Page 48 of The Fly-Half

“Yeah, sure.” He grinned and stood up to yank his shorts down, and I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. “You should be getting changed. We need to shower.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said as I pulled my own shirt over my head, wincing as it stretched my chest muscles. When I glanced down, I could see bruises starting to form on my ribs, mottling the skin with purple. I’d had worse, though, and bruises were such an everyday part of playing professional rugby that I barely registered them most of the time.

“I don’t know,” Jonny said as he rolled off his socks, chucking them on the floor next to his shorts. “Maybe something to dowith today?” He glanced around. “Maybe something about the other night?”

“God, I hope not. I’ll fucking die if it is.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Die,” he said softly. “I’d miss you too much. And it took long enough for us to get here.”

His words caught me off guard with their sweetness and for a second I couldn’t speak. All I could do was stare at him with an open mouth. We’d still not really talked aboutwhatwe were doing and what it meant—we’d simply carried on as we always had only with filthy, possessive sex thrown into the mix.

Maybe we should have that conversation, but I wasn’t in a rush. I was already getting everything I’d ever wanted, and asking for more felt selfish.

We stripped off and grabbed some towels, heading for the shower and narrowly avoiding Hunter and Bailey dicking around and trying to snap each other’s underwear like a pair of unsupervised teenagers. Even Matty, who was a constant, walking ball of stress, seemed to be in a good mood and when Danny grabbed control of a portable speaker and began playing ABBA, he started singing along.

By the time we’d scrubbed all the mud out of every orifice and found some clean, dry clothes, they’d all moved on to singing Dolly Parton and Cher.

Hearing a bunch of rugby players belting out “Believe” was something that had to be seen to be believed. In the new year, I was going to insist on a team night out to The Court’s karaoke night because I wanted to see the look on everyone’s face when half the team got up to sing a bunch of queer classics with completely straight faces. And maybe I wanted to watch them get roasted by some of the queens too.

Although they were more likely to get hit on based on what I’d experienced.

Jonny and I ducked out of the dressing room, our fingers brushing against each other. Clive was waiting outside chatting to Tommy, and he shook his head when the door swung behind us, the sound of singing filling the corridor.

“I’m not sure if you lot have shit taste in music, or amazing,” Clive said, clapping Tommy on the shoulder and sending him off down the corridor.

“Definitely amazing,” I said, trying not to laugh. “The singing, though…”

“Well, none of you will be winning any awards any time soon, that’s for sure.” He looked between the pair of us, eyes lingering on how close our hands were—touching but not holding. “So, you two.”

“What about us?” Jonny asked.

“You together then?” Clive said it so casually, like he was making an observation on the weather, and I was painfully aware we were having this conversation in the corridor where anyone could hear us.

Ifthey could hear us.

Danny’s and Charlie’s rendition of “S Club Party” might be just the distraction we needed.

“Yeah,” I said, letting my fingers find Jonny’s, warmth running up my arm as they interlaced themselves. “We are.”

“Is that gonna be a problem?” Jonny asked. “Didn’t think there was anything in the club guidelines.”

“Probably because they didn’t think of it,” Clive said wryly.

“That’s what we said,” I said.

“How did you…” Jonny trailed off and shifted slightly from one foot to the other.

Clive shrugged. “It was bloody obvious. Spend as much time with you lot as I do, and it’s easy to figure things out.” He lookedat us pointedly and waved a hand vaguely at me. “And Devon came in covered in bloody hickeys. Come on, boys, you weren’t exactly subtle.”

“It could have been someone else,” I stammered out, looking down at my trainers.

“With the way you’ve been mooning over him? Not fucking likely,” he said. “Now, I don’t have a problem with it, although I’d rather you’d have told me yourselves.”

“Sorry,” Jonny said. “We’re, er, still figuring things out. It’s all pretty new. For me at least.”

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