False Start

by Emrys Apollo

  “Love you too. And thanks for telling me, Cli. It can’t have been easy.”

  Understatement of the year.

  “Bartholomew only knows because I was in love with him,” Clive admits, flushing a little bit, “we tried, for a little bit. He - well, he let me believe he’d broken things off with Kendra.”

  Luke looks shocked, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  “And Samson knows because I sort of lost it after I found out about Bartholomew cheating on his girlfriend with me and he tried to help - “

  “Samson, too? Is everyone gay and just forgot to tell me?”

  Clive laughs, and Luke doesn’t comment on how it sounds a little strained, and Clive will forever be grateful for that small mercy.

  “Samson? Oh, no way! Samson is like a brother, and he’s also possibly the straightest man I’ve ever met! He just wanted to know what was going on. He - “ Clive flushes a little at the memory, ashamed at having been so pathetically vulnerable. “He slept in my bed with me for awhile, just kept me company. After I left Bartholomew and Jarr moved on, for a bit, and I just felt like I had nothing left. Started running myself into the ground a little bit. More than a little bit, if I’m honest. He came over to see what the hell was wrong with me.”

  Luke’s expression softens, and he nods. “I talked to him about it, too,” he admits, “we were worried about you. But he went over to talk to you, and after that he told me everything was okay again, or that it was going to be, that you were getting better. Are you getting better, Cli? Recovering? Broken heart’s no joke, it fucking hurts.”

  Clive looks at his younger brother, and feels a pang of guilt. Of all the people in this world, of all the people that love him, Luke’s right at the top of that list, second only to his mother. “I think I am getting better,” he says quietly, “and I’m sorry I didn’t come to you first. I just - didn’t want to be a burden, I guess. Bit silly, but it was true. Wouldn’t have told Samson, either, if he hadn’t come to my house and refused to leave until I talked to him.”

  Luke laughs at that. “Sounds like Samson,” he agrees fondly, “and now, next time, if you need any help in the future, you know I’m here, too, and it’ll be okay.”

  Clive nods, ignoring the sensation of liquid pricking at the corners of his eyes. He’d gone from being completely alone to having three men who knew him and cared for him, even knowing this. A brother, a friend, and a lover. He couldn’t ask for much more than that, he thinks, heart warm with gratitude for all three of his boys.

  ***

  “I told Luke,” he says that night when he calls Jarrod, “I told my brother, Jarr, and he accepted me! You know what he was mad about? That I told Samson and Bartholomew before I told him! That’s what made him upset, can you believe it? It feels so good, Jarr, it feels so fucking good - nobody knew this about me before you. Not a single person, other than the one lad I kissed and the one lad I slept with before you.”

  “Clive Reynold, are you trying to make me jealous? Who are all these other men?” Jarrod demands, but it doesn’t do much when Clive can hear the smile in his voice.

  He laughs instead of cringing, and they talk until he falls asleep.

  ***

  He doesn’t see Jarrod again until November, and then it’s just for a day before he returns to Manchester. He’s exhausted and slow at training the next day, and the boss calls him on it. He can’t honestly say he doesn’t care what Alex Ferguson has to say, because he does. Usually, anyway. But when he’s exhausted and a little heart sore and still living off the smile on Jarrod’s face when he’d kissed him hello, and honestly, at this particular moment, Clive couldn’t give less of a fuck.

  He doesn’t tell Jarrod about the reprimand, mostly because he knows exactly what Jarrod would say.

  I don’t want you compromising your career for me, Clive. I don’t want this to hurt you.

  Maybe we should just only meet when you’re not playing. Or if you get injured. Not that you should get injured just so we can see each other -

  Jarrod’s always endearingly awkward in his head. Usually naked, too, which more than makes up for the awkwardness he imagines.

  ***

  They speak all the time on the phone. Clive’s got his phone number memorized, and he calls from hotels where he’s rooming with Luke or Samson, and he calls from home, and sometimes, on the rare occasion that it happens, he calls when he’s rooming with Robin. He doesn’t interrogate his motives too closely for that last one. He loves Jarrod, loves talking to him, no matter who his roommate is.

  But getting to show his ex that he’s perfectly happy with his partner is an unexpected bonus, and he’s not above feeling petty satisfaction when he catches Robin glancing at him when he’s on the phone, laying back and just chatting away.

  Christmas comes and goes, made much easier by the way Luke intercepts the conversation when it heads towards Clive being perpetually single and whether he’s been on any dates and met any nice girls recently.

  Then Jarrod starts working nights, and Clive stops calling him, because it’s not worth the time it takes away from Jarrod’s sleep, not when he sounds so terribly tired every time.

  It’s February when he finally gets a call from Jarrod, sounding, for once, well rested.

  “Game coming up, huh?”

  “Yeah, at Pembroke.”

  “Would you hate it if I came?” Jarrod asks gently, “I’ve got tickets already, from a friend, I thought I’d bring my brothers, but I didn’t want to put you off, or put you under any unnecessary pressure.”

