Chapter 44: Forty Three

"I can't believe you actually won David's gloves."

The night drew closer to its end.  With the auction complete, the games all played, and the raffle winners finalised, all that was left was dessert and Frank's parting words.  Waiters swarmed around the tables handing out bowls of apple crumble and ice cream, even though a lot of the tables were deserted.  During the night, as the empty bottles piled up, people fled their seats for the dance floor, or the bar, or the edges of the room to talk.

Ours was certainly emptier.  Due to an early meeting the next morning, Jess had departed soon after the auction.  Fran and Guilio had disappeared into a sea of people on the dance floor a while ago, and Mason had left the table in search of a journalist he knew.  Now, I remained only with Abby, Kyle, and Natalie, the latter of whom was laughing at the pout on her boyfriend's face.

"You jinxed it, Nat," he mumbled, shaking his head.

Signed and slightly grass-stained, the pair of gloves our keeper wore during our win against Arsenal the previous season sat on the table in front of Kyle.  The Portuguese had already been to our table in a fit of giggles, and jeers had come from his table since Kyle's name was read.

"Come on, let's go dance," Natalie said, still chuckling.  "It'll make you feel better."

Kyle sighed, but allowed Natalie to pull him up by the hands.  The pair made their way towards Diego, who had started the trend of dancing and still remained thirty minutes later.  Immediately, he grabbed Natalie's hand and spun her in a dramatic circle.  Kyle's laugh reached me even from where I sat.

"So," Abby said.  From the other side of the table, she stood up and plopped into Mason's abandoned seat.  "No dancing for you?"

I shook my head.  "My legs are dead.  I swear, I feel, like, fifty years old."

"You had a tough game yesterday."

"Tell me about it."

Scanning the tables on my right, I spotted Mason sitting with his back to me, in conversation with Gary Terry, a popular pundit and ex-England defender.  Mase had won a prize in the raffle, too, although not quite one as useless as Kyle's. A beautiful bottle of South African wine sat in the middle of the table, the decorative ribbons on it almost as large as the bottle itself.

"For the next time you come over,"he'd said in my ear.  Even recalling the comment made my stomach turn.

"Beck?"

"What?"

Abby's elbow digging into my arm brought me out of my daze.  Turning away from Mason and Gary, I faced her sheepishly.

"You're really out of tonight, you know that?"

I sunk down in my seat.  "Yeah, sorry.  What did you say?"

"It's because of Mitch, isn't it?"

Taken aback, I widened my eyes.  "What do you mean?"

"You're out of it because of Mason." Abby wore a smug grin.  "And because he broke up with that God-awful Liv."

"Abby."

I gaped as she let out a cackle.  For a second, I contemplated denying her statement. But before I could, I thought back to that morning in Bulgaria and about how well she'd reacted to my troubles then. Taking a deep breath, I changed my mind.

"Yeah, actually.  I am."

Abby's grin grew, but she remained silent. Maybe it was the couple of glasses of wine speaking, but in an instant a summary of the last few weeks gushed out of my mouth.

"There's been something going on between us for a while, I guess.  It kind of started during international, and when we were in Bulgaria.  After his fight with Lance?"  Abby nodded.  Her grin faded as she opened her eyes in concentration.  "Well, Mase came to our room and we kind of came close to hooking up. But I told him we couldn't, and then that fucking chat with George happened.  So, yeah, that's why things were so awkward for a while.  I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but—"

"Everyone noticed, Beck."  I resisted the urge to groan.

"We had another weird fight thing before the Newcastle game and I got pretty upset with him, actually.  But then I got this call from Liv on Sunday night—yeah I know, right?—and they were out but Mason left and didn't have his keys, and he was really drunk but he said he didn't want to go back to where Liv was, so he ended up coming to sleep at my place, and then things just..."

I stopped talking for a moment. Mirroring Abby, I reached for my almost-empty wine glass.  Thinking through all of it again made the same hurt I'd felt back then sting my chest. But, as I took a sip of wine and my eyes landed on Mason's back, it fizzled away.  A lot had changed since then.

"And that was last Sunday, right?" Abby asked, tearing me out of another daze.  I nodded.

"Last Sunday, yeah.  Anyway, I got pretty pissed off with him, but I also..."  I trailed off, not wanting to say the words that were on the tip of my tongue.  "Whatever.  He apologised in Amsterdam, which is what you saw in the hotel; remember?  And then I went to his place after the hospital last night and he made me dinner."  I supressed a smile as Abby let out an aw. "And that's when he told me about Liv."

