Page 35 of Brat on the Ball

“Only with you, baby,” said Finn. He nodded at my empty wine glass and George’s pint. “Ready to go?”

“Ready,” we said in tandem, and ambled as a group toward the alleyway that led to Wings. I looked around furtively, but in the dark we were just another random group of men out on the town. I didn’t need to fear anything. George and I were standing so close we could hold hands, and now and then our fingers touched, which somehow felt almost as intimate as when he was inside me.

As we ducked into the darker alleyway that led to the club, I finally felt brave enough to thread my fingers through his. I could feel him watching me in the darkness, and kept my eyes ahead.

That night, we danced. And laughed. And kissed on the dance floor like no one was watching, even though everyone was. Because how couldn’t they, when the six-and-a-half foot tall Sasquatch in a jockstrap next to us was kissing a tiny man with hot pink hair? Between us all, we were a sight. But we were nothing new at Wings, and it was a place for secrets to be set free. So I let George pepper my body with kisses and imagined that we were somewhere else. A local pub. On the beach. Walking down the street, hand in hand, as lovers should. But we weren’t. And I wasn’t brave enough, yet.

That night, we walked home together, our fingers linking whenever I thought we were out of sight of the crowds. We took the private lift to my penthouse, and made love in the hot tub. And then on the sofa. And in the shower. And finally when we lay between my silk sheets, panting and spent and so obviously falling for one another that it hurt, I asked George something I never thought I would ask.

Chapter Eighteen - George

All day I thought about what Ollie had asked of me. And for a man who was great at writing words, I had no idea where to start with the request. I wanted to ask Elsie, but I hadn’t asked him how much he had told her, and I wanted to honour his request and his privacy all at once.

It had been a long day of training, and I’d barely made a dent in my dissertation work, so I forced myself to head to the University library to sit down and write. I found research on homosexuality in Ancient Greece, on whether the Vikings had a concept of sexuality, and even on the sexual repression of the Golden Age of Hollywood. But there were so few openly gay sports players, that I had no idea how to proceed. It felt like I was writing a dissertation on a topic no one had ever approached before.

So I turned to Ollie’s question instead as I thought about what he’d asked me. He’d spoken when we were so close to falling asleep I thought I might’ve imagined it until he brought it up the following morning.

“Will you be the one to help me come out?”he had asked.

“How? As your boyfriend? You want to get up and walk hand in hand down the street in daylight?”

“No. I don’t want it to be some tabloid shock. I want you to blog about it. I want it to be news that you break. Not yet though, I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

“OK, love.”

And then he’d left, and I had no idea how to approach what he had said to me. Was he going to give me an interview at some point? And when was that? Because I’d been so happy to hold him and kiss him, to twine my fingers through his, that it felt odd to detach ourselves again. I couldn’t do it forever. I needed a plan from him. When he wanted to do it. Because I was rapidly falling for Ollie, and I had no idea if I could sustain the relationship as long as I didn’t know when he would come out.

I opened my blogging software idly and wrote a draft framework of what the article might look like:

Ollie Gunnerson, 25, becomes UK football’s first openly gay player.

I scrapped that. It didn’t feel right, then started again.

Ollie Gunnerson, 25, blazes a trail for other LGBTQ footballers to follow.

That didn’t work either. Without him, I couldn’t have written the article. So I pressed backspace and wrote out something I did know.

I am in love with Ollie Gunnerson. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. I don’t know how to love him, and cliche as it sounds, it might just drive me mad if he can’t love me back in the way I need him to.

It felt like the most honest thing to write, and the words flowed as I sat at the computer and let them flow. The future article seemed to write itself. By the time I reached the end of it, I was surprised by how much I actually knew about Ollie. How much I had fallen for him.

Once I was done with a first draft and had carefully filed it away underBreaking News, I went back to my dissertation. I felt empowered and energised to write something that would make any player who came out proud. I looked back to Wales’ first queer player, a man named Gareth Thomas who had come out toward the end of his career, and the unlikely number of players in the nation who’d come out since. Rhys was going from strength to strength. His boyfriend was one of the most respected sports commentators in the UK, and Finn was making his transition from playing to coaching with grace.

But that wasn’t the overriding story. I read more about promising American footballers whose coming out had them dumped from their teams within a year, boxers struggling to get matches, trans athletes being discriminated against across the board as soon as they started to transition. I realised that the little world I lived in had shielded me to how bad it really could be for LGBTQ athletes.

And then I saw the name of a soccer player I’d heard of before, but never really paid much attention to. Someone who had come out in the 90s to rampant homophobia in the UK, emigrated to the USA, and then ended his life. No matter how grim the research got, I recorded it. By the time I had finished for the evening, my eyes were getting sore from staring at the screen and the sun had long descended below the hillsides that rose up either side of the university. I methodically printed out every article I’d read, so that I would have paper copied to highlight at home. I was old fashioned that way.

I stretched, feeling my bones creak. In front of me was the skeleton of a dissertation. It was barebones, just a thousand words or so when I needed another four thousand. But my thoughts and more references would bulk it out, as well as an introduction and conclusion. It wasn’t as positive as I had hoped it would be, and in some places it was downright morbid. But I had something. Something special, and new.

My phone buzzed.

Ollie: You around?

I sent a quick text to let him know I’d be rushing home, and packed up my laptop and notes. I was so ready to see him.

When I got back to my apartment, Ollie was sat down and leaning against the door in the corridor. His eyes reminded me of a Dog’s Trust advert. He looked so forlorn.

“You OK?” I asked.

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