(no subject)
i have catastrophically bad timing, i do. need an arsenal lift? write angsty retirement fic! well, that's what this is. some sidenotes: bouchra does play a large part in how the story functions (and, despite the r rating, there is no explicit heterosexual content within the fic); there are passing mentions of the vp children and thomas's girlfriend, aimee; this is fiction and not to be construed as true. idk, there's something about this fic that makes me want to stress that. so, yes.
when you turn around
robin van persie/jack wilshere (rvp/thomas vermaelen, rvp/bouchra van persie), r, 8177 words
it’s your gradual descent into a life you never meant
(‘a man/me/then jim’ by rilo kiley)
Robin is thirty-two when he’s transferred. Feyenoord on a two-year contract for an undisclosed fee.
Their home in Rotterdam is crowded. The kids are growing up and they’ve acquired way more stuff than either he or Bouchra can account for. Their life from London. He thought that he’d retire there. Knew he’d retire there when he was just a little bit younger. Thierry didn’t. Cesc didn’t. It was supposed to be him. Rule of threes. But no. Bedroom walls lined with boxes.
good luck.
The text is too simple (too unembellished) for it be anything else but sad. Less than a week before the season starts. Robin wants to tell Jack that that’s not fair, that he doesn’t get to do that. Robin didn’t want to go, not in the same way others have. Because he can’t let go, not yet.
you, too.
Feyenoord finishes third in Robin’s first season. It feels good - a huge improvement on the last few years. But it doesn’t feel the same, improving upon history.
His last win with Arsenal. The FA Cup in 2013.
It’s not that he hasn’t been performing well. Professional, tumbling around inside his head. He does everything right.
But he’s lazier in training and Jack would have been on his case by now. You’re not injured yet, paired with a laugh and a run towards midfield. He practices penalty kicks with a restraint he’s never managed before, with a control he’s never let himself have.
And he’s slower. He has more rest days. He knows that it’s okay. The Boss is happy. But it feels sort of. Deceptive. His heart’s not quite as in it, not the way it should be. Left behind across two different pitches in London (the old and the new). He’s really there for Feyenoord. Top player.
They qualify don’t qualify for the Champions League (ruled out by the league table) or for Europa (ruled out by the group stage). The fans are happy, though. A Return to Form for Feyenoord. He lets himself enjoy it. Just a little. He still watches as both Ajax and Twente go out in the group stage. Watches Arsenal leg through the round of sixteen only to lose to Bayern.
His consolation prize.
Jack’s face. The lines around his mouth. You’re not injured yet.
“Second place. It’s not so bad when you started off the season the way we did.” Straddles the line between pleased and disappointed. Ends up shrugging it off altogether. “Congratulations to you, too.”
His throat goes dry. “It was a team effort, really. But thanks.”
“Whatever, I’m congratulating you,” and there’s no dryness in his laugh.
Robin extends his contract for another two years. They win the Dutch Cup near the end of his third season.
It’s a placebo.
“You look tired,” Bouchra says, pushing his hair back. Touching the silver there. “The season’s coming to an end.” She’s not suggesting something that Robin hasn’t already thought about.
Because he doesn’t want to move around league after league. Dissatisfied. Looking for something that he’s already had somewhere else, when he could really appreciate it. Doesn’t want that last desperate win with a team that just wants what’s left of him.
“I’m fine.”
Her head on his shoulder. “Okay.”
He retires when his contract is up. No final wins. They finish fourth. He’s thirty-six and it’s disappointing. He gives his press conference alone. He feels old. He’s not in his reds or whites. He doesn’t answer any questions.
Bouchra drives him home.
Robin starts with little things. He takes the kids to and from school. Takes Shaqueel to football practice. He cooks dinner and watches TV. Folds laundry.
His fingers itch.
He hears his name during the pre-game and he stops. It’s from last week’s mixed zone. Interview with whomever. Sky or ITV or BBC. Jack’s still a little breathless, hands on his hips (all falling just off-screen). Wojciech leaning back behind him, looking both amused and bored.
“He’s an Arsenal legend, you know?”
Robin didn’t hear the question.
“Great striker. It was amazing just to be on the pitch with him.” Face earnest. Eyes wide. A nineteen year-old. Somewhere.
Wojciech makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. Except when he was muddled down on the pitch, broken by another defender. Another gust of wind, even.”
Jack laughs. Loud. The man with the microphone does, too. “Even then. Still an honour.”
“I feel like you’re waiting for me to tell you to get a job or something,” Bouchra says. Her fingers trail over the back of Robin’s shoulders. “Whatever. You can do whatever you want, Robin.”
He shrugs. Still in his pyjamas. It’s Saturday and she’s already dressed to go out. The kids, too. He takes his feet off the coffee table. “I know.”
Her laugh is soft. “Really?” Slings her purse over her shoulder. “Well, we’re going out to lunch. You’re welcome to come with.” She waits a beat. Another and she’s gone.
Robin sighs and checks the Arsenal-Wolves kick-off time.
Again.
Jack gets his fifth goal of the season just before half-time. Robin spends the fifteen-minute break remembering a time when he could never even come close. Not this early in the season, anyways. Not with him.
Robin wakes up to a hand on his shoulder. “Dad,” whispered repeatedly. Urgent. “Dad, I have to go to school.” Voice edging on shrill.
“Okay,” he says, stilling Shaqueel’s hand. “Okay.”
He’s sitting down on the edge of the bed, pulling his socks off when she tells him.
“You got a call today.” She waits until Robin looks up at her, until he plays along.
“What? Club needs a retired striker?”
She brushes the hair out of her face. “No. Studio Sport called. They want to bring you on as an analyst, if you’re interested.” Hand in her jewellery box. “I know you’ve been bored.”
“Oh.”
Pearls and gold. “Oh?”
He pulls off his shirt, looking anywhere but at her. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”
Sitting at a desk, talking about football and trying not to rehash the days when he still played. When it was okay to talk about himself.
“I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Well, think about it some more. There isn’t any rush, right?”
Right.
They decide to go away for the weekend. Amsterdam. He follows her around streets and shops. Slips out and spends too much time looking at football boots while she’s distracted. Coats and chocolate.
“Hey.” Tapped on the shoulder. “Robin.”
He recognises it, the voice. Thomas. He’s wearing an Ajax training jacket. Robin doesn’t know what to say. He settles for ‘hello’ and lets Thomas pull him into a hug. Groan of fabric.
“What are you…” Robin starts, pointing at the crest. Reds and whites.
“Shin-pads,” he answers, holding up his hand. Robin shakes his head. “Oh… the, yeah. I’m working at the Academy. Seven and eight year-olds.” He doesn’t elaborate, Robin wants him to. “What about you?”
Robin shrugs. “Enjoying my time off. Wife, kids. It’s been nice.” His eyes flick over shoes. Colours and laces. “That’s good, though. Your coaching.” Hands fisted in his pockets.
Thomas shifts on his feet. “Yeah, thanks.” He glances down at his watch. Gestures over Robin’s shoulder. “I should go. Don’t want to be late. Kids, they get on your case. We should do something sometime, though.”
“Yeah, we should.” He hesitates for a moment before he pulls out his phone.
The feel of Thomas’s hand left on his shoulder. Bouchra coming towards him with a shopping bag in her hand and a curious look on her face.
He moulds against her back afterwards. Her hair is warm and clean. Fingers against the slick of her hip.
She moves away when he presses closer.
He dreams about London summers and skin that isn’t hers. Skin that should never be his. How pink that skin gets in steam and the smell of sweat. An armband stitched into fabric. Permanent. His role defined for the rest of his career.
Robin wakes up with a dull pain threaded through his arm.
Bouchra goes to visit her parents and leaves him with the kids. Just for a week.
They go, as a family, to the airport. He kisses her in front of security. Walks the kids out and buckles them into the backseat. It’s late and they’re both asleep by the time they get home. Robin tucks them in and lies down on his own bed. TV on.
He falls asleep on top of the sheets. Too tired to do anything else. Middle of the bed.
He gets a call from Thomas. Two days alone. The kids are at school and Robin hasn’t showered yet. Hasn’t done the laundry yet like she would have done.
Something in his chest loosens.
“Lunch, maybe? I can get Ajax tickets, if you want.” He mostly sounds like he’s joking.
“No, lunch is fine. Tomorrow?” He plays with the fraying hem of his shirt. Feet warm on the tile of the floor.
“How about Thursday? I have some meetings tomorrow. Enrolment stuff, you know.” He sounds genuinely sorry.
“Thursday’s fine.”
All week is fine.
you’re happy, though. right?
Robin stares down at the screen. Thumb slipping.
i don’t know yet.
He says no.
Robin doesn’t know who he’s talking to, but he makes it clear that Robin’s always welcome on the show. Any time. Any time he wants to make up his mind.
“It’s just a few more days. It’s been really nice, Robin.”
He looks around the kitchen, empty. Dishes in the sink. “Okay.”
“I’ll get all the details for you. But Mom’s calling me for dinner, so.” She laughs and it’s so sweet. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Hand on the calendar.
Arsenal loses at home to Chelsea. He and Shaqueel watch it together. Robin spends the entire match tamping down the anger and the frustration created by every offside and every missed chance. Exemplified by the way Theo describes their performance in his post-match interview.
Offside calls. Missed chances. Midfield was compromised.
He puts Shaqueel to bed and pours himself a drink. A dusty bottle of vodka. One part alcohol, three parts water. He chokes it back. Burns all the way.
Thomas is late. Ten minutes late. His face is flushed and he’s wearing a cardigan and jeans. Blue. It’s nostalgically familiar and Robin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Ready?” Thomas, asks.
“Yeah.”
They don’t talk about football.
He talks about Rotterdam, family. Fail-safe topics. Thomas talks about moving back to Amsterdam, his break-up with Aimee. He tries to be sympathetic. Over drinks and plates and cutlery. It’s fine.
“Why’d you break up, though? If you…”
Thomas shrugs. “She didn’t really care about the injury. My mood.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “She didn’t want to move, though. Something about always losing out to what I wanted. Which is fair. She never really got what she wanted and I realised it then. That maybe she deserved something that was just hers.” Fingers on the table. Close to Robin’s. “Because she did.”
Robin swallows. The tension (that conclusion) dissipates when their waiter comes back with the bill. They split it.
“Me and Bouchra haven’t really been the best lately.”
Thomas looks at him. “You’ll be okay.”
His head aches and the hot water makes it feel even lighter. Runs over the back of his neck, down his shoulders. Robin can see steam. He stands there, absent-minded. Can’t shake the fact that he misses Bouchra or stupid locker-rooms that smell like humidity and sound like echo and laughter. The stupid look Jack would give him when he walked out of the showers in flip-flops because Bouchra did too good of a job stressing hygiene.
His hand skirts down towards the edge of his stomach. He doesn’t tell himself he shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter, not when they don’t see each other every day. Not when he’s alone. He gets his hand around his cock. He pushes down his guilt. He thinks about Jack’s smile and his hipbones.
