Page 14 of Matched

Both of them fell about laughing for a solid minute. My siblings sucked. Still, I guessed it was nice to see Rocky acting so light-hearted, even if it was at my expense. Gem and I had tried to shield him from the worst of our money issues, but he was perceptive, and I knew he worried about things.

When they recovered, Gem turned serious. “You know we don’t care if you’re into men.”

“Yeah,” Rocky added. “Emery and Lewin are together, and everyone loves them.”

Jordan Emery and Theo Lewin were two of Glevum FC’s players who had caused headlines when they’d been outed by an anonymous source. They’d been in the tabloids for a while, and although most of the media coverage had been positive, there were always homophobic assholes ready to crawl out of the woodwork. So it wasn’t strictly true that everyone loved them, but the majority of Glevum’s fans and their teammates were behind them. My brother was a huge Emery fanboy, probably because he was a cocky asshole, too, and like called to like.

“Yeah…I know. It’s not that. You know all my housemates are gay or bi or whatever, so it’s not like I’d have an issue with admitting it,ifI was into boys. Which I’m not.”

Nate’s face flashed in my brain, the lazy grin he’d given me when I was sliding my hand over his chest— Fuck. I shook my head. Even if new, unusual, fleeting thoughts had crossed my mind when I’d been drinking, there was no point in taking them any further. Nate had made it clear that he was strictly into women, and there was no other man I’d ever looked twice at, drunk or sober.

So, yeah. Wasn’t gonna happen. Nothing to admit. If I happened to find a man attractive in the future, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

I cleared my throat, changing the subject. “I get paid for my student union job today, so I’ll transfer some money to the family account.” As with my library job, I was paid weekly, which made life easier.

Gem frowned. “We can manage, Charlie. I don’t want you worrying about us.”

“Gem. Don’t.” It had been difficult enough to convince her to take some of the money I was earning in the first place, but there was no way I’d leave my siblings to struggle on their own when I could help out. Rocky ate enough for three normal people, and although he didn’t have any expensive hobbies, we both wantedhim to be able to do things with his friends without stressing about whether we could afford it. Gem’s job wasn’t exactly the best paid—not when it was the only wage they were relying on.

“You’d better put enough aside for social things,” she said eventually.

“Yeah. More dates.” Rocky smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes.

“I know you’ll give me shit if I don’t, so, yes, I factored that in.” Time for another change of subject. “Did you get your project finished, Rock?”

We fell into a comfortable conversation, catching up on everything that had happened in the past week, although there were a few things I kept to myself.

Namely, the way my drunk brain had been so fixated on Nate Glover.

6

Jogging out onto the pitch, I screwed up my eyes against the sudden brightness of the sun.

“Nate! Cone drills!” Travis shouted, and I shot him a thumbs up before heading over to where my teammates and second team members were forming two lines behind the sets of cones that had been arranged on the pitch.

My brows pulled together when I took in an unfamiliar head of tousled brown hair in front of me. Then the person turned to the side, and— “Charlie?”

“Oh, look, it’s my mugger. Or stalker. You do keep showing up at the same place as me.” Turning to face me fully, he gave me a bright grin, and my heart jumped from the shock of seeing him here.

It took me a second to regain my composure, but when I did, I stepped closer, cocking my head as I studied him. “Hmmm.You’re the one at my football training, so I think that makes you the stalker. What are you doing here?”

His lips curved into what had to be the worst impression of a pout I’d ever seen. “You don’t want me here? That makes me sad.”

“’Course I want you here.” Moving to his side, I threw my arm around his shoulders. “It makes it much easier to keep an eye on you for my nefarious stalking purposes.”

“Nefarious.” He snorted. “To answer your question, it’s part of my uni project. I’m looking at different training methods between different sports. I’ve looked at the uni rugby and hockey teams already, and my housemates sorted it out so I could train with the football team for a few sessions.”

I took in his slightly wistful expression as he stared out over the pitch, and his words from our first date came back to me.I really wanted to join the uni team, in fact, but I needed a job more. I squeezed his shoulder before removing my arm. “That sounds good,” I said.

“Oi! Nate! Charlie! Stop flirting and pay attention!”

My head snapped up to find the line of players had moved on while Charlie and I were talking—notfucking flirting, whatever my team captain said. Charlie’s cheeks flushed, and he spun away from me, jogging across the pitch to the others, and after shooting Travis a warning look and ignoring his answering smirk, I rejoined the back of the line.

Charlie’s presence left me off-kilter throughout our training session, and I kept making stupid errors I’d never normally make. It was just having someone new there that I wasn’t used to, and it wasCharlie Brooks, the person I’d been on two accidental dates with. Everything about it was bizarre.

Lifting my shirt, I wiped it across my brow. When I lowered it, I noticed Charlie’s gaze flicking away from me, his cheeksflushing. What was all that about? I tipped my water bottle to my mouth, downing the cool liquid.

My heart was pounding. Fuck, I’d overdone it today.

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