#lets go of nora sakavics shoulders. anyway. where were we

[fratzombie]

So Bless Me Anyway Chapter 1:  Of Pretty Nurses and Bleeding In Hallways

Summary:

Andrew is dying of AIDS in 1980. Kevin leaves him because he can't cope and Andrew falls in love with his nurse who is Neil. Its the Tony Kushner play Angels in America adopted with the characters from Nora Sakavic's book series All for the Game. You can read it on AO3 here. 

--

“First of all, you call now. Radio silence for months just to tell him this.  No, you don’t get to talk to him. He doesn’t need this. No, don’t call again. Goodbye, sir.”

Andrew’s head was pounding but the corner of his lips quirked almost in a smile. Nicky was shaking as he hung up the phone. But Andrew felt pride swell in his chest, even if he’d rather carve out his liver with a spoon than ever let Nicky know. He’d be insufferable. But Luther was a cancer. A bigoted nasty oozing sore of a person and Nicky was better off without the bastard in his life as far as Andrew was concerned. But the hazy feeling in his head felt way too familiar so who knows if this affectionate nonsense was organic. Oh, boy did he hate being medicated. 

Andrew’s eyes were still closed, he wasn’t quite ready to open them yet. His mouth felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton and his limbs felt heavy. He didn’t hear the coward. He’d bet the fucker was hiding. Maybe with a bottle.  Andrew said he didn’t want to go to the fucking hospital and he meant it dammit. Passing out or not, it was still his choice. Not that the coward ever listened to Andrew.

“Open your eyes, Mr. Minyard, we know you are awake.” A voice Andrew didn’t recognize. Probably a new nurse. It always took awhile for him to care enough to figure out their names. Unamused, he opened his eyes.

”My name is Neil and I’ll be your nurse for today. How are you feeling?” Neil continued. He looked like a model. Wearing dumb scrubs that were at the very least two sizes too big and with a face and hands full of scars. It was incredibly unfair that a man with knife scars down one cheek and a puckered burn under his eye on the other had a face this attractive. And he was asking how Andrew was feeling. No, this was not how today was going to go.

“Hiya Neil. Are you sure you’re my nurse? Who let you out of the burn unit?  Did you steal those oversized scrubs from them? Naughty, naughty. They don’t like it when you get out of your bed.” Andrew smiled sharply, letting his voice bounce up and down in a parody of how it sounded all those months ago. Andrew firmly believed that when life gave you the absurd the only reaction you can give it is an absurd one back. Neil smiled back just as sharp.

“No, not a patient anymore. See the burns all healed,” the nurse said gesturing to his cheek with his burned hands. His eyes laughed as he said it like he was almost amused at Andrew’s lack of tact. ”So how are you feeling?” Neil continued undeterred by Andrew’s games. How was Andrew feeling? Andrew didn’t feel. Feeling went away to fight in the war and never came home as far as Andrew was concerned.

“Just peachy.” Andrew wanted Neil to leave. Neil frowned and the frown did nothing to sour his looks, unbelievable.

“I’m sure you’ll want a minute alone with your loved one. I’ll just go get you some water and some oral meds.” Neil left and closed the door and Andrew let out the breath he was holding and turned to his cousin who was sitting in the chair.

“Nicky, where’s Kevin?”

–

Andrew was standing in the hallway coming back from the kitchen where he had gotten himself a glass of water.  He felt a little dizzy and it was getting hard to breathe but he was still standing and then the pain in his leg spiked white hot and his knee buckled. Suddenly, he was on the floor. He just wanted help to get back up. It would have taken forever if he’d have to crawl to get to bed. So he shouted to get Kevin’s attention.

“Asshole. Wake up. Kevin. Wake up. Fucker. Wake up.” Andrew could feel the sweat cover his forehead and the back of his neck. This was not good. The big idiot heard Andrew at least and ran to his side.