  They both know which of Jarrod’s friends has ever so kindly provided the tickets, but they don’t say his name.

  “I’d love that. Can you come see me after?”

  “I’ll do my best.” Jarrod’s smiling, and it makes Clive smile, too, that his partner is happy. “I think he wanted to give me a tour of Pembroke after, so I might get to go down to the dressing rooms, and if you’re around, we can see each other then.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “You might love it a little less when I tell you I’ll be in the Kop,” Jarrod says sheepishly, and Clive laughs, because honestly, if he gets to see Jarrod, he couldn’t care less where he sits for a couple of hours beforehand.

  CHAPTER 11

  Every day of his life, for as long as he can remember, Clive Reynold has hated Pembroke.

  Every day except today. He can’t find it in himself to hate it today, not when he knows Jarrod is going to be there. Besides, the place wouldn’t be half bad if all the Scousers left and it was just him and Jarrod, laying in the grass and kissing… Maybe doing more than kissing, even, and it’s a clear sign of just how long he’s gone without having sex that he’s fantasizing about taking Jarrod apart on the field.

  He snaps out of it when the coach hits a pothole and flushes at the fact that he’s sitting in a bus surrounded by his teammates, still daydreaming about his lad. He shakes his head a little to clear his mind, and carefully adjusts his kit bag over his lap until his semi calms down.

  It’s a beautiful day to play hockey. It’s cold, of course, as it always is in February, but it’s bright and the sun is shining, and there’s hardly a cloud in the sky. It’s one of those brilliant, deceptive winter days, and of all the people in the crowd, the players might be the most comfortable, seeing as how they’re active and running around to stay warm.

  He gets dressed quickly, mechanically. He’s nervous, somehow, more nervous than he’s been since his first match, probably. He almost feels sick, stomach roiling, but he doesn’t know if it’s nausea or butterflies that are making him feel this way. He just hopes it doesn’t show on his face.

  He stands in the tunnel between Samson and Luke, and he looks over at the other players for a moment, almost absently until he sees Michael Starling, a determined look on his face.

  How strange it is to know that he’s not the only man on the field playing for Jarrod Franklin, to know that he’s not the only man who loves h
im.

  It’s an odd mixture of emotions that he can’t quite express, that he doesn’t quite want to express, even, and it certainly doesn’t help to settle his poor stomach. He looks at him, at the young boy with the steady eyes and jaw set tight, and he feels a little less alone in the world. There’s a strange solidarity to it, and he feels for the kid, a little bit. It hadn’t been easy, being gay at eighteen. It wasn’t much easier now, even, at twenty four.

  At the same time, though, there’s this deep-seeded hostility, this awful primal feeling of competition and possessiveness, and he wants Starling to know, suddenly, wants desperately to pull him aside and tell him exactly what Jarrod sounds like when he’s begging for him, how he smiles at him the first time he sees him after awhile, the way he says his name when he’s coming -

  There’s a thousand things he could tell this boy, this child, and they would hurt him, each and every one, and Clive would still walk away smiling, with the taste of bile in his throat and a feral smile on his face.

  He doesn’t say a single fucking one of them, but he does squeeze his hand hard when they’re shaking hands before the start of the match. Michael Starling has soft hands. Clive can feel the slender bones of the one he’s offered, and he squeezes hard, long enough that he looks into the kid’s eyes and sees a wariness there, not fearful, but cautious.

  Appropriately so, as it turns out.

  Clive is a grown man, he reminds himself, and he cannot just two-foot a boy five years younger than him, several years younger than his baby brother, just because he’s in love with the same man Clive’s in love with.

  He looks up, now and again, when the game goes quiet and the action is so far from him that he feels safe in taking a glance up at the Kop. He looks through all the red shirts and scarves, looking for Jarrod’s familiar eyes, those stunning cheekbones, that mouth made for sin -

  He doesn’t see him, though, even though he looks hard after the referee blows the whistle to end the first half, feet on autopilot as he searches desperately for the only face that matters in a sea of faces that don’t.

  He finds him in the end in the most infuriating way. It’s Starling, of course. He glances at Starling, who’s waving up at the crowd. He’d think it was just generic recognition of the fans, the sort of thing that made grown men sing songs about you in public, but there’s a certain tenderness in Starling’s eyes, and when he glances up, there he is.

  Fuck if he doesn’t look good in red, too, Clive thinks with a wry smile to himself, wondering what he’d look like in the right shade of red, how it would match with his pink skin, flushed from Clive’s hands and mouth.

  Clive takes in the sight of him hungrily.

  Jarrod blows a playful kiss onto the field.

  Clive’s too far away to see his eyes, though, to see who that kiss is for.

  He’s not too far away to see Mickey mime catching it and holding it to his heart.

  He fucking hates Michael Starling, he decides.

  The second half is better. He almost allows himself to forget the fact that Jarrod’s there, and it almost feels like a normal game, with Samson on one side of him and Luke on the other. He hasn’t told them. This one, he wanted to keep to himself. He wonders suddenly if that’s the wisest option, if maybe it would be good if Samson knew, if Luke saw that he was agitated and knew that it was because his boyfriend was in the stands, and not just because they were playing at their biggest rival’s house.

