Fernando sat down heavily in the chair beside me. His reaction had surprised me, though I don’t know why. The bloke had always been all about the game, first and foremost. It was what made him such a successful manager. Single minded. Ruthless. Thoughtful in a crisis without wasting energy on anger. “You really want to retire because of this?”
“Not just because of this. I probably would’ve considered it anyway.”
“Why?”
“I want to do other things.” My gaze wandered to my wrist. The bracelet Lucky had given me was barely visible, but my heart quickened regardless. This is really happening. “I want to be myself.”
Fernando said nothing for a long moment, and then he nodded slowly. “I think perhaps we should go for the injunction anyway. It might buy us some time.”
Isha’s intense stare flickered to me before he shook his head. “We only need time to prepare statements. Delaying anything else isn’t fair on Dom.”
Fernando sighed. “Very well. I’ll make the calls.”
He disappeared. Isha and I stared at each other, but didn’t speak. What was there to say? We knew where we were going, and what we’d face, and I was thankful that I still had him on my side. That he hadn’t figured out that I was the judgemental arsehole who’d turned on him without facts. “Isha—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Let’s forget the past, okay? We don’t have time to dwell on it. I should’ve told you, and you should’ve believed me when I explained why I didn’t. We’re both wankers.”
“If you say so.”
“I do, Dom. I do.”
In need of a distraction, I left him in the office and returned to the dressing room to retrieve my training gear. It was deserted, but as I gazed around I felt the presence of every man I’d ever played with. For the first time since this mess had truly opened up, I wondered how they’d look at me when it all came out. When I came out. There weren’t many I cared about, but I couldn’t deny that rejection from Maldano and Micah would sting.
I sat down on a bench, slipped my phone from my pocket—for some reason, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to lock it away in my car today—and opened my message threads. Lucky aside, they were all, without exception, about work and business. There was the occasional joke from Maldano, or snaps of his kids that I’d rarely responded to, but all the warmth in my life from the last decade had come from a few months of interactions with Lucky.
What kind of shit was I that something huge was only just occurring to me?
Fuck, I don’t even know his real name.
It was the second time the realisation had hit me like a train, but Isha knocked on the dressing room door before I could come to terms with it.
“Dom? The board are meeting now. Sit tight, they’ll call you in soon.”
Lucky
Dom kept coming at me with serious conversations, and all I could think about was curling my body over his and fucking him. Of his wild eyes and ragged moans when he’d come, and his contented exhaustion when it was all over. I’d watched him sleep for hours before I’d laid my head on his chest and dozed off.
“Lucky? Did you do the brake inspection on the NX?”
I swung my gaze to Jim. He was hovering over me with his favourite clipboard. “Which NX? There’s two in today.”
“Damn it. Blowed if I know. Whichever one you were working on this afternoon.”
I took pity on him and slid off the shelf I’d perched on to drink my seventy-five-millionth cup of tea. “The black one didn’t need brakes. It was the craptastic gold one that came in for an inspection.”
“Did you finish it?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t be bunking off over here if I hadn’t. I’m waiting for Cash to come back with the new filters.”
“Good lad, good lad. Oh…talking of Cash, do you think you could pin this up in the staffroom? He asked me this morning, but I’m like a bucket with a bleeding hole today.”
Jim handed me a scrap of paper and disappeared. Lacking anything better to do, I took the paper to the staffroom, and pinned it to the noticeboard I rarely looked at. I didn’t pay much attention to goings on in the garage beyond the cars and the state of the shower, but even then, not in the last few days ’cause I’d been using Dom’s bath—
Stop it.
I caught myself before my imagination went off on another sex tangent and focussed on the note Cash had scribbled on the paper. It was an ad for a flatmate—a house share, seven-hundred quid a month, all bills included.
Seriously? I blinked. That was less money I was paying for a single room in a fucking hostel, and unheard of in London. Must be a shithole then. But though Cash was a bit random, he didn’t seem the type to live in a sty. Nah, mate, that’s just you.
Damn my brain today. Staying up all night gawping at Dom was really fucking with my ability to string coherent thoughts together. I finished pinning the ad up and returned to the parts cave to find Cash.
He was waiting for me, his messy dark-blond hair making mine look tidy. “Filters aren’t coming till tomorrow. Go home if you want, mate.”
I eyed him suspiciously. Most blokes at the garage were pleasant enough now they’d got bored with the hair jokes, but Cash had always been kind to me. Looking me in the eye, asking my opinion on things most people around here assumed I knew nothing about. Maybe he’s a plant from that tabloid—
Jesus Christ, I needed a nap.
Cash frowned. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
“Sure? You look spaced, man.”
“Piss off,” I snapped before I remembered the piece of paper on the staffroom wall. “Is that ad for your place?”
Cash’s frown deepened before he seemed to catch on to what I was talking about. “Shit, I’d forgotten about that. Yeah, it used to be my uncle’s place, but he sold it to me on the cheap so he could fuck off to Thailand with his new bird. I’m fixing it up before I flip it, but I could do with a flatmate to help me out.”