“Kevin, I think something is wrong. My lungs are doing a piss poor job of breathing,” Andrew said lolling his head so that he was facing Kevin even though he couldn’t quite focus on him. He kept on trying to get his eyes to focus by blinking. But the dizziness was getting seriously in the way.  Kevin started to stand up.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Kevin said. Andrew grabbed his arm.

“No, wait, I-” Andrew began and was interrupted by the big buffoon.

“Wait? Are you fucking insane?” Kevin put his hand on Andrew’s head.  “Oh God you’re on fire, your head’s on fire.”

“No shit, that’s how a fever works.” Andrew rolled his eyes, regretted it, and winced in pain. Jesus this bullshit was making him feel pathetic.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital. I hate hospitals. Get me up so I can go to bed. We’ll call Aaron tomorrow. Just let me go to sleep.” The asshole shrugged out of his grasp. Stupid body, he used to be able to just hold him there. Stupid loss of muscle tone. Stupid disease.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Kevin said as he left the room. Andrew could always refuse when the thing got there, he was too tired to fight with Kevin right now. Then he felt a pain in his stomach that felt like he was being punched and then a sharp pain lower like in his groin. He had to go to the bathroom, urgently.

“Kevin stop that nonsense and help me up. Fuck, Kevin, I have to go the bathroom. I don’t want to go the hospital. I just have to go to the bathroom.” Andrew’s bowels did not wait and blood and shit poured out of him. In that moment he couldn’t tell what he hated more, his traitorous body or Kevin. Andrew closed his eyes and Kevin entered the room.

“Andrew? They’ll be here in– Oh my God,”  Kevin said as he was instantly by Andrew’s side. “There’s blood,” Kevin said trying to prop Andrew up.

“You’re useless,” Andrew intoned, “Don’t touch that,” he reprimanded and he passed out.

When the ambulance came Kevin rode to the hospital with Andrew. They headed to the hospital where Andrew worked with his brother. The staff admitted Andrew fast and by 1:00 am he was set up in a room with an IV drip of antibiotics and fluids. The nurse working on him was a friend of Aaron’s fiance, her name is Emily. Emily turned to Kevin.

“He’ll be alright,” she reassured him. But it was a lie and they both knew it. He wouldn’t be alright. This was the beginning of the end.

“No he won’t,” Kevin replied unable to hear the lie, not tonight.

“No. I guess not. I gave him something that makes him sleep,” the nurse conceded. But the idea of a sedative perked Kevin up.

“Deep sleep?” Kevin asked with a little too much hope in his voice.

“Orbiting the moons of Jupiter.” Kevin nodded he was relieved. He couldn’t talk to Andrew tonight, couldn’t face him tonight. He knew it was selfish. Andrew hated anything that dulled his senses after what happened to him with the courts.

“Are you his uh…?” She gestured with her hands.

“Yes, I’m his uh,” Kevin said duly. Not being able to look at Andrew with the oxygen mask on and the tubes in his body.

“This must be hell for you,” she said well-meaningly and squeezed Kevin’s shoulder in support.

“It is. A frozen hell,” Kevin said in hollow voice.

“Yeah, well. We all get to break our hearts on this one. He seems like a nice guy. Cute,” Emily tried again.

“Not like this. Yes, he is. Was. Whatever. Will he sleep through the night?” Kevin asked again far too hopeful. Feeling as though he was suffocating in the hospital room.

“At least,” the nurse told him. Kevin grabbed his coat and scarf.

“I have to go. Tell him, if he wakes up and you’re still on, tell him goodbye, tell him I had to go.” With that, the nurse gave him a nod and her mouth tightened and Kevin left to go to the nearest bar. He stopped at a pay phone before entering the bar to call Nicky and tell him what happened. And then entered the bar and drank until he forgot his own name.

