Lucky Page 3

  A label I couldn’t see myself shaking anytime soon. Still. Even without the cash burning a hole in Jamila’s mattress, and my dick rock hard with the memory of what had put it there, a different itch in my blood wouldn’t quit. I shut down Grindr and finished my cereal, washed up my bowl and put it back in the cupboard, crawled back into bed with Jamila, and set my alarm to wake me up an hour before her mum came home.

  Then I swallowed my last Valium and knocked the fuck out.

  Dom

  The dull thud of leather on leather was giving me a fucking migraine. Late nights and early mornings didn’t fit a full training schedule, but I didn’t have time for a pity party as I ran sprint drills with my teammates under the hawkish glare of Fernando—the head coach from hell.

  Half an hour later, my training group took our turn on the football pitch, honing ball control and skill enhancements, and despite the company of my long-time training partner, Maldano, I was bored out of my tiny mind. Football had been my life for as long as I could remember—the only thing in the world I was actually good at—but any passion I’d had for it was long gone, drowning in the monotony of testosterone-fuelled bullshit, fag jokes, and casual misogyny. I was so over this crap.

  Maldano slapped my back. “Time’s up, Dom. Let’s get naked.”

  “Twat.”

  He danced away to give someone else the benefit of his juvenile humour, and I hit the showers. Nude men in peak condition surrounded me, but I ignored them and stuck close to my locker, dressing quickly with my head down.

  Out of habit, I glanced at my phone, but didn’t dare open Grindr until I was safely in my car, loitering behind the blacked-out windows.

  Another habit—a new one—took me straight to Lucky’s profile, but he hadn’t been online since the night before, and nothing about his profile had changed. The subtle pound sign in his username remained and there was every chance he was hooking up with someone right now—

  Stop it.

  I knocked my fist against my forehead, like I had done so many times since I’d slunk home from Dalston a week ago. Since I’d realised my usual cure for the beast that kept me awake at night had failed spectacularly.

  Yeah, that’s right. It wasn’t enough that I’d spent the last decade burying myself in a black hole of self-loathing so deep I couldn’t see how I’d ever climb out, now my antidote to the crippling pain was broken. Gone. If anything, hooking up with Lucky had widened the crater.

  I need to touch him again.

  For fuck’s sake STOP!

  At this point, punching myself in the face seemed my only option, but with my entire body aching from a full-on training day, I settled for starting my car and leaving the club grounds, keeping my cap low as I passed the usual clutch of paparazzi hanging around the gates. I wasn’t one of their favourite players to stalk—too fucking boring—but they’d still stick their cameras in my face if they saw me looking, and I wasn’t in the mood for that shit today.

  My mind still on Lucky, I made the short drive from the club to my Greenwich flat. Some days after training, I hit the gym, but not today, ’cause I wasn’t in the mood for that either.

  At home, I dodged the doorman and slipped into the lift, keeping my head down until I was through my front door, but even then, I wasn’t safe. My housekeeper, used to me being gone most of the day, was still in the apartment, scouring a kitchen I rarely used.

  “Constance, you don’t have to do that.” I dropped my keys on the counter. “I didn’t even know that shelf belonged in the oven.”

  Constance carried on scrubbing. “It’s on the list, Mr. Ramos. I’ll get into trouble if it’s not done.”

  “Not with me.”

  “Not today maybe, but you wouldn’t like to open a dusty oven.”

  The chances of me noticing were less than zero, but I left Constance a tip, and let her finish her work in peace. Of all the housekeepers who’d passed through this particular building, she was the only one I entirely trusted not to root through my stuff. How many times had I come home to find something private not quite where I’d left it?

  Too many to count.

  Paranoia licked at me and my phone felt like an unexploded bomb in my pocket. I changed the passcode every week, cleared my history every couple of hours, but the fear of someone getting their hands on my phone scared the life out of me.

