Locker Room Rivals – Part 2: Away Game

The derby was on Saturday, and by Thursday the whole city had an opinion about the two strikers who shared a hotel room.

Jamie had seen the headlines on his phone at breakfast: Rivals in Room 418: Who Blinked First? He had turned the phone face down and eaten his toast in silence.

Kofi had sent him a single text. Ignore them. I haven't.

They didn't talk about the text. They didn't talk about the hotel room either. They trained side by side on Wednesday, passing the ball with a precision that made the coaches look twice, and then ignoring each other in the showers as if the last three days had never happened.

But every time Jamie turned around, Kofi was looking at him.

On Friday night, the team had a curfew, and Jamie found Kofi on the hotel balcony with a cup of tea and his feet on the railing, staring out at the lights of the city.

"You're going to be sent off on Saturday," Jamie said, from the doorway.

"Probably," said Kofi. "You're going to score twice to spite me."

"I'll score once and then gloat about it for a week."

"That's a fair deal." Kofi didn't turn around. "Can I ask you something?"

"You always ask first now. It's unsettling."

"Good." Kofi glanced over his shoulder. "Do you want to keep rooming with me after the derby? Not because the club said so. Because you want to."

Jamie's heart did something stupid and unprofessional.

"I'd like that," he said, which was the understatement of his life. He crossed the balcony and leaned against the railing beside Kofi, close enough to feel the warmth of him in the cool night air. "But I want to win on Saturday first. Fairly. No kicking my shin."

"I never kicked your shin," Kofi said.

"You kicked my shin in 2021."

"That was an accident." Kofi's mouth curved. "Mostly."

Jamie laughed, and Kofi turned, and their faces were very close in the dim light from the room behind them.

"Can I kiss you?" Kofi asked. "Before the derby, before we start pretending we don't like each other again?"

"Yes," said Jamie, and his voice didn't sound like his own. "And if I say stop, you stop."

"Always," said Kofi, and kissed him.

It was warm and brief, then longer, then warm again, the taste of tea and nerves and something sweeter underneath. When they parted, both of them were breathing a little fast, and grinning like teenagers.

On Saturday, Jamie scored in the first half, and Kofi was sent off for a tackle that was, Jamie thought, entirely deserved. The crowd went wild. The journalists wrote about tension and rivalry and a bitter, bruising defeat.

Nobody wrote about the balcony, or the cup of tea, or the hand that found Jamie's in the tunnel after the final whistle, quietly, where no camera could see.

That night, in room 418, Kofi took the bed. Jamie took the floor for exactly one minute before climbing up beside him.

"You're still the taller one," Jamie said.

"You're still the bad sleeper," said Kofi. "Green?"

"Green," Jamie said, and closed his eyes.