[jumpingbean345]

Roman Holiday

Fandom: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic Rating: T Characters: Andrew Minyard/ Neil Josten

Also posted on AO3

Summary: 3 Parts: Neil wants to go somewhere far but Andrew knows better, Neil runs and Andrew finds him, Andrew is leaving and Neil will be alone.

He knew what they were doing. Neil knew that he wasn’t always the most mindful person but his teammates were being painfully obvious about the fact that they were trying to be quiet. That they were trying to surprise him.

And it would have worked too.

If only, Nicky could have stopped giggling in nervous anticipation. If Aaron would have made an actual attempt to hide, Neil could see his silhouette peeking out from behind the corner and the tips of his white tennis shoes impatiently tapping against the hardwood floors. And the occasional loud clink of glass bottles hitting against each other didn’t help either. Neither did Dan, shushing them, trying to keep them all together.

In their attempt at secrecy, they hadn’t heard him come in. He was quiet, unlike them. It was just one of those things he picked up over the years, when being loud at the wrong time could end in pain, or even worse death. That skill usually wasn’t need so much here, but it did come in handy at times.

He was breaking his side of the bargain. The deal was that every year they, the Foxes, would pretend that January 19th was just an average day and held no particular meaning. And it didn’t, not for Neil Josten anyway. In exchange for his participation in birthday celebrations on March 31st instead.

And he participated. When he, or Neil, turned twenty-one and when he turned twenty-two. But this year, for twenty-three, he wanted no part in it.He didn’t want smiles and laughter and cake and alcohol today. He couldn’t stomach it. Today he wanted silence and solitude. He wanted the smell of smoke on the air, on his clothes, in his chest.

His feet ached, with urges he thought he long since gotten rid of. But he willed them to stay put. He reminded his self to breathe. If Andrew were here, he would have told him to breathe, because for a brief second, he seemed to have forgotten.

What, exactly, was wrong with him was hard to figure out. March 31st was a date that held no meaning. It wasn’t the day Neil Josten was born because Neil Josten isn’t real, he doesn’t exist. He is only a name. But if he isn’t him, then who the hell is he?

Nathaniel was the answer and it always would be. No matter how much he tried to avoid it. Something things are unavoidable. They simply exist. They just are.

He didn’t feel like him anymore. He didn’t feel like the butcher’s son. He didn’t feel like Mary Hartford’s son. Today he hardly felt like Neil Josten.

The problem was he didn’t feel like anyone’s anything.

If a person doesn’t belong to anyone or anything, do they even exist? Are they even there? It’s like the tree scenario. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Logically, Neil thinks it does, because sound is not dependent on whether someone hears it, or not. Sound is an entity of its own, it requires no one, to exist. Is it the same for people, if a person exists in the world and no one is around to see them, to know them, are they even alive? Is Neil sound? Does he want to be? Does he have to be?

Answers evaded him, as he eased the door back open, stepping into the night that carried a chill on the air, promising an unusual snowfall for March.

He didn’t know where he was going really. The only place he could think of was away, when a hand reached out and gripped the upper part of his arm in a firm hold.

“Headed somewhere?” Andrew’s voice was rough, stained with nicotine. Neil had just enough light to see where the half-smoked cigarette burned between his pale fingertips while he waited.

Neil shook his head, but didn’t offer anything else as he studied his shoes. Confused. Where was he going? What was he doing?

The smaller man studied him, silently as smoke wafted and curled up between them. Andrew looked down for a second and said, “Those aren’t your running shoes, Josten.”

“I wasn’t running,” Neil breathed out, his voice hoarse as well but for a completely different reason. Andrew, Neil realized, was the first person he’d talked to the entire day.

Andrew said nothing, he didn’t have to. His eyes though, his heavy gaze, was always adept at finding truth in lies. He dropped the remainder of the cigarette on the ground and used the tip of his shoes to turn it into ash before looking back up at Neil. Waiting.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Neil blurted quick, in a rush of breath and anxiety. “Far,” he finished.