I frowned and looked down to my lap. Uncertainty forced a lump to my throat as I ran my forefinger over my chipped thumbnail.  Even though it was just Abby, my heart pounded.

"He did it because of you, right?" Abby prompted me, tapping her foot against my calf.  "Beck?"

A smile forced its way onto my face as I looked back to her.  "I mean, he didn't say that exactly, but..."

"I fucking knew it."  I covered my face.  Cold hands cooled down my burning cheeks.  "Mitch: what a damn romantic.  So, what else happened last night?"

"Nothing," I said quickly, lowering my hands. "Nothing.  And now, I just..."  I sighed. "I don't know, Abs.  I don't really know where we go from here."

Perfectly timed, a waiter arrived bearing the table's dessert.  Abby and I sat in silence as he laid bowls in front of everyone's place despite the empty seats.  Abby reached for a bowl and took a bite, her face set in a frown.  I lifted a spoon and poked at an apple crumble, but the thought of eating anything in the middle of this conversation almost made me gag.

Lowering the spoon to the table again, my eyes trailed the room.  I sat up in fright when they moved over where Mason had been sitting, only to spy empty seats.  My momentary panic subsided, though: Mason stood beside the table, Sarah Wilkins and Frank now in conversation with him and Gary.  A second after my gaze settled on him, his eyes strayed from Frank and landed on me.

My stomach lurched.  Mason perked up and his face brightened with a smile.  I grinned back, unsure if he'd even see it from where he stood.  His attention turned back to Frank, but the smile remained on his face while he listened to our manager.

Abby chuckled beside me.  "You don't know where you go from here?  Really?"  I narrowed my eyes at her expression.  With an exasperated sigh, she waved a hand through the air.  "Look at you two; you can barely keep your eyes off each other!"

My forefinger graduated from stroking to picking the nail polish on my thumb.  A pale pink chip flecked from my finger and landed on my dress.

"That's not true," I mumbled.  The words were a lie, and Abby's groan told me she knew the same.

"Look, Beck, I'm going to level with you here." Gone was the teasing expression on Abby's face: her eyebrows tilted with sincerity.  "Mason's crazy about you, yeah?  Anyone with half a brain can see that."  My heart jammed in my chest.  "And no offense, but you're not exactly the best at hiding how you feel, either."  Now, my heart stopped all together.  Abby kept speaking, unaware of how her words stabbed straight through my chest.  "And yeah, I'm totally against adultery, but guess what?  Mason's single now."  She sat back and shrugged.  "I don't get what's stopping you anymore."

"It's not that simple," I stammered.  My hands shook as they played with the hem of my dress.  My heart restarted, but it pumped so quickly I worried it would pound right out of my chest and land in my lap.  "He's... we're teammates.  I don't—it just wouldn't—it's way too complicated," I eventually spat out.

It was Abby's turn to enter a daze.  She stared out at the dance floor, where a slower song brought together couples.  I hadn't seen Abby so serious off a football pitch before.  Seconds passed.  I squirmed in my seat, wondering what my words had triggered in her.

"I'm going to tell you something."  I almost jumped.  She turned to me slowly, face a mixture of vulnerability and hesitance. "And I haven't really told many people this before, but it might help."

I nodded, unsure.  Abby took a deep breath and moved her chair closer to mine. Now, a different kind of nervousness clasped my stomach.

"When I was still playing for the Liverpool youth team, I dated someone in the first team."  I managed to hold back my gasp, but my eyes still widened.  "Yeah, I know.  He was quite a bit older, but I trained with them a few times and I always saw him around, and it kind of just happened, you know?"

"And?"  Abby dating a teammate? I tried to picture it, but my imagination fell short.

"And it was great.  We were really happy."  She didn't look happy: she frowned down at her feet, which she'd spread out in front of her.  "But because of that stupid taboo around dating teammates, we never told anyone."

She kept silent, so I probed again.  "So, what happened?"

"Well, I started training with the first team full time, so it just became harder to hide it."  Abby paused for a second and uncrossed her ankles.  "And I wanted to tell everyone, because I never thought it was that big of a deal, but he was so against it."  She shrugged.  "I got over it; it was too much work.  So I ended it."

"Flip, Abs, I'm sorry."  I rested a hand on her shoulder as she shot me a brief smile.