Turns the water to freezing after he comes.
He picks Bouchra up around lunchtime. She smells like sun and coconut. She looks happy. Robin kisses her in the middle of arrivals and takes her luggage off the carousel. Sunglasses holding her hair back.
He feels relieved.
“Nothing’s changed, has it?” She sounds defeated. “You still don’t know what you want?”
Robin shakes his head.
Arsenal loses. Third straight. Robin can hear the pressure Jack feels. In his voice. Underneath. “I felt like I gave it everything, you know.” The bare bones. The very last of the sinew and tissue. “Everything, Robin.”
He wants to put his arm around Jack’s shoulder. Face against his neck. Kit top soft under his fingers. Dried sweat. He was scared, too. Of slipping.
Just like he is now.
She’s dressed in her housecoat. Eyebrows dipped. Her mouth in a line. “How about you go out,” she says, “I’ll stay here on the coach with my soap operas.” Shuffles across the floor. “A bit of role reversal would be good for you, yeah?”
He calls Thomas. He sounds surprised, but in a good way. The best way.
“That ticket offer still good?”
Thomas laughs, mouth away from the receiver. Robin bites his lip. “No, yeah. When did you want them for? This week, or…?”
“Whenever.”
“Two, then? One for…”
“No, just me.” Robin clears his throat. “Thanks, Thomas. Really.”
“That’s good, Robin.” She kisses the rise of his cheek. “I like seeing you out. Happy.” She twists their fingers together and Robin likes how warm her hands are. How white her teeth are. How constant she is.
He leaves early Saturday afternoon and meets Thomas at some coffee shop. They talk about football, about Feyenoord and Ajax. They don’t talk about Arsenal. Football drifting away the closer they get to kick-off.
He gets a text from Bouchra, during the match, telling him that he and Thomas are on TV. That she likes the way his shoulders look in his sweater. He doesn’t reply. Laughing when Thomas makes remarks about Ajax’s back four. He does, because he knows that he’s like that, too. And it’s not like Ajax was ever his team, anyways.
The game ends in a draw. Robin accepts Thomas’s offer to go for a drink. A real one. Nothing sweet.
“I was going to go home tonight.” He looks down at his watch. Anniversary gift. “But…” He looks out at the sky, dark. Black and stars.
Thomas shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t put me out any if you wanted to stay over.” The look Thomas gives him means something. He doesn’t know. Robin doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to.
“I didn’t…”
“Call her,” Thomas says.
He does. She’s fine with it.
“You don’t just stop thinking about it.”
Thomas is right. He’s right about too many things, but Robin really doesn’t care. After months of not talking about retirement, about Arsenal, about football; it’s all he can do. It’s all he wants to do.
“I just… I don’t know what to do now. Without it. It’s your life and then it’s not.” He looks down at his hands. “It’s driving Bouchra crazy.”
“I know.” And Thomas’s hand is around his neck. There’s an Arsenal match on tape in his ancient VCR. His thigh is pressed to Thomas’s. It’s hard to look away from the TV. He tries to take a deep breath. “I know. At least you didn’t go out on injury.”
“Wish I could have.” Bites his lip. His tongue. His cheek.
“No, you don’t. Because then you just keep thinking about what you could have done and what you can’t do anymore.” Thomas’s voice is sharp and Robin can feel the way he tenses up. Turns Robin’s face to look at him. This is what he used to look like on the pitch, Robin thinks. But not for very long. Not like this.
“You won the Prem.”
“And I couldn’t play anymore.” Tired. Tired and sad. “I would have rather kept on playing. The Premiership, and I would have rather still played.” He sighs. “You’re reluctant to love football again, I know. But you can, if that’s what you want.”
Quietly. “Just not right now.”
“Robin,” she says. Voice rupturing. Torn and raw. Their hands together. “This isn’t working. You’re not…” Eyes wet. Mouth dry. “You’re just not anymore. It’s not working anymore.” She kisses his forehead and lets go of his hand. “I think you need. Time.”
He needs her.
“I’ll go,” he says. “The kids, they’re settled...”
She nods.
They don’t explain it. Not in full sentences. Promises of love. Unconditional. He tries not to let them see him cry. Hand over his mouth. Heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. Bouchra stays quiet. Extend each other sympathy. Her fingers between his shoulderblades.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as he picks a sweater up off the floor and puts it on the edge of Shaqueel’s bed. The perfume on her wrists. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t…”
But he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to apologise for. How to apologise for everything.
Thomas is quiet.
“You can come stay with me if you need to.” Stops short and corrects himself: “If you want to.”
He meets Robin at the train station in a black coat and an Ajax scarf. He has another pair of mittens in his hands.
“I walked,” he says. “Sorry.”
Robin takes the gloves Thomas offers him. “It’s all right.” Suitcase in his new navy hand.
“This is what I did when me and Aimee broke up.” Beer bottle clutched between his fingers, opener in his other hand. He passes it to Robin when the cap hits the counter. Takes it with something akin to gratefulness. That hollow clatter.
“You drank?” Robin can’t picture it, not with any real commitment.
“…and watched a lot of Coronation Street, but that’s something we don’t need to talk about.”
Robin’s mouth tilts up. If it’s for his benefit, Thomas isn’t letting on. Robin leans back against the counter and watches as he swallows. Slow movement of his throat. Dip of his collarbones.
“Well,” he says. It hangs in the air between them. Sleeves of Thomas’s sweater pushed up. Robin picks at the pocket of his jeans and wishes he was wearing sweats. “What do you want to do?”
“GTST? It’s the next best thing, right?”
Thomas gives him a small smile. “Corrie is still worlds better.”
Sometime between four in the morning and his sixth beer, Robin checks his phone. There’s a text from Jack waiting. Sent almost five hours ago.
how about winter break?
It takes Robin a moment to remember exactly what time of the year it is. How late. How many months between now and his last match. Circling up in his head. It takes him a moment to remember what Jack’s talking about.
how about i come to london?
Thomas is asleep on the couch beside him. The TV flickers. His phone vibrates.
wanna repeat that in english?
He does.
They eat in silence. Hungover. Really. Robin’s head throbs. Tension anchored in the back of his neck. He pushes his plate away.
“So, what did you do after I fell asleep?”
“Nothing,” Robin says, looking down at the table.
Thomas has training. It’s Wednesday. He asks Robin along, but he says no. Shoulders sunken in his t-shirt. Coffee cold in front of him. Thomas leaves in his training bottoms and his training jacket. Red. Red and white.
Robin turns on his phone. Opens up his laptop.
“Please stop feeling sorry for me, Jack. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
“But I want to.”
“Worry about you. Worry about Arsenal.”
He knows. Enough. Arsenal is enough.
“Fine.”
Thomas comes home with a folder full of notes and a copy of Fifa 20. Robin helps him pull his Playstation out of the closet and set it up. They play for hours, past supper and into the dark. Neither of them is very good at it and Robin doesn’t know half of the players on his own Feyenoord.
“What’re you going to do when you go home? It’s almost Christmas.”
He adds the last part softly.
“Bouchra said I could have the kids. She doesn’t celebrate it, so. Maybe see my parents, you know.”
Thomas nods. “And after that?”
“London,” Robin says. “I’m going to London.”
“You got your dates picked?” Jack asks. Something rustles.
Robin’s flat is quiet. Quiet and sunny. Birds outside chattering. “Yeah, I’ll be there the third week of January. Probably catch a home match. You play City, right?”
“We play City,” Jack says. Stress. “You already fucking know that we do, Robin. Know what you’re like.” He laughs and it’s almost mocking. Almost. Too much sleep and lethargy tainting the way Robin thinks.
“Fine,” he says. “Are there any hotels around you, or…”
“You’re staying with me.”
Robin can almost see Jack beaming. Lines around his mouth.
“I guess I’m staying with you, then.”
Christmas comes and Robin almost has to bite back the relief he feels when Bouchra shows up with the kids, their coats dusted with snow. She looks better - prettier, softer, brighter - than he remembers. Scent so familiar when she hugs him. Something inside of him feels like it’s breaking. Apart.
“The lawyer…” she tries to say, but he doesn’t let her.
Shakes his head. “Not now, okay?”
“Okay.” She adjusts her purse strap and looks over his shoulder. At him. “Merry Christmas.”
“To you, too.”
The kids help him set up the tree. It’s small, but it’s something. He lets them stay up late. Almost doesn’t want to let them go to sleep. Warm against both of his sides. The TV on low and everything coloured with lights.
When they nod off, Robin carries them to bed. He leaves the little, flickering lights on.
“Can I spend New Year’s Eve with you?” Voice unsteady and Thomas is silent for what feels like too long. “Please.”
“Yeah, Robin. Of course.”
“I’m not a good friend,” he says, waving his empty glass around. Been filled with champagne too many times tonight. Thomas is keeping the bottle away from him. Probably.
“Your wife is divorcing you. I think you can be forgiven.” Robin thinks he might be rolling his eyes, but that could just be the liquor. Barely sweet on the back of his tongue. “You’ll be there for me when you need to be. Stop worrying about it.”
Robin nods and he must get carried away because Thomas’s hand is in his hair. He stops him.
“Here, c’mon. If you’re going to pass out, it shouldn’t be on the floor.”
He lets Thomas move him. Falls asleep before midnight, head against Thomas’s shoulder. An ugly taste in his mouth.
“I’m going to England for a little bit,” he tells her. “A week, maybe longer.”
“Yeah, okay. It’s fine.” She sounds distracted. Tired, too. “Let me know when you get back, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
there’s a key in the mailbox. at training. wouldn’t want you to get photographed at my front door or anything.
Jack’s house is different. Different from Robin’s at twenty-six. Bouchra did a lot of the decorating, the making-it-feel-like-home. It’s all pretty neutral. Singles of things. Completely spotless. Furniture matches. He feels let down by the organisation.
Sighs as he goes upstairs.
Robin puts his suitcase down on the floor. The sun comes in and across the pillows of the bed. He pulls his sunglasses out of the V of his t-shirt and lays down on it. The sheets smell clean and Robin is all too aware of how Jack’s grown up.
“I didn’t want to wake you?”
“You didn’t want to wake me? Really, you?” Robin throws his hands up. Cereal bowl and tea cup on the table in front of him. Jack looks at him, mouth drawn up tight like he’s suppressing a laugh. Shoulders rolled forward.
“Figured the old man could use his sleep. Had a long day. What? A half-hour flight. Tough. I only spent most of the morning training like mad. Not a big deal.”
“Shut up.”
Jack grins and drops his spoon into his bowl. Silence settles over them and Robin reaches for his tea.
“I like having you here.”
Jack’s voice hasn’t changed at all. Not since he was eighteen, not since he was twenty-three. Robin puts his cup down. His openness.
Jack picks the movie. Robin doesn’t really pay attention. Spaces in and out of car chases and dark warehouses. Jack has his legs crossed underneath himself. He watches with a fascination that’s typically reserved for tied Fifa marathons and Champions League (not playing, never playing). Robin tries, his phone left untouched on the coffee table. Cluttered up with copies of Four-Four-Two and newspapers.