“We have a game tomorrow,” Andrew reminded him, “Did you forget about your precious Exy?” His voice was distant, unconcerned. It was up to Neil. If they would disappear tonight, go to somewhere far, and miss the next game. The foxes would fail with both of them missing. Andrew still like to pretend he didn’t care about that, it was unofficially Neil’s job to care about those things.

Neil laughed lamely, tinged in slight desperation as he looked out at the car passing.

Andrew grasped Neil’s chin in his hand, forcing his attention back to him. Neil stared at him, Andrew stared back. Blue eyes against hazel, searching for something. An answer? A clue? Neil didn’t have any of those. Whatever he was looking for, he found it. Satisfied, Andrew let him go and turned on his heel, heading toward the parking lot.

Wordlessly, Neil followed him inside the Maserati and watched in silence at the street lights that flickered pass as if they were going faster than they were. Neither of them spoke a single word, as they drove up to a short, iron wrought gate. Andrew turned off the car and eased out of it, knowing that wherever he went, Neil would follow.

They stepped over the gate into the dimly lit section that housed the city park’s pool. They’d been here a few times before, on a late night, much like this one. Andrew brought him, when Neil mentioned in passing, that he liked the water but would prefer not to swim at a public beach for obvious reasons. “Too many people watching,” he said, back then. Andrew didn’t respond, never acknowledged that he’d spoken. Neil was just talking, anyway.

But Andrew had heard and he took him to the city pool, after hours. It was usually, hopefully clean. Where Neil would swim and Andrew would watch or smoke. But he never swam. Once, Neil managed to get him to put his feet in the water. But when Neil tried to get him to get in, a flash of panic that was so terrible and quick broke through Andrew’s clam demeanor, that Neil never bothered him about it again.

Today, he didn’t swim.

They were both content to watch the water ripple on the wind and headlights reflect every so often as a car passed by. The silence only broken by the quiet hum of the pool’s filter.

After some time, Neil didn’t know when it happened exactly, but his heartbeat slowed in his chest and his breath eased out in small clouds that mingled with Andrew’s as they stared out at nothing.

Neil leaned his head in the warm space between Andrew’s neck and his shoulders. This was okay with them now, needing no prior consent and the smaller man didn’t even flinch, only eased his arm from between them so he could wrap it around Neil’s middle, pulling him closer.

It was nearly morning, when they spoke again. Neither of them wanting to ruin their escape, but they couldn’t stay there forever. They had responsibilities that they couldn’t run from: practices to make, classes to attend, apologies to give.

“I would ask if you’re okay now, but I don’t want to give you the opportunity to lie.” Andrew said, moving his arm so that he could reach the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his dark jeans.

Neil felt his face crack and creak with the tiny beginnings of a smile, “I’m,” Neil said and Andrew paused, cigarette between his fingers, the small orange glow nearly the same color as the sun that was starting to rise over the horizon, “better,” he finished and Andrew nodded, placated.

He passed the cigarette to Neil and he took it and watched it burn for a few seconds. Then, he pulled it between his lips and inhaled until he could feel the smoke take up residence in chest. Filled him. Held him. Until next time.

****

Neil clumsily pulled the laces on his shoes as taunt as he could. They were entirely too tight, too restricting. But the pain was welcome. More welcome than the other feelings that bubbled in his chest and curled in his stomach, that threatened to make themselves known.

The door slammed behind him in his haste to leave. Escape. Run.

As the soles of his shoes slapped against the slick pavement, Neil hardly paid any attention to it. He just ran. Ran toward the newly risen sun, eyes wide open until his eyes watered with the sting that came from staring at the light.

His vision blurred, his heart pounded, his feet hurt, but he kept running. Not looking back. Only forward.

The sound of the city waking up was all around him. The sound of another person running next to him, almost behind him. Silent.

Neil looked down, seeing the familiar pair of dark shoes with a black check on the side that was starting to peel off. But Andrew wouldn’t get rid of them. Neil understood. They were familiar. Comforting. Soon though, they wouldn’t serve their purpose.

