Chapter 4

Nathaniel startles when Callum steps up to him. 

“Oh—Christ!” he chokes out, fumbling with his water bottle before he drops it. Callum’s hand shoots out and grabs it before it can hit the ground. He offers the younger man a lopsided, easy grin while he hands it back to him. 

“Y’know, it doesn’t do much good to haul one of these around if you’re always dropping it,” he teases. Nathaniel flushes bright pink before he looks away, his hands squeezing at the water bottle. 

“Y-Yeah, no, it doesn’t,” he whispers. Callum reaches and ruffles the kitman’s fluffy, messy red curls affectionately. Poor kid. He’ll lay off on teasing him when his reactions stop being funny. Or when his freckles stop popping the way they do when he blushes. Or when his bright green eyes stop going all wide and starry anytime he gets any sort of attention from any of the players, even when they’re just teasing him. 

“Think you can give me a hand, Nathaniel?” Callum asks, gesturing to his bag. It’s still sitting on the pavement next to a few other bags. “If you can make sure mine is put in toward the end? When we get back to the training centre, I want to get home as quickly as I can,” he explains. The lad blinks up at him for a moment before he nods, his curls bouncing with the eager motion.

“Y-Yeah! Of course, no, I can do that, Callum,” he agrees. 

“Sweet of you, Nathaniel. Remind me the next time you tag along on a pub crawl to pick up your tab,” Callum says. The kitman stammers for a moment, that flush only worsening. 

“Oh—um, n-no, that’s not… Y-You don’t have to, Callum. Honest!” Nathaniel insists. Callum tilts his head to the side before he clicks his tongue in mock disapproval. 

“Mate. You’re still so green, aren’t you? If a player is trying to get preferential treatment from you, you have to try to get something in return. Some players will walk all over you otherwise,” he explains. “Next time you go clubbing with us, your drinks are on me. Alright?” he asks. 

“A-Alright,” Nathaniel echoes, his face nearly the same color as his hair. Callum pats him lightly on the back before he hurries onto the coach. Coach Willis is already sitting at the front, chatting quietly with the driver, Kendall. The balding man pauses long enough to give Callum a slight nod of approval before he tilts his head toward the window. When Callum follows the movement, he ends up staring at Nathaniel while he carefully organises the bags in the storage compartment. 

“Good of you to look out for the kid. You did well on the pitch, too. The footwork before your assist was clean,” he comments. He turns back to Kendall. Callum grins with pride before he continues toward the back of the coach where he likes to sit. Isaac insists it’s more fun the further back they sit. Callum’s pretty sure he just means it’s louder. He drops down into a window seat before he gets his earbuds out of their small charging case. There are still a few minutes left before they have to leave, so he opens his phone and finds his favorite playlist for long rides. He settles in while the latest release from his favorite punk-rock band starts. Isaac crams himself into the seat beside him in the middle of the third-best bass solo Callum’s ever heard. He pauses the song before he plucks an earbud out. 

“Yeah? Coach Willis starting up the headcount yet?” Callum asks, peeking up over the back of the seat. The coach is nearly full. He can tell just from a glance that they’re missing Matthijs and Richard Farrow, their best French attacker. Richard is also their only French attacker,  but everyone is polite enough not to remind him of that when he refers to himself as their best French attacker. 

“Matthijs is almost never late. He’s annoyingly punctual, bruv. D’ya think Richard’s insistence on being fashionably late is finally rubbing off on him?” Isaac asks. Callum just shrugs. Matthijs’s head appears above a small crowd of people who are exiting the lobby at the same time as him. He walks to the coach at a completely normal pace, his long stride eating up the distance with no issue before he has to duck just to climb up the steps of it. 

“Richard is coming,” Matthijs states. He offers no other explanation outside of that. He moves to his usual spot behind Callum and Isaac, squeezing by Peter with a rather quiet “Excuse me” before he sits down with grace his too-long limbs should not have. 

“... Where the fuck is he, Matthijs?” Isaac asks, twisting around in his seat to look at the man. Matthijs shrugs.

“Lobby. There was a woman,” he supplies, popping his oversized headphones on before he opens his latest paperback. 

“Ah, the Matthijs version of saying ‘fuck off, please’,” Peter muses, tapping the back of Isaac’s seat. “There’s always a woman, isn’t there? Richard just meets women everywhere he goes,” he comments. Isaac gives his eyes a roll. 

“That’s because Richard does all those fashion shoots with the models. He’s probably ‘networking’, or some shite like that,” he says. Callum hums noncommittally before he glues his face to the window. His eyes scan the veritable sea of people who exit and enter the hotel in turn. 

“That loud prick has twenty seconds to get his hairy arse on this coach, or he’s going to have to get a rideshare home!” Roman shouts. Everyone oooohs collectively at that. Callum suddenly reaches up and tugs the window down before he leans his head out of it. 

“Oi! Richard! You’re going to have to thumb a ride home!” Callum calls, catching sight of familiar dark curls. Richard bursts out from a cluster of people. He makes it onto the coach by the skin of his teeth. He pants for a moment, his phone in hand, then he looks up and grins before he lifts it triumphantly.

“I have a date on Friday!” Richard exclaims. Everyone cheers, players teasing him and clapping him on the back while he makes his way toward the back. “She models professionally in Paris, we’re from the same part of the countryside, and she is happy to find someone else who’s a sommelier! She wants to tour my wine cellar,” he rambles, sitting down in the empty spot in front of Callum and Isaac. 

“Is that a euphemism, or did she mean it more literally?” Peter asks, one brow arching. Richard frowns in confusion. 

“What could it be a euphemism for?” he asks. Callum snorts before he shrugs, feigning innocence.

“Dunno, mate. Could mean anything. Maybe she just wants to check what’s down below, eh?” he muses. Isaac swats at him. 

“Oi. I don’t want any mental images of anyone checking out Richard’s ‘cellar’, bruv,” he grunts. Callum bursts out laughing when Richard’s hazel eyes widen, his face paling a bit from whatever conclusion he reaches at those words. Callum puts his earbuds back in before the chatter starts anew. He leans against the cool glass of the window so he can watch Manchester fly by. He makes it to the third song on the new album before he slips into a light, dreamless sleep, nestled between the occasional jostling of the coach and the comforting presence of his best mates...