Lucky

by Garrett Leigh

  The medic laid a hand on my forehead. “You’re warm, but not as hot as some of the others. How do you feel?”

  You look like shit. “Rough.”

  “Dizzy?”

  “A bit.”

  “How long till kick off?” the medic asked Maldano.

  “Two hours,” he said, and they continued to talk over me while I stared into space.

  Getting sick hadn’t been on my radar, even though, with hindsight, I’d felt like death when I’d left the club the day before. Had I really become so miserable I couldn’t tell the difference between the chaos of my personal life and legitimate illness? Damn, I was such a fucking basket case.

  Maldano and the medic hauled me to the medical centre. An IV was hooked up to my arm, and electrolytes poured down my throat.

  I was on my third round of throwing them back up when Fernando came to see me.

  “It’s your call, Dom. If you’re fit to play, we’ll go on, if not, we’ll call it off.”

  I coughed and rubbed my chest. “Why’s it down to me?”

  “Because without you we have ten players to field.”

  Jesus. I’d heard stories about another London club who’d lost their place in Europe when food poisoning had blitzkrieged their starting line-up, but never dreamed it would happen again in my memory. “We can’t postpone?”

  Fernando shook his head grimly. “Believe me, we’ve tried, but the league won’t have it. We play today, or we forfeit.”

  He didn’t have to tell me what a forfeited game would mean for the club. The inquiry would find in our favour eventually, as there was no denying the team was in bits, but the points deduction would end the European dream everyone at the club had sacrificed so much for. A dream that wasn’t mine, but just like everything else, no matter how much it hurt, I had to play on.

  Besides, Lucky would be long gone by now, and the more I could delay going home to an empty apartment, the better.

  I took a deep breath and reached for another bottle of electrolytes. “Let’s do this.”

  Twenty-Four

  Lucky

  I shouldn’t have stayed in Dom’s place when he left—I should’ve walked out before he caught me in the snare of his liquid-brown gaze—but even without his hypnotism, the trouble with being warm and safe when I knew how it felt to be otherwise, was that it was impossible to leave the sanctuary of his bed.

  Also, his sheets really did smell like him. Once I was sure he was gone for real, I curled up under his duvet and breathed him in, knowing it would be the last chance I got. In his quiet way, Dom had been as all over the place as me, but I’d received his choked-up message loud and clear: nothing’s changed.

  Which meant there was still no place for me in his complicated life, a fact I’d been half-way to accepting until I’d come round from a Valium binge on his hardwood floor. And now? Shit. Now everything seemed so surreal I couldn’t make myself move. Dom’s bed was the last place on earth I should’ve been, but at the same time it felt so right.

  I tried to sleep, but I had no zeds left in me, and drifting with my thoughts was pure fucking torture. Dom had gone for the day…and I knew where. Over the last few weeks, I’d found myself tracking his club, picturing him in all the cities they’d played: Liverpool, Manchester, and Burnley. Even Brighton. I wondered if he’d think of me when he was there today. Remember the tales of woe I’d told him, and ache for me like I ached for him.

  Rubbing my chest, I poked my head out from under the duvet, and sat up. There was a digital clock built into the entertainment unit at the foot of the bed. Dom had been gone a few hours, and it was nearly time for kick off at the London derby the city had been gearing up for all week. Dom’s club was playing its closest local rival. For years, I’d avoided football like the plague, but my hand reached of its own accord for the remote on the bedside table. Dom was right: nothing had changed except that he’d now seen the worst of me, and perhaps I could counter it by seeing the best of him.

  The TV switched on straight to the game and the pre-match build up, and by a stroke of pure fate, Dom’s face filled the screen, brooding and handsome, his eyes fierce, lips pressed in an expressionless slash, at least, it seemed expressionless to me when I saw him so differently in my dreams: smiling shyly, chiselled features twisted in pleasure.

  TV Dom wasn’t my Dom.

  Still, I was transfixed enough by him not to take in what the commentators were saying about his team until the headline flashed up on the screen: home side ravaged by norovirus will struggle to field a team.

