AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Run that by me again when I’m fully awake.”
Jeff’s reply was a hearty yawn. “Deal. Let’s head back to the party and see who’s left, but my bed is starting to seem pretty damn appealing.”
“Same.” Alex grinned. “My bed, not yours.”
It would indeed be Alex’s own bed since Lee had his mother and sister staying with him—he’d have precious little time with them as it was, so shipping them off to some other hotel would have made no sense. Alex totally got it, even if it had been a while since he’d slept on his own. No big deal, of course.
Still not a big deal when Alex caught Lee’s eye for a quick smile before he headed upstairs to his room. The silence felt deafening once he closed the door, the bed enormous for just one person. He brushed his teeth while scrolling through congratulatory messages from friends, limiting his responses to those who’d been there with supportive words when the story about his father had broken. The others, well, he wasn’t ignoring them—he was merely reshuffling his priorities.
Unsurprisingly, his social media accounts had exploded over the last few days, the uptick in his followers a likely combination of England’s successful run as well as front-page articles about his dad that mentioned him. It gave some credence to the old saying that there was no such thing as bad publicity.
Alex posted a slightly subdued,‘Semi-final against Belgium coming up! For now, nothing else matters.’
Then he shut off his phone and the light, and closed his eyes. Sleep proved elusive, but he must have drifted off eventually because when he woke up, it was to sun peeking through a gap between the curtains.
Four days to the semi-final.
15
Lee had fancied himself busy in the past. Honestly, he hadn't known the bloodymeaningof the word.
The days leading up to the match against Belgium were … not frantic, no, because that would discount the fact that there was a method to the madness. They were tense, though. Crammed. Regular training sessions and gym workouts competed with sponsoring and publicity commitments, strategy sessions and hours of footage about their opponent that needed to be reviewed, some of it by the team as a whole and some of it based on what positions they played. Oliver studied players’ penalty preferences while Alex got an in-depth course on the Belgian midfield with a minor in their defence and offence, and Lee learned whatever he could about their key defenders and the primary goalkeeper, plus a little about their respective backups.
As a side effect, Lee found that his time with Alex had dwindled to stolen kisses in those ten minutes before they were expected at lunch or dinner. It was strange to miss someone who slept next to him every night, and yet he did just a little throughout the day, when they were almost constantly surrounded by the rest of the team.
What was theirs, though, was the hour after dinner before they turned off the light, and Lee wasn’t about to waste it. He was learning Alex by heart, by taste, pressing him into the sheets while their bodies slid together, Lee’s mouth on Alex’s dick and Alex’s hands in Lee’s hair until Alex rolled them over, deep kisses and wandering hands. There was a song that Lee couldn’t quite name, just that there was a line he’d never understood before but now he did—I’m gonna love you like I’m gonna lose you.
Because he would, wouldn’t he? He’d lose Alex, and so he would love him now, before their time ran out.
The night before the match, just as they were finishing up dinner—Jeff and Oliver arguing over the nutritional value of beer, Lee himself contributing just enough to keep them going because it was amusing to see their fake annoyance with each other when they actually got on quite well—Alex’s phone rang. His quiet “Oh, fuck” made the table fall silent.
“What?” Jeff asked.
“It’s my dad.” Alex got up as he said it, pale under his tan and clutching his phone like a snake he’d accidentally got his hands on and wasn’t sure how to deal with now. “I need to take this.”
“You don’t have to do a fucking thing,” Lee told him, and Jeff nodded his chin at Lee.
“What he said.”
“It’s mydad,” Alex said, low and urgent, eyes wide. With that, he accepted the call and turned away from them, heading for the stairs that led from the hotel terrace into the garden. They only just caught his “Hello, dad” before he was gone.
“Well, fuck. That’s not good.” Jeff was the one who stated the obvious.
Frowning, Oliver laid down his cutlery. “Bad timing, yeah. But you can’t blame him for not wanting to ghost his own father.”
“I’m not blamingAlex. His father, though? Hell yeah, I can blame the man for calling today, of all days.” Jeff’s voice had risen of its own accord, and after a glance at the other tables, he lowered it again, leaning forward. “Headlines say he’s been home for two days, and he picks tonight to finally give his son a call, just before our match against Belgium? Fuck that man with a very sharp object.”
“That’s hardly fair to the object,” Lee put in, and Jeff sent him an assessing look.
“Valid point.”
A few seconds of silence followed as they all watched Alex weave along one of the hotel’s gravel paths, head ducked, face averted. Then Jeff sighed and tapped his knuckles against Lee’s. “I guess that puts you on Alex duty tonight. Do you think you can handle it?”
For once, it didn’t come with an edge of innuendo. Ever since Alex had clued Jeff in after their win against France, Jeff had made it his mission to insert as many lewd comments into any given conversation as he possibly could. To his credit, he chose his moments with care, never let anything slip when there were other teammates around. While Lee would never admit it out loud, he loved how it made this thing with Alex feel real in a way it hadn’t before. Lee didn’t know if it meant something that Alex had told his best mate—maybe all it meant was that Alex had grown more comfortable with himself.
And yet Lee hoped it was more than just that.
“Of course I can handle it,” he told Jeff. “From one traumatised son to another, right?”
