chapter six
“Sit.” Sergio’s stare remained fixed on his clenched hands above the boardroom table-top.
Jay glanced around at the others all waiting for his entrance, from the coaching team, to the PR team, to who knew who else taking up every seat on the large oval table. Monday morning’s training session hadn’t even begun and Jay had been summoned to the offices. He knew what was coming. He sat as commanded at the opposite end to his manager.
“You understand why I called you here, yes?” Sergio finally laid his dark gaze on Jay.
“Yes, Gaffer.”
“Three-match ban.”
“Yes, Gaffer.”
“And it has been pressured upon us to also fine you. We cannot be seen to be taking this lightly. You understand?”
Jay sucked in his bottom lip, preventing his teeth chattering. This all spelled trouble with a capital Barney. “I understand.”
“Three weeks’ wages.” Sergio nodded to the suited bloke beside him, who wrote a few things down on his papers. That was obviously the finance guy. So many people attached to the club that Jay only knew most by their faces or if they wore a claret lanyard. Perhaps the bloke was PR and going to release how much Jay would be forking out for his indiscretion on the pitch to the press to show that West Ham management were serious about consequences. Maybe I should have agreed to an agent, after all.
Jay nodded.
“Is there anything you would like to say?” Sergio raised his dark eyebrows in encouragement.
Jay had already spoken with Sergio straight after the last match. He hadn’t told him what Alejandro had said. What would be the point? It would only prove that Jay couldn’t handle his emotional fallout when his sexuality was called into question. That would mean he wasn’t handling it and he’d snubbed the offer of having support to deal with all this crap. He couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t let them know that he was an easy target. What would that do to his career? He’d never be off that bench.
“Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
A hush fell upon the occupants of the table. Sergio remained fixed on Jay. Waiting. Expecting more, perhaps? After an awkward few moments, Sergio scraped his hands off the table and leaned back in the seat.
“I seem to recall you claiming that before.”
Jay bit down on his bottom lip, then nodded. “This time, I mean it.”
“Uh-huh.” Sergio scrubbed a hand over his face. “You see, you have put us in a difficult situation. We put our faith in you. We supported your decision and we backed you all the way. Were we wrong?”
“No.”
“If you speak up, we can speak up.”
“Ain’t nothing to say, Gaffer. He pissed me off, yeah. I should have handled the tackle better. And I will next time.”
Sergio threw his pen to the table, his whole demeanour screaming that he wasn’t happy about Jay’s refusal to pass blame. In the changing room after the send-off, Sergio had asked and asked what had caused Jay’s outrage. But what choice did Jay have? All he could do was keep up the pretence that he was like any other man on that pitch who had been stopped at goal line by an illegal move and not that it had anything to do with what Alejandro had uttered into his ear and that still boiled Jay’s blood. He was a man. Am a man. And I belong on that pitch, with all the other fucking men! But his dad’s voice that had been drilled into him since childhood rang in his head—snitches get stitches.
“You will have appointments with Candice.” Sergio raised his chin at the woman a few chairs away from him.
She smiled, kind grey-blue eyes focusing on Jay.
“For what?” Jay asked.
“She is a sports psychologist. She can talk you through tactics to get your head in the game.”
Jay swallowed. “My head is in the game.” It is, ain’t it?
“And not on what people say about you?”
“A lot of people say a lot of shit. About me, about all footballers. Why single me out?”
“Because I cannot have you attacking players when your green monster appears. I need to control it. You need to bury it. Or your career will end before it has begun. This was my fear for you.”
Jay folded his arms, bouncing his knee under the table. Two years having studied psychology in sport, he knew what would be coming his way from these sessions. He’d have to talk about how he felt. About Seb. And about why the world couldn’t just accept them. Is it the world? Or is it me? Sometimes he didn’t know. When at home alone, he knew. When football was an issue, he just couldn’t see straight. And he was backed into a corner here. He nodded.
“Good. Once a week. After training, I want you here. We will release to the press that you have agreed to anger management and the three week’s wages and take full responsibility for your actions. Would you like us to add a quote?”