They don’t talk. The movie fills up the silence in loud bursts. He doesn’t feel like Jack’s older brother anymore and he doesn’t know how that’s supposed to work. What he’ll do.
He looks over at Jack. He’s not looking back.
Jack curls up against the coach. Socked feet. A match-day recap has replaced the movie and the volume’s both jarring and not jarring enough. Look of too-open curiosity on his face.
“So, what’s it like being retired, then?” Standard question. A question that sounds totally different coming from Jack. He actually wants to know. He knows that it’ll happen to him.
Robin shrugs. “It’s like being injured. All that time off just to think.” His knee throbs gently. Phantom pain. Jack follows the touch of his fingers.
“Far as I remember, you were pretty good at that.” It’s not meant to hurt. Their shared experiences are not meant to hurt.
Robin makes a bitter noise in the back of his throat. He can’t help it. “Yeah, but there’s nothing to look forward to. No matches you have to be ready for. No teammates you might let down. No network of support. No highs, really.”
Jack slips. “But you’ve got us,. All your friends. You have your family.” Body moving with conviction. Fighting something. Fighting Robin.
“No.” His voice wavers. “It’s not just a separation. Bouchra’s divorcing me. I’m signing the papers when I get back.”
He’s not crying. He doesn’t feel like crying.
Jack’s face falls. Same sort of shock Robin’s seen before. “What? Robin, I. God, I didn’t know.” He moves across the couch, arms winding around Robin’s neck. He holds on tightly like it’ll fix things. Like it has to.
Robin holds on just as tightly.
They both know it won’t.
Robin wakes up, sick on vodka. Lonely. Water, orange juice, and aspirin on the bedside table. A text from Jack (training is hell w/ a hangover) on his phone. He pushes his face into his pillow and tries very hard not to do anything else.
“I don’t want to do this anymore…” Robin says, hand over his eyes. Deep breaths. One, two, three.
Jack nods. “Just about retched on Henderson. Bad way to captain. Should be setting an example.” His cheeks are red. Broken blood vessels. Blush-stained.
“There are worse things,” Robin says. “There are worse things you can do.”
Robin zips his coat up under his chin. Eleven men in red-white and eleven men in sky-blue on a pitch that Robin knows too well. Has had his biggest moments on. Blades of grass and corner kicks.
It’s his first trip back to the Emirates since retirement and he hates it. Sitting alone and away from the crowd.
He can make out Jack, his name and number. Has a strange feeling of pride. Strange feeling of resentment. He’s all Arsenal and Robin wants to hate him for that. Truly, but. He’s a thirty-six year-old man with a crush on a boy and a club.
He grits his teeth at the missed chances and stands up both times Arsenal scores. Hands cold, but their sound loud.
Robin texts Jack as soon as the match ends.
He calls Thomas.
“Thanks,” Jack says, when he gets in. “You enjoyed it, yeah? A win for us.” His smile is so bright and he can feel Jack’s arm shaking where it’s resting around his shoulders.
Robin nods. “Yeah. Thomas says ‘good job’. Should have had a red card for that tackle against Suarez.” It doesn’t come out the way Robin would’ve liked, but Jack doesn’t seem to notice.
“Verma? When’d you talk to him? He can shove it, by the way.”
“After the match.” His phone feels heavy against his thigh.
Jack makes a noise, distracted. “Didn’t know you guys were still close.” He reaches for something out of the cupboard. “That’s good, though. You guys sticking together.”
Robin shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything.
Robin goes to bed while Jack’s still watching TV. High on adrenaline, on the game. The beautiful game. He curls in on himself in sweats and Jack’s hoodie, too small. Crest against his chest.
Jack’s laughter echoes up the stairs.
Jack’s back from training by the time Robin wakes up. Two in the afternoon. He stumbles down the stairs, towards something that smells like home. Robin feels nauseous. His feet on the cold tile of the floor. Shock. Jack looks up from the stove.
“Afternoon,” he says, hand on a wooden spoon. He’s out of his training gear. Wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts Robin hasn’t seen before.
“Didn’t know you cooked,” Robin says. Folds his knees up onto the chair with him. There are storybooks on the table, hiding under stacks of old newspapers. Robin fingers the edges. It seems stupid to bring up now.
“Well, I can’t be at my mum’s every day. I’m an adult now. Be embarrassing.” There’s more clinking: tin can, plate, salt shaker. “Besides, it doesn’t really look like you know how to look after yourself.”
He rests his elbows on the table. “Bouchra cooked. She never really let me. I screwed it up a lot. Like, before the kids. Guess she wanted to leave them out of it.” Pain behind his eyes. Pressure. Breaks.
“Can’t really blame her,” Jack says, shoulderblade curved and obvious under his shirt as he ladles soup into two bowls. He sets one down in front of Robin. The steam brushes against his neck. His chin.
No, Robin doesn’t blame her.
“It’s really hurting you, isn’t it?” Hand-deep in hot water. Scent of lemon. Broken dishwasher. Plates stacked neatly beside him. Drying out.
“What?” Towel over the lip of a glass. The tines of a fork.
Jack shrugs. “All of it. Your retirement. Your family.” His hip pressed to Robin’s. Solid. Need. A lot of needs.
He doesn’t want to leave.
He grips the counter with both hands. Shoulders sagging. “Yeah, it is.”
Jack wraps an arm around his waist, wet hand on his stomach. Robin leans into it.
Jack’s backyard is cramped, but the darkness makes it seem bigger: melting fences and trees into black. Stars. There are a lot of stars and the alcohol makes Robin feel small. His chair beside Jack’s. It’s cold, even with blankets. Sweaters. He can feel the warmth from Jack’s body. His knees tucked up against his chest.
“So, this is what you like to do now,” Robin says and it’s just for conversation.
Jack makes a noise. “It’s what I always liked to do.” Muffled by the fabric of his hoodie. Cuffs pulled down over his hands. He looks comfortable. And happy. Relaxed. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Robin shrugs. “It’s been a few years.”
“That’s not an excuse.” Always mumbling.
He looks over at Jack. He’s looking back.
Hand on the arm of Robin’s chair. On Robin’s. Flow of blood. He feels a little less lonely. Even with the black and the fences. Being stuck between them. He laces their fingers together.
“Could you pick me up tomorrow?”
He almost thinks Thomas doesn’t hear him. Until: “You’ve only spent a week there and you’ve already forgotten Dutch.” It’s fond.
“What?”
“So, you didn’t notice that this entire conversation’s been in English?”
Robin really didn’t.
“All right. I’ll pick you up. You want to stay over?”
“Yeah.”
Jack gives him a watery smile before pulling Robin into a hug. Pulling him down. Robin goes with it. Hands on the small of Jack’s back. His tight around Robin. He kisses the curve of Robin’s neck and it feels normal. Nostalgic.
“Better to do it here.”
He feels like he’s missing something.
Thomas drives at ten-and-two. Luggage in the backseat. “I saw you in the paper. Up there, alone, in the Emirates.” He’s a textbook driver. Thomas is perfect. “You’re still a big deal.” And: “Mr. Arsenal.”
Robin punches him in the thigh and Thomas grabs for his wrist. “Shut up,” but it’s half-hearted and he’s smiling (just a little) and they’re at a stoplight.
“Hey,” Thomas says, foot on the brake. “I’m just glad you still know how to be happy.” He’s two-car lengths away from the vehicle in front of them. Green. “But, seriously, I can speak Dutch with the same fluency as you can.”
Robin looks down at his hands. “It didn’t kill you.”
Robin takes a deep breath, phlegm caught in the back of his throat. “Fuck, I don’t want to be that guy.” Hand on the back of his neck. Sheets, blankets, pillows. The couch. “I really don’t want to sleep alone tonight.” And he knows how ridiculous and desperate it sounds.
Thomas shakes his head. “You’re not imposing, Robin. God.” He gestures down the hall. “You know where my bedroom is. I’m not very good at sharing, though.” He takes the blankets from where they’re folded and follows Robin.
“Thanks,” Robin says. He takes the right side, out of habit.
He’s completely exhausted. Skin cool. Thomas is quiet, turned away from Robin. Bed dipped comfortably.
He can feel Thomas against his back. Hand on the drop of Robin’s waist. He’s still asleep and his legs shift against Robin’s. It’s uncomfortable, sort of, but Robin doesn’t care. He misses. He doesn’t know what he misses.
“Oh, fuck,” and Thomas is laughing. Trying to untangle their legs. “Sorry, Robin. Probably thought you were…”
Robin doesn’t let him finish. “You miss her.” He turns in Thomas’s loosening grip. Thomas looks back at him. Half-lidded, mouth parted. “Fuck, I miss her.” He leans into Thomas too fast, mouth on his. He’s aware of where he is, what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter when Thomas kisses back.
Fingertips soft on his face. Thomas is thorough. Pointedly someone else. He shifts his thigh over Thomas’s and brings their hips closer. He goes with it. Can’t breathe. Lips moving distractedly against Robin’s jaw. He tips Thomas’s face to where he wants it.
Thomas responds by pushing his way into Robin’s boxer-briefs. Hot where his knuckles slide against the hollow of Robin’s hip. He holds Robin down against the bed. Fully. Wrist against Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas’s hand scrapes over the skin just above Robin’s cock, but he’s not hard. Not yet.
“You aren’t that old, Robin. Really.” He presses his smile to Robin’s collarbone and runs his hands down Robin’s sides.
He arches against him. Breathless and too out-of-it to reply proper. “Try, then. C’mon.” He shifts his hips up. Wants more from Thomas. He gets it. Hand curving around Robin’s cock. Thomas’s pace is measured (and relentless, almost. Maybe), but that’s moot as his thumb slips over pre-come at the head of his cock. Robin shudders and tries to find the waistband of Thomas’s underwear.
Thomas stops him. Fingers tight around Robin’s wrist. He’s not expecting the pain that flares through him. (Maybe that was the point.) “Okay,” he says, nodding and Thomas lets go. Other hand twisting at the base of his cock. He bites back a noise, behind his teeth.
Thomas’s breath sounds heavy. Thighs tight to Robin’s. “What do you,” and his mouth slides up over the curve of his jaw. “What do you want?” It’s meaning so singular, open. Sweet, almost. Pads of Thomas’s fingers careful over the tip of his cock. Robin wants to scream.
“I don’t know.” Breath hitching. “I don’t know.”
Robin showers, but Thomas doesn’t. Just washes his face in the sink. “I have to go,” he says. “They want me… I’m watching the fifteen year-olds tonight.” He’s in his Ajax things and Robin just assumed.
“Okay.” Because, okay.
Thomas kisses the edge of his hairline before he leaves.
“I’m going home,” he says. Things packed. He’s got his ticket for the train. An empty apartment.
Thomas looks at him. “Rotterdam?”
Robin shrugs. “Sure.”