  Alarmed, I sat up and pressed the volume button until the pundit’s deep voice was booming out of the TV, explaining how more than half of Dom’s team had been taken ill, and many of them were unable to play.

  My heart pounded. I had vague memories of Dom growing paler overnight, but I’d put it down to stress—his and mine—lack of sleep, and the fact that he had to go and play the biggest match of the season when my bullshit had kept him up all night. So wrapped up in my own mess, it hadn’t occurred to me that he was unwell, but his heated skin and bloodshot eyes now made sickening sense.

  I glanced around the room. My bag was by the door. I got up and dug my phone out. It was on silent and nearly out of battery, twenty-four missed calls from Jamila and Dom clogging up the screen.

  Dom’s bedroom was swish enough to have charging points built into the wall, but they were for iPhones much newer than mine. I cringed as I opened a drawer, as though I could shield my gaze from parts of Dom’s life that were none of my business, but when I looked down, the drawer was empty, and so was every other in the bedside table.

  Unsettled, I got up and tried a few more in the chest by the door, but beyond the neatly stacked T-shirts and folded jeans, there was nothing to show a real person lived in the apartment—no tangle of mangled phone chargers, crumpled receipts, and odd socks. I’d always suspected Dom was a neat freak, but this shit was ridiculous. Soulless. An empty life he didn’t deserve.

  I padded out of the bedroom and paced the apartment, from the minimalist living room with its blank walls, to the spotless kitchen and its bare fridge. Disquiet clawed at my gut with every step, and even back in the bedroom—the only place I could reliably imagine Dom because I’d seen him there—I couldn’t shake the sensation that despite everything he’d said—and everything he hadn’t said—he needed me now more than ever.

  Right. ’Cause you’re just what he needs. But for once, I silenced the devil on my shoulder without synthetic assistance. Still as naked as when Dom had left, I stood in front of the TV, rooted to the spot. The game had started while I’d paced the apartment, and Dom was on the pitch, doing what he always did—slaughtering any foolish opposition who crossed his path—but every time the ball went out of play, he doubled over, one hand bracing himself on the icy grass.

  It was painful to watch, even as the cameras made an obvious effort to avoid him after a while.

  The commentators weren’t so kind. They documented every moment of his plain distress until the need to do something—anything—overwhelmed me. Clothes, I need clothes. The hoodie and sweatpants he’d chucked at me were on the floor. I stepped over them and hurried to the kitchen. The washing machine was hidden behind the last shiny white cupboard door I opened. As promised, my clothes were bone dry and scented with detergent that definitely wasn’t the Daz I used at the garage.

  They were warm too, but I didn’t stop to enjoy it. I threw them on, and tore through the apartment gathering my shit—my bag, my boots, and Dom’s hoodie, as my coat seemed to be MIA.

  At the front door, I crouched to tie my laces and tap out a message in WhatsApp.

  My phone died as I hit send.

  Lucky: i’m here for u

  Dom

  Throwing up had never hurt like this—like my organs were clawing their way out of my body. I pretty much crawled off the pitch at half-time and slumped in the tunnel.

  A medic crouched by my feet. “You need to come off.”<
br />
  “I can’t,” I said without raising my head. “There’s no one else.”

  The medic was a sharp-featured blonde woman who rarely spoke, and I expected her to let me be, but she shook me instead, forcing me to look at her.

  “You need to come off,” she repeated. “It’s down to me to declare you fit to play on, and I’m not doing it.”

  I stared at her, inexplicable panic merging with the relief that if I didn’t protest, I could stay right where I’d fallen and die in peace. “They’ll have to call off the game.”

  “They’ll have to do that anyway if you collapse on the pitch. Besides, you’re not the only one in trouble. I’m advising that at least three of you are admitted to the clinic for fluids and rest.”

  It took a moment for her stern words to compute. By then, Fernando had joined her at my feet, his expression grim.

  “Jovic and Fulton are getting in the cars to go to the clinic. Go with them, Dom. We’re forfeiting the match.”

