Page 248 of Off the Pitch

“What do you want to do now?” I asked, kissing his shoulder.

“Like, right now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, first I want to suck you off, and then we should probably head to the club. You’re coming with me by the way. I’m not doing this by myself. You deserve, like, at least half the blame here.”

“I’m not the one who declared their love in the middle of a press conference.” I grinned, and Jordan rolled into my arms and pushed me onto my back.

“Yeah, well, it’s all your fault for being so fucking sexy.” He looked down at me and smiled. “I fucking love you, you know that, right?”

“I love you too.”

I smiled as he kissed me. The world could wait another hour.

Epilogue

One Year Late

#onemorewedding

Jordan

“Are you ready?” I asked, watching Lily nervously bounce on the balls of her feet as we waited at the end of the aisle.

“I think so. No, wait. No, I’m not ready. My brother can’t be getting married.”

“Better go tell him then.” Liam chuckled. “Maybe he can elope to Vegas too.”

“You know, he still hasn’t forgiven me for that,” Lily said with a sigh. “He keeps bringing it up whenever he wants something.”

“Is that how you got suckered into planning this?” I said, gesturing around at the rows of guests and the mountains of flowers that lined the aisle down to the outdoor pagoda that we stood under, nervously awaiting the arrival of the grooms.

“No, I did this because you two have no taste,” she said.

“That’s well harsh,” Liam said.

“It’s the truth. Besides, Christian actually wanted to get married this year, not in like fifty years’ time which is how long it would’ve taken you two to make any decisions.”

“That’s probably fair,” I said with a shrug, looking out at the guests. Christian and David had decided to keep everything small-ish so there were only about a hundred people here. Ali and Naveen, my cheeky five-month-old best mate, sat a couple of rows back with Félix next to them. Naveen was clutching a cuddly toy turtle Félix had brought him from his flourishing turtle sanctuary in Costa Rica, and it had quickly become Naveen’s favourite thing in the world. Félix and Ali were chatting quietly, and I couldn’t help taking a minute to watch them.

It had been an incredible, roller coaster year.

After the chaos of our impromptu announcement, everything had gone back to normal relatively quickly. Hugo, Christian, and I had sat down together with a PR and media specialist and discussed how we wanted to handle things. We’d put together a plan for future interviews and agreed to basically shut it down or gently move the conversation along every time things got too personal. The press had gotten bored pretty quickly, especially once the season had started up again.

I think people wondered if having three out guys on the team would affect us, and it did, but not in the way people were expecting. Instead of our performance suffering, Greenwich had fucking flown through the season. Our combined joy of living as ourselves, freely and without restrictions, had given us a new spark. People had tried to call us names or tried to doubt us, but we’d shut them up by winning the league.

I had to admit, it had been a pretty fucking satisfactory way to silence the doubters.

But what had made it even better was when a couple of other people started coming out too, including a young lad called Jack who played for another London team. The next time we’d played them, Christian, Hugo, and I had given him a giant hug at the end of the match. I’d gone home and cried for reasons I couldn’t quite explain to Félix, but he understood anyway.

I still couldn’t believe he was mine. Every morning when I woke up and rolled over to find him lying next to me, I had a moment of amazement because life with Félix was more incredible than I could’ve imagined.

After everything had calmed down, he’d mentioned looking for a place to live, and we’d gone through the motions of trying to find him a house. But nothing was right, and eventually, after a brief but explosive argument and some intense make-up sex, we’d just agreed he should move in with me.

Félix still travelled, but slowly he’d gravitated more towards London. He was more settled now, more at ease in his own skin. His environmental group was thriving, and he relished running it, spending hours reading research papers and making business plans and ignoring people when they said things were pointless. It was like he’d discovered a new lease of life all over again, and I loved watching him follow his new passion.

He caught me watching him and gave me a smile.

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