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“It’s not…weird?”
Later, Nick won’t remember which of his friends actually said what, not that it will matter. Right now Christian, Otis, and Sai are looking at him with near-identical expressions of confusion and disbelief.
“…No?” Nick furrows his brow. “Why would it be?”
His friends exchange wary glances.
“Because he’s…”
“You know…”
“That guy.”
“From last year?”
“That one who’s…”
Nick doesn’t reply even after they trail off into an expectant silence. It is true that the name ‘Charlie Spring’ seemed familiar when he’d first heard it, though he still hasn’t placed where it’s from. He’s been assuming Charlie is someone’s younger brother or that he’s in drama with Otis or something else like that. His friends’ faces tell him it’s something else.
Frowning, Nick sifts through his memories of the past couple weeks. Charlie’s got that mop of dark curls that sometimes get in his eyes and almost always shake when he laughs - which he does a lot, usually in a nervous sort of way. He’s quiet, but they both are, apart from their typical morning greeting. They don’t have all that much to talk about.
“I’m not following,” he says.
“D’you not remember last year? When that Year 9 came out as gay? That’s him, mate.”
“Oh.” Nick has a vague recollection of a time when a bunch of people started getting weird about a gay boy in Year 9. He hadn’t paid it much attention, and eventually it just sort of faded away.
“Did you seriously not know?”
Nick shrugs.
“Sorry if we’ve made it weird, then.”
“Maybe it would’ve been better not to know.”
“Why, though?” There’s genuine confusion behind Nick’s question, laced with a hint of defensiveness.
“Because…”
“What if he fancies you?”
“What?” Nick can’t restrain a chuckle. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“So…” Nick shakes his head. “What? Even if it did happen, it would be much more awkward for him than me, wouldn’t it?”
Otis, Sai, and Christian exchange glances.
Nick shakes his head. “So you’re telling me you’ve never been near a girl who fancied you, but you didn’t like her back?”
“That’s different.”
“How?” Nick is genuinely perplexed. “It’s the exact same thing, except in this case he probably wouldn’t even bring it up.”
“So he’s never like…”
“Looked at you?”
“Or tried to like… flirt with you?”
I drew a happy face on his hand yesterday, is the exact wrong thing to say. So instead, Nick says, “No. He hasn’t. And I can guarantee you he’s nothing like…whatever you think he is.”
Nick turns away, relieved when the topic finally drops.
Well, Nick thinks, approaching the table covered in blue ink, at least this isn’t his first impression of me.
“Charlie?” he says. Charlie looks up, and a soft, gentle smile crosses his face. “You haven’t got a tissue, do you? My pen just…uh, exploded.”
The whole incident is so ridiculous that they laugh together almost nonstop, first when the soap and water does fuck-all, then when Nick jokes about getting a tattoo, again when they finally decide that Nick’s hands are as clean as they’re going to get, and one last time when they realize that neither of them has given any thought to Nick’s shirt.
The lads mock him for it later, obviously. It’s well-deserved and it’s funny. Still, it’s…different? Somehow? He claims he’s trying to make blue hands the new school fashion and someone shoves him in the shoulder shouting “Get out of here.”
“We’re gunna find blue handprints all over the doors somewhere!” someone says.
It’s okay, Charlie opened all the doors for me and turned the taps on, Nick doesn’t say. He doesn’t even say, It’s alright, someone in my form helped me out. He just laughs with the rest of them and lets the topic fade.
At practice, some of the ink on his palms sweats off, which is just about the most unfair thing Nick can think of right now. It takes about five minutes for him to start leaving blue prints on the ball, and less than 10 seconds for his teammates to notice.
Nick tells Charlie about it the next morning, and enjoys the way Charlie laughs himself to tears.
“So,” Harry flings an arm around Nick’s shoulders so suddenly that Nick jumps. “Is it true? Are you really sat next to Charlie Spring in Form?”
“Um,” Nick says. “Yeah?”