His fingers grip the arm of the couch too tightly, back straight. The TV’s up way too loud, but this is Champions League. Quarter-finals, last leg. Robin doesn’t care. Not with Arsenal trying to break a tie with Porto. Briefly, he wonders if this’ll ever stop: the spike and the anger. When. Until. Jack plays a pass through for Aaron (gorgeous) and that’s it. Slipping past the keeper’s hands. Eighty-fifth minute.
Robin didn’t realise that he was standing up or that his water is overturned on the floor. Arsenal through on aggregate.
He watches the Eredivisie highlights after the match. Keyed-up. Wants to be somewhere people feel how he feels. A bar, something. But it’s almost twelve o’clock and he can’t bring himself to leave. He sits on the couch. Alone.
“It’s brilliant, Robin. Brilliant.” Jack sounds totally out-of-breath. Days later. It’s days later and they’ve lost to Liverpool in the Prem, but it’s still. It’s there and Robin really is happy. For Jack, for Arsenal. Quarters were always a stumbling block. Always, always, always.
“No, it’s fantastic. Be thrilled.”
“I’m moving,” he says over the click of his mouse and the tap of his keyboard (one-handed, all of it). Scrolling through real estate listings in English. Back buttons and new windows.
Thomas coughs. “Where? You’re staying in the Netherlands, right?” Sceptical.
Robin shakes his head. “No. I’m moving back to London.”
“That’s… does Bouchra know?”
A two-bedroom apartment. That’s what he wants, he thinks.
“She will.”
“Why?” she asks. Tired. Curious. “What’re you going to be doing there that you aren’t doing here?” He’s always loved her, really. Her honesty. She went for a hug when he went for a handshake after the divorce was finalised. Those things.
He’ll be living alone without her, without the kids. He won’t be playing football, and he won’t be coaching like Thomas. He won’t be on TV. He won’t be in school. He won’t have a job. Nothing. But almost everything good that has happened to Robin, has happened there. In that city.
And if he’s a little homesick, he’s not telling Bouchra. He doesn’t have to. A second home.
“I’ll be happy,” he says, carefully.
Bouchra sighs. “Well, that’s something.”
Thomas comes over. Rare Saturday without Ajax. T-shirt and jeans. Arsenal vs. Fulham. It’s not terribly special, but it’s still three points. Stripped of red, they play in white. The armband disappears around Jack’s bicep, but they know it’s there. Jack all too aware. Back straight, head up. Leading.
“He looks so much older,” Thomas says. Socked feet on the coffee table. “Not like the kid who badgered me about social media and plaid shirts.” He laughs and Robin does, too. It’s true. Nineteen year-old Jack and twenty-six year-old Jack are not the same person (neither are twenty-eight year-old Robin and thirty-six year-old Robin, though). “Good to see him grow up.”
Robin nods. “Him and Aaron. They’re brilliant together. They’ve got a few more years still.”
Thomas picks his beer up from between his legs, but he doesn’t drink. “You and Cesc, almost.” He does, then. Robin watches him swallow. Looks away. The TV.
The same continuous, aerial shot of the pitch. Where he would be on that pitch. “I hope not,” he says, quietly. “I want them to last even longer than that.” He reaches for Thomas’s beer. Without his own. Thomas gives it to him.
“I’m sorry, Robin.” Hand on the back of his neck. “You’re still brilliant. You know that, right?” Thomas is hot against his side.
Robin should ignore it just like he’s managed to ignore a lot of things.
“I…” he starts. Hand across his face.
Thomas takes hold of his fingers. Looking at Robin with a certainty that scares him. “You are.” And Thomas doesn’t warn him, just leans in and kisses him. A different kind of conviction. Robin lets him.
“This is the last time. You know that, right?”
“I know.” The smile on his face as he pulls Robin towards him.
He likes the sound of Jack’s voice. The way it sounds right now. “No, really? When do you move?”
“In about two months. The date’s a bit late, but yeah. Around the end of the season.” Exactly three weeks after. Robin’s stopped pretending that he doesn’t know.
“No, that’s,” and it’s like the words get stuck. “That’s great. Why here, then?” Robin can imagine what face he’d be making if this were person-to-person. Cross between that tireless happiness Jack seems to have in spades and that deep-set curiosity.
It’s been different, every answer. “It’s London. Why not there?”
Jack laughs. “Right answer. Better than the whole of the Netherlands, probably.”
“Well, probably not. But it’s got its things, yeah.”
And he laughs there, too.
It’s two days before Bouchra drops the kids off. He gets his apartment ready with the things they like to eat and the movies they like to watch. A new football. It’s only across the city, but he wants it to feel the same. Like Mum’s, with Bouchra. He takes a deep breath and throws a hoodie of Thomas’s into the back of his closet.
This isn’t about where he’s going, but where that leaves them. He sucks back a sharp twinge of guilt.
“It’ll be all right.”
Robin knows that it doesn’t matter. It takes time. Regardless.
Jack sniffs, pulls it back. Voice raw. “Maybe next year.”
“When?” she asks. “When were you going to tell me? Robin, you’re an adult. I didn’t think you meant…” Bouchra leans against the wall, arms crossed. She looks tired. Really tired. He wants to say that he’s sorry, but he can’t.
Robin swallows. “I… it’s my decision. Right? I finally want to do something and it’s wrong. Like, I’m not leaving anyone. I can come back. I can always come back. If you need me. If they need me. You know I wouldn’t stay.” He sighs. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”
He’s right and she knows that he’s right. She pushes herself off of the wall. Mouth turned down. He didn’t think it’d be this quick either. Honestly.
“All right. If you need any help or whatever, just let me know. We’re here.” She turns, hand on the doorknob. “And Robin? You’re telling them. I want them to hear it from you.”
He nods. The door closes.
Enough blame has already been placed on her.
“So, when I come and visit, you’ll take me to see Arsenal play,” Shaqueel says, tentatively. Hopeful.
Robin nods. “Yeah, I will.”
“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Thomas said he could help on Tuesday, but after that it’s just me.” Most of Robin’s stuff is half-in and half-out of boxes. Packing tape and cardboard everywhere. He picks at a plastic bag full of old boots. Match-day boots.
“Wow, I wonder how you knew that those were my days off.” The sarcasm makes it easier to understand him. Maybe it’s just because he’s spent most of his life insulting people in locker-rooms with a finite understanding of English. “Just tell me where to be and I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll give you my address. Bring your car. Nothing stupid like Theo’s Fiat, please.”
“Deal.” Loud and low.
Thomas drums his fingers on a taped box, felt-tip in his other hand. He sighs, exasperated. “Okay, Robin. You know I like you, but you suck at packing. I mean it.”
Robin puts what he’s holding down. Brushes dust off the bottom of his t-shirt. “It’s fine. That stuff,” hand stretching out behind Thomas, “is, uh, clothes. And, dishes? No, appliances. Coffee maker or whatever.”
Thomas raises an eyebrow. Unimpressed. “Or ‘whatever’? I can’t write that on a box.” Marker balanced precariously.
Robin shrugs. “Mark it all as fragile, then. Nothing’ll get broken.”
Thomas shakes his head. “All right.”
TRY NOT TO BREAK THIS.
His new apartment looks vaguely like his first apartment, when he first moved to London. The walls are a clean white. Windows overlooking brick and back-alleys. Bare of curtains. He makes soup out of cans and Thomas stays the night. They sleep on the floor together.
He wakes up alone. A note somewhere near his hand. Thomas is already off and Robin’s not really on schedule. He calls Jack.
“I’m driving.” Fully awake. “Like, I’m coming to pick you up and we’re off, yeah?”
Robin shakes his head. Eyes still firmly closed. “I’m not up for moving right now. Call back later.” Robin pulls on his jeans. Phone cradled against his cheek and his shoulder. His belt.
“Oh, whatever. Get your ass up.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you. Pull a muscle and the Boss’ll kill me.”
“I’ll stretch, then.”
Robin sighs. “That’s not what I meant.”
Jack laughs. “I know. I’m ten minutes away.”
“Why’d you sell your car? Can’t be too much fun, walking and taking the tube everywhere? No, wait! You bike, right?”
Robin gives him a look. “No, I don’t bike. Can’t stand it when it gets cold outside.” He sinks down into his seat a little more. Jack’s car smells like sweat and evergreen. Typical footballer. “Bouchra took it. For the kids.”
Jack adjusts his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.” He stares out at the road. “I should think a little more.”
Robin uncrosses his legs. Stretches them out. “I like that you don’t. Need to start moving on eventually. Everyone can’t keep tip-toeing around her.” Comfortable.
“Does Thomas tip-toe around her?” Caution in his voice.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “He doesn’t.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Robin changes the radio station.
The room is empty and the furniture that was there when Robin moved in looks cleaner than it ever did with him there.
Jack comes up beside him, hand on his hip. Surveying. “This place is kind of cold, don’t you think?” Empty, completely empty of Robin. “Like, even before.”
Robin shrugs. “It worked for me.”
It did work. He slept. Watched football. Slept. Thought about football. Slept. Dreamt about football. Slept. Thought about Arsenal. Slept. Thought about Jack. He had a routine that made him unhappy and it made him alienate his wife and it made him hate Rotterdam.
“But I’m ready to move. Missed England.”
“Well,” Jack says, gesturing towards the door, “it missed you, too.” Hand on the small of Robin’s back.
They drive in silence for most of the way back.
Robin pretends to be asleep.
Missed you.
Robin lets out a heavy sigh and leans back against the wall. Slides down it. He’s exhausted. Boxes, half-opened and stacked, everywhere. There’s dust in his nose. Sweat drying at his temples. Jack is cross-legged on the floor. Hands on the gilt edge of a frame.
It’s a picture from their FA Cup win. Them together. Robin already knows how happy he looks in it. What Bouchra was wearing when she took it. What Jack felt like under his arm. Small smile on his face. Fingers gliding carefully over the backing.
“You still have all this stuff,” Jack says. “Like, all your Arsenal stuff. Nothing from the last few years, though.” He looks at Robin and Robin doesn’t know what to make of it (of that). He nods his head.
Jack puts the picture down at his feet. He knows, somewhere, that he doesn’t remember Feyenoord with a quarter of the same clarity as Arsenal and maybe that should bother him, but it doesn’t.
He returns Jack’s little half-smile. “I’ve only been retired a year. Not even.”
Jack laughs. Self-conscious. “Honestly? I forget that.” He stays folded up. “I keep thinking that you retired at Arsenal.”
“I wanted to, yeah? We all want to.”
He doesn’t know who he’s talking about.
“I know,” and he shifts from where he’s sitting - picture moved aside with more grace and care than Robin’s ever seen from Jack - and crawls over to Robin. Up against the same wall. Elbows touching. “I want that, too.”
They’re close. Too close. He leans into Jack, hand coming up to rest on his neck.
“Is this all right?” Robin asks.
Jack nods. He can feel it. “Yeah.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Thomas asks. The language barrier. Robin’s new kitchen. Jack in his new bed. The feeling of home crawls over it. Over him.
