The Last Man in My Locker Room

The last man I'd kissed was sitting in my locker room.

In my seat.

Wearing my club's training shirt.

“Absolutely fucking not,” I said.

Rafael Costa looked up from his phone. His eyes dropped to the towel around my waist, then returned to my face with the composure of a man who hadn't once spent three consecutive nights checking whether someone had read his message.

“Good morning to you, too.”

I pointed at his chest. “Take that off.”

His mouth moved at one corner. “You could at least shut the door first.”

Eight months, and he still knew exactly how to make me want to hit him.

Or do something considerably worse.

Beyond the high windows, gulls screamed over the training ground. A shower dripped behind me. Half the contents of my locker had been moved to an empty space further along the wall, and the black-haired bastard on the bench had apparently taken this as an invitation to settle in.

“Why are you here?”

“Medical's done. Contract's signed.” He stood. He'd always been broad through the shoulders; in Westbridge blue, the fact seemed unnecessarily personal. “Apparently, we're teammates.”

I'd known we were buying a striker. I'd deliberately stopped reading transfer speculation after the seventh article suggesting the club needed someone whose hamstring worked.

“You signed for Westbridge.”

“Yes.”

“On purpose?”

“I did read the contract.”

I laughed once. “Then let's establish something. On the pitch, I'll pass to you if you're open. Everywhere else, you leave me alone.”

His expression changed.

“Owen—”

“You don't get to call me that.”

For a moment he stayed perfectly still. Then he nodded.

“All right. Hayes.”

His phone lit on the bench between us.

I hadn't meant to look. Looking was an old habit, though, where he was concerned, and there it was: my name above an open conversation. The last message visible on the screen was one I'd written at twenty-four minutes past midnight in a hotel room in Manchester.

If last night was a mistake, tell me yourself.

My stomach dropped with an anger that felt embarrassingly close to hope.

“You kept it?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn't answer it?”

His hand moved towards the phone, then stopped. “I should have.”

Someone knocked twice on the open door.

“Hayes? Costa? Upstairs in ten.” Lucy Bennett, our head of communications, checked her watch and then my towel. “Ideally dressed. We're introducing our new signing.”

“I've met him.”

“Wonderful. One less thing for me to arrange.”

She disappeared before I could explain that my resignation from civilisation was imminent.

Rafa picked up his phone. “Could we talk afterwards?”

I turned to my locker. “We're apparently about to talk in front of six microphones. Pace yourself.”

I dressed while he looked at the opposite wall. That courtesy annoyed me almost as much as being watched would have.

Upstairs, Lucy positioned us in front of a sponsor board. This was a short welcome interview for club media with a handful of local reporters invited along. No difficult questions, she'd promised. Just two professionals discussing an exciting season.

Two professionals. Excellent. I'd try to find them for her.

“Closer,” the photographer said.

I moved three centimetres.

Rafa leaned down. “Try to look pleased. You're ruining my welcome.”

I smiled brightly at the lens. “I'm delighted. You should see me when I'm annoyed.”

A reporter laughed. Lucy's eyes narrowed in advance of whatever she thought I might do.

“How does it feel,” someone asked Rafa, “finally playing alongside Hayes rather than against him?”

“Much easier on my ankles, I hope.”

“You fall over if someone changes the weather forecast,” I said.

More laughter. Rafa looked at me, and there was that tiny shift in his face. Not the smile he gave cameras. Something warmer and much less safe.

“I'm looking forward to finding out what he's like when he's on my side.”

He sounded so comfortable. So effortlessly charming. As though he hadn't just stood beside a bench and admitted he'd kept the message he'd never answered.

I wanted to make him lose his place for once.

My hand slipped behind his back, hidden from the cameras in front of us, and I gave his arse one quick pinch through his training trousers.

It was a stupid impulse. It was also spectacularly effective.

Rafa jerked upright and inhaled sharply halfway through his next sentence.

“Everything all right?” the reporter asked.

I turned towards him in concern. “You all right, Costa? You look a bit nervous.”

His eyes met mine. For one dangerous second, I thought he might actually tell them.

Then he smiled.

“Apparently, I underestimated how excited he is to have me here.”

His fingers found mine behind us. They rested there, an invitation rather than a grip.

I should have moved immediately.

Instead I remembered a cold terrace, his warm mouth, the astonishing relief of discovering that wanting him hadn't been entirely my own bad idea.

I let his fingers curl around mine for one second.

Then I pulled free.

“So the rivalry's over?” another reporter asked. “You two seem surprisingly comfortable.”

“We're professionals,” I said.

Rafa was still looking at me.

“Costa,” Lucy prompted, with admirable restraint.

He faced forward. “We both want the team to win. We have that in common.”

“And your impressions of the new signing, Owen?”

“He needs to learn to answer questions without staring at me.”

Someone laughed loudly enough to rescue me. Rafa's smile deepened.

“Sorry,” he said. “He's making that difficult.”

I was going to murder him with a branded microphone.

Afterwards, Lucy caught my elbow.

“Whatever that was, keep it manageable.”

“I was welcoming him.”

“Yes. Your hospitality nearly pulled his hamstring.”

Downstairs, Rafa waited by the exit. I collected a water bottle from the refrigerator and put it in his hand before he could speak.

“Now they think there's something going on.”

“You could have let go sooner,” he said softly.

I looked at him.

His teasing had faded. He wasn't claiming anything. He was asking a question he hadn't quite earned the right to say aloud.

“You could have stopped smiling,” I said.

Then I left him there.

In the car park, I sat behind the wheel without starting the engine. My phone vibrated against my thigh.

COSTA: It wasn't a mistake. Can we talk somewhere private?

I read it twice.

Eight months late, and my pulse still behaved as though he'd arrived exactly on time.