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It’s a warm summer afternoon. Colin pushes himself forward through the cool water of his pool. He reaches the end of the pool, pushes himself off the wall with his feet and moves himself toward the other end. Michael watches him as he swims by.
They’re nearing the end of the summer stop after the first season with Roy as Richmond’s head coach. After the fantastic season they had last year, they all had to adjust to Ted’s absence, so the start of the season was a bit shaky, but after that they all found their rhythm together and they ended with a very respectable fifth place. For Colin, it had been his first season as an openly gay player. It was hard, having to endure invasive questions from the press and constant harassment from people in the stands and players from opposing teams. Still, it was worth it not having to hide anymore, especially since he can say without a single doubt that he’s played his best season yet. He’s let himself enjoy his summer, spending as much time with his family as possible and going on a long vacation with Michael.
It has been a few weeks since they’ve last seen each other, due to the intense pre-season training schedule Roy has created for Colin, and Michael’s job, which has kept him occupied pretty much 24/7. Overall, it has been a busy summer, and Colin was over the moon when they both magically had nothing planned this weekend so they could spend it together at Colin’s house.
So far, they’ve spent most of their time within the walls of Colin’s bedroom, but when Michael suggested they go for a swim together late in the afternoon, Colin happily obliged. Now, Colin is on his final laps, and Michael’s left the pool some time ago. He’s finished the book he was reading and is now just sitting on the edge, his feet in the water, watching Colin as he swims by.
“My god, do you ever get tired? That’s, what, 80 laps?”
“82.”
“No one should have that much stamina. Seems unhealthy.” Michael says, eyes on Colin as he swims past.
Colin raises an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t hear you complaining about my stamina last night.”
Michael laughs. “Oh, I’m not complaining. Wouldn’t dare. Just wish there was something for me to do here.”
“You know, you don’t have to wait for me to be done,” Colin says, turning around at the edge of the pool, “You can go do something else if you want to.”
“No, that’s okay.” Michael leans backward and looks at Colin. “I have a good view.”
When Colin swims past him again, he pulls down his swimming trunks to just below his arse, and winks at him. Michael grins and splashes some water in his face.
“What if I get you one of those big inflatable donuts for your birthday? Or maybe a slide? Would really liven up the place, I think.”
Colin reaches the end of the pool again and pushes himself against the wall to turn around.
“Sounds great. Maybe a diving board?” He suggests. “Will be fun for when my sister has kids.”
“You think that’ll be soon?”
“Probably, yeah. I mean, she’s getting married soon, and she’s always wanted to be a mum, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s pregnant by the end of next year.”
“That’s crazy.” Michael says. Colin looks at him. Michael gives him a fond glance before looking away to where his legs go into the water, his smile fading slightly.
“Alright, I think 86 laps is enough. What do you think?” Colin swims over to the side of the pool, resting his arms next to Michael, looking up at him.
“Couldn’t even do 90? That’s a little disappointing.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll do a hundred.”
“Show off.” Michael says with a laugh, before bending forward to kiss Colin.
“Are you hungry yet?” Colin asks.
“Sure.” Michael says. Colin hoists himself out the water, grabbing a towel and drying himself off. He looks at Michael, who takes his legs out of the water. Colin hands him his towel so he can dry his feet. There’s a light frown on Michael’s face that’s been there for most of the weekend. He’s been distracted, quieter than usual, Colin has noticed. There’s something on his mind, clearly. Colin has been doubting if he should ask what’s wrong, but he hasn’t; part of him knows Michael well enough to trust that if he would tell him if he wanted to, and another part of him is a little worried about what might be going on.
For now, Colin lets it go. He puts his clothes back on, dries his hair one last time, and moves over to where Michael is waiting for him to press a kiss on his lips.
“Dinner?”
They decide they both don’t feel like cooking and since they were already sort of having a cheat day anyways, they might as well order food. They settle on Colin’s sofa without saying much. Colin lies down on his back, staring at the ceiling, while Michael scrolls through the restaurants and fast-food places on his phone.