“Yes,” he says. Pictures spread out across the table. Thomas’s silence. “It’s what I want now.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
when you turn around
robin van persie/jack wilshere (rvp/thomas vermaelen, rvp/bouchra van persie), r, 8177 words
it’s your gradual descent into a life you never meant
(‘a man/me/then jim’ by rilo kiley)
Robin is thirty-two when he’s transferred. Feyenoord on a two-year contract for an undisclosed fee.
Their home in Rotterdam is crowded. The kids are growing up and they’ve acquired way more stuff than either he or Bouchra can account for. Their life from London. He thought that he’d retire there. Knew he’d retire there when he was just a little bit younger. Thierry didn’t. Cesc didn’t. It was supposed to be him. Rule of threes. But no. Bedroom walls lined with boxes.
good luck.
The text is too simple (too unembellished) for it be anything else but sad. Less than a week before the season starts. Robin wants to tell Jack that that’s not fair, that he doesn’t get to do that. Robin didn’t want to go, not in the same way others have. Because he can’t let go, not yet.
you, too.
Feyenoord finishes third in Robin’s first season. It feels good - a huge improvement on the last few years. But it doesn’t feel the same, improving upon history.
His last win with Arsenal. The FA Cup in 2013.
It’s not that he hasn’t been performing well. Professional, tumbling around inside his head. He does everything right.
But he’s lazier in training and Jack would have been on his case by now. You’re not injured yet, paired with a laugh and a run towards midfield. He practices penalty kicks with a restraint he’s never managed before, with a control he’s never let himself have.
And he’s slower. He has more rest days. He knows that it’s okay. The Boss is happy. But it feels sort of. Deceptive. His heart’s not quite as in it, not the way it should be. Left behind across two different pitches in London (the old and the new). He’s really there for Feyenoord. Top player.
They qualify don’t qualify for the Champions League (ruled out by the league table) or for Europa (ruled out by the group stage). The fans are happy, though. A Return to Form for Feyenoord. He lets himself enjoy it. Just a little. He still watches as both Ajax and Twente go out in the group stage. Watches Arsenal leg through the round of sixteen only to lose to Bayern.
His consolation prize.
Jack’s face. The lines around his mouth. You’re not injured yet.
“Second place. It’s not so bad when you started off the season the way we did.” Straddles the line between pleased and disappointed. Ends up shrugging it off altogether. “Congratulations to you, too.”
His throat goes dry. “It was a team effort, really. But thanks.”
“Whatever, I’m congratulating you,” and there’s no dryness in his laugh.
Robin extends his contract for another two years. They win the Dutch Cup near the end of his third season.
It’s a placebo.
“You look tired,” Bouchra says, pushing his hair back. Touching the silver there. “The season’s coming to an end.” She’s not suggesting something that Robin hasn’t already thought about.
Because he doesn’t want to move around league after league. Dissatisfied. Looking for something that he’s already had somewhere else, when he could really appreciate it. Doesn’t want that last desperate win with a team that just wants what’s left of him.
“I’m fine.”
Her head on his shoulder. “Okay.”
He retires when his contract is up. No final wins. They finish fourth. He’s thirty-six and it’s disappointing. He gives his press conference alone. He feels old. He’s not in his reds or whites. He doesn’t answer any questions.
Bouchra drives him home.
Robin starts with little things. He takes the kids to and from school. Takes Shaqueel to football practice. He cooks dinner and watches TV. Folds laundry.
His fingers itch.
He hears his name during the pre-game and he stops. It’s from last week’s mixed zone. Interview with whomever. Sky or ITV or BBC. Jack’s still a little breathless, hands on his hips (all falling just off-screen). Wojciech leaning back behind him, looking both amused and bored.
“He’s an Arsenal legend, you know?”
Robin didn’t hear the question.
“Great striker. It was amazing just to be on the pitch with him.” Face earnest. Eyes wide. A nineteen year-old. Somewhere.
Wojciech makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. Except when he was muddled down on the pitch, broken by another defender. Another gust of wind, even.”
Jack laughs. Loud. The man with the microphone does, too. “Even then. Still an honour.”
“I feel like you’re waiting for me to tell you to get a job or something,” Bouchra says. Her fingers trail over the back of Robin’s shoulders. “Whatever. You can do whatever you want, Robin.”
He shrugs. Still in his pyjamas. It’s Saturday and she’s already dressed to go out. The kids, too. He takes his feet off the coffee table. “I know.”
Her laugh is soft. “Really?” Slings her purse over her shoulder. “Well, we’re going out to lunch. You’re welcome to come with.” She waits a beat. Another and she’s gone.
Robin sighs and checks the Arsenal-Wolves kick-off time.
Again.
Jack gets his fifth goal of the season just before half-time. Robin spends the fifteen-minute break remembering a time when he could never even come close. Not this early in the season, anyways. Not with him.
Robin wakes up to a hand on his shoulder. “Dad,” whispered repeatedly. Urgent. “Dad, I have to go to school.” Voice edging on shrill.
“Okay,” he says, stilling Shaqueel’s hand. “Okay.”
He’s sitting down on the edge of the bed, pulling his socks off when she tells him.
“You got a call today.” She waits until Robin looks up at her, until he plays along.
“What? Club needs a retired striker?”
She brushes the hair out of her face. “No. Studio Sport called. They want to bring you on as an analyst, if you’re interested.” Hand in her jewellery box. “I know you’ve been bored.”
“Oh.”
Pearls and gold. “Oh?”
He pulls off his shirt, looking anywhere but at her. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”
Sitting at a desk, talking about football and trying not to rehash the days when he still played. When it was okay to talk about himself.
“I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Well, think about it some more. There isn’t any rush, right?”
Right.
They decide to go away for the weekend. Amsterdam. He follows her around streets and shops. Slips out and spends too much time looking at football boots while she’s distracted. Coats and chocolate.
“Hey.” Tapped on the shoulder. “Robin.”
He recognises it, the voice. Thomas. He’s wearing an Ajax training jacket. Robin doesn’t know what to say. He settles for ‘hello’ and lets Thomas pull him into a hug. Groan of fabric.
“What are you…” Robin starts, pointing at the crest. Reds and whites.
“Shin-pads,” he answers, holding up his hand. Robin shakes his head. “Oh… the, yeah. I’m working at the Academy. Seven and eight year-olds.” He doesn’t elaborate, Robin wants him to. “What about you?”
Robin shrugs. “Enjoying my time off. Wife, kids. It’s been nice.” His eyes flick over shoes. Colours and laces. “That’s good, though. Your coaching.” Hands fisted in his pockets.
Thomas shifts on his feet. “Yeah, thanks.” He glances down at his watch. Gestures over Robin’s shoulder. “I should go. Don’t want to be late. Kids, they get on your case. We should do something sometime, though.”
“Yeah, we should.” He hesitates for a moment before he pulls out his phone.
The feel of Thomas’s hand left on his shoulder. Bouchra coming towards him with a shopping bag in her hand and a curious look on her face.
He moulds against her back afterwards. Her hair is warm and clean. Fingers against the slick of her hip.
She moves away when he presses closer.
He dreams about London summers and skin that isn’t hers. Skin that should never be his. How pink that skin gets in steam and the smell of sweat. An armband stitched into fabric. Permanent. His role defined for the rest of his career.
Robin wakes up with a dull pain threaded through his arm.
Bouchra goes to visit her parents and leaves him with the kids. Just for a week.
They go, as a family, to the airport. He kisses her in front of security. Walks the kids out and buckles them into the backseat. It’s late and they’re both asleep by the time they get home. Robin tucks them in and lies down on his own bed. TV on.
He falls asleep on top of the sheets. Too tired to do anything else. Middle of the bed.
He gets a call from Thomas. Two days alone. The kids are at school and Robin hasn’t showered yet. Hasn’t done the laundry yet like she would have done.
Something in his chest loosens.
“Lunch, maybe? I can get Ajax tickets, if you want.” He mostly sounds like he’s joking.
“No, lunch is fine. Tomorrow?” He plays with the fraying hem of his shirt. Feet warm on the tile of the floor.
“How about Thursday? I have some meetings tomorrow. Enrolment stuff, you know.” He sounds genuinely sorry.
“Thursday’s fine.”
All week is fine.
you’re happy, though. right?
Robin stares down at the screen. Thumb slipping.
i don’t know yet.
He says no.
Robin doesn’t know who he’s talking to, but he makes it clear that Robin’s always welcome on the show. Any time. Any time he wants to make up his mind.
“It’s just a few more days. It’s been really nice, Robin.”
He looks around the kitchen, empty. Dishes in the sink. “Okay.”
“I’ll get all the details for you. But Mom’s calling me for dinner, so.” She laughs and it’s so sweet. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Hand on the calendar.
Arsenal loses at home to Chelsea. He and Shaqueel watch it together. Robin spends the entire match tamping down the anger and the frustration created by every offside and every missed chance. Exemplified by the way Theo describes their performance in his post-match interview.
Offside calls. Missed chances. Midfield was compromised.
He puts Shaqueel to bed and pours himself a drink. A dusty bottle of vodka. One part alcohol, three parts water. He chokes it back. Burns all the way.
Thomas is late. Ten minutes late. His face is flushed and he’s wearing a cardigan and jeans. Blue. It’s nostalgically familiar and Robin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Ready?” Thomas, asks.
“Yeah.”
They don’t talk about football.
He talks about Rotterdam, family. Fail-safe topics. Thomas talks about moving back to Amsterdam, his break-up with Aimee. He tries to be sympathetic. Over drinks and plates and cutlery. It’s fine.
“Why’d you break up, though? If you…”
Thomas shrugs. “She didn’t really care about the injury. My mood.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “She didn’t want to move, though. Something about always losing out to what I wanted. Which is fair. She never really got what she wanted and I realised it then. That maybe she deserved something that was just hers.” Fingers on the table. Close to Robin’s. “Because she did.”
Robin swallows. The tension (that conclusion) dissipates when their waiter comes back with the bill. They split it.
“Me and Bouchra haven’t really been the best lately.”
Thomas looks at him. “You’ll be okay.”
His head aches and the hot water makes it feel even lighter. Runs over the back of his neck, down his shoulders. Robin can see steam. He stands there, absent-minded. Can’t shake the fact that he misses Bouchra or stupid locker-rooms that smell like humidity and sound like echo and laughter. The stupid look Jack would give him when he walked out of the showers in flip-flops because Bouchra did too good of a job stressing hygiene.
His hand skirts down towards the edge of his stomach. He doesn’t tell himself he shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter, not when they don’t see each other every day. Not when he’s alone. He gets his hand around his cock. He pushes down his guilt. He thinks about Jack’s smile and his hipbones.
Turns the water to freezing after he comes.
He picks Bouchra up around lunchtime. She smells like sun and coconut. She looks happy. Robin kisses her in the middle of arrivals and takes her luggage off the carousel. Sunglasses holding her hair back.