Harry throws his head back and laughs. “Mate, why didn’t you tell me? That’s hilarious.”
Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you, Nick doesn’t say.
“So what’s it like,” Harry continues, “sitting next to the gay guy?”
Nice, actually. A great way to start the day.
He’s great for a laugh once you get to know him.
Not like anything you’re thinking, idiot.
Better than being sat next to you.
Nick shrugs. “It’s…fine.”
“They’re not going to let us play without a reserve,” Coach tells him after practice one day. Nick sighs in frustration. “It’s alright - all we need is one person. Obviously it doesn’t have to be an experienced one. You might have to teach someone how to play if it comes to that. I’ve tried asking some of our footballers to switch, but no one wants to. So if you could find someone, that will help us out. Otherwise we won’t be playing at all.”
Nick shrugs and nods. It seems simple enough.
It turns out that recruiting one person to play on a rugby team is actually much harder than it sounds. Apart from the fact that most of his friends at Truham are already on the rugby team, everyone else he thinks to ask is either playing a different sport or completely uninterested. Ben in particular gives a very decisive “no.”
“You definitely don’t want me on the team,” is all he’ll say. Nick doesn’t know what to make of it; ever since Ben snapped at Charlie in the hallway, Nick has been finding him very difficult to read. Something feels off about him now, though Nick can’t quite put a finger on it.
He’s starting to feel discouraged, when one day during PE he hears Coach Singh shouting, “No one’s beaten Charlie’s time yet!” He turns away from the football exercises he’s supposed to be participating in, instead watching the Year 10s run laps in the next yard.
Nick isn’t sure what he's expecting to see, but wow. Wow.
That is Charlie she’s talking about - Charlie from form. Charlie Spring. Nick never would have predicted this, but here he is: well ahead of the others even though he’s clearly pacing himself well. Nick’s not sure he’s seen many people - even on the rugby team- who can run so fast.
“Charlie’s leaving you all in the dust!” the Coach shouts, and it’s true. He’s amazing.
Nick doesn’t notice he’s staring until a whistle behind his back calls his attention to the class. Even so, he can’t help stealing glances over his shoulder from time to time, as if to confirm what he saw. As they start packing up, Nick makes a mental note to find Charlie as soon as possible.
Charlie plays the drums.
Charlie plays the drums.
Charlie plays the drums.
He’s so much cooler than anyone realizes.
“I’ve got someone!” Nick announces, bursting into Coach Singh’s office so suddenly that she jumps.
“Nicholas!”
“Sorry,” Nick sets his bag down next to the door, giving her an apologetic smile. “It’s just…I found someone to join the team.”
“Go on then,” Coach Singh says.
“Okay, so,” Nick takes a slow breath. “He’s a Year 10. He doesn’t play any other sports, and he is a bit on the small side, but he’s fast. Like, impressively fast. I don’t know if-”
“Charlie Spring?” Coach Singh says. “That’s who you’re thinking of?” There’s a smirk on her face that Nick doesn’t like.
“I know he wouldn’t be the ideal choice for a contact sport, but he’s just a reserve and I can teach him everything he needs to know.”
Coach Singh hums. “Yes. I don’t doubt that. But good luck convincing him to join.”
“He already said yes!” says Nick, and Coach Singh looks genuinely startled. “I asked him this afternoon. Needed a bit of encouraging, but he’ll do it.”
“Huh,” the Coach looks to one side with a sort of amused expression, then nods. “Let’s get him started next week then.” She frowns. “How well do you know Charlie?”
Nick shrugs, “He’s in my form.” Are they friends yet? Would Charlie consider Nick a friend? He doesn’t know.
“Right,” says Coach Singh. “Well you should know that he’s a talented kid, but he gets in his own way a lot. Self-confidence is a big barrier for him.”
“Okay.”
A brief, unreadable expression crosses the Coach’s face before she says, “Right. Good. And if anyone on the team gives him a hard time, you let me know immediately. Understood?”