“I told you I went out for a drink with Isaac on Wednesday, right?” Colin asks.
“Yes?”
“He told me he’d gotten a transfer offer over the summer. Wasn’t allowed to tell me what club, but one outside England.”
“Oh. Wow.” Michael is quiet for a moment, and Colin looks at him. He stops scrolling and looks away from his phone, meeting Colin’s eyes. “Is he going to do it?”
“Probably not. But he told me he’s really considered it. Sat down with his agent and everything.” Colin cringes slightly as he thinks back on the conversation; it had not been an easy one. Of course, Colin will always support Isaac and his career, but Jesus, what would Richmond be without him? “Apparently, they couldn’t give into Isaac’s demands, so looks like the deal’s off. He said he didn’t really want to move out of England, anyways.”
Colin looks at Michael, and sees something shift behind his eyes. He looks away and nods.
“Well, that’s good that he’s staying. You must be happy with that.”
“I am. The team would fall apart without him. And so would I.” Colin smiles, and Michael gives him a hesitant smile back.
“Sushi?” He asks.
“Sounds good, yeah.” Colin says. He watches Michael as he taps on his phone. The frown has reappeared. He hands his phone to Colin, who scrolls through the menu and chooses a few things without thinking too much about it. He hands Michael his phone back, who pays for the food.
“Would you ever move out of London?” He puts his phone down and looks at Colin.
“Nah, not anytime soon.”
“What if you got a transfer offer, like Isaac? A really good one? Would you move away?” Michael moves on the sofa, until he’s lying against Colin. Colin wraps his arms around him.
“I don’t think that will happen for me.”
“Why not? You’ve just played your best season yet!”
“There’s a lot that comes into play with these transfers and I’m a bit of a …controversial pick, I suppose. No one wants the gay player to mess up the locker room dynamic.”
“Oh. Right.” Michael says. “Well, that’s bullshit. Any club would be lucky to have you.”
“I know.” Colin says with a smile. He doesn’t like to dwell on it too much; it is what it is. “I’m fine with it. Honestly. I’m happy playing for Richmond. I always imagined I’d spend the last few years of my career back at Cardiff, but I would be happy to stay here until I retire.”
“And after that? I mean, that’s, what, maybe ten years from now?”
“If I’m lucky.”
“What do you want to do after that? You’ve still got a whole life left.”
Colin shrugs. All his life has been so intensely focused on his football career; he’s barely spent time thinking about what comes after.
“Rest a bit. Move back to Wales. Spend time with my family. Be with you, without all the complicated…” Colin’s voice trails off while he vaguely gestures in the air, “You know. Go on vacation, I don’t know.”
“That sounds nice.”
“What about you, would you ever move out of London?” For a second, Michael tenses against Colin. He shrugs. Colin adds: “Would you want to move to Wales with me?”
He does not answer Colin’s question, really, but says: “Wales sounds nice.”
Colin moves his arms over Michael’s back and presses a light kiss on his head. He decides it’s time he should ask Michael what’s on his mind, but Michael is ahead of him with his own question.
“Do you want kids?”
“Oh, ah- I…” Colin says, startled by the sudden question. “I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to be a dad. Honestly. But I just don’t think it… fits. Having kids. In my life.”
“Why not?”
“I mean, obviously, it’s a bit more complicated for gay people to have children. Until a little over a year ago I thought I’d be closeted forever, and I also never thought I’d even have someone to have kids with, so, yeah. I’ve always liked kids, but I’ve had to accept that it’s not for me a very long time ago.”
“Well, things are different now.”
“I know. Yeah, maybe… Maybe I do want kids.” Colin says carefully. It’s not something he’s ever allowed himself to want, but Michael is right. Things are different now. “Alright, so you do want kids, then?” Colin asks, and Michael blushes.
“Well, I don’t know. I never really wanted kids, but… well- I think it would be nice. With you. I think you’d be a great dad.” Colin smiles. Out of Michael’s mouth, it feels like a massive compliment.
