommates allowed to go down and celebrate?
Olly looked up and saw me. He raised a hand in greeting and my heart thumped in my chest. He started to jog and for a second I thought he was going to come over to me – but then he just loped towards the locker room.
Until a second later, he didn’t. He stopped and beckoned me down and I scrambled down the rows of chairs, past the people clearing out of the place, trying to get to him.
“Hey,” he said. He nodded at the camera. “Get some good shots?”
“Great shots,” I nodded with a grin. “You were great. I mean, the game was great. Everything was great.”
“Great,” Olly said with a wicked grin.
I nudged him with my hand. “Shut up.”
“I’m going to get changed, shower, and then come back to the dorm,” he said.
I ran my eyes over his body suggestively, in a way that I hoped wouldn’t at all be obvious to anyone else. “Shame.”
His eyes sparked. He looked around and then back at me, once he was sure no one was listening. Most of the others had gone inside or left already. “I could be quick,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah. You probably need to get changed, at least, right?”
He grinned and nodded. “Kind of weird to just walk around campus dressed like I came straight off the field all night. I mean, I bet some guys would.”
“To impress girls?” I chuckled.
He nodded with a laugh – and I actually saw a little blush form on his cheeks.
“Well, I’ll see you back at the dorm,” I said. I waved the camera by means of goodbye. “Sooner rather than later, I hope.”
He nodded once and then jogged away in the direction of the locker rooms, leaving me to make my own way out of the spectator’s area and back into the main campus.