He didn’t look back at him.

“I didn’t need you to come find me,” his voice was harsh. Tight.

“Didn’t you tell me you were going to stop running from everything.” Andrew shot back.

And Neil had told him that. And he did stop, for a while.

“You know better than anyone how some things just creep up on you, whether you want to remember them or not.”

Neil didn’t mean to bring up the nightmares that Andrew still had, that woke them both up in the middle of the night. And Andrew, covered in sweat, panting would crawl out of the bed they shared, and Neil couldn’t touch him or talk to him, or even look at him because he couldn’t stand it.

He didn’t mean to bring that up.

Neil stopped running. And so did Andrew.

There they stood, in the middle of the sidewalk in a nearly deserted part of campus, so early. Rain began to drizzle, a fine mist rising and coating their skin damp and sticky.

Andrew said nothing. He wasn’t angry, Neil could see that and he sighed. In relief or disappointment.

Sometimes, Andrew could deal with Neil better than Neil could with him. Only sometimes though.

With, not-apology in his eyes, Neil stepped closer to the blonde hair man, who stared beyond him, at something or nothing that was in the distance.

“Don’t say you’re sorry. You said what you meant. Don’t take it back.” Andrew said, his voice cool and unconcerned.

“I wasn’t going to,” he moved closer, bringing Andrew’s curious eyes to him, “but I shouldn’t have said it.” Neil lifted his hand between them, cautiously waiting.

Andrew glanced down at it. For a second, two seconds. Then grasped it in his own.

Rough, calloused palms met, both still slightly damp with rain and sweat, held tight. They held on for a minute. Or an eternity. Neither of them paid much attention.

Andrew gave his hand a brief squeeze, then let go and stepped away.

“Are you going to finish?” The run, he meant.

Neil shook his head. “No,” he took in a deep breath and let it out, much calmer than he’d been before. “Let’s go somewhere.”

Andrew turned, headed back to the tower. “Far?” he asked over his shoulder as Neil trailed behind him.

Neil was quiet as he looked over his head, at the place where they both lived, his friends live, his family, where he belonged.

“No, not far.”

****

Andrew was leaving. They only had one week left. He would be coming back, Neil knew. But that wasn’t important. He was leaving.

It was only eleven hours away, Andrew said. Driving would be too long for a weekend trip, unless they met somewhere in between. Planes tickets would be doable but it was the matter of hoping on a plane to a different state, when they would both be free. Andrew would be busy navigating being on a new team, with new people. Neil would be busy being captain of the remaining foxes.

They would both be busy.

Would they drift apart like some people did when the distance was too great? It seemed impossible now, with Andrew so close, only a console separating them as he sped down the freeway, on the last trip they would be taking together for a while.

“Junkie,” Andrew called him, without turning his head away from the road and stuck his finger into Neil’s cheek forcing his head in the opposite direction. “Stop staring at me.”

As soon as he moved his finger, Neil turned back to him, “Yes or no,” he said in the suddenly. The words escaped his lips before his brain had time to process them.

“I’m driving,” he said and slid an impassive look his way.

“Then stop,” Neil curled his fingers into the cushion of the console and wished it weren’t there in his sudden desperation to be closer to Andrew.

He took the next exit without question or comment and drove them the few miles to the nearest gas station in tense, anticipatory silence. Shifting the car into park, toward the back, in a semi-dark corner, Andrew stopped and they both waited.

“Yes,” Andrew said.

And as they kissed and kissed, the only thing Neil could think of is that they were entirely too far away. He pulled back and gazed at the other man, who’s heavy lidded gaze matched his own in need, want.

Neil moved over the cursed console and climbed into the backseat. Easing himself on his back, he waited. Andrew followed seconds later and positioned himself between Neil’s jean cladded thighs, looking down at him, with a hand on his chest to keep that inch of space between them.

