I book a weeklong trip to Boston over the summer off-season and watch Josh actually tear up when I tell him I’m coming home. I tell my old boss from the Sox and she insists I come back to Fenway to watch a game with the team.
I cook a passable lasagna for family dinner with the Iqbals and watch Hassan beam with pride as I perfectly explain the offside rule to him.
I run three miles and do my own stretches.
Perhaps most importantly: I get back on the bus.
It’s Phil who makes it happen, convincing me that the lads could use a boost to get through the last five matches of the season. Mersey have clawed their way back up to second, fighting tooth and nail for first, and every game matters. We decide that after the next victory I’ll surprise the team by riding the bus back and resurrecting #EarnTheShirt. And there’s only one option for whose kit I’m going to choose.
He plays a hell of a game, with a ferocity that’s on a whole other level, even for him. He’s a blur of motion, an angry crimson tornado all over the pitch. And when I step on the bus after a well-deserved Mersey win, he’s the loudest voice in the chorus welcoming me back.
I unzip the hoodie slowly, primly, like I did that very first game,as the noise on the bus roars to a crescendo. And then I reveal it, the Man of the Match: ASHBURN 4.
Bashie is irrepressible in triumph, nearly kicking poor Marco Riva in the face in his mad dash up the aisle. When he gets to me, he grabs my head with both hands and shakes me, screaming in my face. Then he puts me in what many people would consider a headlock, slinging a heavy arm around my neck while he turns to face the rest of the boys. “That’s what I’m talking about, lads. This doesn’t stop! We go again and again and again until it’s fucking finished. Isn’t that right, Macca?”
I gasp out some sort of affirmative as the blood rushes to my face. Kieran is chanting Bashie’s song and Lachlan is alternating between laughing and yelling, and even though it feels like I may never regain the use of my windpipe, this is the moment I know everything will be okay. I’m putting all the hells I’ve been through behind me, and I won’t stop. I’ll go again and again and again until it’s fucking finished.
Vogler mounts the stairs of the bus and gives his customary taciturn congratulations, and as I turn to sit down, I catch Lachlan’s eye. Old habits, I suppose. He smiles and gives me a little nod and my eyes prick with tears. I can’t tell if they’re happy or sad or both, but I know that whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.
Chapter Forty-Two
By mid-May, our friendship isfirmly reestablished, so I decide to pick Lachlan’s shirt for the penultimate match of the season. It seems like a nice gesture, and probably a safe bet: He has been on an incredible run of form these last few weeks. He’s playing like he’s twenty-two again, a renewed vigor that’s spreading around the team like a virus. The lads have been so incredibly supportive of him since the news about the divorce, so relieved that he’s happy again—or at least on the road to happiness—and I think their energy and positivity are feeding back and making him play even better. So I pull number fourteen out of my drawer and slip it on, giving the Mersey badge on my chest a little pat before zipping up my hoodie.
The match today is in Leeds, about ninety minutes east of Liverpool. They’re a bottom-of-the-table side and we’re the favorites by a long shot, but no one is taking any chances: We’re in second place by the narrowest of margins, and anything but a win today puts our title chances in serious jeopardy. The mood on the bus is tense; even Bashie’s antics can’t do anything to alleviate it.
That tension carries through to the match, which is mostly drudgery with a few frustrating moments of unfulfilled brilliance. The Leeds players are defending like their lives depend on it, andthe Mersey attack can’t get anything going. Lachlan has a good game, but I can tell he’s getting agitated in the midfield, doing his best to marshal his troops despite the very, very long season lodging itself deep in eleven pairs of tired legs.
In the Comms box, Sadie is pacing and Phil’s mouth is set into a grim line. The traveling Mersey fans valiantly try to get some chants going, but their songs die on the wind. We all watch the minutes ticking away, knowing that if we draw this game, our chances of winning the league become vanishingly slim.
As the game ticks to a close, it’s still zero-to-zero, and there are only four minutes of stoppage time for us to pull out a miracle. Then, two things happen in quick succession. The first is a gnarly foul on Kieran, as a Leeds defender aims a mean tackle squarely at his ankles. The referee signals a free kick and the players get in position. But then a wave of excitement ricochets around the stadium, unconnected to what’s happening on the pitch. Phil whips out his phone: Manchester City, bitter rivals just ahead of us in first place, have lost their game—one they were widely expected to win. This is massive.
The Mersey fans who have traveled to Leeds go apeshit. It’s a noise unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. They’ve all figured out what Sadie is rapidly explaining to me: If Mersey scores here, all we have to do to win the league is draw or win the final match next week. All we have to do is not lose. All of a sudden, our destiny is in our own hands.
In the middle of the pitch, Lachlan and Kieran are having a whispered conversation about who should take the kick, and my stomach clenches as the weight of everything hits. Then Kieran steps back and tosses the ball to Lachlan, who nods. In the box, we all look at each other, the question in our eyes clear: DoesLachlan know the full weight of this moment? Has the news about City losing somehow made its way to him down there?
