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“Happy Birthday again, Aled,” Dawn said, reaching across Jamie to hug her brother.
A family outing for Aled’s birthday had been her idea, but Aled was the one who had chosen to get them all tickets to an Ealing Eels game. Jamie knew nothing about football, but at least he’d managed to pay attention to the play as both teams dashed up and down the pitch, doing a whole lot of running and kicking the ball, but not a lot of scoring.
Aled, as it turned out, loved football. He had played in school before the trauma had put an end to his football career, and he’d been really good. It was just another fascinating thing Jamie had learned about his lover in the last six months.
Six months, and Jamie still felt as though Aled was the best thing that had ever happened to him. A lot had happened in those six months, too. They’d spent a lot of time together, for one, even though Aled had switched to having Alexandra as his academic advisor and had steered clear of any of the classes Jamie taught. There were a few that he would need to take in order to graduate, but plans were already in the works for that to happen without triggering any sort of conflict of interest.
Living arrangements had changed as well. It was only on a trial basis, but Dawn had moved into Jamie’s flat, and Jamie had moved in with Aled just after the new year. That had required moving a few, key items of furniture into storage for a moment so that Dawn didn’t have to see or be made aware of anything Jamie and Aled didn’t want her to know during the moving process.
Dawn and Jeremy pretty much knew Jamie and Aled were a little kinky at that point, but it most definitely wasn’t the sort of thing one talked about with one’s siblings. Though Jeremy did come to Jamie on the sly in late February to ask a few questions about kink and where he might go to see if it was something he might like. Jamie gave him a few names, and that was the last he’d heard of it or wanted to hear.
The other change was that Ronny was well and truly gone from their lives. When Jamie and Aled had attended the Christmas kink weekend at Hadnall Heath, Ronny hadn’t been there. One of Jamie’s and Ronny’s mutual friends shared that Ronny had taken a job in South Africa, at his parents’ insistence, after the debacle at the fundraising dinner was made known to them.
It felt just about right to Jamie that Ronny had been sent abroad, like some Victorian miscreant that his family no longer wanted to deal with. Better still, it felt like Ronny was actually gone from their lives for good, not just for the moment.
“Oh, oh! It looks like Kauffman is going to score,” Jeremy said, slowly rising from his seat again. He wasn’t the only one this time. The entire stadium seemed to be holding its breath. “Is it? Is it? No!” Jeremy groaned and sank into his chair again as Kauffman missed the shot and the stadium seemed to deflate.
“Which one is Kauffman again?” Jamie asked, flipping through the program he’d purchased in the hope that he’d be able to keep track of things.
“He’s the center forward,” Aled said, his eyes still on the field. “Really, he’s the Eels’ star player. And I think he’s one of ours.”
It took Jamie a second to figure out what Aled meant, until he noticed a subtle rainbow patch on the jacket Kauffman wore in one of the candid pictures on his page in the program. Jamie made a considering face and nodded. He hadn’t been aware that there were out footballers these days. He’d assumed sports were still nests of homophobia.
Actually, there seemed to be a fair number of gay fans in the crowd, too, from what he could see. One in particular caught his eye. He was one of the few people who hadn’t risen to his feet to cheer when Kauffman had nearly scored his goal, and now he sat hunched forward slightly in his seat, hugging himself and looking vaguely miserable.
The thing was, Jamie knew him. Not closely, but he recognized Ellis Dixon from the Brotherhood. He hadn’t actually seen Ellis since, well, since the New Year’s Eve party more than a year ago, when he and Oakley Manfred had gotten into that terrible accident. The one where Ellis had been driving the car. As far as Jamie knew, no one had seen Ellis much since then.
“Ellis,” Jamie called across to him, glad to see that the young man was looking mostly well.
Ellis tensed and whipped around, looking for whoever had called to him. When his gaze landed on Jamie, Jamie smiled and waved.
Ellis looked suddenly terrified, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. He got up abruptly, edged his way around the people sitting between him and the aisle, then rushed up the stairs and out of the stands.
“Who was that?” Dawn asked. “He looks weirdly familiar.”
Aled dragged his attention away from the game to see what was going on.
“That was Ellis Dixon,” Jamie answered both Dawn and Aled’s curious look. “If he looks familiar, it’s because he’s a model. He used to date a guy I know.”
“Not another ex,” Aled said teasingly.
Jamie laughed. “No, not at all. Someone from the Brotherhood. Actually, it’s an interesting story. He and the guy he was dating at the time, Oakley Manfred, were in a horrible car crash on New Year’s Eve last year. Oakley ended up being thrown from the car and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Ellis was driving the car, and from the rumors I heard, he broke up with Oakley almost as soon as he regained consciousness after the accident.”
“Dick,” Jeremy muttered, apparently listening to the conversation while still paying attention to the game.
“That’s what everyone thought,” Jamie said with a heavy breath.
“But you don’t?” Aled asked, interested.
Jamie winced and shrugged. “Honestly, I suspected back then that guilt had more to do with it than anything else. Someone told me the two of them had been about to break up anyhow, and then the accident.” Jamie thought about it for a moment and glanced back at the door Ellis had just run away through. He didn’t look good. He looked tired and depressed. “I think some of the other members of the Brotherhood gave him a hard time about Oakley.”
“That’s not very nice,” Dawn said. A half second later, she slapped Jamie’s arm repeatedly a few times and said, “Oh! Oh! Kauffman is about to score again! Look!”
Everything about Ellis was forgotten as the mood in the stadium swelled and then exploded as Kauffman kicked the ball straight into the net. Despite not being much of a football fan, Jamie found himself rising to his feet and shouting along with everyone else.
And it felt fantastic. It felt amazing to have Aled grab him and kiss him too, regardless of who was watching. It was everything Jamie had ever wanted and then some to be so loved and accepted, not just by his dom—no, his beloved—but by the whole family too. He grabbed Aled’s hand as Dawn continued to hug his arm and tug on his jacket, feeling like he had everything he needed and like he could be perfectly happy staying that way for the rest of his life.
* * *
I hope you’ve enjoyed Jamie and Aled’s story! … Yeah, that got way kinkier than it was going to be when I started out. But boy, did I have fun! I hope you did too!
For those interested in the naughty past of Hadnall Heath, it actually featured in three of the books I wrote for my MF Regency historical romance series When the Wallflowers were Wicked. If you’re interested, that house party starts with the bookThe Devilish Trollop!
But what about Ellis Dixon? Why was he sitting on his own, having all the feels at an Ealing Eels football match? Could it have something to do with his guilt over Oakley’s car crash? Or maybe it has something to do with his conflicted past with star player Raeburn Kaufman? Rae’s star is on the rise, but will a new entanglement with Ellis bring him down or help lift Ellis out of the funk he’s fallen into? Find out next inFootballer Follies!