  He walked off without awaiting my response. The medic looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head. “I’m going home.”

  “You’re not,” she said. “You need another IV.”

  “Right. You think the rest of the city is getting one when they chuck up a few times?”

  “Mr. Ramos—”

  “Fuck off,” I growled. “I’m going home.”

  I hauled myself to my feet. Being upright again came with a wave of dizziness. The medic—Oli, I belatedly remembered—caught me as I swayed. “Look,” she said. “I can’t stop you leaving if it’s what you really want, but at least come with me and get rehydrated first, okay?”

  She was more persuasive than I deserved, considering she’d borne the brunt of my temper for the last few hours, and I let her tow me to the medical rooms. A few players were still there, hooked up to IVs, but I shook my head when Oli held up a saline bag. “I’m not sitting here for hours, mate. Just do your thing and let me go.”

  I won the IV battle, but Oli still confined me to a bed for an hour while she jabbed me with anti-emetics and waited for my stomach to settle enough to absorb the electrolytes she insisted I swallow before she’d let me leave.

  “Anti-emetics can cause vertigo,” she said. “If you’re affected you shouldn’t drive. Do you need me to arrange a car?”

  “No.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Said so, didn’t I?”

  Oli rolled her eyes. Her mean mug had faded since I’d stopped puking on her shoes, and in another world we might’ve got on well, but the longer I was trapped in this damn fucking place, the more the panic crawling through my veins eclipsed the lingering nausea. The reality of facing my empty flat had me internally screaming, but I couldn’t stay here. Playing, however horrific the forty-five minutes I’d spent on the pitch had been, had gifted me a welcome distraction. Without it, I was simply a prisoner in the world that had forced me and Lucky apart.

  I blinked away the waver in my equilibrium and stood. My stomach rolled, but the urge to indulge it was dulled by the anti-sickness drug, and I found some hard-won composure.

  Oli walked me to the car park, and her presence beside me kept everyone else away.

  “Thanks,” I said when we reached the side door of the grounds. “Sorry if I’ve been a git to you all day.”

  “It’s fine. Believe it or not, I’ve had far worse. I would appreciate it if you went straight home, though, and stayed there until you’re keeping food down.”

  The idea of eating nearly sent me to my knees, but I nodded anyway. “Trust me, I’m going home. There ain’t nowhere else for me to be right now.”

  We parted ways, her contact card stuffed in my back pocket, and as I left the building behind and drifted to my car, the sensation of leaving something behind warred with what I’d already lost. It had been years since football had owned my heart, but my apathy seemed absolute now, despite the loyalty that had kept me playing today.

  Wasn’t loyalty, though, was it? You just didn’t want to watch Lucky leave.

  I hauled myself into my car. Habit had me unlocking the glovebox and retrieving my phone, but I barely glanced at it as I turned it on. The days of my heart skipping a beat with every WhatsApp notification were over.

  My great escape was beginning to catch up with me. I tossed my phone on the passenger seat and started the car. My hand was on the gear stick when my phone chimed.

  Expecting a rollicking from Fernando, I had half a mind to ignore it, but the masochist still alive and well in me picked it up.

  Lucky: i’m here for u

  Instinct had me punching the recall button, but five calls to him went straight to the automated message that his phone was turned off. It was so typical of our attempts to communicate that I found myself checking his message was real ten times over and not a figment of my desperate imagination.

  I’m here for u. What did that even mean if I had no way of reaching him? Did I even deserve the sentiment?

  My stomach twisted, reminding me of the pressing need to get home and away from prying eyes, to shut myself away from the world and die in peace. But Lucky’s message haunted me, and I left it open on the passenger seat as I backed out of my space and rolled out of the car park. The driveway out of the club was lined with more paps than usual, with added TV crews hoping to cash in on the clusterfuck derby day had turned into. I pulled my cap low on my face—obviously, ’cause that was my answer to everything—and ran the gauntlet. Cameras flashed, and one dude jumped out in front of me, but I made it out without killing anyone, so I took it as a win.