“I… This is stupid, but I’ve been thinking about it sometimes. Just, what that would be like, and all that.”
“Really?” Colin looks at him, slightly surprised.
“Yes. Maybe we could use a surrogate. We have to use your sperm, though, we need your athlete genes. We could do a whole nepotism thing. One of our kids can be a footballer, like you, and then we’ll have one that goes on Love Island one day, so it can be dramatically revealed that their dad used to be a famous footballer. And if we have more kids, they can just do whatever they want and be famous for that.” Colin laughs, surprised at just how much thought Michael has apparently given it and the ridiculous future he’s imagined.
“You know I’m not David Beckham, right?”
“To me, you are.” Michael says, which makes Colin roll his eyes. “Seriously! Besides, I’ve always really identified with Posh Spice. Actually, I’ve always thought that she was the reason it took me so long to realise I was gay. I was obsessed with her, and I figured it must be a crush. Thought she was so glamorous.” Michael says, and Colin looks back at him with a blank stare.
“Oh, please don’t tell me you’ve never been a Spice Girls fan.” Michael says in shock. He fully sits up now, and Colin shrugs.
“I don’t know why you’re surprised. You know all I did was play football.”
“You have an older sister!” Michael cries out, “Surely she liked them, at least.”
“I don’t really remember, actually,” Colin says, grabbing his phone, “Hold on, I’ll ask.”
“I was obsessed with them. Used to put on performances with my cousins. I was always Posh Spice.”
“Which one would I be?” Colin asks, opening the text chain with his sister and typing out a message.
“Well, Sporty Spice, obviously. Although you’ve got a bit of Baby Spice in you as well, I’d say.” Michael says. “Hold on.” He gets up and walks over to the stereo, connecting his phone. The first few notes of Spice fill Colin’s living room.
“Best album ever. God, I miss them.” He says as he starts to dance. “I still remember the choreography, I think.” Michael says as he really starts performing Wannabe. He looks ridiculous; but to his credit, he actually does still know the choreography pretty well. Colin’s phone buzzes.
“Hold on, it’s Sophie,” He says, reading his sister’s text, “She says not really, but that she loved Atomic Kitten.”
“Tell her she has no taste!” Michael answers, still dancing.
“Alright,” Colin says, before typing out Michael says you have no taste. It only takes a few seconds before she answers: a selfie of her promptly holding up her middle finger to the camera. When he turns his phone around to show Michael, he dramatically gasps, losing his balance right in the middle of a very ungraceful pirouette.
“How rude! Tell her I won’t come to her wedding now.”
Colin grins and starts typing. Michael is one of only few boyfriends he’s taken to meet his family, and he’s by far Sophie’s favourite. They’ve gotten really close over the past year. Not long after he’s sent the message, she responds.
“She says it’s okay and you’re uninvited anyways.”
“Her loss!” Michael says, twerking while Wannabe still blasts through their speakers. Colin is in absolute stitches watching him while he performs almost the entire album, cheering and clapping along until the doorbell rings. Colin goes to open the door and gets a very strange look from the delivery person. He figures he must be quite a ridiculous sight; there are still tears in his eyes from laughing so hard, and Mama is now blasting through the entire house, but as he hands Colin his sushi, the poor guy says he’s a big Richmond fan and wishes him good luck on the next season. When Colin gets back to the living room he tells the story to Michael, who thinks the story is absolutely hilarious.
“It was so awkward. I didn’t know what to say, so I just gave him a massive tip.”
“And a great story to tell his friends.” Michael says, still laughing. “Wine?”
