Page 226 of Off the Pitch

Jordan

“Oh my fucking God. Look at it!”

“Mate, you’ve said that like ten times already. Calm down.” Liam chuckled.

“I will not fucking calm down. This is fucking awesome, and you know it!” I elbowed Liam in the ribs and returned to leaning over him to watch the Italian countryside fly by.

We’d flown to Italy that morning and were now on a coach, winding our way towards the England training centre, which we’d borrowed from one of the nearby football clubs. The landscape was beautiful, gold and green rolling hills under blue, cloudless sky. I understood why Félix liked Italy so much. It was stunning.

The start of the World Cup was ten days away, and we’d flown out as a team to begin the final preparations and to get used to playing in the heat of an Italian summer. It was starting to feel so much more real now. In eleven days, we’d be playing our first match against Argentina at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

I was forever grateful we didn’t end up with Portugal in our group. True, it would’ve been seriously fun to torment Félix if we’d beaten them, but I knew he’d be an insufferable git if they won. Still, not being in our group didn’t rule us out of having to play them later in the tournament. Even if I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t make it through the group stages.

“Why the fuck didn’t you sit by the window?” Liam grumbled as I leant over him again.

“’Cos you always bitch if you don’t get the window seat!”

“That’s not true. I let you have it sometimes.”

“Yeah and then you sulk ’cos you had to give your seat away.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, you fucking do.” I leant over the seat in front of us, tapping Christian on the shoulder. He pulled his headphones out as I spoke. “We need a ruling. Liam sulks when he doesn’t get the window seat, true or false?”

“True,” Christian said, giving the pair of us a wry smile. Beside me Liam gasped, folding his arms across his chest. “Sorry, Liam, but you do. You get really huffy about it.”

“Told you,” I said, sitting back in my seat with a triumphant grin on my face.

“Well, I don’t think I do.”

“Mate, you’re fucking pouting now. How the fuck can you think you don’t get sulky?” Liam opened his mouth, clearly gearing up for another argument, when Christian shot us both a look.

“Will you two behave?” he said. “I think this is what parents feel like when they’ve got kids arguing in the back seat. Except their kids aren’t twenty-three and twenty-six!”

“He started it,” I said. “I just wanted to look out the window. I’ve never been to Italy before.”

“Yeah, well I’ll finish it,” Christian said. He fixed us both with a stern glare, but it didn’t really reach his eyes, and I couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“Mate, you’re like a proper fucking parent,” I said. “You’re even getting the stare and everything.”

“You really are,” Liam said, the pair of us giggling as Christian sighed exasperatedly at us.

“Well, at least if I ever have kids, I’ll know they won’t be as bad as you two.”

“Wait, we’re not that bad!” I said. “Well, I’m not anyway.”

“You are deliberately winding him up,” Christian said.

“Yeah but that’s fun!”

“I give up.” Christian rolled his eyes and reached for his headphones.

“Wait,” Liam said, leaning forward and looking around, checking if anyone was listening. They weren’t. Most of the others were asleep or listening to music or chatting with the people they knew. Nobody was paying us any attention. “I meant to ask you earlier… how’d it go? What did he say?”

Liam and I, along with Christian’s sister Lily, Kit, Hugo, and both Christian and David’s mums, had spent a whole afternoon the day before last hanging fairy lights and placing candles in jars and basically making Christian’s patio look magical as fuck so Christian could propose. We hadn’t seen him since, and we hadn’t heard from him either. Liam and I had taken this to be a good sign. I’d assumed they’d just spent the past two days banging each other’s brains out and refusing to leave their bed.

“Oh shit, yeah. How’d it go?” I leant forward, the three of us in a tiny huddle. Christian looked around, double-checking. He hadn’t told the rest of the England team about David or his sexuality because he was worried it meant too many people would know, and it would be harder to keep control of the information. It made a lot of sense, even if it fucking sucked ass. The only people who knew were Nigel Grant, Liam, and me.

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