Nick very briefly remembers Harry asking him what it’s like to “sit next to a gay guy.”
“Yeah.” He says. “Of course. Yeah.”
They have one more practice before Charlie officially starts. To Nick’s surprise, Coach Singh doesn’t announce their new reserve until the very end of practice. Instead she spends the first half-hour reviewing the team Code of Conduct. It’s something they go over every year, though he doesn’t ever remember it taking this long. It’s also strange that they’re doing this before Charlie starts instead of after. Not that he’ll need it.
“…applies to other members of the team as well,” Coach is saying. Some of the players exchange looks of confusion. “Teasing, harassing, or bullying anyone else on this team will absolutely not be tolerated under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
As the team nods in agreement, Harry looks at Nick with an expression that is puzzled, amused, and smug at the same time. What’s this about? Nick imagines him saying.
Nick shrugs in reply.
It’s not exactly a great start. On Monday, Harry and the others start complaining almost as soon as they enter the locker rooms. Charlie is too small, too weak, there’s no way he’ll be able to play…then Harry starts in about Charlie being gay and the rest of them laugh just as Charlie walks in the door. In the sudden, awkward silence, Nick tries to greet him as kindly as he can, but the damage has been done. Nick’s not sure who he’s more frustrated with: his friends or himself.
Charlie looks terrified. Nick has seen him make himself small and quiet before, but nothing compared to this. Nick instantly clears the space on the bench next to himself; that’s Charlie’s spot now and the others can deal with it. Charlie’s the reason they’re able to play at all. Nick thinks they’d do well to remember that.
The silence lingers, heavy and uncomfortable, until most of the boys leave the locker rooms. After checking that Charlie will be okay, Nick leaves and waits for him outside the door.
Out on the field, Harry says something to a bunch of guys, who start laughing again and looking back toward the locker rooms. For the first time, Nick starts to wonder if recruiting Charlie was a bad idea- not for the team’s sake, but for Charlie’s.
Then Charlie appears next to him wearing what must be the smallest team uniform Nick has ever seen. He seems slightly more relaxed now but he watches the others play while the two of them walk to an open end of the pitch.
“I know I was joking about being weak,” he says, before they’ve even had a chance to start. “But I’m definitely too weak for this.” He looks like he wants to run away.
“Uh, where is your ‘can do’ attitude?” Nick says, to lighten the air. He wants nothing more than to make Charlie feel safe with him. With them.
Charlie’s comeback is immediate and dry, “Oh she left. Long ago.”
“Just try,” Nick says. “Tackle me, I won’t dodge.”
Charlie still has that look like he’s going to run away any second.
“Come on,” Nick says, “I bet you can do it.”
Charlie winds back with a pinched expression like he’s about to throw up. When he runs, he picks up plenty of momentum, enough to hit Nick around the middle with more force than Nick was expecting. Both of them end up sprawled on the grass.
“That was perfect,” Nick says, and he means it.
“Was it?” Charlie says.
“Yeah!” Nick stands up to face him again. Charlie is still sitting on the ground when Nick says, “Now let’s try again while I’m actually moving.” There’s that pinched look again. It’s sort of adorable? “Come on,” Nick says.
Just before he stands up, Charlie mutters, “I’m going to die.” Nick pretends not to hear him.
Coach Singh is not wrong about Charlie getting in his own way. The vast majority of times he tries something and fails, it’s because he flinches away at the last second or is too scared to give it his all. He covers his nervousness with self-deprecating quips sometimes; other times Nick wonders if he’s actually going to vomit on the field.
The atmosphere in the locker rooms gets better with time, partially because Nick sees to it that the space on the bench next to him is always kept open for Charlie. That’s his spot now, and none of the boys complain.
In the first few days of practice, Nick talks basic strategy with Charlie while they’re getting changed, if only to fill the air with something. The chatter around them builds every day until it’s back to normal, but he keeps it up. It’s nice talking to Charlie. It’s…refreshing. He also likes to have something he can show off, as so far it’s been Charlie who’s good at everything.
