Page 52 of Worth the Wait
Freddie wouldn’t stop him.
He wasn’t as broad as Nathan, not that kind of bulk, but he was toned. Strong. A man who worked on himself because of the job. And maybe his pride.
Then Nathan blinked, looking up fully this time, and met Freddie’s gaze.
“Oi! No dirty playing this time, Webb!” Reece hollered, breaking the spell and bouncing to his feet, already kitted out in the Fire Service reds. He pointed across the room at Freddie like a referee mid-card.
Freddie stretched his arms wide with mock innocence. “Me? Never!”
“That’s not what your elbow said to our goalie last season,” Miller, one of the other fire lads, said as he pulled his boots on. “Poor sod was off with a bruised rib for two weeks.”
“That was an accident.” Freddie dragged his shirt over his head. “He walked into it.”
“Walked into your elbow like it was a nightclub door, mate,” another one chimed in.
“Hey, all I’m saying,” Reece cut back in, “is if you copper lot don’t play fair, I’ll be sending in Nathan here to flatten your striker.”
Freddie arched a brow as he laced up his boots. “I’mthe striker.”
Nathan looked up, slow and steady.
Reece chuckled. “So we’ll be expecting more foul play from you then?”
Freddie flipped him off.
The room burst into chuckles and shouts of“Oooohhh!”as someone tossed a ball into the air and another smacked it down towards the door.
“Alright, boys!” their captain called. “Let’s get out there before someone tears a hamstring trying to flirt.”
Laughter. Banter. Even Nathan smiled.
And, fuck, it was beautiful.
He’d forgotten how stunning Nathan could be when he smiled.
But they all barrelled out of the changing hut as if it was Wembley, though the muddy turf and the faint smell of stale Lucozade said otherwise. Harrow Park’s pitch stretched under dull floodlights, the low hum of anticipation rolling across the field and the cold biting Freddie’s ears, breath misting as his boots crunched onto the worn astroturf. Around the wire fence, a sparse scattering of locals clapped with the enthusiasm only a small-town five-a-side could conjure. Mums wrapped in scarves, kids climbing the railing, off-duty paramedics still in their fleeces.
Freddie caught sight of Jude standing near the halfway line with a paper coffee cup and his arm loosely looped through someone’s wife’s. Yasmine Yates, married to Dave Yates from his copper squad. Jude smiled when he spotted Freddie, shy and small, then raised two fingers to whistle.
Freddie gave a smile back, tight around the edges. Uneasy. And he jogged out onto the pitch, the chill and something tighter than cold pulling at his chest.
Because it wasn’t the weather that made him shiver.
It was playing football withNathan.
The whistle split the air, and the game kicked off under the hazy glow of Harrow Park’s battered floodlights. The Fire Service lads surged forward, all red kits and bravado, shoulders hunched, shouting over one another as if sheer volume might score them a goal.
Freddie’s lot were made up of mostly beat coppers plus Dave, the Captain, from CID who insisted on still playing despite having had a desk job for three years.
“Come on then, boys!” Dave shouted, as if commanding a riot squad.
Freddie cracked his knuckles and took position near midfield, adrenaline settling into his limbs. Across the pitch, he caught sight of Nathan. Already focused. Kit clinging to him in all the right places.
It wasn’t a game anymore.
And it didn’t take long for the testosterone to boil.
Nathan kept pace with the game better than anyone expected, given how he favoured his right leg. But he read the game like a man used to scanning danger zones, shifting effortlessly from one player to the next. Freddie, playing mid-to-forward, darted along the wings, cutting inside, commanding the ball as if it owed him something.
