Page 52 of Off the Pitch

“Yeah, but don’t tell her that. She’ll actually kill me.”

“I’m gonna keep that to myself until you really piss me off or I need to butter up Ali’s mum,” said Liam, throwing his head back and laughing at the indignant look on Jordan’s face.

“What the fuck, man? Why?”

“Just because. C’mon, let’s go in. I’m freezing my ass off out here.” Liam gestured at the door, and Jordan followed him in, muttering darkly.

“I’m gonna kick your ass at Skee-Ball, you know that, right?”

Christian watched them go, shaking his head with a wry smile on his face. “Thanks again for coming,” he said.

“No worries. It’s going to be fun,” I added, pulling open the door for him.

And it was fun. Really fun, actually.

Okay, so yeah, I wasn’t quite as good as Liam or Jordan at most of the games simply because I lacked practice, and it was rapidly becoming apparent they spent a lot of their spare time here. Still, my hand-eye coordination didn’t seem to have disintegrated that much over the past few years, and I wondered if Christian had told the other two that I used to be a goalkeeper.

Although apparently, I was still shit at throwing balls instead of stopping them, as was proved when I utterly failed to get past the first round of a basketball game. I did manage to claw back some dignity by coming in second on the multi-player racing game, but I would have definitely won if Christian hadn’t bumped me from behind to send me careening off the track so he could steal first place. Sneaky bastard. Still, he looked so cute in his victory that I couldn’t be too mad. It was the only thing he’d won so far.

The arcade had an amazing variety of games—from classic arcade machines to shoot-em-ups to a mini bowling alley—that all spat out reams of tickets, depending on your score. It wasn’t too busy, and the various groups of schoolkids hanging out there took no notice of us. Soon we were all carrying around pocketsful of the bright yellow tickets and had to stop to feed them into a machine that added them up and then stored the number on the swipe cards Jordan and Liam carried. That way they could save up the tickets for the larger prizes—not that they really needed anything, Jordan pointed out, but it was fun to see how high they could get.

“When I get loads, I’ll probably give the card to someone else and let them get something,” he said with a shrug. “There’s a PS4 available, and they aren’t cheap, so I’ll have fun and play the games and someone else can get the console. S’all fair, right?”

The other two nodded, and I was struck by just how kind and thoughtful they all were. To them it was nothing to spend a couple of hundred pounds on winning tickets and then give it away—as long as they had fun doing it, the cost didn’t matter. I could see why they were friends with Christian.

“You guys fancy the bowling?” Liam asked, once we’d finished another round of Skee-Ball.

Bowling. That was something I could definitely do.

“Sounds great,” I said, looking over at Christian, who was jokingly arguing with Jordan over something to do with Star Wars.

“You’re such an adorable nerd,” I whispered to him as Liam set up names on the tiny screen.

“Says the history professor,” Christian shot back.

“And proud of it!” I added, watching Jordan take his first turn and missing the shot completely, sending the mini bowling ball into the gutters.

What followed was quite possibly the stupidest and funniest game of bowling I’d ever experienced.

Liam and Jordan were not afraid to take the piss out of each other for even the smallest mistakes, calling each other out in hilarious fashion. They were slightly gentler on Christian, but only slightly. Christian just laughed and asked them if that was all they had. We both knew that when you grew up with Lily, nothing phased you.

I knew that I’d been approved of when the comments went from polite to rude when I completely fucked up my last shot.

“What the fuck was that? Were you even aiming for the pins?” Jordan cried.

“I’ve still done better than you,” I said, pointing up at the screen.

“Christian, you can’t bring him again, mate. He’s too good,” Jordan said.

“He’s not. You just suck at bowling,” Liam said.

“Agreed,” Christian nodded, not bothering to conceal his smile. “You got six gutter balls. Even I was better than you.”

I sat down next to Christian and watched the three of them joke around and pick on Jordan. Christian was so relaxed here with his friends. It was almost as if his anxiety had been forgotten. Well, as long as we remained a friendly distance apart.

But even then, he still gave me a hug at the end of the night when we all parted outside the arcade. Sure, it was more of a bro-hug, the same sort he gave Liam and Jordan, but it was something, and it made my heart sing. Christian had insisted that we couldn’t go home together because that might look suspicious, despite the fact that Liam was giving Jordan a ride back to his house for dinner and to talk wedding plans. They’d even taken a series of Instagram videos and pictures of the two of them playing games together.

I was starting to wonder how long I could cope with being Christian’s secret. Being out in public was one thing, but being out to close friends was another, and I wasn’t sure how long I could manage to be just anold football friend.

---