Lucky

by Garrett Leigh

  Watching him fall apart, shout my name, and paint my chest with come, was just about the hottest thing I’d ever seen. I was fucking enchanted, and I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t stop myself seizing him when he was done, and crushing him against me in a suffocating embrace.

  It was a while before I could bring myself to let him go, and by then, he was trembling.

  I pushed his hair back. “Okay?”

  He grinned dazedly and another violent shudder wracked him. “Yeah. You just get me, you know?”

  If he felt anything like I did, then, yeah, I knew. “Do you want another bath?”

  Lucky shook his head. “Nah. I wanna lie here with you.”

  I wasn’t about to argue with that. Time was getting away from us. Soon, I’d have to leave him and go back to a bed that had never felt as welcoming as this one that thousands of people had likely slept in. But right now? I was all his.

  We got cleaned up, and Lucky sprawled out on his stomach beside me, his leg hooked over mine while he drew patterns on my chest. Intimacy seemed to come naturally for us now, but the reality that it couldn’t last hit home as I glanced at the clock on the TV. Tomorrow was a big day for training, and I should’ve already been asleep in my own bed, hydrated, my body loaded with perfectly balanced food.

  Instead I was holed up with a man I could easily fall in love with if I was someone else entirely.

  “So…” Lucky drawled lazily, but there was a question behind it.

  I tensed, bracing myself, and he rubbed my chest. “Don’t freak out, Dom. I just want to know who taught you to fuck like that if you’ve never had a relationship. You don’t learn that shit in clubs or on Grindr.”

  Heat crept into my cheeks, and I was glad the room was dimly lit as I let my answer spill out of me, despite the urge to measure my words. “No one taught me anything. You’re the only bloke I’ve ever—uh—been so intimate with. I never kissed anyone before you.”

  Lucky’s hand stilled on my chest. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  He sat up, hair tumbling over his shoulders. “Why me?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you let me kiss you when you never have anyone else? And don’t tell me no one’s ever wanted to.”

  I didn’t want to talk about this, to think about the empty encounters that had led me to this moment, but the idea that Lucky didn’t know how beautiful he was—how fucking mesmerising—made me feel sick.

  Sighing, I leaned forward and pressed our foreheads together. “I let you kiss me because you made it all real.”

  Eighteen

  Dom

  Match days had become the only time playing football made sense. The crowds and cameras had long ago become normal enough that I barely noticed them, but the desire to win was rooted so deep inside me that for ninety minutes perhaps I was the Dominic Ramos the whole world except Lucky perceived.

  I was brutal—vicious, even. No one got by me and stayed on their feet. Studs scraped skin, and bones clashed. Men rolled off the pitch clutching their legs, but I played on.

  Despite my efforts though, at half-time we were two-nil down.

  Fernando wasn’t impressed. He benched the captain and handed me the armband.

  I was even less impressed. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Deadly.” Fernando growled in Spanish and thrust the armband at me again. “And if anyone here wants to play in Europe next year, they’d better fucking join me.”

  Being capped had been the pinnacle of my career when it had first happened a few years ago, but it was a ball ache now. With glory came responsibility, blame, and a circus I didn’t have enough fucks to put up with.

  But, like so many other things in my life, I had little choice but to slide the armband over my elbow and get on with my job.

  We left the tunnel for the second half. The whistle blew and the discontent of the home fans was obvious from the first kick. Despite a diet of late nights and junk, I was still playing better than ever, but the coherency of my team was something else. Or nothing at all, depending on how you looked at it.

  When the ball went out of play, I jogged to the touchline to huddle with Fernando.

  “Go wide and long,” he instructed. “We don’t have the pace in the middle to keep them out, but they’re not watching you because they think you won’t leave your line.”

  Ordinarily they’d be right. My primary job was to stop goals, not score them, but the growing fluidity of the game meant my role evolved with each match.

  I swallowed a mouthful of a blue and sickly sports drink, and rejoined the game. A couple of set pieces didn’t play out, but ten minutes into the second half, our strikers hit their mark. Six minutes later, we drew even, but a draw wasn’t enough for us or our opponents.

  The atmosphere in the stadium reached fever pitch. At three minutes till the whistle, the single mindedness that had carried me this far in the beautiful game took over. I sent the younger defenders deep into our own half, and pushed my wingman—Maldano—down the left side. “Go long,” I shouted.

  I dashed down the right-hand side of the pitch, chasing the ball, and nothing else. Playing out of position was risky, but so extreme and out of character for our defence line that no one would expect it.

  Unchecked, I burst into the penalty box and caught Maldano’s cross with my head. Half a dozen opposition players crashed into me, sending me sprawling to the grass, but they’d charged too late. The ball hit the back of the net, and my work for the day was done.

  The dressing room was mental. At this stage in the season, every point counted. We stood no chance of topping the league, but qualifying for Europe was well within our reach. And it meant the world…to everyone, but me.

  Maldano dragged me to the communal baths. The water was already cloudy with mud and dirty grass, which stopped the steamy encounter with a dozen nude men being as homoerotic as an outsider might think. Only Maldano had ever invaded my thoughts outside of the club, but it had been years, and regardless, a lifetime had passed since I’d last thought of anyone but Lucky.