They sit at the table much longer than it takes them to eat their dinner. They talk about Colin’s sister and her upcoming wedding, how much they enjoyed spending time with her over the summer, how Colin was always nervous around her previous boyfriends but how her now-fiancé feels almost like a second sibling. They talk about Michael’s family, how he hasn’t seen them in almost half a year and he knows he should visit again soon, but how he’s also been dreading it. Colin makes his predictions for the upcoming football season, and Michael does too, just for fun, even if he’s most definitely going to be wrong. They talk about Michael’s friends, Colin’s teammates, what TV shows they’ve been watching and everything else that’s been happening over the summer. Not much seems to be left from Michael’s strange mood earlier, but still, Colin feels like there’s something Michael’s not telling him.
It slowly gets dark outside, the bottle of wine they’re drinking empties, and their conversation slowly dies down until Michael asks, seemingly out of nowhere:
“Do you want to get married?”
Colin looks at him, surprised.
“If this is your way of proposing to me, it’s not very romantic.”
“No, dear God, no, I’m not proposing to you. What am I, a child bride? No, I meant if you want to get married one day. In the future.”
Colin laughs at how Michael scrambles.
“Yes, I think I’d like that,” He says, and then adds: “I’d like to get married to you.”
Colin feels himself blush, and he watches Michael’s smile grow.
“I’d like that too.” He answers.
“How far away in the future are we talking?”
“Two, three years?”
“Sounds good, yeah. I can do that.” Colin smiles, and Michael stares at the empty wine glass in front of him. His smile fades, and. the frown settles on his face again, and Colin decides: enough is enough.
“Are you alright?” Colin asks carefully. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Michael laughs softly and takes a deep breath, looking away. “I, er… I got laid off at work last week.”
“What?” Colin says. “Oh my god, Michael, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s fine, honestly. It’s okay. Big companies often prefer switching up managements once every few years, and there had been some rumours going around they were interviewing new people, so I sort of saw it coming. They told me last week.”
“That’s rubbish. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well… When they told me, they offered me a new job. In our New York office.”
“Oh,” Colin says, sobering up immediately. “Wow, ah… congratulations.”
“I think I needed to think about it by myself for a few days before telling you. I… there’s a lot going on in my head.”
“I can imagine.” Colin says.
“I haven’t made my decision yet.” Michael looks away. Colin lets his news sink in for a moment. Due to the nature of both of their jobs, he’s always taken into account that something like this might one day happen. He knows that their relationship could survive anything at this point, but still… this is shit.
Michael takes a deep sigh. “This whole situation has given me a bit of a quarter-life crisis. It’s been weird.”
“How so?” Colin asks.
“Well, if I’d been offered this job five years ago, I would have taken it immediately. And now… it’s been such a tough decision. The idea of living in New York doesn’t really excite me, at all. But it used to be such a dream of mine. And it’s really hard to let that go.” He frowns. “Or… not to let go, but to accept that it might not be my dream anymore.”
Colin nods slowly.
“But on the other hand, there is definitely an appeal in getting to stay at the same company and not having to look for a new job. I mean, jobhunting is awful, and I’ve got a house to pay for, and everything is so expensive now, so being unemployed would be… not ideal. But…” He takes a deep sigh and rubs his face.
“Anyways, it’s been a lot. It’s made me think a lot about the future, and what I want. What it would look like… a future here, with you. That’s why I’ve been asking you all these questions today.”
“Ah, well. That makes sense.” He thinks for a second. “Whatever you choose, we’ll be fine, you know that, right?” He says, and Michael is quiet for a moment, slowly nodding.
“I know. I do. I just feel…” He squeezes his eyes shut, and Colin can’t help but notice how tired he suddenly looks. “Actually, I don’t really know how I feel. It’s just a lot.” He says, getting up from his chair and taking their plates and glasses.
Colin watches Michael as he walks away into the kitchen. The light is dim. In his stomach, there is still a vague ache from laughing so much earlier. He does not want to lose this, ever. He walks up to Michael and hugs him from behind, tightly wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his head on Michael’s shoulder. Michael smells like wine and the chlorine from Colin’s pool. They stand there for a while, before Colin moves his mouth to Michael’s ear.
“I love you,” He says softly.
“I love you too.”