And Charlie improves - quickly - as long as it’s just the two of them. One-on-one he learns fast and even seems to enjoy himself sometimes. In groups he falters a lot, but with time and practice and encouragement, he gets there. Nick is grateful for the applause that goes up the first time Charlie catches a pass. It’s a simple play, sure, but it matters to Charlie. Which means it matters to the team.
“It’s so weird being in the locker rooms with him there,” Nick hears Harry say one morning while they’re on the benches.
Nick sighs deeply and prepares to confront him, but before he can turn around, he hears Sai say, “Is it, though? I thought it would be, but he doesn’t… look at anyone, or anything like that. So…I think it’s fine.”
Nick, seething, doesn’t hear Harry’s reply. That’s something he’s noticed as well: while they’re getting changed, Charlie keeps his gaze resolutely on the floor or his bag. He won’t so much as look anyone in the face until they’re out on the field. It pisses Nick off that he feels like he has to do that. Guys look at each other all the time while they’re getting changed. It’d be weird to stare, but everyone looks at least sometimes. It’s normal. The fact that Charlie has to work so hard to make it obvious that he’s never looked at anyone is gross and hypocritical.
“He’s been fine, honestly,” one of the other guys says, and a few others agree. Nick swallows another flare of anger and starts a conversation with Imogen just to get away from them.
It’s the first day of February when Charlie first scores a try on him, one-to-one. It takes Nick completely by surprise, which it shouldn’t because Charlie’s running speed is the reason Nick invited him to join the team in the first place.
This time it’s Nick who lingers on the ground for a few moments. He chuckles a bit, but he’s absolutely gobsmacked. It has been a long time since someone scored a try on him during a one-to-one play. And here’s this tiny Year 10 who often complains that he’s too weak to survive a rugby match, totally outrunning him. It’s incredible. Charlie has no idea how amazing he is.
“Well done,” Nick says, and he means it. Charlie’s little laugh is the most adorable thing Nick has ever heard. It takes Nick longer than expected to catch his breath, and even when he does, he does not stop grinning for the rest of practice.
They’re the last ones to leave the locker rooms, which is not unusual. Nick noticed early on that Charlie tends to pack slowly and wait for most of the team to leave before he does. Nick doesn’t know why he does it, but he’s been trying to be one of the last to leave the locker room before Charlie, just to make sure he’s alright.
They’re still grinning at each other about Charlie’s impressive success on the field while they get changed, which gives Nick a small thrill because finally Charlie’s letting himself look at something other than the floor.
Nick turns to slip off his shirt, but when he turns back, Charlie’s looking down again, his demeanor completely different. He’s making himself small again, and he looks tense and upset. Nick looks around to see what could have happened, but everyone else is fully dressed and starting to leave.
It’s then that he notices Charlie looking at his phone. Charlie finishes changing quickly and in total silence. He leaves, still looking at his phone, without so much as a “Bye.”
It’s a weird thing to be alarmed by, Nick will admit later, but Charlie never fails to say “Hi” or “Bye” to him. Neither of them do. It’s sort of a thing they have.
Weirder still, he’s not walking toward the bus stop, instead heading directly to the music block. He’s looking down, his shoulders hunched, his steps fast and tense. Everything about him seems off.
Nick stands in the doorway for a moment, watching Charlie slip inside the building. Every instinct is telling him to follow, just to make sure things are okay. So he slowly approaches the music block and lets himself in as silently as possible. If it turns out that everything is fine and Nick is actually intruding on something private, he wants to be able to slip away unnoticed.
He hears a low murmur of voices - two of them, it sounds like? - upstairs. One of them is clearly Charlie, who sounds so angry that Nick immediately starts to climb the stairs. He pauses for a moment when he realizes the other voice is Ben.
“You’re friends with Ben?” Charlie had asked him, right after Ben snapped at him in the hallway and said “I don’t even know who you are.” Charlie looked so sad, so uncomfortable, and Nick just went with it because he didn’t know what else to do.