  Still, I made my escape as soon as I could, and grabbed a towel on my way to my locker. In the middle of the dressing room, the replay of the game was up on the big screen. Maldano stood in front of it, naked as the day he was born, arms folded across his chest, studying the aftermath of the last-minute goal.

  “You’re such a fucking ice king,” he mused. “Smash a winner and you walk off like it was nothing.”

  “You think I should’ve whipped my shirt off and got myself some tasty grass burn for the weekend?”

  “I don’t think anything. You just confuse me, man.”

  Try being in my head for a day. I punched Maldano’s arm and left him to it, retreating to my locker to get dressed and finally—finally—get the fuck out of there to check my phone. I was heading back to Manchester the following day, and if I couldn’t see Lucky before I went, I was pretty sure I’d die.

  I was ten metres from the player’s exit when Isha ruined my day.

  “Dom. We need to talk.”

  Sighing, I kept walking. “Crack on, mate. But make it quick.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why the hurry? You haven’t got anywhere or anyone to rush off to, right?”

  His tone stopped me in my tracks. I spun around to face him. “What’s it to you?”

  “Everything while I’m still your agent.”

  I scowled. Despite being so pissed off with Isha I could hardly stand to look at him, I’d done nothing to replace him, and he knew it. He also knew me well enough to be fairly certain that I wouldn’t. That I couldn’t risk cutting him loose when he held all the fucking cards. “What do you want?”

  “I told you already. To talk.”

  “Fine.” I shouldered my way through the player exit and turned towards the car park. “You’ve got five minutes.”

  We sat in my car like gangsters, lurking in a car park, hiding behind bla
cked-out windows. “Get on with it,” I said. “What have you got to say that I haven’t already heard?”

  Isha gazed out of the front window, apparently miles away, even though it was his doing that we were here. “Not much, really. There’s just some things I want you to know before you write me off as the kind of agent we both hate.”

  “Manipulative bastards who are only out for themselves?”

  “Exactly.” He finally looked at me. “That’s not who I am, Dom. You know that.”

  I stubbornly refused to meet his gaze, like I could discount the decade of evidence in his favour—years and years I’d spent genuinely believing he had my best interests at heart. Still believed, to a certain degree, whether I wanted to or not, because what had really changed?

  Perspective began to seep into my month-long sulk. Logic returned, and I turned over what Isha had actually done in my convoluted mind:

  He knew I was queer and he never said anything.

  He fed the press bullshit stories about me and random women.

  The second one left a bad taste in my mouth, but the first was more complex. Yeah, he’d known I was queer all along and never said anything to me, but he hadn’t told anyone else either. Why would he, though? You being queer could fuck him as much as you.

  I was so fucking confused. My hands clenched around the steering wheel, and I banged my head on the textured leather.

  “Dom—”

  I groaned. “Stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know more than you think.”

  I raised my head and speared him with a glare that usually made him wince, but he met my gaze dead on, and my heart knew what he was about to say before he said the words.

  But he said them anyway. “I know about the bloke at the hotel.”

  “Dom, slow down.” Isha gripped his seat as I swerved through city traffic. “Where are we even going?”

  I didn’t answer, because I had no idea. I just knew I couldn’t sit in that damn fucking car park while Isha spouted shit about Lucky—that I had to do something with my hands to keep me from throttling him.

  We hit a jam at some temporary lights. I cursed and rolled my window down to suck in some fresh air. Then thought better of it and closed it.

  Isha stared like I’d lost my mind.

  Perhaps he was right.

  “How do you know?” I demanded. “Tell me everything.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “I don’t care. Just tell me how you seem to know more about my life than I do.”

  “I have a mole.”

  “A what?”

  “A mole.”

  For a split second, I thought he meant Lucky, and my entire world tipped on the edge of apocalypse, but Isha was tapping his phone, and when he held the screen up, the first puzzle piece was laid. The Gazette. Jesus Christ. “That sick fuck gossip columnist is your mole in my life?”

  “Not just yours. And it wasn’t my choice. When he left the Mirror, he hired PIs to follow players he suspected might have something to hide. You were on his list.”

  “Why?”

  Isha shrugged. “The obvious terminal bachelor bullshit, I guess. Perhaps we’ll never know. The point is, he rumbled you years ago—years I’ve spent putting out fires where I can, which wasn’t too hard considering you’ve never given him much fuel, but it’s different now, Dom. You’ve met someone, and he knows about it.”

  “You’ve met someone…” Even now, it sounded like someone else’s life.

  Traffic finally began moving. I let the car roll forward as I tried to keep up with the bullshit carousel my sexuality had set me on. “How much does he know?”

  “Just that you have someone and your favourite hotel to meet up. At least, that’s all he’s coughing to right now. He might have a file on your fella for all I know.”

  If such a file existed, then a gossip columnist at a scummy tabloid probably knew more about Lucky than I did. I swallowed thickly as bile rose in my throat. “This can’t get out—for his sake, more than mine.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Yeah, ’cause protecting your fucking face is top of my list.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?” I snapped.