"Anyway, it was around the time my contract was ending, and Chelsea were interested, so it worked out in the end." Now, she smiled for real.  "Funny thing is, some people in the team found out just before I left.  The gaffer, too."  She shook her head.  "And they barely batted an eye."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean they didn't care."  She huffed and sat up straighter, pulling her legs under the chair.  "All that effort spent trying to keep something a secret, and no one even cared about it."

I didn't know how to respond.  On the one hand, I knew the point she'd tried to make. But I wasn't even sure my fears surrounding the whole thing were about people knowing.  My eyes found Mason again and my stomach twisted.

Then what are you so scared of?

"Look, all I'm saying is, it's no big deal." I faced Abby again, once more surprised to see how sombre she looked.

"I hear you, Abs, I do."  I let out a deep breath.  "But it still just seems like a bad idea."

Abby, to my surprise, let out a laugh. "God, Becks, it's not illegal or anything."  She nudged me in the arm, lightening the mood in a second.  "At the end of the day, all you guys do is play football.  It's just a game; you should be able to date whoever you want and still play it."

"It's more than a game, Abs."

Despite my grin, Abby shook her head dramatically.  My stomach warmed as she met my eyes.

"Well, you have my support."  Chest bursting with gratitude, I laid my head on her shoulder.  "And regardless of what you decide, I'm rooting for you guys."

Across the room, Mason met my gaze again. His grin widened.  Maybe I had been worried about nothing.  Abby made a good point: we did just play football. Did it really matter if who we dated did the same thing beside us?

Maybe it's time I start rooting for us, too.

***

For the second time in minutes, Diego dipped me in theatrical fashion.  A squeal forced its way from my mouth as he brought me up again and threw me straight into a spin.  I laughed loudly as he steadied me, a huge smile on his face.

It had reached the stage in the night where the only remainders were those either trying to sober up before heading home, or those that refused to leave the dance floor.  Somehow, I'd become wrapped up in the excitement of the South Americans and found myself part of the latter group.

I was sure Valentina slipped the DJ a tenner, because for the last age all that played over the speakers was an array of Latin music.  Diego and I must have been dancing to the same dramatic song for minutes, and it didn't seem to be reaching its end any time soon.

With the next spin, I spotted Kyle, Natalie and Mason in a huddle to the side of the dance floor, but they disappeared from my vision a second later.  Facing Diego again, my stomach twisted.  Since Mason left our table all that time ago, I'd only seen him from afar.  He'd stayed surprisingly distant from the dance floor: he normally lived to drop some moves, yet I'd barely seen him shake a hip all night.  I knew he loved to talk the ear off any ex-pro he could, but it still stung that he'd jumped ship from me and the rest of the group so willingly.

"You good, Beck?" Diego asked.

Shaking my head I focused back on Diego. He now wore a frown.

"Yeah, sorry."  I forced a smile.  "All good."

"Is your wrist sore?"

"No, it's actually okay," I admitted with a glance to my wrist.

Remarkably, all I felt was the same slight ache I was used to: the brace held true, even with the spinning and dipping and moving.  The painkiller I took with dinner might have seen to that.  Diego nodded.  I anticipated another twirl, but instead his gaze shifted over my shoulder. In an instant he grinned again.

"I think your man wants a dance."

"What?"  Diego swung me around in a half-circle, allowing me to see Mason making his way towards us.  I glared at Diego.  "Not you too, man."

"I don't know what you mean," he said, feigning innocence.

Before I could snap back a snarky reply, Mason stood beside us.  Diego flashed me a smirk before facing him.  Heat rushed to my face at his anxious expression.  His one hand was deep in his pants pocket, while the other lifted to fix his hair.

"Diego, want to sub out?" Mase asked.  He flicked his head towards a group in the middle of the floor.  "I think your wife's getting jealous."

"No she's not.  Just say you want to dance with her, Mitch," Diego said, leaning in towards Mason.

My hand clenched into a fist as he walked away. I expected a grin over his shoulder – or a thumbs up at least – and sure enough, he spun on his heels, shot me a wink, and then left, a chortle following him.  I turned my attention back to Mason, who still looked sheepish. My heart sped up as he grinned and stepped closer.

"I don't think my moves are anywhere near Diego's," he started, his posture straightening.  "But would you like to dance with me, Hart?"

"Thought you'd never ask, Mitchell."  Unable to hold back my smile, I lifted my left hand to his shoulder.  "It's not like you to wait this long to get on the dance floor."

His hand found my right one, spreading the heat from my cheeks down to my toes.  With a chuckle, he looked down to the floor.

