Page 89 of Almost Ours

The final minutes pass with me watching the clock almost as much as the game, half wanting it to end because I need to speak to Josh and half wanting another hour before I have to look him in the face after that.

The whistle finally goes with the score still two-one, the Lincoln side losing their minds as people start moving towards the gap in the fence where the players come off. Emma waits all of about ten seconds before deciding the rules don’t apply to her, ducking underneath the rope and heading towards Oscar as he walks across the grass.

He spots her, says something quick to Cam and changes direction, smiling right at her. When she reaches him he catches her around the waist and lifts her clean off the ground, kissing her hard enough I have to look away.

I’m staring pointedly in the opposite direction when a shadow stops on the other side of the fence. “You came.” His voice is rough from the match and slightly breathless.

I turn and my eyes land on Josh, who is standing there with his palms pressed to his lower back, the bruise on his cheek clearer from this close, and his green eyes intense enough to take my breath away. I shrug, hoping for nonchalance. “You asked me to.”

“Yeah.” His eyes drag slowly over me, and my heart starts battering against my ribs violently. When they meet mine again, he’s smiling in this helpless, almost disbelieving way. “I did.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Saturday

October 24th 2015

Joshua:

I’ve spent the last twenty minutes pretending I’m listening to Cameron explain why the referee was a “corrupt little bastard with the spatial awareness of Stevie Wonder” while watching Tom from Ruby’s course try to chat her up across the pub.

The pretending isn’t going particularly well. However, Tom seems to be doing fucking brilliantly.

Ruby arrived with Emma maybe half an hour after us, wearing jeans, boots and this dark green top that brings out the darker tones of her skin and makes her hazel eyes shine. She barely made it three steps inside before Tom appeared from a table near the windows, called her name and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as though they’d arranged to meet here, and Ruby laughed while Emma carried on towards Oscar without her.

“Joshie!”

I drag my attention back to Cam. “What?”

He’s wedged into the corner of the booth with one leg stretched underneath the table, in the tracksuit bottoms he changed into after the match, his third pint sitting in front of him beside a half-eaten packet of salt and vinegar crisps which was Dave’s.

“I said,” Cam repeats with great patience, “that tackle was attempted murder.”

“It was fine.” I wave to the bruise on my face. “Barely a scratch.”

Cam points at me. “This is why nobody likes defenders.”

“I’m not a defender.”

Dave snorts into his pint while Oscar, sitting opposite us with Emma tucked against his side, reaches across and steals one of Cam’s crisps. Cam slaps his hand away. “Get your own.”

Oscar glares at him. “They’re Dave’s.”

Dave waves his hands. “They’re communal.”

Cam tuts. “They weren’t communal when I started eating them.”

Oscar mutters, “You’re such a prick,” before eating the crisp anyway, and Cam launches into a completely unnecessary spiel about pork scratchings being superior.

I tune Cam out, trying to pick my mood up from the gutter.

I know we won. I know I played well. Oscar told me in the changing rooms that the assist at the end was exactly why he wanted me in the Firsts, then Cam punched me in the shoulder hard enough to bruise before screaming that we were all getting pissed. All the lads on the team are making an effort with me too, which I should appreciate because I always feel so fucking lonely. It’s why Dave even came and sat down, he’s never really spoken to me before.

But I can’t stop my attention from snagging on the unbelievable brunette across the room.

Almost kissing her the other day has done something to me. I can’t stop thinking about what it would have been like if Oscar hadn’t knocked on that door, if Ruby had stayed between my legs with her hands around my neck and I’d finally stopped pretending I didn’t want her. I think about her mouth more than I should, about whether she’d kiss me slowly at first or go straight for it the way she does everything else, whether she’d make that little breathy noise she made when my thumbs moved over her waist, whether she’d pull me closer when I touched her or make me work for every inch.

Tom says something that makes her laugh and she reaches out to shove his shoulder.