Locker Room Rivals – Part 1: Transfer Window

The club had booked two rooms at the hotel near the stadium. Then the hotel had overbooked, the second room had gone to a visiting coaching staff, and the physio had shrugged and said there was only one option left.

"You're joking," said Jamie.

"I'm not," said the physio, who was already walking away with a clipboard. "You two can sort it out. Try not to kill each other before the derby."

Jamie stared at the door of room 418. Behind him, in the corridor, Kofi was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and a face like thunder.

"Absolutely not," Kofi said.

"I'm not thrilled either," said Jamie. "But we have an early kick-off, and I'm not sleeping in the lobby."

"You snore."

"I do not snore. You kick in your sleep. I've got the bruises to prove it."

"That was a bad tackle in training. Not a sleeping habit."

They had been rivals for six years. Two strikers at two clubs in the same city, always one goal apart in the table, always the first name the journalists asked about. They had fought over a penalty in 2021 that had been on every sports channel for a month. They had not spoken, properly, since.

Now they were standing outside the same hotel door, staring at each other like cats in a narrow alley.

Kofi sighed and reached past Jamie to push the door open. The room was small, with a double bed, a desk, and a window overlooking the stadium lights.

"I'll take the floor," Kofi said.

"You'll take the bed. You're taller."

"That's not how the rules work."

"Then I'll make up the rules," said Jamie. "Bed for the tall one. Floor for the one who keeps stealing the penalties."

Kofi gave a short, surprised laugh. It was the first time Jamie had heard it in years, and it hit him somewhere under the ribs.

"I didn't steal the penalty," Kofi said. "I took it. You missed."

"I missed because you kicked my shin."

"That was a foul. Not a strategy."

"Everything you do is a foul," said Jamie, but he was smiling now, and so was Kofi, just slightly.

They sat on the edge of the bed, a careful metre of blanket between them. The stadium lights buzzed through the window.

"Tell me the truth," Kofi said, quietly. "Are you going for the same transfer as me?"

"Yes," said Jamie. "And I'll be honest, I'd rather lose it to you than to anyone else."

Kofi turned and looked at him, really looked, the way he never did on the pitch.

"That," he said slowly, "is the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't get used to it," said Jamie, and their eyes held.

Kofi didn't move closer. Neither did Jamie. But the metre of blanket between them suddenly felt very small.

"Jamie," said Kofi. "Green or yellow?"

Jamie realised that someone had actually asked him that question. Sitting on a hotel bed at eleven at night, with the derby coming and the entire city watching.

"Green," he whispered. "Very green."

Kofi reached out, slowly, and took his hand.