“So whoever lives with you has to help with repairs?”
“No, I meant with the cost. I bought the house with some inheritance money, but I’ve run out, so some rent would help me get going again. Why? Know someone looking?”
“No.”
Cash cocked an eyebrow. “Sure about that? You seem kind of curious.”
Curious wasn’t the word. I’d bite any hand that offered me a way out of the halfway house, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to say so. To nod and admit that I wanted more than anything to push for something that could make my life better.
“What are you two gossiping about?” Jim reappeared, still brandishing his clipboard.
“We’re not gossiping,” Cash said with a grin. “I’m just asking Lucky if he wants to rent my spare room.”
Jim grunted. “Good idea. It’s only up the road, lad. Just the ticket when you like to get here at the arse crack of dawn, eh?”
I scowled as he wandered off again, though I had no right to. Jim had turned a blind eye to me being all over the place for the last few weeks, even bringing me breakfast when I’d been too buzzed to remember to eat. If he thought I should rent Cash’s room, chances were he was right.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to Cash. “Is it really seven-hundred quid?”
Dom opened his front door and pulled me inside, pushing me up against it as soon as it clicked shut. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name,” he repeated fiercely. “And don’t say it’s Lucky or I’ll lose my fucking mind, I swear.”
I almost laughed, but the obvious anxiety in him tempered my amusement. “My full name is Luke Coleman, but my granddad called me Lucky ’cause I was born on the day he won big at the bingo.”
“Your name is Luke?”
“Yeah, but only my parents and teachers ever called me that, so don’t even think about it.”
Relief seemed to pour out of Dom. He sagged against me, but I didn’t question it as I held him. What wa
s the point? His world had gone mad, and perhaps I needed to do better at anchoring him.
If he wanted me to anchor him. After all, we’d come this far, but still had no defined end game.
I didn’t know how I felt about that.
I didn’t know how I felt about anything while Dom’s entire body was pressed against me.
He sighed and pulled away, his lovely face unshuttered again. “You look happy.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. What’s happened? Something good?”
“Um…I think so.”
Dom kissed my cheek and tugged me away from the door, and into the apartment. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to tell you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I laughed, couldn’t help it, even though it was clear he really didn’t know where he was going with this. “I want to tell you, but I’m freaking out about it a bit. You know when something seems too good to be true?”
“You mean like being a rich-bitch football player?”
“Something like that.” I dropped onto the couch, kicked my boots off, and tucked my feet beneath me. “A bloke at work has a room to rent. It’s in his house, so it’s not some shitty HMO, and it’s super cheap with bills included.”
“HMO?”
“House of multiple occupancy—you know, like twelve people crammed into a two up two down?”
“Oh.”
I could tell by Dom’s face that he was struggling to put a picture to my words. “I don’t know the bloke that well, though,” I added. “He could be a serial killer for all I know.”
“So could I have been when you first met me.” Dom stretched his muscular legs out in front of him. “Does anyone else know him?”
“I think so. He’s quiet sometimes, but friendly enough with most of the guys.”
“And they like him?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you?”
I chewed it over and nodded. “Yeah, he’s sound.”
“So what’s the problem? He’s not a creep and you can afford it, right?”
“Yeah. I mean when I said super cheap, I meant for London, not for my budget, but it’s the same as I’m paying now.”
Dom took it all in, and I could pretty much see him trying to get his head around stressing out over a few hundred quid. He was the most down to earth fella in the world, but he hadn’t worried about money in years.
Eventually, he gave up, kissed my cheek, and left the room. He came back with a takeaway pizza box and a couple of beers. “I met with my manager today.”
I blew out a breath. “Wow. How did that go?”
“As expected in some ways, and completely off the wall in others.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the reactions of individuals were as expected, but the board surprised me. They’ve accepted my retirement at the end of the season, but they’re going to back me all the way, and speak out to let other queer players know the club is a safe place for them.”
“What?”
“I know, right?” Dom rubbed his face. “I was pretty flipped by it, but it doesn’t really change things for me. I want to retire, not be some poster boy for gay footballers.”
“They asked you to do that?”
“Not exactly, but that’s what will happen if I stay, and I don’t want that. I want to get back to living, and actually, knowing the club is gonna do the decent thing with or without me makes that easier.”
I opened the pizza box and forced myself not to get distracted by barbecue chicken. “So…you don’t want to be a poster boy, but you don’t want to leave knowing the next queer player would have it just as hard?”
“Something like that. It sounds better in my head. And to be honest, the poster-boy thing isn’t about being gay. I’ve never liked that shit—I don’t do press or endorsements, and I made damn sure I never signed a contract that obligated me to.”
“I can’t imagine you doing a Head & Shoulders advert.”
Dom snorted and snagged a slice of pizza, though he didn’t take a bite. “I never did that stuff because no money in the world seemed worth it, but I don’t judge the guys that do—it’s just not me. Thing is, though, I never knew what was me until the last few days.”