"Yeah, well, the night gets away from you when there's queues of people waiting for a chat."

I rolled my eyes.  Mason placed his other hand in the small of my back and we fell into step just moments later.  The current Latin song came to a blazing end, but was replaced with another before I could breathe.

"Please, I saw you chatting up Sarah Wilkins all night."

"Can you blame me?"  His mouth lifted into a grin as I shook my head.  Despite how stupid it felt, jealously still nipped at my chest.

"So, you only came to dance because all your other options left?" I asked, only slightly bitterly.

"No."  Mason's hand drew me closer to him.  I narrowed my eyes as he looked down at me, clearly trying to hold back a grin. "I've been waiting to come dance with you all night, Beck."

Opening my mouth, I had to look away when nothing came out of it.  Mason chuckled and took my pause as a good time to twirl me around.  Even though his was half the speed of Diego's, it left my head spinning, too.

"I can't believe we've almost out-stayed everyone," Mason said as I settled in front of him again.

It took me a beat to process his words. "Right?  I'm never the last one anywhere."  I grinned, pre-empting Mason's response to my next comment. "Except maybe the gym."

"The gym?"  He scoffed.  "Last one of out the changing room, more like."

"Hey!"  I frowned as he raised his eyebrows at me teasingly.  "Name one time when you've been out of the changing room before me."

Mase let out a breathy laugh.  "Okay, okay, fine."

A fit of laughter came from my right. Kyle, surrounding by a hysterical group of our teammates and their partners, attempted to salsa with Valentina.  He tried to dip the Colombian, but went in a bit too hard.  As Val landed on the floor in stitches, Mason's shoulders shook under my hand.

"Oh, God.  Bet he's been practicing that one all week, too."

I laughed.  "He'll probably blame it on Val, just watch."

I turned my head back to Mason's to find him already looking down at me.  A rush went through my body at the expression in his eyes, clearer for the first time since the previous night.  I wondered if my eyes gave away how I felt, too.  Not for the first time tonight, I became hyper-aware of him: his hand holding mine, the feeling of his shoulder under just his shirt, the pressure coming from his hand on the small of my back, and how it brought me closer than I would have liked to him.

I took a deep breath, worried about how shaky it felt.  The current song came to an abrupt end, replaced by a slower pop song.  I wanted to say something – maybe throw out another teasing comment about Kyle – but my mind couldn't focus on one thought.  It bounced around like a loose ball as it jumped from Mase's gaze, to his touch, to the giggles of my teammates, to Sarah Wilkins, to what anyone watching us must think, to the way my strap dug into the bruise on my foot, to the fact that I was slow dancing with Mason, to what Abby had said, to the flash of a camera to my right, and back to the look on Mason's face.

"Hey, Hart, you okay?" Mason asked, voice barely above a whisper.

I swallowed and pushed away the wave of uncertainty that hovered at the back of my mind.  "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

Mason raised his eyebrows.  "I don't know, you look..." he trailed off, eyes flicking above my head for a second.  "Stressed?" My chest tightened.

"Sorry, I'm just, uh, thinking about something Abs told me earlier."  It wasn't a lie, but it definitely wasn't the full truth, either.

"Yeah?"  Curiosity crossed Mason's face.  "Where did she go, anyway?"

"She went home a while ago."

Diego had tried to get Abby on the dance floor, too, but she'd left soon after Frank's thank you speech.  I made a mental note to check on her in the morning.

"Oh."  Mason's eyes, still insecure, settled on the floor.  "Well, look, if you don't want to dance—"

"No, no, I do!"  I widened my eyes in alarm.  God, the last thing I wanted was to separate myself from Mason right now. I might have been extra mindful about how it looked from the outside, but for once, that wasn't going to force me away.  I squeezed his hand.  "Trust me, I've been waiting to dance with you all night, too."

A genuine grin crinkled Mason's eyes. Wordlessly, he let go of my hand and instead joined it with his other behind my back.  I wrapped my free hand around his neck, too.  There was a momentary second of terror that took hold of me as I nestled my head into Mason's neck, but it receded surprisingly fast.

It's not a big deal, I reminded myself.  It's not illegal.  It's no big deal.

I shut my eyes and relaxed my stiff shoulders. Mason's grip on my back tightened. Let Kyle make fun of me, let Christine Straus assume whatever she wanted, let whoever think whatever, because this, with Mason, felt right.  And for the first time, I fully accepted it.