  But it’s too late, and if he tells them now, they’ll be distracted, and while Clive is a selfish fucker most of the time, he knows better than the mess with the career of two of the men he loves most in this world.

  In the second half, he sends in a perfect cross, and Bartholomew knocks it in. He wishes it hadn’t been Bartholomew, for a moment, wishes it’d been Samson instead. Anybody but fucking Bartholomew. Still, he jogs over to him slowly, lets Luke wrap his arms around him for the celebration.

  His eyes search for Jarrod, but he’s at the far side of the field. Clive imagines he’s clapping, though, imagines that beautiful, proud smile aimed directly at him, and the image makes him smile, those dimples carved deep into Jarrod’s skin, all because of him.

  He focuses on defending after that - they’re one-nil up against their opponents at Pembroke, and he’d take that every fucking day of the week, even if his partner wasn’t in the stands watching him play for the first time in his life.

  It all goes to hell twenty minutes later, when there’s just ten minutes left and he can already imagine Jarrod’s expression when he sees him in the tunnel.

  Robbie Fowler is a fat little man for a hockey player, but fuck, he’s quick. Clive hates him, too, just a little less than he hates Starling, but honestly, he’ll take a draw, he doesn’t mind, not really. Fowler got in from the other side, past the left back whose ears will be ringing for an hour with the way Clive had screamed at him.

  So it isn’t his fault, he reminds himself, clenching his jaw. He’d put in the cross for a goal and it isn’t his fault that they’d conceded.

  He’s still fucking pissed off about it, though.

  The thing with anger in hockey is that sometimes, it makes you better, makes you sharper, makes you bust a gut sprinting just so you can outrun the opposition.

  Sometimes, though, it makes you clumsy. Gives you tunnel vision. Blinds you with emotion.

  Clive hates Pembroke anyway.

  But not as much as he hates Michael Starling for the way he sprints to the sideline after the goal, miming putting a stethoscope into his ears and listening for a heartbeat.

  It’s been a long time since he’s wanted to cry over losing a match. Usually it just makes him angry, makes him fume. This time he can’t help but feel bitterly disappointed in himself, furious beyond all reason at his teammates for letting him down on a day he needed them to lift him up, and angry at the young Scouse boy with the wide brown eyes and a sharp jaw.

  He walks past Starling where he’s been pulled aside for a post match interview.

  “Oh, it was a stethoscope - for my doctor,” he hears past the rushing of blood in his ears, “he’s helped me so much these past few years, whenever I’ve struggled. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”

  Clive wonders if he’s the only one who hears the tenderness in it. For my doctor.

  Clive bites his tongue hard, because otherwise he might say something he’ll regret.

  Something like he comes with my cock inside him, your doctor does. And you’ll never see the look on his face when he does.

  Clive suspects he might be a sore loser today more so than he usually is. He goes into the dressing room still pissed off, but by the time he’s done showering, he’s remembered that he still gets to see Jarrod today, and the clenching around his heart eases up enough for him to get a full breath in.

  He gets dressed and steps outside, peeking at the home side’s dressing room door, as if he could detect Jarrod behind it.

  He doesn’t need to, though, because he can hear him, chatting away so fast he sounds even more Scouse than usual. He’s standing at the entrance to the tunnel, underneath the This is Pembroke sign, chatting away with Michael Starling.

  Starling still has wet hair, the stupid fucker, that desperate to come out and see Jarrod. It’s pathetic, Clive thinks to himself venomously, ignoring the cold droplets that run down his neck into his collar.

  He watches for a few more seconds, seeing for the first time the two young boys standing next to Jarrod. His brothers have the same facial features as him - he almost looks like their father, the way he speaks to them, the way he lifts the younger one onto his shoulders so he can touch the sign. Michael does the same for the older boy, brushing off something Jarrod says to him.

  Probably be careful, Clive thinks with a half-smile. Jarrod always tells him to be careful, and he can’t imagine he’d do that less with his younger brothers.

  Jarrod must feel the weight of his stare, though, because a moment later, he loo
ks around, and he flushes, seeing Clive’s face. It makes him feel better, the pretty little blush, because he’s the one that put it there. Jarrod smiles, but doesn’t approach him.

  Clive could choose to be offended by that, but he decides against it. He knows Jarrod, knows him well enough to know that his first thought would be for Clive, for what it would mean for him if a random man came up to him and started talking to him.

  So Clive makes the decision for him. “Hi, Jarr,” he says with a smile, walking right up to him.

  Michael is gawking - unattractively, Clive thinks, entirely too smug.

  “Hi, Cli,” Jarrod says, almost shy as he smiles back at him, “that was a fantastic cross, by the way. All he had to do was get a touch on it and it went right in.”

  Clive can’t even remember why he was upset after that. It’s not that Jarrod doesn’t compliment him, but this is a compliment he deserves, delivered in front of the other man who loves him, out in public.