  Isha sighed. “I’m trying to say that I’m glad you’ve found someone, Dom. Do you think I’ve enjoyed seeing you so lonely all these years? Knowing you had no one to be your true self with? You might be angry with me for keeping this from you, but you have to believe I did it out of love, man. You’re a brother to me.”

  Brother or not, his sentiment was the final nail in whatever dreams I’d dared imagine since Lucky had slipped into my life. Because it didn’t matter how I felt about him. How my body sang for him when we were together, or how my heart hurt for him when we were apart. I had to protect him from this—from me.

  After tonight, I could never see him again.

  Nineteen

  Lucky

  “Sorry, mate.” The warden shrugged awkwardly. “We’re working on getting it fixed, but it might not be till morning. You got somewhere you can go?”

  I sighed, turning away from my kicked-in door. “Do you think I’d live in this shithole if I did?”

  There wasn’t much else the warden could say. He offered to take my valuables to the staff area for safekeeping overnight, but I didn’t have any. My cash stash had long since dried up, and my wages went straight into the bank to pay my rent.

  Seven-fifty a month for a door with a foot-shaped hole in it.

  Fuck my life.

  I didn’t leave straight away. It was chucking it down outside and with Jamila’s mum home for the night, I didn’t fancy pounding the streets in the rain. Of course, I could’ve stayed in my room, slept with one eye on my open door, but I didn’t fancy it. On the street I could run.

  A shudder ran through me as I huddled on my bed with a cuppa from my last teabag—the kind of shudder that usually freaked me out enough to seek out a chemical way to calm down, but I’d been so good lately. Hadn’t even smoked a joint in the last few days. So I settled for patching into the centre’s sketchy Wi-Fi and watching clips of Dom’s latest game on YouTube, ignoring the fact that football was a trigger for some fucked-up anxiety I’d carried most of my life.

  Perving over Dom on his own turf was a pretty solid distraction, though. Despite knowing he was desperately unhappy, I got kicks out of his tight football shirt, shorts, and muscular legs. And how he got rowdy on the pitch. He was a moody player—shouted a lot, pushed people over—which oddly suited him, though it contrasted with the artful way he fucked me.

  Arousal flooded my veins as I recalled both times he’d been inside me the last time we’d seen each other. The first when he’d taken me by surprise with how amazing he was, how skilled, intuitive, and totally fucking deadly, and then the second when he’d let me climb all over him, and we’d both fooled ourselves for a while that I had the upper hand.

  My cock thickened as I relived every moment, right up to when he’d confessed to kissing no man his whole life until me, but the prospect of wanking off with my door busted open cooled my blood, reminding me that I needed to get out of Dodge before dark.

  With heavy legs, I left the centre and habitually meandered in the general direction of work. It was too late to sneak in for the night, but me and the new dude, Cash, had a thing going on. If I brought biscuits, he’d let me in by six, and not tell Jim.

  I checked the time, then wished I hadn’t.

  The rain followed me all the way to Tottenham. There was a sheltered bin yard round the back of the garage, but it was lit up by security lights, so I settled in a doorway round the back of a greasy spoon that didn’t open on Sundays. If I angled myself just right—squeezed flat against the door—only my feet got wet.

  I could live with that.

  Used to the rhythm of the street, sleep came easy; th
ough it was nothing like the precious few hours I’d snatched in Dom’s arms. And I dreamed of him too—of him naked and rolling around that pristine white bed, of him kissing me, holding me, owning me.

  Of him smiling.

  He was on my mind the moment I woke up to clear skies, and apparently I’d been on his mind too.

  Perignon55: need to see u tonight

  That night I moaned savagely and clawed at the pillow that muffled my cries, arching my body to take Dom deeper. “Jesus, Dom. Harder.”

  He obliged, and his thick cock found my sweet spot as his hand pushed down on the back of my neck. I shoved a hand beneath me and squeezed my dick, but there was no need, ’cause I was already coming like a train.

  “Fuck.” Dom’s thrusts turned frantic, his hands roaming my body more urgently. He drove into me harder and faster, until he came with a ragged yell.

  He collapsed on top of me, his chest slumped against my back, smothering me for a blissful moment before he rolled away, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t. He’d been on me the moment I’d entered the room in the strange new hotel on the other side of the city. Lying in wait, like the best kind of surprise. My back had hit the closed door, my bag slipping from my hand, and it was a blur after that—a haze of fierce kisses, stripped clothes, and tumbling to the bed—and now I was so fucking done, I didn’t know which way was up.

  “Lucky?”

  Nope. Whatever he wanted that didn’t involve staying right here, I wasn’t interested.

  “Lucky.”

  I groaned and lifted my head a fraction. “What?”

  Dom gazed back at me, his expression not matching what had just played out. Alarmed, I sat up slowly and scooted back against the headboard, wrapping my arms around my knees. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right.” I eyed Dom as he paced around, making a meal out of chucking the condom in the bin. The way his hands jittered and his eyes darted around, if I hadn’t known better I’d have wondered if he was twitching for something. “You gonna come back to bed, or what?”