The ball is in a good position—we’ve seen him score from this spot dozens of times in training, and it’s only a few yards away from the goal he scored in the very first match of the season. Maybe that’s why Sadie’s nails are dug into my arm, and why Phil is white-knuckling his camera like it’s the last ledge on Everest. We all watch Lachlan twirl the ball once in his fingers before placing it on the spot. He barks orders at some of the players to rearrange them in front of the goal, then he raises his arm.
In this moment, everything goes silent. I know it’s impossible in a stadium of thousands, but for a second, all I can hear is two heartbeats, his and mine, beating in unison. I whisper a prayer into the silence between the beats.Please let him score this.Please, after all he’s been through, give him this happiness.
If there’s an implicit “us” in the prayer, I don’t acknowledge it.
He drops his arm and runs toward the ball and it’s like I see everything in slow motion. He takes three steps, then plants his left leg deep in the turf and connects solidly with his right. It’s an absolute screamer: a picture-perfect ball that curves up and around the wall of defenders and past the outstretched fingertips of the diving Leeds goalkeeper before thumping into the upper corner of the net with a resounding swish. Top Bins. In the infinitesimal silence after the swish, I hear his exhale. One low, steady breath out…
And then the place explodes. The traveling fans are screaming, Sadie is screaming, I’m screaming. Phil is screaming but also filming, because Phil is Phil. Down on the pitch, Lachlan is swarmed by teammates, the sturdy wooden stick in the center of a massive crimson popsicle. But he’s breaking free, he’s runningto the stand where the Mersey fans are, he’s grabbing the badge on his shirt and bellowing at them, and they’re bellowing right back, piling over each other as they try to get close to him, to their hero, to the man who may have just won them the league.
But then he turns away from them and runs toward the stand where we’re sitting. He’s tiny down there, so far away, but his eyes find me. His eyes find me in a sea of thousands, and that’s when I know. I know with a deep, rooted certainty that this is it. I am his, and he is mine. All the back and forth, all the hand-wringing, all the heartbreak and the guilt and the glory, all the flirting and the banter and the friendship, all of it has come to this. I know because in a stadium of forty thousand people, he found me in three seconds. And he’s pointing at me and I’m pointing at him and he’s mouthing something and I have a pretty good guess what it is because I’m screaming it back at him.
“You have to get down there!” Sadie hollers into my ear. She intensifies her grip on my arm, the pressure of her nails digging into my flesh the only thing that could tear my focus away from Lachlan.
“Onto the pitch? Security will stop me!” But I’m shaking all over because I know she’s right. I have to get to him right now or I might die.
“No, to the dressing room! They’ll blow the final whistle any minute and you’re going to get bogged down behind all the fans leaving the stadium. Go!” She physically shoves me away from her and even though I’m stunned, I’m so grateful for Sadie and her laser focus on getting me laid. I’m going to bake her a cake in the shape of a gladiator one of these days to thank her for all she’s done for me.
For now, I turn and run out of the box past cheering Mersey staff, blindly high-fiving along the way, and bolt into theconcourse behind the stands. Sure enough, throngs of Leeds fans are already shuffling out, their heads hung low in defeat. I hear snatches of their conversation as I elbow past them, then I hear shouts of anger as the crowd thickens and I squeeze through the hordes of disgruntled men whose team is seconds away from losing. But for once in my life, I don’t apologize. I have to get to the dressing room. I have to get therenow. I still don’t really know what will happen when I do, but I’m pretty sure it will be the start of the rest of my life.
I spin down dizzying cement spirals, deep into the bowels of the stadium, until finally I’m on the lowest level. I flash my badge at Ricky, the guard outside the Mersey dressing room, and thank God he knows me, because I amnotstopping to explain myself to anyone. I burst into the room, heart throbbing in my chest, and find…nothing. It’s empty. The television on the wall is showing the dying moments of the match, and I barely have enough time to catch my breath before the final whistle blows and the sound of thousands of Mersey fans wends its way through the tunnel to where I stand, shaking like a leaf.
He’ll be here any minute, unless I’ve catastrophically misjudged what’s about to happen. But no, I haven’t. Not this time. I’m certain of it, as certain as I’ve ever been about anything. And then, yes: I hear his boots clacking down the tunnel toward me, and in a burst of crimson, he’s in the room and in my arms. His hug knocks the air out of me and I throw my arms around his neck and I’m laughing and crying and he’s muttering such beautiful things in my ear. And then his fingers are tangled in my hair and my tears are mixing with his sweat as he pulls my face to his. We stay there for a moment, his breath hot against my lips, his thumb stroking my jaw. We have only seconds before the rest of the team will come clattering in and all hell will break loose, andthough I’m dimly aware of this fact somewhere deep in my brain, my overwhelming urge is to stay exactly like this for as long as I can. My fingers are on his chest and it heaves with his breath underneath my touch. He’s there, he’s real, he’s mine. Everything we’ve been through has led us to this moment, and now all we have to do is take the leap.
