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The referee was taking his sweet time, face impassive as he studied various angles of the scene.
“You” —Alex kept his voice low, lips barely moving, and he didn’t turn his head to look at Lee beside him— “took a fucking dive.”
A brief glance was the extent of Lee’s outward reaction before his focus returned to the referee. “Didn’t take you for a sore loser,” he replied in an undertone.
“I’mnot,” Alex started to say. He fell silent when the referee headed back onto the pitch and pointed at the penalty spot. The stadium exploded into a thunderclap of outrage. Fuckinghell.
The smug look Lee slid his way made Alex grit his teeth. He had a fucking reputation to protect—Alex Beaufort, the Premier League’s very own earl, never a mean word to anyone and gracious even in loss. Lee, though? Lee made it bloody hard for Alex to keep himself in check.
He dug his nails into his palm and stared straight ahead so he wouldn’t have to watch Lee stroll over to the penalty spot, oozing confidence. What an arse.
Alex startled when Jeff sidled up to him. “Chin up, man.” He jabbed a pointy elbow into Alex’s ribs under the guise of adjusting his captain’s armband. “Punch a fucking pillow later—right now, I need you to stay sharp.”
He was right.
After a curt nod at Jeff, Alex trotted to a spot just outside the six-yard box, ready to get in the way of a rebound goal. Not that Lee was likely to miss. All those hours of footage the Liverpool team had reviewed in preparation for this match, and not once had Lee Taylor missed a penalty. His killer instinct was that of a shark who’d smelled blood in the water.
Lee didn’t miss.
Of course he didn’t.
The match continued, as matches did. Alex stuck to Lee like glue, no further ventures to the other side of the pitch even as Alex’s teammates tried to fight fire with fire, the game sloshing back and forth, small inaccuracies piling up as the minutes ticked down. And then it was over.
A draw.
It meant Manchester United would stay at the top of the table while Liverpool climbed to second place, tied for points with Arsenal but with a better goal difference. They’d come so close to winning—ten minutes and a flip-of-a-coin penalty call because no way, nowayhad that been an obvious one. Alex would take a look at the video later, sure, but he’d be willing to bet that Lee had milked it for all it was worth, made it look far more dramatic than it had been.
The two teams exchanged half-hearted handshakes, Alex steering carefully clear of Lee, who paid him the same courtesy. After applauding the fans for their support and stopping for a quick courtesy chat with Oliver, Alex managed to get through a post-match interview without accusing either Lee or the referee of, respectively, theatrics and gullibility. “It felt clean to me,” he repeated a couple of times, with a regretful smile. “Pretty sure I played the ball, but I guess I’ll have to rewatch it to understand what the ref saw.”
Once the reporter grew tired of trying to elicit a scandalous statement from him, Alex finally got to trudge back towards the locker room, the noise of the crowd fading as soon as he stepped into the tunnel. Jeff caught up with him a few moments later, falling into step.
“Bloody Lee Taylor, eh?” he muttered. The vague admiration in his tone raised Alex’s hackles.
“And the Oscar goes to…” he countered.
Jeff gave a quick, sharp laugh and draped an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “We’ll pay them back next time.”
Next time. Alex bit down on his bottom lip and ignored the strange wiggle of discomfort in his stomach. About to reply, he was interrupted by someone shouting both their names from behind them.
“Jeff, Alex! Got a minute for me?”
Jeff, his arm still around Alex’s shoulders, turned them as one, and oh, holy shit. That was Kieran Foxwell, national coach as of a month ago. He approached them with a massive smile, light on his feet and looking a decade younger than his, what, fifty years or so?
“Congrats on a fantastic game,” he said, shaking both their hands with an affable air after Jeff had dropped his arm. “Real nail-biter of a match. Just never gets old, does it?” He didn’t carry himself like a living legend—youngest player to ever score for England during a World Cup, second only to Peter Shilton in sheer number of appearances for the national team. Then drugs, bankruptcy, rehab, and finally a second career as a coach, where he’d had to work his way from the third league back to the top.
“Would’ve been even better if we’d won,” Jeff said with a regretful shrug.
“Can’t have it all, can you?” Foxwell’s smile didn’t fade. “Now, lads, is there somewhere we can talk for a sec? Your coach said there are meeting rooms further along that hallway.”
Did that mean—shit, it had to, right? Foxwell wouldn’t pull them aside just to tell them he wasn’t going to nominate them for the World Cup. Or would he? Alex glanced around and found the sparse corridor largely deserted, most players already gone with only a few other people still milling around, casting curious glances their way.
“I’m sure we can find an empty room, yeah.” Alex turned his attention to Foxwell, along with a big smile.When in doubt, Alexander, you show respect.“If you want to follow us, Mr Foxwell?”
Foxwell’s face twitched into a playful grimace. “Kieran, please. I’m old, but Mr Foxwell is still my dad.”
“Kieran,” Alex repeated carefully, and oh, wow. He would be… He’d… Holy fuckingshit, he’d be on the national team. Probably, almost certainly. Wearing the white jersey with the team crest on the left side of the chest—three lions and ten Tudor roses, placed right above the heart. Even if commentators largely agreed that England had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this time around, it would be…God.
It would still be a dream come true.
