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All right, back to wheelchair-accessible emotional territory. Alex could do that. “My earldom for a pizza.”
“Double cheese,” Lee said, reverent.
“With salami. And none of that whole-grain crap.”
Lee’s chuckle was quiet. “You know, I’ll probably inflate like a balloon once my active career is over.”
“Nah, you’ll always be hot.”
“Such a charmer.”
“Learned it from my father.”
“And on that note…” Lee pulled a face. “I need to scrub my brain with bleach.”
Alex’s smile came easily, his lungs no longer quite so narrow. “You’re welcome.”
For a moment, they watched each other in comfortable silence. Then Lee ducked his head, the warm afternoon sun highlighting the slant of his cheekbones. “For the record? It’s mutual. The attraction and all.”
Funny how it didn’t change a thing—and yet it did. Alex exhaled through the tiny flutter in his stomach. “Good to know.”
“Yeah.” Lee was quiet for a second. “We’re okay?”
Alex nodded. “We’re okay.”
They were. Even if Alex wanted more, even if each time he blinked, he still felt the weight of Lee’s body against his, Lee’s fingernails digging into his waist…
They were okay.
Posted by@AlexanderBeaufort (June 21, 6:48 p.m.):
At some point in the near future, I will eat an entire pizza with extra cheese, and it will be glorious.
Dinner that nighttook place under a magnifying glass.
At least that’s what it felt like to Lee—heads turning as they sat down together, subtle glances flickering their way. Faking obliviousness seemed like the best course of action, so Lee ignored everyone else as he reached for the bottle of water on the table. “Want some?” he asked Alex.
“Yeah, thanks.” Alex seemed to have drawn the same conclusion. He kept his gaze on Lee, his smile wide, hair artfully tousled.
“Is it just me” —Lee smiled back— “or are we suddenly the most interesting people on this terrace?”
Alex heaved a dramatic sigh. “The burden of fame.”
“All right, lads?” Oliver asked, dropping into a free chair at the table, Jeff following suit.
“All right,” Lee told him pointedly, and Jeff grinned.
“So you kissed and made up, then?”
It was just Jeff being Jeff. Still, Lee might have flinched the tiniest bit, shooting Alex a quick look just as Alex glanced over, too. When Lee pulled his attention away, he found Oliver staring at him with wide eyes.
Well, shit.
Lee gave Oliver a tiny headshake just as Alex laughed, a beat delayed. “Something like that,” Alex told Jeff, voice light.
The conversation moved on from there. Jeff retold his brother’s stories of a crowded pilgrim’s trail that appeared to rather resemble a pub crawl in some places, and after that, Oliver described what it felt like to play in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium when it nearly burst from the deafening racket of eighty thousand fans. It was a surefire way to get Alex’s nerves buzzing ahead of their match against Morocco.
Under the table, Lee nudged his foot against Alex’s. Before he could wonder whether that was too familiar when their unsteady friendship had only just crawled back out of a temporary hole, Alex nudged him back. Lee hardly tasted the rest of their dinner, too focused on Alex right beside him—his low laugh and the occasional brush of their knees, how each time their gazes caught, it took a second before one of them looked away first.