Jay thought. Long and hard. All he had swirling through his mind seem to come out in Seb’s voice—go fuck yourself. He shook it free, attempting to find his own words, his own comeback, his own remorse for the situation. Should he apologise? Should he claim it was all his fault? Should he cast aside the years of torment that he, and no doubt the others like him who still remained hidden, had endured on the pitch, in the changing rooms, on the training field? Should he suppress it? Fuck, I really do need an agent.
“Just say I regret my actions.” Jay stood, and his tense body somehow managed to get him out of the boardroom and out to the training field where he had an even more dispirited session of runs, sprinting drills and tactical playing with the rest of the team for the next four hours.
The lads were clearly pissed off with him for bringing their club into disrepute. Jay threw himself into it, even though he wouldn’t be playing a match for at least a month, and attempted to quell the belief from them and the coaching staff that he was a liability. He hadn’t spent the best part of his life getting to the top only for one slur from an opposing player, not to mention the jeers from the stands and the vilifying write-ups in the press, to have it all crash down on him. He wasn’t. He’d play them all that their game and, come the time to shower and change, Jay couldn’t remain silent any longer.
“You all think I shouldn’t have done it, dun’t ya?” Sitting on the bench, he spoke to the floor, not able to look the remaining members of his team left in the changing room tearing their kit off.
“What? Kick the bastard?” Bruno threw his training top into the laundry bin and rammed his hands on his hips. “No. You shouldn’t have.”
Jay looked up, realising there were only five others in the room. Davies, the rookie, wiped his hair with a towel and his morbid fascination was evidenced by the chewing on his bottom lip. The other three lads added in their own agreed mumbles to their studs.
“No.” Jay stood. “I mean come out.”
He waited, sucking in a stifled breath. He knew the answer really, but wanted them to admit it to his face. To get it all in the open and not pussyfoot around why he was getting the cold shoulder from a team who claimed camaraderie was their main asset. It wasn’t because he was gay. It wasn’t because he preferred men over the hundreds of girls who threw themselves at any given footballer. It wasn’t because he was the only one. Because he knew damn well he wasn’t. It was that he’d been brave enough to tell the world. Brave? Or foolish?
Bruno stood tall, chest rising, and his sharp frustrated exhalation had his nostrils flaring. Davies shuffled awkwardly, probably hoping that his skipper did his job and ended this before it got out of hand. Jay eyed the other three, Halliday, Santiago and Cooper, who all gave varying degrees of pointed looks.
“I told you, Rutters.” Bruno’s voice wasn’t as forceful as his stance. “Football ain’t just a sport. It’s a livelihood for us. That shirt is a fucking badge of honour and should be treated as such.”
“You sayin’ I don’t treat it like that?”
“What I’m saying is, you gotta be careful. We all get shit thrown at us, we all have to deal with it. But yours, fuck, Jay, yours is gonna be slung at all of us from a great height. And if you can’t handle that, then, well, maybe you were wrong to come out. And wrong not to have someone running your side for you.”
That was another slap to his face. “Right.” It was the only thing he could muster to say.
“I think you’re a great player. A fucking brilliant striker.” Bruno waved his hand at the others, forcing their agreement. “We all do. But it ain’t just about what you can do with that left foot of yours. It’s about what you bring to the team. And at the moment, Rutts, you’ve brought us headaches. I don’t give a fuck who you sleep with. Couldn’t care less. I don’t want to think about what any of these lads get up to of a night time. But as soon as it affects them on the pitch, it affects the whole goddamn team. You get?”
Jay nodded. “Yeah. But it ain’t like I can take it back now, is it?”
“You want to?”
Jay paused. “No.” The reply didn’t come as quickly as Seb probably would have preferred. But at least he’d said it.
“My advice, and it ain’t just for you, it’s for all of you.” Bruno grabbed a towel from the pile on the bench. “Play football. Play fucking great football. Don’t give anyone a reason to think you ain’t thinking, dreaming, or even fucking football. That’s what you are now. A footballer. There’s nothing else to you. As soon as you give them something else, you’ve given the haters a bullet. Don’t provide ammunition. Provide a great show for the football fans. They pay your wages.”
With that, Bruno stomped off to the showers and left Jay to change alone with his silent teammates, pondering how much of what Bruno had said he should agree with.
