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“Yeah.”
“I get that. I do.” Alex seemed to consider his next words carefully. “But she’s making an effort, isn’t she? Sticking to her treatment regimen, regular therapy, and she’s here to see you play. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is.” Lee didn’t know what it meant to admit even as much. It didn’t feel bad, not exactly—maybe even like a relief to let a tiny slice of resentment slip away.
Alex’s response consisted of a quick glance at the empty corridor outside their compartment before he leaned across the gap between their seats, one hand on Lee’s thigh as he brushed their mouths together. He was smiling when he pulled back, and maybe Lee was too.
Alex made him want to smile a lot of the time, and yeah, that meant something—Lee knew it did, also knew what it meant. He also knew that there was nopointbecause Alex’s plans for the future did not include a boyfriend.
Didn’t stop Lee from wanting more than he was entitled to, though.
On paper,England stood little chance against France's star-studded ensemble. They were outranked in experience, market value, and individual class, so their only hope lay in working as a team, in coming together as a unit that was bigger than its pieces.
Ninety minutes separated them from the semi-final.
At halftime, they were down by one unlucky goal off a disputable free kick. Kieran told them he was fuckingproudof them, and to keep up what they were doing because they were the better team today, and the gods of football needed to sit up and pay attention. Lee was slumped on a bench next to Alex, the locker room’s air-conditioning blasting them with a cool breeze, and fuck, Lee wished he could reach over and wipe that frown off Alex’s face. Since he decidedly couldn’t, not with the rest of the team around, he settled for a murmured, “Hey, you’re doing well, yeah?”
Alex shot him a glance from underneath his lashes. “Thank you. You too—just a matter of time until you score, just a bit of bad luck until now.”
“Yeah.” Lee let his lids drift shut, sinking into the familiar sounds of a halftime locker room for a moment—lowered voices of teammates, the faint hum of the air-con. “By the way, did you see some of those posters? The ones addressed to you?”
“‘The only title that matters is this one’, with a big picture of the World Cup trophy?”
“And the one that’s got ‘Son of a duke’ crossed out for ‘A king on the pitch’.”
“I didn’t see that.” Alex’s face brightened a little. “That’s cute. Just not sure they’ll still feel that way if we lose.”
“So we win, then,” Lee told him. “Easy.”
“Right, good point. That should have occurred to me.” The lightness on Alex’s face lingered, belying his sarcasm, so Lee considered it a success.
The second half started with a near-goal for England—Alex to Jeff to Lee and back to Jeff, who missed by a hair’s width, the ball bouncing off the post.Try again. They did. And then again until finally, Alex’s surgery-precision pass intersected with Lee sneaking past two defenders, and then the ball wasin.
1-1. Twenty-one minutes to go.
The game was still tied by the time the final whistle blew. Extra time—two additional fifteen-minute periods, Kieran gathering them in a circle as they swigged water, sweaty and exhausted, breathing hard. Minor adjustments to the strategy, Alex moving higher up the pitch, their fullbacks farther up the wings, dial up the pressure. “Let’s give them hell!” Kieran declared, eyes bright, an expression that said he believed theycould.
And so they fucking did.
Lee’s shot, on target but intercepted by the French goalkeeper. Alex was there to net the rebound.
2-1.
2-1.
Lee was the first one by Alex’s side, tackling him in a full-body hug, laughing against his cheek.I love you, he thought and didn’t say, and then Jeff barrelled into them, Declan and Finley and Toby yelling their triumph as they joined the huddle, and somewhere in between, Lee had to let Alex go. So he did.
France came at them hard and fast after that, hardly any space to breathe. Along with the rest of the English team, Lee threw himself into defending, also managed to break away with the ball a couple of times, move into those gaps that opened up in the French defensive line now that they were throwing everything they had at Oliver’s goal. Two minutes to the end, he slid the ball past the goalkeeper, watched as it went in, brain lagging behind reality. He didn’t quite realise what had happened until Alex and Jeff caught up to him, happiness shining on their faces as they wrapped their arms around him.
3-1.
Semi-finals!
The short bus ride to the already familiar hotel in the city centre was loud—jerseys waving in the air like flags, Lewis dancing in the middle of the aisle to a chorus of “Here we, here we, here we fucking go!” led by Jeff. Alex, in the seat next to Lee, was radiant, his knee pressed against Lee’s as if by accident, and God, Lee wanted him so fuckingmuchit was nearly blinding. Since no one was looking, he dug his knuckles into the outside of Alex’s thigh, and Alex turned to him with bright eyes, face shining.
For a few seconds, they stared at each other, the happiness in Alex’s features slowly fading to make room for something heavier, much more serious.
Then Lewis bumped into Alex, and the moment broke as Alex turned away to give Lewis a playful shove coupled with an insult to his lineage.