He feels relieved.
“Nothing’s changed, has it?” She sounds defeated. “You still don’t know what you want?”
Robin shakes his head.
Arsenal loses. Third straight. Robin can hear the pressure Jack feels. In his voice. Underneath. “I felt like I gave it everything, you know.” The bare bones. The very last of the sinew and tissue. “Everything, Robin.”
He wants to put his arm around Jack’s shoulder. Face against his neck. Kit top soft under his fingers. Dried sweat. He was scared, too. Of slipping.
Just like he is now.
She’s dressed in her housecoat. Eyebrows dipped. Her mouth in a line. “How about you go out,” she says, “I’ll stay here on the coach with my soap operas.” Shuffles across the floor. “A bit of role reversal would be good for you, yeah?”
He calls Thomas. He sounds surprised, but in a good way. The best way.
“That ticket offer still good?”
Thomas laughs, mouth away from the receiver. Robin bites his lip. “No, yeah. When did you want them for? This week, or…?”
“Whenever.”
“Two, then? One for…”
“No, just me.” Robin clears his throat. “Thanks, Thomas. Really.”
“That’s good, Robin.” She kisses the rise of his cheek. “I like seeing you out. Happy.” She twists their fingers together and Robin likes how warm her hands are. How white her teeth are. How constant she is.
He leaves early Saturday afternoon and meets Thomas at some coffee shop. They talk about football, about Feyenoord and Ajax. They don’t talk about Arsenal. Football drifting away the closer they get to kick-off.
He gets a text from Bouchra, during the match, telling him that he and Thomas are on TV. That she likes the way his shoulders look in his sweater. He doesn’t reply. Laughing when Thomas makes remarks about Ajax’s back four. He does, because he knows that he’s like that, too. And it’s not like Ajax was ever his team, anyways.
The game ends in a draw. Robin accepts Thomas’s offer to go for a drink. A real one. Nothing sweet.
“I was going to go home tonight.” He looks down at his watch. Anniversary gift. “But…” He looks out at the sky, dark. Black and stars.
Thomas shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t put me out any if you wanted to stay over.” The look Thomas gives him means something. He doesn’t know. Robin doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to.
“I didn’t…”
“Call her,” Thomas says.
He does. She’s fine with it.
“You don’t just stop thinking about it.”
Thomas is right. He’s right about too many things, but Robin really doesn’t care. After months of not talking about retirement, about Arsenal, about football; it’s all he can do. It’s all he wants to do.
“I just… I don’t know what to do now. Without it. It’s your life and then it’s not.” He looks down at his hands. “It’s driving Bouchra crazy.”
“I know.” And Thomas’s hand is around his neck. There’s an Arsenal match on tape in his ancient VCR. His thigh is pressed to Thomas’s. It’s hard to look away from the TV. He tries to take a deep breath. “I know. At least you didn’t go out on injury.”
“Wish I could have.” Bites his lip. His tongue. His cheek.
“No, you don’t. Because then you just keep thinking about what you could have done and what you can’t do anymore.” Thomas’s voice is sharp and Robin can feel the way he tenses up. Turns Robin’s face to look at him. This is what he used to look like on the pitch, Robin thinks. But not for very long. Not like this.
“You won the Prem.”
“And I couldn’t play anymore.” Tired. Tired and sad. “I would have rather kept on playing. The Premiership, and I would have rather still played.” He sighs. “You’re reluctant to love football again, I know. But you can, if that’s what you want.”
Quietly. “Just not right now.”
“Robin,” she says. Voice rupturing. Torn and raw. Their hands together. “This isn’t working. You’re not…” Eyes wet. Mouth dry. “You’re just not anymore. It’s not working anymore.” She kisses his forehead and lets go of his hand. “I think you need. Time.”
He needs her.
“I’ll go,” he says. “The kids, they’re settled...”
She nods.
They don’t explain it. Not in full sentences. Promises of love. Unconditional. He tries not to let them see him cry. Hand over his mouth. Heels of his palms pressed to his eyes. Bouchra stays quiet. Extend each other sympathy. Her fingers between his shoulderblades.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as he picks a sweater up off the floor and puts it on the edge of Shaqueel’s bed. The perfume on her wrists. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t…”
But he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to apologise for. How to apologise for everything.
Thomas is quiet.
“You can come stay with me if you need to.” Stops short and corrects himself: “If you want to.”
He meets Robin at the train station in a black coat and an Ajax scarf. He has another pair of mittens in his hands.
“I walked,” he says. “Sorry.”
Robin takes the gloves Thomas offers him. “It’s all right.” Suitcase in his new navy hand.
“This is what I did when me and Aimee broke up.” Beer bottle clutched between his fingers, opener in his other hand. He passes it to Robin when the cap hits the counter. Takes it with something akin to gratefulness. That hollow clatter.
“You drank?” Robin can’t picture it, not with any real commitment.
“…and watched a lot of Coronation Street, but that’s something we don’t need to talk about.”
Robin’s mouth tilts up. If it’s for his benefit, Thomas isn’t letting on. Robin leans back against the counter and watches as he swallows. Slow movement of his throat. Dip of his collarbones.
“Well,” he says. It hangs in the air between them. Sleeves of Thomas’s sweater pushed up. Robin picks at the pocket of his jeans and wishes he was wearing sweats. “What do you want to do?”
“GTST? It’s the next best thing, right?”
Thomas gives him a small smile. “Corrie is still worlds better.”
Sometime between four in the morning and his sixth beer, Robin checks his phone. There’s a text from Jack waiting. Sent almost five hours ago.
how about winter break?
It takes Robin a moment to remember exactly what time of the year it is. How late. How many months between now and his last match. Circling up in his head. It takes him a moment to remember what Jack’s talking about.
how about i come to london?
Thomas is asleep on the couch beside him. The TV flickers. His phone vibrates.
wanna repeat that in english?
He does.
They eat in silence. Hungover. Really. Robin’s head throbs. Tension anchored in the back of his neck. He pushes his plate away.
“So, what did you do after I fell asleep?”
“Nothing,” Robin says, looking down at the table.
Thomas has training. It’s Wednesday. He asks Robin along, but he says no. Shoulders sunken in his t-shirt. Coffee cold in front of him. Thomas leaves in his training bottoms and his training jacket. Red. Red and white.
Robin turns on his phone. Opens up his laptop.
“Please stop feeling sorry for me, Jack. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
“But I want to.”
“Worry about you. Worry about Arsenal.”
He knows. Enough. Arsenal is enough.
“Fine.”
Thomas comes home with a folder full of notes and a copy of Fifa 20. Robin helps him pull his Playstation out of the closet and set it up. They play for hours, past supper and into the dark. Neither of them is very good at it and Robin doesn’t know half of the players on his own Feyenoord.
“What’re you going to do when you go home? It’s almost Christmas.”
He adds the last part softly.
“Bouchra said I could have the kids. She doesn’t celebrate it, so. Maybe see my parents, you know.”
Thomas nods. “And after that?”
“London,” Robin says. “I’m going to London.”
“You got your dates picked?” Jack asks. Something rustles.
Robin’s flat is quiet. Quiet and sunny. Birds outside chattering. “Yeah, I’ll be there the third week of January. Probably catch a home match. You play City, right?”
“We play City,” Jack says. Stress. “You already fucking know that we do, Robin. Know what you’re like.” He laughs and it’s almost mocking. Almost. Too much sleep and lethargy tainting the way Robin thinks.
“Fine,” he says. “Are there any hotels around you, or…”
“You’re staying with me.”
Robin can almost see Jack beaming. Lines around his mouth.
“I guess I’m staying with you, then.”
Christmas comes and Robin almost has to bite back the relief he feels when Bouchra shows up with the kids, their coats dusted with snow. She looks better - prettier, softer, brighter - than he remembers. Scent so familiar when she hugs him. Something inside of him feels like it’s breaking. Apart.
“The lawyer…” she tries to say, but he doesn’t let her.
Shakes his head. “Not now, okay?”
“Okay.” She adjusts her purse strap and looks over his shoulder. At him. “Merry Christmas.”
“To you, too.”
The kids help him set up the tree. It’s small, but it’s something. He lets them stay up late. Almost doesn’t want to let them go to sleep. Warm against both of his sides. The TV on low and everything coloured with lights.
When they nod off, Robin carries them to bed. He leaves the little, flickering lights on.
“Can I spend New Year’s Eve with you?” Voice unsteady and Thomas is silent for what feels like too long. “Please.”
“Yeah, Robin. Of course.”
“I’m not a good friend,” he says, waving his empty glass around. Been filled with champagne too many times tonight. Thomas is keeping the bottle away from him. Probably.
“Your wife is divorcing you. I think you can be forgiven.” Robin thinks he might be rolling his eyes, but that could just be the liquor. Barely sweet on the back of his tongue. “You’ll be there for me when you need to be. Stop worrying about it.”
Robin nods and he must get carried away because Thomas’s hand is in his hair. He stops him.
“Here, c’mon. If you’re going to pass out, it shouldn’t be on the floor.”
He lets Thomas move him. Falls asleep before midnight, head against Thomas’s shoulder. An ugly taste in his mouth.
“I’m going to England for a little bit,” he tells her. “A week, maybe longer.”
“Yeah, okay. It’s fine.” She sounds distracted. Tired, too. “Let me know when you get back, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
there’s a key in the mailbox. at training. wouldn’t want you to get photographed at my front door or anything.
Jack’s house is different. Different from Robin’s at twenty-six. Bouchra did a lot of the decorating, the making-it-feel-like-home. It’s all pretty neutral. Singles of things. Completely spotless. Furniture matches. He feels let down by the organisation.
Sighs as he goes upstairs.
Robin puts his suitcase down on the floor. The sun comes in and across the pillows of the bed. He pulls his sunglasses out of the V of his t-shirt and lays down on it. The sheets smell clean and Robin is all too aware of how Jack’s grown up.
“I didn’t want to wake you?”
“You didn’t want to wake me? Really, you?” Robin throws his hands up. Cereal bowl and tea cup on the table in front of him. Jack looks at him, mouth drawn up tight like he’s suppressing a laugh. Shoulders rolled forward.
“Figured the old man could use his sleep. Had a long day. What? A half-hour flight. Tough. I only spent most of the morning training like mad. Not a big deal.”
“Shut up.”
Jack grins and drops his spoon into his bowl. Silence settles over them and Robin reaches for his tea.
“I like having you here.”
Jack’s voice hasn’t changed at all. Not since he was eighteen, not since he was twenty-three. Robin puts his cup down. His openness.
Jack picks the movie. Robin doesn’t really pay attention. Spaces in and out of car chases and dark warehouses. Jack has his legs crossed underneath himself. He watches with a fascination that’s typically reserved for tied Fifa marathons and Champions League (not playing, never playing). Robin tries, his phone left untouched on the coffee table. Cluttered up with copies of Four-Four-Two and newspapers.