“Kiss me,” Neil said, demanded really, but Andrew ignored him, his mind elsewhere, lost in thought. “Andrew,” Neil gripped his head, stands of blonde silk sliding through his fingers. Their eyes met in the dark, their bodies casting shadows from the glow of lights from the gas station.

Andrew moved his hand from Neil’s chest and laid flush against him. The weight of his Andrew’s body pressed against his own.

Then the weight of his lips pressed against Neil’s jaw. Then his neck, his ear.

Neil pulled his arm around Andrew’s neck to pull his lips to his own, leaning so deep into each other, that an onlooker would hardly be able to tell where one ended and the other began. Although he still had the courtesy to hope that no one was watching.

He kept his hands where they were. Firm around Andrew’s neck, he would have specified if they could roam beforehand. Andrew’s hands, however, were everywhere. Sliding up his arm, fingers trailing under his shirt, teasing at the waistband of his boxers. Each touch sent a tendril of heat, curling down his stomach. Then lower.

When Andrew suddenly sat up, Neil groaned low in his throat with the distance. With his head many inches away from the roof of the car, Andrew leaned back on his haunches and tugged at Neil’s pants, their breathing loud in the car. Neil lifted his hips and they slid off, taking his underwear with them.

Andrew wasted no time and stroked him, hard and fast. The way Neil wanted, the way he was desperate for it. He could hardly think. He could scarcely breathe. It felt so good. He grabbed Andrew’s shirt to pulled him closer, he complied, leaving space for his hand between them, not for distance this time.

Neil pressed open mouthed kisses against Andrew’s neck in-between intakes of gasping breathes. Andrew shivered against him each time he did it.

“You too,” Neil asked. He wanted this, but he wanted it with him.

Andrew used his free hand to ease down the top of his own black jeans and black boxers. Letting go of Neil, he brought them together and laid on top of him. Neil wrapped his legs around Andrew’s waist as they moved together in a simulated push and pull.

The windows were fogged and Neil was moaning, low and throaty. He was close.

Andrew’s breath hitched as he lowered his hand down and rubbed them both, together. Once, twice, three times.

Later, as they still laid on the backseat of the car. Sticky and exhausted, with Andrew’s cheek against Neil’s own, he said, “It’s only eleven hours away,” he reminded Neil. He reminded himself.

“I know,” Neil said and Andrew turned to look at him.

There weren’t tears in Andrew’s eyes. Neil knew that with utmost certainty. But the way the moonlight reflected off the window gave Andrew’s hazel eyes a glisten, a sheen, that he’d never seen before.

It was strange, he noted. But as he stared back at the man he had come to know, the man he would miss, he wondered if his own eyes held the same.

[c-valentino]

Lighter Next To Your Coffee Mug

Summary:

Neil & Andrew, two men with too many issues, a prostitute and a national Exy player, two strangers in an AU where Neil never stopped running and never got the chance to join the team.

Fandom: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic Rating: Explicit

Notes: AU Timeline — the story is taking place after the books but Neil never joined the team.

Chapter 1

The night was chilly and smelled of rain when Neil skipped the line in front of Eden’s Twilight and clapped one of the bouncers on the shoulder in way of greeting.

„Yo,“ the man, double his  weight and towering one head above him,  said and moved aside to let him in. Neil smiled and greeted some familiar faces on his way in. Cash folded inside his pocket of his black skinny jeans was an assuring reminder of the last hour he had spent at a stranger’s house, doing strange, some might say distasteful things. He pushed the memories into a corner of his mind and guarded them with two imagined clones of the bouncers he had just passed. Those memories had to stay outside tonight.

Neil moved over to the bar and was eyed immediately by strangers and acquaintances alike. A bartender passed him, nodded in an upward motion and Neil gave another smile in response. They knew him here. They knew he was a good customer who tipped well and didn’t talk much. They also knew he came to this bar to order from is favorite bartender. Roland was busy serving customers at the other end of the bar but his colleague was kind enough to take over for him and to let him know that Neil had showed up.