  I locked myself in the bathroom and sank to the floor with my back to the door. My thumb hovered over the Grindr app—buried deep in a folder of game apps—torn between deleting it for the tenth time this month alone, or opening it up and following through on the fantasy I’d carried since I’d left Lucky in that grimy flat: the one where I pinged him with a request, he came back with a price, and a few hours later he had my cock in his mouth again.

  On cue, my jeans were suddenly too tight. I loosened them, but didn’t touch myself. Hadn’t since that night with Lucky. But no matter how hard—heh—I tried to ignore the heat sluicing through me, I just couldn’t do it. I deleted the Grindr app and reinstalled it ten seconds later, praying no one ever hacked into my Apple account and saw my daily homo-seesaw struggles. One download from years ago could be bluffed out, but five times a week? I was so fucked up.

  I tapped on Lucky’s profile and clicked through to our message thread. He still hadn’t been online today, but I was growing used to just missing him. It was like he knew when I’d given up and hidden my phone under my pillow…like he didn’t want to cross my path again.

  Common sense said I was being fucking dramatic, and my treacherous imagination recalled the ragged sounds he’d made as he’d spilled in my mouth. You couldn’t fake that shit, right? He’d come hard, and behind his insolent stare, had seemed as wrecked as me. Besides, even dick blind, I hadn’t missed how he’d looked at my money—like it was the only thing between him and the end of the world. Even if he didn’t want to see me again, I was pretty sure my wallet could persuade him.

  Don’t be an arsehole.

  I came back into myself with a start, and the creeping burn of shame began to corrupt the tickle of arousal buzzing in my veins. Sucking in a shaky breath, I stared at the pouty selfie Lucky had sent me before we’d hooked up, at his soft lips and young face. I—

  My phone buzzed in my hand. Startled, I nearly dropped it, and it took me a moment to realise it had come from Grindr—that it was the vibrating alert I’d been waiting on for seven long days.

  I gazed down at the screen. A grinning emoji winked back at me, accompanied by two little words that set my world on fire.

  LCK£_98: how’s tricks?

  Four

  Lucky

  LCK£_98: how’s tricks?

  Perignon55: gud. u?

  LCK£_98: same old shit. did u wanna hook up again?

  I regretted the bluntness as soon as the message hurtled off into the stratosphere, but I couldn’t take it back so settled for chewing my nails down to the cuticle instead, a tic I could usually ignore when I was floating down from a Valium buzz.

  Dom didn’t reply straight away. I stared at my phone for as long as my poor nails could take, and then got up and left the greasy spoon I’d been nursing a cup of tea in for most of the day. On my way out, the owner stopped me—a moody Polish bloke I’d thought was hot until I’d met Dom.

  “You can’t come back tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t mind you hanging out when the weather’s bad, but if I let you in every day, I’ll have to let everyone else in who’s got nowhere else to go.”

  I accepted the dismissal with a shrug and moved on. Rumour had it the cafe was changing hands in a few weeks anyway, and I’d been scuzzing it around the city for long enough to know that the sexy Polish dude and his easy-going grandfather were rarities.

  Lacking any better ideas, I got on a bus and rode it back to Dalston, leaving Vauxhall behind. There was a bookshop in Stoke Newington that let people sit down and read. Perhaps I’d do that.

  I was half-asleep when Dom finally returned my message.

&nb
sp; Rubbing my eyes, I stared at his response, and blinked awake as it sank in.

  Perignon55: yea

  LCK£_98: when?

  Perignon55: tonight work for u?

  I licked my lips. Tonight would be near on impossible. It was Friday night—Simone used her flat at weekends, and Jamila’s mum was home too, meaning I had nowhere to clean up before letting Dom anywhere near me.

  LCK£_98: i’m free but can’t accom, can u?

  Another long silence stretched out, and I’d used Grindr enough to know what it likely meant: that Dom’s end of things was as impossible as mine, but for very different reasons. He couldn’t accommodate me because he had a whole world to hide from. Wife, kids…who the hell knew?