* * * *
Seb listened to the recorded track alongside their label’s producer, Harvey, and tapped his foot in time with the beat. He swivelled in the huge leather armchair, wondering whether the new song would fit as their new release or stay as an album filler. It was good. Punchy bass, banging drums, and his guitar solo screeched at all the right moments. His voice was a little off in places and could do with a second go on the lyrics, but all in all it was six hours well spent in the Dalston studio.
Harvey clicked off from the audio mixer and faced the three of them. Noah and Martin stood behind Seb, no doubt waiting for their front man’s sign off. Time in the fully kitted-out studio cost a fortune, but they needed a step up from their home efforts now they were hitting the big time. The added pressure of knowing they only had a limited time in the professional suite aided Seb’s need to get everything right within a time frame. Notorious for tinkering, Seb couldn’t afford to keep trying new angles with snare sounds and microphone set-ups, so he nodded and clapped his hands once, rubbing them together as he stood from his seat.
“We’ll go with that.” He held out his hand to Harvey.
“You sure? We got time for another go?”
Seb exchanged glances with the others. He was well aware they were hitting their longest spell in a studio to date. But they had a rash of gigs coming up, as well as media appearances to promote the festival circuit that loomed on the horizon. It would be a foolish not to squeeze every second out of their pre-paid recording sessions. And to get it perfect.
Seb checked the clock above the door. Jay would only be getting home from training to go for his pre-scheduled nap time. No point rushing, especially as Jay wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. He’d had three weeks of dealing with Jay’s dwelling on what had happened, and he wasn’t willing to get into another argument about how Jay should be dealing with it.
The weekend had been spent with Jay plodding around the house avoiding any media, including turning the television on, opening a newspaper or firing up anything connected to the internet. Seb had been banned from scrolling the outcries after Jay’s match or mentioning the red card at all. It meant that the boredom led to many a bedroom session, which Seb couldn’t begrudge, but he was well aware that Jay would be facing it all today. And Seb had no idea what the fallout from that would be.
“Yeah. All right. Let’s go another round.” Seb nodded to Martin and Noah, then headed through to the performance space and picked up his guitar from the stand.
He stood in front of the vocal microphone and slipped on the headgear that he’d left on top of the stand. Nothing like a bit of music producing to help him forget the woes of being a footballer’s boyfriend. Martin and Noah took up their positions, adjusting microphones and equipment. Receiving the nod from Harvey through the glass, the three-piece started up with their latest track. Seb focused on his voice this time, and not on what would be waiting for him at home.
The next hour was spent mixing the track, perfecting the sound, and signing it off as a completed record, and Seb emerged from the studio into the bustle of London with revived energy.
“Check your emails when you get home. The list of gigs from AR will have been sent through and we need to discuss the set lists.” Seb tapped his bandmates’ clenched fists and shoved on his shades.
“We not getting any time off over summer?” Noah grouched.
“You want fame and fortune? Holidays are a thing of the past, my friend.”
“Slave driver.” Martin clicked on the fob for his Audi parked up behind Seb’s camper van along the street. Thank fuck they’d found a studio that offered visitor parking permits, or they’d be forking out a lot more in parking fines.
“Tell me that after V Fest when the royalties come tumbling in, yeah?” Seb grinned and slid open the door to his VW.
He waved off the others and started the engine, music pelting from the speakers, and sped off into the early evening traffic. Slapping the steering wheel in sync with the drum rolls, he made his steady journey back to Greenwich with a clear head. Even scrunching tyres onto the gravel driveway and seeing their mailbox at the front entrance filled to the brim with unopened mail didn’t damper his mood of a successful day. He jogged over to the box and yanked out the post. Flicking through, he shoved all the envelopes he knew were bills to the back and wondered whether the handwritten post was worth even opening. Hate mail often got confused for fan mail.
Letting himself into the house, he listened out for any movement. Silence. Jay was most probably still on his R & R time. So Seb slammed the post onto the unit by the door and headed straight for his laptop in the music room to print out the list of gigs and festival tours. Rhythmic pounding from above caught his attention, along with fierce, deep grunts.
“What the…” Scrambling past the drum kit, Seb bounded out and up the stairs.
The door to the gym was open and a deep drone of male voices resonated through the walls. Seb paused at the door frame and watched. Jay, dripping sweat from his entangled hair, and vest and shorts covered in wet blotches, sprinted on the treadmill, eyes focused on the plasma screen. Seb peered around. Sky Sports News presenters talked through the weekend’s football results and when Seb flicked his attention back to Jay, the distress was evident over his boyfriend’s scorching red face.
