My Favourite Distraction

By October, I had developed several opinions about having a boyfriend.

First: it was inconvenient to be kissed properly when you were already late.

Second: it was even more inconvenient not to be.

Third: Rafa made a noise of private satisfaction when I called him my boyfriend, and I was prepared to say it an embarrassing number of times to hear it.

The season settled around us. Training, travel, matches, days when my body felt easy and days when I needed to remind myself that recovery didn't mean becoming a machine. Some weeks Reed started us together. Other weeks he used one of us from the bench. We learnt the irritating discipline of wanting the team to win while wanting more minutes for ourselves.

Away from the ground, Rafa learnt that I liked breakfast but hated making it. I learnt that he read the last page of a novel first if he became anxious about the ending.

“That's criminal,” I told him.

“I still enjoy the middle.”

“You're a disgrace to suspense.”

“And you're stealing my toast.”

“It looked lonely.”

He began leaving an extra half-slice on my plate before early departures. Never a lecture about eating. Just something within reach while I hunted for my keys.

I began keeping his preferred tea in my cupboard. When he noticed, he looked at the box for so long that I had to tell him it had been on offer.

“I didn't ask.”

“You were about to become sentimental near the kettle.”

“I'll try to contain myself.”

He failed. I was kissed against the worktop for an entirely unreasonable length of time.

Our second goodnight became a habit. At the hotel, across separate beds. At home, after we'd hung up a call. Once, from my bathroom, because he'd said it while I was brushing my teeth and I'd complained that I couldn't reply properly.

He sent the voice message anyway.

Goodnight, Owen. Put the phone down now.

I listened twice before putting the phone down.

One Thursday, he arrived at my house looking quiet in a way I recognised from bad days of my own. He'd spoken to his father. The conversation, he explained, had drifted into how much time he'd spent on the bench that month, as if he might have overlooked it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Not yet. Could I stay anyway?”

I handed him a game controller.

“You can help me defend my honour.”

“You're playing against a child in another country.”

“And he's vicious.”

Half an hour later, Rafa had lost three races and accused my controller of sabotage.

I leaned into his shoulder. “You're simply bad at this.”

He laughed for the first time that evening.

“Did you invite me over to humiliate me?”

“You looked miserable. I'm being an excellent boyfriend.”

He paused the game.

“Again.”

“You're bad at this?”

“Owen.”

I kissed the corner of his mouth. “Your boyfriend. That's me. Now stop pausing when I'm winning.”

Later, he told me what his father had said. I listened. When he finished, he lay across the sofa with his head on my thigh, and I learnt that he went very still when I ran my fingers through his hair.

He liked being looked after. He just wasn't practised at asking.

Neither was I.

That became apparent in November, in the seventy-sixth minute of a home match against Northfield.

We were drawing. I'd missed two chances and felt every minute of them. When Rafa broke through on the right, I moved into space near the penalty spot.

He could shoot. The angle was narrowing, but he had room.

He passed.

The ball came beautifully. I met it first time. The net snapped, and the roar reached me a heartbeat later.

For several seconds, there was only joy. Ben nearly knocked me over. Rafa's hand landed between my shoulders, solid and delighted, before the others crowded in.

Then, walking back to halfway, I heard someone in the stand shout, “About time, Hayes!”

The words shouldn't have mattered. Hundreds of people had shouted my name with affection. One impatient voice had no business getting past them.

It did anyway.

After the final whistle, I watched the goal on a monitor near the changing room. Again, I saw Rafa look up. Again, the clear possibility of a shot.

He found me afterwards, carrying my forgotten warm-up top.

“Your sister was trying to ring you,” he said. “I think she liked the goal.”

I took the top.

“Would you have passed to someone else?”

He stopped.

“What?”

“If it hadn't been me standing there. Would you still have passed?”

The happiness in his face faded, and I wished I'd found a better way to ask.

But the question was out now.