They don’t talk. The movie fills up the silence in loud bursts. He doesn’t feel like Jack’s older brother anymore and he doesn’t know how that’s supposed to work. What he’ll do.
He looks over at Jack. He’s not looking back.
Jack curls up against the coach. Socked feet. A match-day recap has replaced the movie and the volume’s both jarring and not jarring enough. Look of too-open curiosity on his face.
“So, what’s it like being retired, then?” Standard question. A question that sounds totally different coming from Jack. He actually wants to know. He knows that it’ll happen to him.
Robin shrugs. “It’s like being injured. All that time off just to think.” His knee throbs gently. Phantom pain. Jack follows the touch of his fingers.
“Far as I remember, you were pretty good at that.” It’s not meant to hurt. Their shared experiences are not meant to hurt.
Robin makes a bitter noise in the back of his throat. He can’t help it. “Yeah, but there’s nothing to look forward to. No matches you have to be ready for. No teammates you might let down. No network of support. No highs, really.”
Jack slips. “But you’ve got us,. All your friends. You have your family.” Body moving with conviction. Fighting something. Fighting Robin.
“No.” His voice wavers. “It’s not just a separation. Bouchra’s divorcing me. I’m signing the papers when I get back.”
He’s not crying. He doesn’t feel like crying.
Jack’s face falls. Same sort of shock Robin’s seen before. “What? Robin, I. God, I didn’t know.” He moves across the couch, arms winding around Robin’s neck. He holds on tightly like it’ll fix things. Like it has to.
Robin holds on just as tightly.
They both know it won’t.
Robin wakes up, sick on vodka. Lonely. Water, orange juice, and aspirin on the bedside table. A text from Jack (training is hell w/ a hangover) on his phone. He pushes his face into his pillow and tries very hard not to do anything else.
“I don’t want to do this anymore…” Robin says, hand over his eyes. Deep breaths. One, two, three.
Jack nods. “Just about retched on Henderson. Bad way to captain. Should be setting an example.” His cheeks are red. Broken blood vessels. Blush-stained.
“There are worse things,” Robin says. “There are worse things you can do.”
Robin zips his coat up under his chin. Eleven men in red-white and eleven men in sky-blue on a pitch that Robin knows too well. Has had his biggest moments on. Blades of grass and corner kicks.
It’s his first trip back to the Emirates since retirement and he hates it. Sitting alone and away from the crowd.
He can make out Jack, his name and number. Has a strange feeling of pride. Strange feeling of resentment. He’s all Arsenal and Robin wants to hate him for that. Truly, but. He’s a thirty-six year-old man with a crush on a boy and a club.
He grits his teeth at the missed chances and stands up both times Arsenal scores. Hands cold, but their sound loud.
Robin texts Jack as soon as the match ends.
He calls Thomas.
“Thanks,” Jack says, when he gets in. “You enjoyed it, yeah? A win for us.” His smile is so bright and he can feel Jack’s arm shaking where it’s resting around his shoulders.
Robin nods. “Yeah. Thomas says ‘good job’. Should have had a red card for that tackle against Suarez.” It doesn’t come out the way Robin would’ve liked, but Jack doesn’t seem to notice.
“Verma? When’d you talk to him? He can shove it, by the way.”
“After the match.” His phone feels heavy against his thigh.
Jack makes a noise, distracted. “Didn’t know you guys were still close.” He reaches for something out of the cupboard. “That’s good, though. You guys sticking together.”
Robin shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything.
Robin goes to bed while Jack’s still watching TV. High on adrenaline, on the game. The beautiful game. He curls in on himself in sweats and Jack’s hoodie, too small. Crest against his chest.
Jack’s laughter echoes up the stairs.
Jack’s back from training by the time Robin wakes up. Two in the afternoon. He stumbles down the stairs, towards something that smells like home. Robin feels nauseous. His feet on the cold tile of the floor. Shock. Jack looks up from the stove.
“Afternoon,” he says, hand on a wooden spoon. He’s out of his training gear. Wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts Robin hasn’t seen before.
“Didn’t know you cooked,” Robin says. Folds his knees up onto the chair with him. There are storybooks on the table, hiding under stacks of old newspapers. Robin fingers the edges. It seems stupid to bring up now.
“Well, I can’t be at my mum’s every day. I’m an adult now. Be embarrassing.” There’s more clinking: tin can, plate, salt shaker. “Besides, it doesn’t really look like you know how to look after yourself.”
He rests his elbows on the table. “Bouchra cooked. She never really let me. I screwed it up a lot. Like, before the kids. Guess she wanted to leave them out of it.” Pain behind his eyes. Pressure. Breaks.
“Can’t really blame her,” Jack says, shoulderblade curved and obvious under his shirt as he ladles soup into two bowls. He sets one down in front of Robin. The steam brushes against his neck. His chin.
No, Robin doesn’t blame her.
“It’s really hurting you, isn’t it?” Hand-deep in hot water. Scent of lemon. Broken dishwasher. Plates stacked neatly beside him. Drying out.
“What?” Towel over the lip of a glass. The tines of a fork.
Jack shrugs. “All of it. Your retirement. Your family.” His hip pressed to Robin’s. Solid. Need. A lot of needs.
He doesn’t want to leave.
He grips the counter with both hands. Shoulders sagging. “Yeah, it is.”
Jack wraps an arm around his waist, wet hand on his stomach. Robin leans into it.
Jack’s backyard is cramped, but the darkness makes it seem bigger: melting fences and trees into black. Stars. There are a lot of stars and the alcohol makes Robin feel small. His chair beside Jack’s. It’s cold, even with blankets. Sweaters. He can feel the warmth from Jack’s body. His knees tucked up against his chest.
“So, this is what you like to do now,” Robin says and it’s just for conversation.
Jack makes a noise. “It’s what I always liked to do.” Muffled by the fabric of his hoodie. Cuffs pulled down over his hands. He looks comfortable. And happy. Relaxed. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Robin shrugs. “It’s been a few years.”
“That’s not an excuse.” Always mumbling.
He looks over at Jack. He’s looking back.
Hand on the arm of Robin’s chair. On Robin’s. Flow of blood. He feels a little less lonely. Even with the black and the fences. Being stuck between them. He laces their fingers together.
“Could you pick me up tomorrow?”
He almost thinks Thomas doesn’t hear him. Until: “You’ve only spent a week there and you’ve already forgotten Dutch.” It’s fond.
“What?”
“So, you didn’t notice that this entire conversation’s been in English?”
Robin really didn’t.
“All right. I’ll pick you up. You want to stay over?”
“Yeah.”
Jack gives him a watery smile before pulling Robin into a hug. Pulling him down. Robin goes with it. Hands on the small of Jack’s back. His tight around Robin. He kisses the curve of Robin’s neck and it feels normal. Nostalgic.
“Better to do it here.”
He feels like he’s missing something.
Thomas drives at ten-and-two. Luggage in the backseat. “I saw you in the paper. Up there, alone, in the Emirates.” He’s a textbook driver. Thomas is perfect. “You’re still a big deal.” And: “Mr. Arsenal.”
Robin punches him in the thigh and Thomas grabs for his wrist. “Shut up,” but it’s half-hearted and he’s smiling (just a little) and they’re at a stoplight.
“Hey,” Thomas says, foot on the brake. “I’m just glad you still know how to be happy.” He’s two-car lengths away from the vehicle in front of them. Green. “But, seriously, I can speak Dutch with the same fluency as you can.”
Robin looks down at his hands. “It didn’t kill you.”
Robin takes a deep breath, phlegm caught in the back of his throat. “Fuck, I don’t want to be that guy.” Hand on the back of his neck. Sheets, blankets, pillows. The couch. “I really don’t want to sleep alone tonight.” And he knows how ridiculous and desperate it sounds.
Thomas shakes his head. “You’re not imposing, Robin. God.” He gestures down the hall. “You know where my bedroom is. I’m not very good at sharing, though.” He takes the blankets from where they’re folded and follows Robin.
“Thanks,” Robin says. He takes the right side, out of habit.
He’s completely exhausted. Skin cool. Thomas is quiet, turned away from Robin. Bed dipped comfortably.
He can feel Thomas against his back. Hand on the drop of Robin’s waist. He’s still asleep and his legs shift against Robin’s. It’s uncomfortable, sort of, but Robin doesn’t care. He misses. He doesn’t know what he misses.
“Oh, fuck,” and Thomas is laughing. Trying to untangle their legs. “Sorry, Robin. Probably thought you were…”
Robin doesn’t let him finish. “You miss her.” He turns in Thomas’s loosening grip. Thomas looks back at him. Half-lidded, mouth parted. “Fuck, I miss her.” He leans into Thomas too fast, mouth on his. He’s aware of where he is, what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter when Thomas kisses back.
Fingertips soft on his face. Thomas is thorough. Pointedly someone else. He shifts his thigh over Thomas’s and brings their hips closer. He goes with it. Can’t breathe. Lips moving distractedly against Robin’s jaw. He tips Thomas’s face to where he wants it.
Thomas responds by pushing his way into Robin’s boxer-briefs. Hot where his knuckles slide against the hollow of Robin’s hip. He holds Robin down against the bed. Fully. Wrist against Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas’s hand scrapes over the skin just above Robin’s cock, but he’s not hard. Not yet.
“You aren’t that old, Robin. Really.” He presses his smile to Robin’s collarbone and runs his hands down Robin’s sides.
He arches against him. Breathless and too out-of-it to reply proper. “Try, then. C’mon.” He shifts his hips up. Wants more from Thomas. He gets it. Hand curving around Robin’s cock. Thomas’s pace is measured (and relentless, almost. Maybe), but that’s moot as his thumb slips over pre-come at the head of his cock. Robin shudders and tries to find the waistband of Thomas’s underwear.
Thomas stops him. Fingers tight around Robin’s wrist. He’s not expecting the pain that flares through him. (Maybe that was the point.) “Okay,” he says, nodding and Thomas lets go. Other hand twisting at the base of his cock. He bites back a noise, behind his teeth.
Thomas’s breath sounds heavy. Thighs tight to Robin’s. “What do you,” and his mouth slides up over the curve of his jaw. “What do you want?” It’s meaning so singular, open. Sweet, almost. Pads of Thomas’s fingers careful over the tip of his cock. Robin wants to scream.
“I don’t know.” Breath hitching. “I don’t know.”
Robin showers, but Thomas doesn’t. Just washes his face in the sink. “I have to go,” he says. “They want me… I’m watching the fifteen year-olds tonight.” He’s in his Ajax things and Robin just assumed.
“Okay.” Because, okay.
Thomas kisses the edge of his hairline before he leaves.
“I’m going home,” he says. Things packed. He’s got his ticket for the train. An empty apartment.
Thomas looks at him. “Rotterdam?”
Robin shrugs. “Sure.”