Nick reaches the top of the stairs just in time to hear Charlie say: “Don’t you think I of all people would understand you’re figuring out your sexuality?”
“Then why are you angry at me?” Ben says. Doesn’t Ben have a girlfriend?
And then Charlie starts shouting for real. Nick has never heard him like this, so angry and sad and clearly hurt. Private moment or not, Nick isn’t going anywhere until he knows Charlie is okay. He’ll risk getting caught for that.
Nick’s heart breaks when he hears Charlie say, “You don’t care about me at all.”
Ben’s reply sends a flood of adrenaline through Nick’s body. “Well it’s not like anyone else is gunna wanna go out with you, is it?”
The next moment is so quiet that Nick almost worries they’ll be able to hear his heartbeat. Then there’s a sigh, a soft thump, and a barely audible, “Stop it!” Then Nick doesn’t hear anything else because he is moving.
He barely notices himself set his bags off to one side, no longer cares if he makes noise running down the corridor toward the sound of two people doing something that one of them explicitly doesn’t want to do.
Nick latches his right hand onto the crook between Ben’s collar and his right shoulder, then yanks him backward as hard as he can. There’s a moment of struggle as Nick wraps his arms around Ben’s torso from behind, pinning his arms and pivoting them both so that Nick is between Ben and Charlie. Then Nick bodily flings Ben down the hall.
“He told you to stop,” Nick says, panting. He can hear Charlie moving behind him but does not remove his gaze from Ben’s. “Go on. Piss off.”
Ben looks terrified. Good. Panting, he backs away. Nick only turns around when he’s out of sight.
Charlie is rubbing his eyes. He drops his hands quickly and looks away, like he doesn’t want Nick to notice his tears. Like crying isn’t a completely reasonable reaction to what just happened.
“You okay?” Nick says. He’s still panting, but it’s more out of rage than exhaustion at this point.
Charlie looks down, then asks “Did you hear all of that?” with a voice so small that Nick wants to hug him.
“Most of it,” Nick says. He can’t remember being this angry before. “I just…you seemed kind of like something was up while we were getting changed so I…I wanted to check everything was okay.”
“Sorry,” Charlie says. Nick thinks maybe he should have punched Ben for good measure.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he replies. It doesn’t occur to him how angry he sounds until Charlie apologizes a second time.
Nick pauses, lets himself chuckle, then takes a slow breath to calm himself. “You say sorry a lot,” he says. Seeing Charlie’s reaction, he adds, “Don’t say it.”
“I kind of want to say it,” Charlie says, the ghost of a smile on his face.
Nick laughs. “Don’t.”
They share a smile and Nick has another urge to hug Charlie tightly and tell him everything’s going to be okay. It has never occurred to him until this moment exactly how much physical danger a guy like Charlie is in every day at school. He pats Charlie on the upper arm like he would with one of his rugby mates, then regrets it immediately when Charlie looks down at his shoulder. Touching is probably the last thing he wants right now.
“We should get out,” Nick says, starting to walk away. “We’ll get locked in if we stay here much longer.” It’s an obvious lie, but it gets them both moving.
They’re silent again as they walk to the front of the school, but it’s the easy, companionable silence that is familiar to both of them.
“I’m going this way,” Charlie says, pointing to the bus stop.
Nick, both amazed and heartbroken that Charlie is so calm about all this, just replies, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m that way.” Too late, it occurs to him that maybe he should’ve asked his mum to give Charlie a ride home.
“Nick?”
“What?” Right. Mum had asked him about practice. “Yeah,” he says instead of I had to save someone from sexual assault about 10 minutes ago. “It was normal,” he says instead of Would it be weird to volunteer as a personal body guard to another student?
“Okay,” mum says, moments before Nick’s phone beeps.
He checks it to see a message from none other than Charlie Spring.
Thank you x
Nick looks out the window as he smiles, a soft warm glow filling him from the inside.