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Alex must have gone a little wild-eyed because Jeff kicked his foot. “Right this way,” he told Foxwell. Kieran.
They started moving, and Alex remembered his manners just in time to ask Fox—Kieranabout how his start in the national team had been since he’d taken over on uncommonly short notice, after the previous coach had resigned on charges of tax fraud. Kieran’s chuckle was loud in the narrow tunnel. “Ah, it’s been a ride. But what would life be without a little excitement and unpredictability, am I right?”
“One hundred per cent,” Jeff agreed while Alex, who organised his life around routines, simply nodded.
The first room they tried was indeed empty, with a tactics board in one corner and a big screen at the front to review match footage. The faint smell of dry-erase markers hung in the air as Kieran closed the door and gestured for them to pick a couple of the chairs scattered around the space. “Have a seat, lads.”
God, it felt good to sit. Alex shoved at his sweaty bangs and stretched out his legs, abruptly aware of his aching muscles. This was the Premier League and no match was a walk in the park, but Lee had pushed Alex to the limits of his endurance.
He’d need to train harder.
“All right.” Kieran leaned against the edge of a table at the front of the room, hands clasped in front of him. “I’ll cut to the chase—Jeff, Alex, I want you on my team.”
Jeff leapt from his chair, his whoop bouncing off the walls. “Fucking A, man!” He pulled Alex up and into a hug that Alex returned, electricity crackling along his spine. The national team. The fuckingnational team. Millions watching, judging, and what if Alex wasn’t good enough? What if he was thrown into the fire and found wanting?
It was so much easier to be confident with a ball at his feet.
“Thank you,” he managed, tucking his doubts away and trading them for a huge smile because this wasmassive. “That means so much, Kieran.”
“You’ve earned it,” Kieran said. “Both of you.”
Jeff let go of Alex, walked right over, and pulled Kieran into a hug as well while Alex watched, frozen. Rather than show surprise, Kieran just laughed and patted Jeff on the back. “That’s the spirit, lad. Keep it up and you just might be in the running for team captain.”
Captain. Oliver Bramwell was captain of the national team, and he was certain to return as its goalkeeper. Equally certain to return was Lee Taylor because only a madman would leave the top scorer of the Premier League behind. Kieran might be many things, but mad wasn’t one of them.
So. Alex would get the dubious repeat pleasure of playing on the same team as Lee, then—teammates with someone who’d decided to hate Alex for no good reason when Alex had been a mere eighteen years old, fresh to the Under 21s and a little scared even though he’d tried to hide behind a big smile and a quest to make everyone like him. Maybe Lee had seen right through it, spotted the insecure boy behind the happy mask and fancy title.Pretty boy. Exposing Alex as a wide-eyed kid with a cute smile and a smidgen of charm—largely irrelevant.
Fuck Lee.
Alex grabbed onto that anger and used it to stifle any echo of doubt in his mind. He’d prove that he belonged—to his parents and Lee and the world, and maybe a little to himself, too.
He’d prove that hedeservedthis.
2
St George’s Park.
It looked like something out of Alex's childhood dreams, manicured grass shining in the warm haze of an afternoon sun, the training pitches surrounded by towering floodlights. While Alex had been to the national football centre once before, in preparation for those exhibition games earlier in the year, it was different this time—this was for the bloodyWorld Cup.
“D’you need a minute?” Jeff asked from behind him. “I can give you some privacy if you, ah … need to release sometensionahead of the team meeting. If you get my drift.”
Alex turned away from the window to find Jeff smirking at him, suitcase already open and spilling its contents all over the bed on Jeff’s side of the room. Chaos was Jeff’s speciality and par for the course when sharing any kind of space with him, so Alex had come to accept it as the inevitable price he paid for Jeff’s company.
“Unfortunately,” Alex said dryly, “you’re just way too subtle. Please spell it out for me.”
“Y’know what I love about you, mate?” Jeff didn’t pause for an answer. “You’ve got everyone convinced you’re this bundle of sunshine, but really, you’re a sarcastic little shit.”
“Only with people I trust and like.”
“All four of ‘em.”
“Yeah.” Alex inclined his head. “If that.”
“Colour me honoured.” Jeff joined Alex at the window, his smirk merging into a softer grin. “Fucking amazing, isn’t it? With some luck, I’ll even get to play this time around.”
Three years older than Alex, Jeff had already been part of the squad four years ago. He’d watched three matches from the bench before the team had been sent home to shrill criticism for not even making it past the group stage. Only a handful of players had survived the resulting overhaul of the team—Jeff, Oliver, and Lee among them. With an average age of only twenty-five years, the team Kieran had assembled was the youngest to ever represent England at a World Cup.
And Alex was part of it.