“You are my future.” He says, barely a whisper, so quietly that for a second, he thinks that maybe Michael hasn’t heard him. But Michael turns around and looks at him, his eyes full of tenderness.
“I hope I haven’t made things more difficult for you.” Colin says.
“You haven’t.”
Michael closes the gap between them and kisses Colin. Softly, gently at first, but Michael soon deepens the kiss. They stand there for a while, their kisses slowly getting more desperate. Colin uses one hand to touch Michael’s face, and the other to grab his hair and pull on it slightly. Michael moves his hands from Colin’s shoulder blades to the small of his back, pulling their hips closer together.
“Bed?” Michael asks softly. Colin pulls back a bit further, grin on his face.
“Haven’t we spent enough time in bed already?” He teases, and Michael looks back at him with fake shock on his face.
“Never! How dare you.” He says, and Colin laughs and kisses him again. Michael grabs Colin’s t-shirt and moves his hands underneath the fabric, and Colin hears him let out a soft moan.
“I need a bit of distraction,” He says against Colin’s lips, “Please.” And Colin just picks him up and takes him to his bedroom.
They fuck slow and deep, until they’re tired and content. Not until after, when Colin’s head is resting on Michael’s chest, Michael brings up New York again.
“I don’t want to go to New York,” He says softly, “I want to stay here. With you. But that feels, objectively, like a stupid decision.”
“I want you to stay too,” Colin says honestly, “I do. But you don’t have to do it for me.”
“No, I know I don’t have to. But I want to, and that scares me.” Michael lets out a groan. “God, why is it so hard for me to follow my heart just once? My stupid fucking brain… I wish I could just stop thinking.” He hides his face in his elbow.
“You know, I meant everything we talked about tonight.” Colin says carefully. “I want to get married, and live with you, and maybe have a family with a bunch of weird kids who think they're famous, I want all that. And I think we’ll have that regardless of anything that might happen, but if you feel like staying here is a stupid decision because you’re worried we’ll break up and you’ll have thrown away a big opportunity for nothing… I won’t let that happen. We’re never breaking up.”
“That’s good to know.” Michael laughs, wiping his eyes. “Well, looks like I’m going to be unemployed. I guess I have to start thinking about how I’m going to tell my boss.”
“You can blame me, if that makes it easier.”
“Oh, I definitely will. If you get a very threatening call sometime next week, I’m sorry.”
They both laugh. Colin feels an immense amount of relief, and he thinks about how he wishes he could spend the rest of eternity here, tired and happy. It’s such an intense feeling that nothing has ever felt more real or true: he would give up everything to stay here, forever, until the sun has blown up and the earth and everything on it has turned to dust. He really would.
“I love you.” Colin smiles.
“Love you too.”
“Do you want to move in together?” Colin surprises himself with that. It just slips out. But he doesn’t want to take it back; not at all. “I’m actually asking. Not a future thing.” Colin clarifies, and Michael laughs. “Sorry, I know this might not be the best timing, but-”
“Yes.” Michael interrupts him. “Are you serious? Yes, I want to live with you. I want that now.”
“Are you sure?” Colin asks. “You don’t have to decide now.”
“I’m sure.” Michael says. He sits up a bit, and Colin lifts his head from his chest. “You know how I said earlier that New York doesn’t excite me, well… this does. This is what I want.”
Colin kisses him. “Tidy. It’s what I want, too.”
“When can I move in?” Michael says. They both laugh.
“Do you really want to live here?”
“Honestly, I don’t really care. I’m not too attached to my house. I’d make a few changes in your interior, maybe, but other than that I’d love to live here.”
“You can change anything you want.” Colin says.
“Let’s move your pool table to the garage.”
“You can change almost anything you want.”
Michael laughs, and so does Colin. They don’t leave the bed until the next morning, but they spend almost the entire night discussing what living together is going to look like. Eventually, Michael falls asleep, his arms wrapped around Colin. And as Michael’s soft snores fill the room, Colin realises: this is it. Their future. Together.
He can’t wait.