“What’s changed?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t really know. I just—” He dropped the pizza back in the box. “It’s ridiculous, but I feel like something’s shifted in me. Like seeing you on the ground and thinking you were dead showed me what my life really was…and what the future held for both of us if things didn’t change.”
“I hate that you saw me like that.”
“I don’t,” Dom said. “I mean, I hate that you’ve been in so much pain, and I’ll do anything you need to help you get better, but I had to see that reality, Lucky—your reality—or what we have wouldn’t mean anything.”
“What do we have?”
Dom speared me with a stare that warmed me from the inside out. “I don’t know what you’d call it, mate, but I fucking love you, if that helps.”
My face split in a grin a mile wide. “Are you serious?”
“Am I funny enough to pull off a joke like that?”
“Probably not.” I abandoned the pizza box and slithered like a drunken chimp into his lap. “But I’ve never loved you for your wit.”
“No? What have you loved me for?”
“For everything, Dom. You’re everything to me; you know that, don’t you?”
He smiled. “I do now.”
Epilogue
Six months later…
Dom
“I still can’t get used to strangers knowing my name,” Lucky said. “I thought all the attention would’ve fucked off by the time I finished my apprenticeship.”
I glanced up from my phone. Lucky was staring after the young girls who’d approached our table in the Tottenham cafe and greeted us both by name. “It’s that bloody gossip rag. They love you.”
Lucky cringed, but—thankfully—humour danced in his lively gaze. “They only love me because they get off on the idea of a weed like me taming a stud like you.”
I snorted. “There’s nothing weedy about you.”
“They don’t know that.”
“Why should they? Fuck them.”
“I don’t want to fuck them—literally, or metaphorically. They were nice.”
Most people who approached us were, and it still felt surreal. The shitstorm of hate I’d expected when the club’s team of publicists had carefully managed my coming out had never come. An injunction had silenced the tabloid hack who’d stalked my meetings with Lucky, giving me time to play out the season before I’d retired from the game. I’d come out two weeks later, but the impact had been softened by a bigger sporting scandal, and I’d got off lightly. Paps still followed me around from time to time, but I was mostly too boring to warrant much attention.
At least, I had been until the lighter gossip magazines had caught up with Lucky. After that, we’d somehow ended up as a hashtag for cute queer relationship goals, and most days I wondered if I was living a dream.
Not that having my life mapped out in mushy memes on Snapchat had ever been my dream, but if it outweighed the occasional batch of hate mail from disgruntled football yobs, I could dig it. “Are you still getting girls coming by the garage?”
Lucky drained his tea mug and wiped his devilish mouth with the back of his hand. “Every day. It freaks Cash out a bit, but the other guys love it. Don’t think half of them get to talk to women otherwise.”
“What about Jim?”
“He don’t care as long as the work gets done.”
Sometimes I envied Lucky’s ability to live such a normal life. How he wore his pansexuality like a second skin. I had so much to learn from him. Still, his smile kept me alive, like it always had. I reached across the table and brushed my fingers over his. “Can we go home?”
He grinned. �
��My place or yours?”
“Yours.”
We walked home to the house Lucky shared with a fellow mechanic from Premier Autos. Cash was somewhere downstairs, hitting stuff with a hammer. I liked him. He was sharp enough to be interesting, and mellow enough to keep his nose out of my shit—the perfect combination. And he was a dude to Lucky, so he was pretty much my fucking hero.
Still, the fact that he was preoccupied making a whole lot of noise somewhere else was a relief as I tugged Lucky upstairs to the bedroom that made him so happy. Bright and airy, with huge bay windows, it was a rare day I didn’t wake up to find Lucky grinning at his surroundings like he couldn’t quite believe they were real.
His bed was awesome too. It was the only thing I’d asked if I could buy him, and I was fairly sure the fact that he knew my motives weren’t entirely selfless had swayed his decision to let me.
The bed was big and white, covered with too many pillows, and finished off with a duvet as thick and squishy as a fucking marshmallow. It wasn’t my thing, but it was everything Lucky had never had, and on the nights we spent apart, knowing he was safe in his Lucky-scented cocoon made me happy.
And, the nights we did spend together, the duvet was so warm we had to sleep naked: winner.
Lucky threw himself down on the bed in question. “You look like you’re plotting something.”
“Plotting? You think I’m that kind of man?”
“Nah. I just meant you’ve obviously got something on your mind, and I’m hoping it involves locking the door for the rest of the night.”
Heat rushed through me, like it always did at the mere thought of having sex with Lucky. Gone were the days where my desire for him—or any man—came with a hefty dose of shame. I couldn’t pinpoint when it had left me, or even why, but I never forgot it.
I locked the door and joined Lucky on the bed, kicking my shoes off on the way. Just lying with him was enough, but he clearly had other ideas. He yanked impatiently at my clothes until I was bare, and set to work slowly driving me mad.
Lucky Page 22
