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“I’ll take a walk,” he told the back of Lee’s head. “See you at the strategy session.”
“Can’t wait,” Lee muttered, and screw his passive-aggressive bullshit. Swallowing back any words to that effect, Alex picked up his phone and didn’t spare Lee so much as another glance before he left.
Fuck him.
Trust Kieran tochoose today of all days to pair Lee with Alex for every. Single. Drill.
The first two, anyway, and it felt like a throwback to a month ago—working in hostile silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, Lee’s shoulders tight enough that the team masseur might remark upon it later. The second exercise was an intense one too, jostling for the ball in close quarters, and Lee was too bloodyawareof Alex. Heart beating too fast as he tried to shield the ball, balance a little off as their shoulders and hands and hips bumped, feet knocking together.
So really, when Lee went down, it was only logical.
“The fuck?” Alex hissed.
Logical to Lee. Not to Alex, it seemed.
Lee rolled back to his feet. “What’s your problem, mate?”
“Mate?” Alex's lips pulled into a hollow smile. “My fuckingproblemis how much you like to trip over your own two feet. Like you’re just looking for a reason to cry foul.”
Really, he’d gone there—all the way back to that Premier League match some weeks ago? Well, all right. Common courtesy demanded that Lee follow his lead.
“Funny how the ref didn’t see it that way.”
Alex drew a breath, the sun catching glints of gold in his hazel eyes, and fuck, Lee wanted to kiss him. Still, or maybe more than ever.
“Funny how—” Whatever Alex had been about to say, Kieran sliced clean through it.
“Cool off.” Kieran’s tone lacked its usual cheer, a rare frown on his face. “Both of you. Separately, if necessary.”
Fuck.
“Sorry,” Lee mumbled, at the same time as Alex ducked his head and offered a lukewarm apology of his own. Clearly, they’d be the hot topic at dinner tonight—everyone was staring at them as though they were an entertaining yet mildly off-putting internet meme. Bloody move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
“We’re all a little on edge after the match last night,” Kieran told them, expression softening by a margin, and right, yeah, the match.Thatwas what had them sniping at each other. Obviously. “I get it, yeah? But” —he raised his voice to be heard by the rest of the team— “the best thing you can do is take that anger and turn it into something productive. Use it to focus your mind on the next game. And maybe next time we’re ahead by two goals, don’t think it’s in the bag. Because the moment you do, that’s when the other team’s gonna kick you in the nuts. End of life lesson.”
It complemented the article he’d handed them today, as part of the usual pre-training routine:The Power of Negative Emotions. Not a lot of discussion on that one as the message had been loud and clear.
Dismissed by Kieran’s nod, Lee moved off the training pitch to grab a bottle of water. Alex was a few steps behind him, and they would need to talk to each other, probably, because this wasn’t going to work.
It wasn’t Lee who’d started it, though.
And yet. After a half-second of hesitation, he bent down to grab a second bottle of water and offered it to Alex. Hey, never let it be said that he wasn’t mature enough to extend the occasional olive branch.
“Thanks.” Alex’s fingers brushed Lee’s as he accepted the bottle, and Lee withdrew his hand, suddenly unsure what to do with himself. Everyone else had gone back to their training drills—everyone other than Oliver, who was heading straight for them with his captain face firmly fixed in place.
“Incoming,” Lee told Alex with a tiny flick of his chin.
Alex followed the direction Lee had indicated. “We could try to outrun him.”
Lee chuckled, and for just a moment, things clicked back into place. Then Alex raised the bottle for a generous swig, and Lee instantly remembered licking the minty taste of toothpaste off Alex’s lips. He looked away.
His brief distraction cost him the right moment to reply. Just as well, then, that Oliver had closed the distance. Under the pretence of picking up a water bottle for himself, he murmured, “What was that just now?”
“Nothing,” Alex said, and wow—he was a far worse liar than Lee had given him credit for. Lee considered himself somewhat of an expert on the matter given he’d spent his teenage years telling all sorts of lies about why he was the one picking up his sisters, where his mum was, and why he hadn’t done his homework. He’d come to appreciate truth as a luxury you could more easily afford once you were an adult with a proper income.
Not the whole truth, of course. Never that.
“Like Oliver will believe that was nothing,” he told Alex. “Didn’t they teach you how to lie at posh school?”