“You okay?” Seb called over the drone from the treadmill belt, Jay’s pounding feet and the squawking of football pundits on the screen.
“Yeah. You?” Jay’s voice warbled along with the rickety belt.
Seb stepped in closer. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“No.”
Seb looked at the time on the screen. “Normally it’s shut-eye now, right?”
Jay glared at him, upping the pace on his strides.
“All right, whatever.” Seb held his hands up in defence. He’d learned when to have an opinion on Jay’s schedules. “You want dinner?”
“I’ll do somethin’ after this.”
Seb bit his lip. Something was off. Jay was off. Seb could tell when he wasn’t needed, or wanted. He’d had enough of those brush-offs in his life to get the hint. So he went to walk back out when the whirring of the treadmill suddenly stopped. Jay grabbed the remote from the shelf on his monitor screen and cranked up the volume on the TV.
“And what do you think about the three-week fine that West Ham have issued Ruttman for his lash out on Saturday’s game?” the dark-haired pundit asked the other three behind the newsroom desk.
Seb winced. “Jay, should you be—”
“Shh!” Jay turned the volume up higher.
“It definitely proves a point,” the Liverpool-accented man behind the desk replied. “Ruttman acted like a spoiled brat on that pitch. He’s not above the laws of the game. He hasn’t matured on the pitch like those come up from the Academy ranks, so maybe this will set him on a career-defining path.”
“True, true.” The main presenter nodded. “And Romero’s talk with us after the game was humble, stating he misjudged the tackle and in no way said anything to warrant the attack. Could this be a case of Ruttman not being ready for professional-level football? Especially considering his recent coming out—”
The screen flipped to black.
Seb sighed. “Champ, remember our motto?”
“Fuck ’em.” Jay scraped his sweating hair back from his face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Everything suggested he wasn’t, but Seb left it at that. “Three-week-wages fine?”
“Yeah, coincide with not playing for three games. Plus I get to see a head shrink. It’s fine. I’ll get through the rest of the season, then summer break can’t come quick enough.”
Seb smiled. “Atta boy. You can come to all these then.” He fished out the paper of his festival gigs and waved it in the air.
“What’s that?”
“Every gig the Drops are playing. Be good to have you in the crowd. Like all good boyfriends should be.” He winked.
Jay grabbed the towel slung over the arm rests and hopped off the treadmill. “I thought we’d get away. Far away.”
“Manchester far enough away?” Seb queried, wincing as he searched his boyfriend’s face for a hopeful affirmative.
Jay flung the towel over his shoulder and approached Seb by the door. Knowing that look in Jay’s eyes, Seb braced for the impact.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be wise to come along. In spite of all this shit.” At least Jay had the decency to look mildly perturbed by the admittance.
“Right.” Seb was less diplomatic. “Not even V Fest? My headline?”
“You know that one lands at the beginning of next season. I won’t have the fixtures til summer, so can’t guarantee I’ll be around.”
“That’s the only excuse?”
“Don’t do it, babe. Please.” Jay’s shoulders deflated, like he’d been poked with a pin and burst. “I’ve had a gutful from every fucking angle. I can’t take it from you and all. You knew the deal.”
“The deal? Enlighten me, Champ, ’cause I thought the deal was we deal with it.” Seb folded his arms, desperate not to be taken in by the pitiful blue glaze.
“The deal is we don’t go ramming it down people’s throats. Don’t give them ammunition.”
“This is new. What happened to ’fuck em?”
“It got me a three-match ban, a sixteen-grand fine and anger management training.” Jay wiped his face with the towel draped over his shoulder. “It’s football, Seb.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.”
“I’m gonna shower. Then I’ll make us some dinner.”
Seb nodded as Jay brushed past him and into the main bathroom. The shower whirred to life shortly after. Not even the promise of one of Jay’s perfectly balanced meals could lift the dull ache left in Seb’s chest that he’d yet again be alone at his biggest gig to date. Martin now had Leah, and Noah had whoever was flavour of the month.
Seb, he’d be sharing his hotel rooms with petulant after thoughts.