But I managed to ignore my baser instincts, pushing everything down so I could focus on the words I wanted to say, that I meant with every part of my being.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I don’t care about titles, and I know this is temporary.” Fuck, I hated the word “temporary.” I swallowed hard. “I was only teasing you about being my boyfriend. I just… I’m really happy to see you.”
The House in the Tree pub was exactly the kind of place that made me feel at home—all old wooden beams, microbrewery ales on tap, and the relaxed buzz of local regulars enjoying a pint, completely uninterested in the group of footballers among them. Jordan and Theo were already there when we arrived, sitting at a corner table with a few other players I recognised.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my T-shirt. Meeting Jordan and Theo had been daunting enough, but now I had to meet even more of my teammates. Okay…I’d met them already, but that was in a team situation, where we’d been training together. Not in a social setting. Not with Cody, either.
Next to me, Cody deliberately pressed his shoulder against mine, and I found that I could breathe again. After ordering our drinks, I led him over to their table, praying this would be okay.
“Jude!” Jordan raised his pint, and I tapped mine against his, desperately trying to stop my hand from shaking. Cody thought I was confident—okay, I usually was confident, but joining a whole new team was a completely different experience, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to fake it.
Hot breath skimmed across my ear, followed by a low voice. “Breathe.”
I breathed.
And it was enough.
“Uh, hi, everyone. Uh, this is Cody.” I accidentally jabbed him in the bicep instead of pointing in his general direction, and he huffed out a soft laugh. “He’s…uh, my b—my friend…uh, visiting from Canada.” My gaze slid to Jordan, who raised his brows, his eyes dancing with amusement. Yeah, he clearly knew that Cody wasn’t just a friend.
“Cody. Nice to meet you. I’m Jordan Emery. This is Theo Lewin, my boyfriend and the most talented player on the team after me.” He held up his middle finger, smirking at the cries of outrage that followed his words. “The guy to his left is Lars Nielsen, our goalie—not related to yourfriend, despite the shared surname, unless Jude’s mum had an affair with the milkman.”
Everyone paused for a moment to look between me and Glevum’s very tall, very blond Danish goalie, before falling about laughing.
“Fuck off,” I muttered, trying and failing to hold back my own amusement. “We literally look nothing alike. And our surnames are spelled differently, anyway. His has an E, and mine has an O.”
“Yeah. Like I said, not related. Back to the intros. The asshole next to Lars is Reuben Mendy, one of our forwards. Ainsley and Grant are around somewhere, too. Ainsley’s another one of our defenders, and Grant’s our captain.”
“Welcome to England.” Theo stood and held out his hand, his wooden chair scraping along the flagstones. “First time here?”
It took me a moment to realise he was addressing Cody, but when Cody responded, his voice all quiet and cautious, it made me fucking melt. “Yeah. It’s my first time outside North America. Jude’s been talking his home country up, though, so I thought I’d check it out.”
They shook hands across the table, and I couldn’t help my smile. When Ainsley and Grant rejoined us and we were all seated around the table, my entire body was slumped with relief. Not only had my new teammates accepted me with no questions, but they’d made Cody feel welcome, to the point where I could see the relaxed set of his shoulders. That in itself was a miracle.
“NHL?” Lars was saying to Cody. “My cousin plays for Florida.”
That was enough for my not-boyfriend and my new teammate to engross themselves in a conversation about the ins and outs of hockey. I exhaled, glad that Cody had found someone he was comfortable with, that he could talk hockey with rather than football.
The conversation turned back to football soon enough, though, when Ainsley nudged Cody. “Bro! You should come to our next match. Get your first taste of proper football.”
Cody hummed, pushing his empty glass across the table towards the small selection of glasses teetering on the edge. “Maybe.”
“You might find it more exciting than watching boring ice hockey,” Reuben interjected, and Cody rolled his eyes.
“You think it’s exciting when a player rolls around on the ground when someone breathes on them wrong?”
“Try playing for aminimumof ninety minutes, with only one fucking break, without using your hands. Talk to me about exciting then,” Reuben shot back. Rising from my chair, I prepared to pull them apart if they came to blows, but they actually grinned at each other. I stared in disbelief, sinking back down into my seat as they reached across the table and bumped their fists together. The next thing I knew, Reuben had switched seats with Ainsley and was next to Cody, the two of them speaking in low tones.
“Fucking hell,” Ainsley muttered, shaking his head. “Why did your boyfriend have to become best mates with fucking Mendy?”
26
Jude
Somehow, impossibly, my new teammates had instantly gelled not only with me but with Cody. I’d even go as far as to say some of them liked him better than me. For a man who’d been so guarded and closed off when I’d first met him, it was almost unbelievable. Unbelievable in the best way. Fuck. Every time I looked at him with my new friends, it made me ache for what I could have, if only he didn’t have to leave at the end of the summer.
Like now. We’d only just arrived at Jordan and Theo’s house for a BBQ, and Jordan was already pulling Cody away from me, dragging him over to the patio table, where a laptop was open, with a— What the fuck? Was that aPowerPoint presentationon the screen?
“Listen, Clements. We need to have a talk about your flights. If you’re gonna make this long-distance relationship with our boy Jude work, you need to start planning.”