  Me? No one cared what I did and I had no life to protect, but that had inconveniences all of its own. I had no home to invite him to, and no means to rent a room for the night. Unless he fancied a quickie in an alley, no one was getting any dick tonight.

  Or, at least, I wasn’t getting his. It wasn’t like I could be sure I was his first choice.

  Or even his second.

  Perignon55: can u get to shoreditch

  LCK£_98: maybe. what u thinking?

  I expected another long silence, but Dom pinged me straight back as I was getting off the bus.

  Perignon55: hotel. i can get a room

  My pulse quickened and my fingers flew over my phone screen.

  LCK£_98: that could work. u want same as last time?

  Perignon55: that okay?

  LCK£_98: yea. let me know deets

  Perignon55: talk later

  He went offline, and I went into fucking meltdown. Even if he came back to me with a late-night meet, I still had no way of making myself presentable before Jamila’s mum went back to work tomorrow evening, and a glance in a nearby car window confirmed that I looked like absolute shit.

  Panic lancing my chest, I called Jamila. “I need your help.”

  “Of course you do,” she said when she replied on the second ring. “But you won’t take it when I give it to you, so why do we have to play this game all the time?”

  “It’s not a game,” I said. “And I’m not talking about borrowing a tin of beans for my dinner. I’ve, uh, got a date.”

  “A date.”

  It wasn’t a question, she knew me well enough to see through me, but I rushed to perpetuate the bullshit anyway. “Yeah. I’m seeing someone.”

  “You’re seeing someone from Grindr for cash, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Same guy as last time. He wants to hook up again.”

  “For the same stuff? Or does he want more?”

  “The same. I checked before I agreed.”

  The sound of running water trickled down the phone, and Jamila closed a door wherever she was. “So what do you need my help for?”

  “I need a shower and to wash my clothes. He wants to meet at a hotel, but I’m a mess, J. I can’t show up like this.”

  “Thought you said it was the same as last time?”

  “It is.”

  “But it’s at a hotel.”

  “So? How’s that worse than a skanky flat up the road?”

  Jamila had no sensible answer to that and agreed to smuggle me into her flat to use her bathroom, which luckily wasn’t too hard as her mum took sleeping tablets on her days off.

  “I still think you’re nuts.” She stood in front of me, holding out a clean towel.

  “No, you don’t,” I whispered back. “You know why I’m doing this—I need the money.”

  “So sell ten-bags then, like you used to.”

  “Ten-bags? You got any idea how many of those I’d have to shift to make the kind of money I can get from this bloke in one night? Besides, shifting bubble is just as risky these days. The old bill is all over that shit.”

  “Getting nicked isn’t the same as some douchebag trick murdering you.”

  “Dom’s not a douchebag.”

  “Dom?”

  Fuck.

  “…if you use it against me, I’ll kill you.”

  “Um—yeah, that’s what I call him. Don’t know his real name, though.”

  “Super.” Jamila reached for a comb and started to pick the knots out of my straggly, damp hair. “So you don’t know who he is, just that he likes to pay younger men to get him off.”

  “I’m not that much younger than him, actually. I reckon he’s about twenty-seven, maybe? It’s hard to tell.”

  “Well that’s something, I suppose.”

  “Why? Are older men more likely to be murderous?”

  “Shut up.” Jamila shoved my head forward. “Just don’t get killed, okay?”

  Dom

  I paced my apartment, watching the clock, my stomach churning with equal parts terror and exhilarating anticipation. Seriously? Fake names and prepaid credit cards? It couldn’t get any more tragically ridiculous, but still, I did it anyway—had to—before the yearning in my gut drove me off a cliff.

  That or I died a slow death staring at my phone, willing it to vibrate with the Grindr notifications I usually disabled.

  LCK£_98: what time?

  Despite waiting on Lucky’s reply for more than an hour, I jumped out of my skin. Then I took a deep breath and placed the last piece in the convoluted puzzle I’d created just to get my dick wet.