„Well, hello,“ Roland greeted and wiped his hands on a dishtowel.

„Hey,“ Neil replied.

„Long day?“ The barkeeper put his hands on the workspace behind the bar and leaned forward a bit in order to hear the soft-spoken words of his customer nearly drowning in the music. Neil’s eyes had a distant look to them for a moment, as memories tried to bypass his mental bouncers.

„Long day,“ he agreed. It was the needed exchange for them to do business. Roland nodded understandingly.

„The usual then.“ He turned and got busy with Neil’s drink. Neil thanked him and paid double for the added drugs. He took a sip and turned halfway around to look at the crowd on the dance floor.

„Slow night,“ he observed and Roland, now busy stacking some of the washed glasses, nodded.

„Stay a while,“ he told Neil and the younger man glanced back at him, head slightly cocked to one side. Neil usually didn’t stay long, they both knew that and Roland didn’t keep customers around for conversation between serving drinks. The barkeeper was though, the only one around who knew what Neil was doing for a living.

„I might have something,“ Roland said vaguely and then left to serve other customers. A small smile tugged at the corners of Neil’s lips as he glanced down at his drink and gave a little snort. Wasn’t it Roland who always told him to be careful not to do business in Eden’s Twilight? The management had strickt rules when it came to hookers, even those like him. And anyway, Neil came here to relax and forget about his job for a while. Stay a while… well, maybe he would.

Andrew Minyard didn’t need to stand in line at any club. The fame of being an Exy player of a famous team gave him that excuse — not that he had ever needed one. Two bouncers parted the waiting crowd in front of Eden’s Twilight to let him through. He was greeted but didn’t care. He only acknowledged the faces he knew. People started talking behind is back, recognizing him. He didn’t give a shit. There was so much talk lately, even a normal person would have grown tired of hearing it by now. Andrew hadn’t cared from the start. Across the street, two middle aged men with cameras called his name, trying to get him to turn around for some pictures since they hadn't seen him approach in time. He ignored them.

The club was surprisingly empty tonight. Maybe some big event he had forgotten. It didn’t matter. Roland was behind the bar, looking at him and catching his eye immediately. He nodded and made his way over.

„Glad you came,“ Roland said.

„I said I would,“ Andrew shrugged.

„How is the media treating you?“ To that, Andrew only raised an eyebrow, telling Roland that he should know better than to ask stupid questions. „Right,“ Roland agreed.

Last week, the Exy season had had its first scandal when team captain Kevin Day had been injured during the second game of the season. Though fans and critics alike agreed that it had been a deliberate foul, the attending referees had not deemed it to be an act of misconduct. Kevin had been unable to finish the game and although Andrew had prevented the other team from scoring points, the Foxes offense had been hopelessly outmatched without Kevin. With Andrew being subbed out during the last quarter, the foxes had lost. Rumors disagreed on what had happened after the game. The hard facts were that the player who had injured Kevin had ended up at the hospital, unable to continue the season, maybe missing even the next one and Andrew being suspended for the time being.

„About the other thing we talked about…“ Roland handed Andrew his drink, putting it on the house but accepted the tip. The blond goalkeeper looked up at him questioningly, inviting Roland to go on. „He’s here. Far wall, left of the DJ.“ Andrew turned around lazily, took a sip and scanned the crowd. He liked what he saw; dark hair, slender build, about 5’3, dark clothes that hinted at a nice physique. His smile was fake but that was only befitting his surroundings. Trouble was, Andrew hated that he liked what he saw. He had wanted to be disappointed.

He emptied his glass in two large gulps and put it down on the bar. „Thanks,“ he said and handed Roland a folded bill for his trouble, which the barkeeper accepted. He then turned around and left with one last glance at the stranger across the dance floor. He hated him already.

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