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“Well, no. Still got a sprained ankle, so…”
“But other than that?”
“Yes.” Alex exhaled, nodding slowly. “I really am fine.”
Lee believed him. But… “What if he goes to the press?”
“Like I said, he won’t have any way of knowing it was you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Oh.” It seemed to confuse Alex—the idea that someone was more concerned for him than they were for themselves. Lee’s heart broke just a little. “I don’t think he’ll go to the press,” Alex said after a few seconds of consideration. “Like, the way he talks about Prince Joshua? It’s all, ‘well, if you must entertain certain preferences, you should at the very least refrain from flaunting them in public.’”
“Flaunting?” Lee repeated, mildly incredulous.
“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. “In his eyes, my sexuality would be an insult to the family legacy.”
Christ. Lee’s mum wouldn’t win any lifetime parenting awards, but at least she wastryingto be there for her children, now that a mix of medication and cognitive behavioural therapy kept her on a steady track. Alex’s dad, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered to see further than his own fucking nose. And as for Alex’s mum, did she even exist outside of her husband’s aura? The one time she’d called Alex, it had been to demand that he come home immediately to help sort out his dad’s mess.
“Your dad’s a fucking idiot,” Lee told Alex when what he really wanted to say was,I love you. Alex was a people pleaser though, always at risk of bowing to others’ wishes and expectations—and so Lee would hold his tongue until he could be certain the feeling was mutual.
“He is, yeah.” Alex pressed his lips together, brief sadness washing across his face. “Unfortunately, he’s the only dad I have. Starting to wonder how much that really means, though.”
Since there was nothing Lee could say in response, he settled for wrapping both arms around Alex, holding on until Alex exhaled and relaxed into it, his face buried against the crook of Lee’s neck.
It was enough. At least for now, it was.
Unlike his father,Alex wasn’t in the habit of delivering speeches. While he’d picked up the necessary skills at Harrow School, he didn’t delight in forcing his thoughts on the room, all eyes on him—but when he got up halfway through dinner, it wasn’t about that.
Tomorrow, they’d be facing Brazil. And all Alex could offer were words.
“All right, everyone.” He propped his bum on the edge of the table to take weight off his bad ankle. “Let me just start by saying that I am fuckingheartbrokenthat I won’t be on that pitch with you tomorrow. However.” He paused. “This isn’t about me. It isn’t about any of us individually—it’s about the team, isn’t it? Because that’s what got us here.”
“I reckon it was the non-alcoholic beer,” Jeff called out, and Alex grinned.
“Right, so it was the team along with the buzz-less taste of free beer.” His gaze swept over the hotel restaurant’s terrace—Oliver and Lewis, Kieran, Finley, Jeff, and Lee, and behind them the gentle slopes of the golf course, already illuminated against the darkening sky. “But here’s my point: we made it this far because we’re more than the sum of those eleven players who are actually on the pitch at any given moment. They’re just the tip of an iceberg that is largely underwater, and sure, the tip is what the public will see—but there’d be no tip without a strong base to carry it. That’s our assistant coaches and our performance analysts, our equipment managers and medical staff, our benchwarmers…”
“Hear, hear!” Lewis said.
Alex pointed at him. “Exactly. It’s people like you who’ve been carrying this team. It’s in how you’ve been cheering everyone on even though you know that Oliver is unlikely to give up his spot.”
“Damn right.” That was Oliver, of course, and right after he’d said it, he got up to high-five Lewis. “It’s an honour to have you breathing down my neck, mate.”
“It’s an honour to keep you on your toes, mate.”
Scattered applause and whistles. God, Alex was so very grateful to be part of this team.
“And it’s an honour,” he said loudly, “to be here with you all. I am so fuckingproudof you, of us. No matter what happens tomorrow—this one’s going to stay. I’ll be old and grey, and all the other pensioners at the retirement home will be bored to tears by me telling the same old story over and over again.”
“We’ll tell it together!” Jeff put in, and Alex smiled at him, then at Lee right beside Jeff, watching Alex with a soft kind of brightness.
I don’t want this to end.
Alex pulled his attention away and his thoughts back on track. “What I’m trying to say is…” He waved a hand to include everyone on the terrace. “There’ll be eleven players on the pitch tomorrow, but the rest of us will be right there with you in spirit, plus the royal family and thousands more in the stands, andmillionsback in the UK. So let’s bring it home, guys!”
He wasn’t sure what sort of reaction he had expected. It wasn’t everyone swarming him for a group hug though, teammates and entourage all coming together, people clapping each other on shoulders and backs. Kieran was right in the middle of it all, and when he reached Alex, he paused for a moment to assess him with a serious look before a beaming smile crinkled his eyes. “You’ve done some proper growing up, lad. Way to bring a spark of joy to an old man like me.”
Alex was pretty sure that his father would beg to differ given there’d been no attempt to get back in touch after that disastrous call. This wasn’t about Alex’s dad, though.