  Perignon55: 9ish room 239

  LCK£_98: k. u want me to bring anything?

  Perignon55: just u

  The message was gone before I considered that I’d made it sound like we were lovers. That all I needed in the world was him, the paid Grindr hook up I’d spent a total of twenty-six minutes with my entire life.

  Loser.

  But I didn’t have time to berate myself too much. I had a meeting with my agent before I could drive to Shoreditch, and I was already running late.

  I took a shower, ignoring the half-chub I’d been sporting since Lucky had confirmed his availability, and washed myself at light speed. Dressing, I noticed my hands were shaking. I held them out in front of me, trying to still my quivering fingers, but it was no good. Nerves were playing havoc with the bone-deep excitement spiking my blood, and my chest was so tight I could barely breathe.

  It was in moments like these that I longed for the freedom to knock back a few beers, a couple of shots, or even smoke a joint with my buddies behind the church in Thetford where I’d grown up, but my life wasn’t that simple anymore. Booze and dope were forbidden, and my childhood buddies were long gone, swallowed up by the isolation I faced in adulthood. These days, there were only two men in the world I called friends, and lucky for me, one of them was waiting in the Greenwich bar down the road from my place.

  I slid into a seat opposite Ishmail Malik in the quiet booth he’d secured at the back of the bar, and admired, as always, what little I could see of his lean, dark frame. Isha had been my agent since I’d turned seventeen, managing my rise through the ranks of lower-league clubs until I’d hit the jackpot. He had a few more clients now, but I’d been his first…and he’d been my first crush.

  Not that he knew it. As far as he, and anyone else, was concerned, I was simply too focussed on my game to give a shit about women—too pious and boring, which was ironic, considering that picking up blokes on Grindr had become my favourite hobby.

  If you could call something you craved and detested in equal measure a hobby.

  “Dom?” Isha snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You in there, mate? I haven’t got all day, you know.”

  I blinked, forcing away the choking cloud of guilt that left me nauseous. “Liar. You always schedule me last on your list ’cause I’m on your way home.”

  “No, I schedule you last because you’re kind enough to buy me dinner.”

  It was true. Isha’s other clients were mainly young twats fresh out of academies and had more money than sense, and no fucking manners. He was probably lucky to get a beer out of most of them.

  Luc
ky. The word stuck in my mind, lodged in my brain, and played on a loop until I realised Isha had started the meeting without checking I was actually in the room with him—mentally speaking.

  I shoved my hands under the table and scraped my nails down my thighs, like fidgeting could tie me down to the world, but as hard as I stared at Isha and tried to compute what he was saying, I was so fucking lost.

  He rolled his eyes and poured me a glass of iced water. “What the fuck’s up with you? You’re usually the one client I can count on to give me their undivided attention.”

  “Sorry.” I swallowed some water, letting the cold shock me back to the present. “I’m just tired, man. Long day.”

  Isha raised a thick eyebrow, his face as unconvinced as his trademark impassiveness would allow. “All your days are long. What’s so different about today?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sure about that, because you look like you’re sitting on something sharp.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Right. You ready to talk business?”

  I rolled my eyes, but gave Isha the courtesy of hearing him out as he explained the latest endorsement deal I’d been offered over a dinner I couldn’t stomach.

  As usual, I turned it down flat. “I’m not interested in fucking shampoo adverts, mate. You know this.”

  Isha eyed my uneaten plate of food. “Course I do, but as your agent, and your friend when you’re not being a pain in my arse, it’s my job to sell you this shit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Isha pointed a fork at me. “I need to earn a living beyond your transfer fees, and you can’t play football forever. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to think about what comes next.”

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  “Exactly. You’ve got five years tops—seven if you’re extremely fortunate—and they won’t be top flight. Your contract’s up at the end of the season, remember? You need to use that pretty face of yours while you’ve still got it and take one of these deals. Shore yourself up, mate, before the ship sails.”