  Dazed, I turned onto the main road, frazzled and wilting under the weight of whatever microbe was wreaking havoc in my belly. I was considering pulling over to puke at the side of the road when a flash of sandy-brown hair caught my eye.

  For the second time that day, I questioned my lucidity. Oli had warned me the anti-sickness shot could give me vertigo, but she hadn’t mentioned tripping. You’re losing your damn mind.

  But when I looked again, the apparition had solidified. Lucky was sitting on the pavement by a phone box, blue eyes fixed on me.

  And he was laughing.

  Twenty-Five

  Lucky

  I had no idea what I was waiting for until Dom’s Lexus rolled out of the club, and then a missing link clicked into place: Dom’s car was the first vehicle I’d worked on when I’d approached Jim’s garage. Servicing it had got me the job. Oh, the fucking irony.

  Dom rolled to a stop at my feet and his blacked-out window slid down like something out of a movie, but my amusement faded the moment I saw him. Jesus, he looks half-dead.

  I sprang to my feet. “Move over. I’ll drive.”

  He didn’t argue.

  I slid behind the wheel of his beast-mobile and pulled back into the traffic. The whole exchange had taken thirty seconds, but Dom was staring at me like the world had flipped upside down. “What?” I said. “I was worried you’d pass out at the wheel.” More silence. I considered letting him be, but the pallor marring his usually tanned skin worried me enough to reach out and squeeze his unyielding thigh. “Seriously, it’s okay. I’ve got a licence.”

  A gurgle of laughter escaped Dom and he shook his head. “Trust me, mate. That’s the last thing on my mind.”

  “You’re wondering how I found you?”

  “I’m wondering a lot of things.”

  The bitterness lacing his tone startled me. I turned towards Greenwich and let my hand slide from his leg. “I guess I have some explaining to do.”

  “Yeah. If you wouldn’t mind starting with how the fuck you know where I work, that would be awesome.”

  “Jamila told me.”

  “What?”

  I repeated the statement as we eased to a stop at a red light and I leaned on the leather steering wheel. “I didn’t recognise you, and I probably never would have, but she’s had you pegged since the night you met her to give my phone back, and she told me. I know I should’ve said some
thing, but I was scared you’d freak out and disappear on me…that you wouldn’t trust me to keep your secret. Fucked up, eh? ’Cause it happened anyway.”

  Dom didn’t say anything, and when I looked at him, he was staring out of the window, his gaze distant as he clearly weighed up what I was saying against whatever assumption he’d made—an assumption that clearly wasn’t in my favour. Damn, does he think I’m a gold digger, or some shit?

  I couldn’t blame him. I tried, but the anger and indignation wouldn’t come. I’d kept this from Dom for myself as much as him, and he was right not to trust me. How could he, when the dynamics of our relationship had been based on a reality he’d never known about?

  His apartment building loomed into view. I chanced a glance at his narrowed eyes and set jaw. “Where do you park?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Where do you park?” I repeated. “I’m guessing you don’t leave this bad boy in the street?”

  Dom jerked his head at a side street. “Down there. It’s underground.”

  I followed his directions to the type of car park that had been alien to me until I’d started work at Jim’s garage. These days, delivering cars like Dom’s to places like this were an everyday occurrence, but with him simmering beside me, twitchiness crept back into my veins. I hadn’t given much thought to the drugs he’d flushed on my behalf, but I craved them now. Over the years, bad habits had become my only coping mechanisms, and fuck if I didn’t need them as nerves merged with anxiety so deep I almost threw up.

  The Lexus was so easy to drive it pretty much parked itself. I twisted in my seat to face Dom, but he was already getting out.

  I scrambled to follow him. “Wait.”

  “What for? So you can tell me how you sold me out?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” His yell echoed in the deserted car park, and he reared around to face me, abruptly all up in my personal space when he’d seemed so far away until this point. “Ten years I’ve been in the closet, and then you come along and my shit is suddenly on the desk of some tabloid hack. Tell me I’m a fucking idiot, Lucky, ’cause I damn well need to hear it from you.”