His fingers grip the arm of the couch too tightly, back straight. The TV’s up way too loud, but this is Champions League. Quarter-finals, last leg. Robin doesn’t care. Not with Arsenal trying to break a tie with Porto. Briefly, he wonders if this’ll ever stop: the spike and the anger. When. Until. Jack plays a pass through for Aaron (gorgeous) and that’s it. Slipping past the keeper’s hands. Eighty-fifth minute.
Robin didn’t realise that he was standing up or that his water is overturned on the floor. Arsenal through on aggregate.
He watches the Eredivisie highlights after the match. Keyed-up. Wants to be somewhere people feel how he feels. A bar, something. But it’s almost twelve o’clock and he can’t bring himself to leave. He sits on the couch. Alone.
“It’s brilliant, Robin. Brilliant.” Jack sounds totally out-of-breath. Days later. It’s days later and they’ve lost to Liverpool in the Prem, but it’s still. It’s there and Robin really is happy. For Jack, for Arsenal. Quarters were always a stumbling block. Always, always, always.
“No, it’s fantastic. Be thrilled.”
“I’m moving,” he says over the click of his mouse and the tap of his keyboard (one-handed, all of it). Scrolling through real estate listings in English. Back buttons and new windows.
Thomas coughs. “Where? You’re staying in the Netherlands, right?” Sceptical.
Robin shakes his head. “No. I’m moving back to London.”
“That’s… does Bouchra know?”
A two-bedroom apartment. That’s what he wants, he thinks.
“She will.”
“Why?” she asks. Tired. Curious. “What’re you going to be doing there that you aren’t doing here?” He’s always loved her, really. Her honesty. She went for a hug when he went for a handshake after the divorce was finalised. Those things.
He’ll be living alone without her, without the kids. He won’t be playing football, and he won’t be coaching like Thomas. He won’t be on TV. He won’t be in school. He won’t have a job. Nothing. But almost everything good that has happened to Robin, has happened there. In that city.
And if he’s a little homesick, he’s not telling Bouchra. He doesn’t have to. A second home.
“I’ll be happy,” he says, carefully.
Bouchra sighs. “Well, that’s something.”
Thomas comes over. Rare Saturday without Ajax. T-shirt and jeans. Arsenal vs. Fulham. It’s not terribly special, but it’s still three points. Stripped of red, they play in white. The armband disappears around Jack’s bicep, but they know it’s there. Jack all too aware. Back straight, head up. Leading.
“He looks so much older,” Thomas says. Socked feet on the coffee table. “Not like the kid who badgered me about social media and plaid shirts.” He laughs and Robin does, too. It’s true. Nineteen year-old Jack and twenty-six year-old Jack are not the same person (neither are twenty-eight year-old Robin and thirty-six year-old Robin, though). “Good to see him grow up.”
Robin nods. “Him and Aaron. They’re brilliant together. They’ve got a few more years still.”
Thomas picks his beer up from between his legs, but he doesn’t drink. “You and Cesc, almost.” He does, then. Robin watches him swallow. Looks away. The TV.
The same continuous, aerial shot of the pitch. Where he would be on that pitch. “I hope not,” he says, quietly. “I want them to last even longer than that.” He reaches for Thomas’s beer. Without his own. Thomas gives it to him.
“I’m sorry, Robin.” Hand on the back of his neck. “You’re still brilliant. You know that, right?” Thomas is hot against his side.
Robin should ignore it just like he’s managed to ignore a lot of things.
“I…” he starts. Hand across his face.
Thomas takes hold of his fingers. Looking at Robin with a certainty that scares him. “You are.” And Thomas doesn’t warn him, just leans in and kisses him. A different kind of conviction. Robin lets him.
“This is the last time. You know that, right?”
“I know.” The smile on his face as he pulls Robin towards him.
He likes the sound of Jack’s voice. The way it sounds right now. “No, really? When do you move?”
“In about two months. The date’s a bit late, but yeah. Around the end of the season.” Exactly three weeks after. Robin’s stopped pretending that he doesn’t know.
“No, that’s,” and it’s like the words get stuck. “That’s great. Why here, then?” Robin can imagine what face he’d be making if this were person-to-person. Cross between that tireless happiness Jack seems to have in spades and that deep-set curiosity.
It’s been different, every answer. “It’s London. Why not there?”
Jack laughs. “Right answer. Better than the whole of the Netherlands, probably.”
“Well, probably not. But it’s got its things, yeah.”
And he laughs there, too.
It’s two days before Bouchra drops the kids off. He gets his apartment ready with the things they like to eat and the movies they like to watch. A new football. It’s only across the city, but he wants it to feel the same. Like Mum’s, with Bouchra. He takes a deep breath and throws a hoodie of Thomas’s into the back of his closet.
This isn’t about where he’s going, but where that leaves them. He sucks back a sharp twinge of guilt.
“It’ll be all right.”
Robin knows that it doesn’t matter. It takes time. Regardless.
Jack sniffs, pulls it back. Voice raw. “Maybe next year.”
“When?” she asks. “When were you going to tell me? Robin, you’re an adult. I didn’t think you meant…” Bouchra leans against the wall, arms crossed. She looks tired. Really tired. He wants to say that he’s sorry, but he can’t.
Robin swallows. “I… it’s my decision. Right? I finally want to do something and it’s wrong. Like, I’m not leaving anyone. I can come back. I can always come back. If you need me. If they need me. You know I wouldn’t stay.” He sighs. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”
He’s right and she knows that he’s right. She pushes herself off of the wall. Mouth turned down. He didn’t think it’d be this quick either. Honestly.
“All right. If you need any help or whatever, just let me know. We’re here.” She turns, hand on the doorknob. “And Robin? You’re telling them. I want them to hear it from you.”
He nods. The door closes.
Enough blame has already been placed on her.
“So, when I come and visit, you’ll take me to see Arsenal play,” Shaqueel says, tentatively. Hopeful.
Robin nods. “Yeah, I will.”
“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Thomas said he could help on Tuesday, but after that it’s just me.” Most of Robin’s stuff is half-in and half-out of boxes. Packing tape and cardboard everywhere. He picks at a plastic bag full of old boots. Match-day boots.
“Wow, I wonder how you knew that those were my days off.” The sarcasm makes it easier to understand him. Maybe it’s just because he’s spent most of his life insulting people in locker-rooms with a finite understanding of English. “Just tell me where to be and I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll give you my address. Bring your car. Nothing stupid like Theo’s Fiat, please.”
“Deal.” Loud and low.
Thomas drums his fingers on a taped box, felt-tip in his other hand. He sighs, exasperated. “Okay, Robin. You know I like you, but you suck at packing. I mean it.”
Robin puts what he’s holding down. Brushes dust off the bottom of his t-shirt. “It’s fine. That stuff,” hand stretching out behind Thomas, “is, uh, clothes. And, dishes? No, appliances. Coffee maker or whatever.”
Thomas raises an eyebrow. Unimpressed. “Or ‘whatever’? I can’t write that on a box.” Marker balanced precariously.
Robin shrugs. “Mark it all as fragile, then. Nothing’ll get broken.”
Thomas shakes his head. “All right.”
TRY NOT TO BREAK THIS.
His new apartment looks vaguely like his first apartment, when he first moved to London. The walls are a clean white. Windows overlooking brick and back-alleys. Bare of curtains. He makes soup out of cans and Thomas stays the night. They sleep on the floor together.
He wakes up alone. A note somewhere near his hand. Thomas is already off and Robin’s not really on schedule. He calls Jack.
“I’m driving.” Fully awake. “Like, I’m coming to pick you up and we’re off, yeah?”
Robin shakes his head. Eyes still firmly closed. “I’m not up for moving right now. Call back later.” Robin pulls on his jeans. Phone cradled against his cheek and his shoulder. His belt.
“Oh, whatever. Get your ass up.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you. Pull a muscle and the Boss’ll kill me.”
“I’ll stretch, then.”
Robin sighs. “That’s not what I meant.”
Jack laughs. “I know. I’m ten minutes away.”
“Why’d you sell your car? Can’t be too much fun, walking and taking the tube everywhere? No, wait! You bike, right?”
Robin gives him a look. “No, I don’t bike. Can’t stand it when it gets cold outside.” He sinks down into his seat a little more. Jack’s car smells like sweat and evergreen. Typical footballer. “Bouchra took it. For the kids.”
Jack adjusts his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.” He stares out at the road. “I should think a little more.”
Robin uncrosses his legs. Stretches them out. “I like that you don’t. Need to start moving on eventually. Everyone can’t keep tip-toeing around her.” Comfortable.
“Does Thomas tip-toe around her?” Caution in his voice.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “He doesn’t.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Robin changes the radio station.
The room is empty and the furniture that was there when Robin moved in looks cleaner than it ever did with him there.
Jack comes up beside him, hand on his hip. Surveying. “This place is kind of cold, don’t you think?” Empty, completely empty of Robin. “Like, even before.”
Robin shrugs. “It worked for me.”
It did work. He slept. Watched football. Slept. Thought about football. Slept. Dreamt about football. Slept. Thought about Arsenal. Slept. Thought about Jack. He had a routine that made him unhappy and it made him alienate his wife and it made him hate Rotterdam.
“But I’m ready to move. Missed England.”
“Well,” Jack says, gesturing towards the door, “it missed you, too.” Hand on the small of Robin’s back.
They drive in silence for most of the way back.
Robin pretends to be asleep.
Missed you.
Robin lets out a heavy sigh and leans back against the wall. Slides down it. He’s exhausted. Boxes, half-opened and stacked, everywhere. There’s dust in his nose. Sweat drying at his temples. Jack is cross-legged on the floor. Hands on the gilt edge of a frame.
It’s a picture from their FA Cup win. Them together. Robin already knows how happy he looks in it. What Bouchra was wearing when she took it. What Jack felt like under his arm. Small smile on his face. Fingers gliding carefully over the backing.
“You still have all this stuff,” Jack says. “Like, all your Arsenal stuff. Nothing from the last few years, though.” He looks at Robin and Robin doesn’t know what to make of it (of that). He nods his head.
Jack puts the picture down at his feet. He knows, somewhere, that he doesn’t remember Feyenoord with a quarter of the same clarity as Arsenal and maybe that should bother him, but it doesn’t.
He returns Jack’s little half-smile. “I’ve only been retired a year. Not even.”
Jack laughs. Self-conscious. “Honestly? I forget that.” He stays folded up. “I keep thinking that you retired at Arsenal.”
“I wanted to, yeah? We all want to.”
He doesn’t know who he’s talking about.
“I know,” and he shifts from where he’s sitting - picture moved aside with more grace and care than Robin’s ever seen from Jack - and crawls over to Robin. Up against the same wall. Elbows touching. “I want that, too.”
They’re close. Too close. He leans into Jack, hand coming up to rest on his neck.
“Is this all right?” Robin asks.
Jack nods. He can feel it. “Yeah.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Thomas asks. The language barrier. Robin’s new kitchen. Jack in his new bed. The feeling of home crawls over it. Over him.
“Yes,” he says. Pictures spread out across the table. Thomas’s silence. “It’s what I want now.”
“Well, that’s a start.”