Bloodsport

chapter 10

The house was empty when Harry got home. His father’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and he doubted his mother would be home before Monday. Recently his mother would extend her trips over the weekend, and Harry’s father didn’t appear to enjoy sitting in the house too much on his own. Harry wasn’t exactly surprised that the house was dark when he got in, and neither that it remained empty for most of the weekend to come.
His father arrived home late that Friday evening, and left for golf before noon the following day. Harry occupied his mind by finishing homework, cleaning his training clothes, and trying to clip their cat’s claws with horrendous failure. They were getting long, but he supposed he’d have to take her to a groomer to get it done. His sister had used to be the cat’s primary caretaker, but the role had unofficially been passed onto him since she’d moved. He settled for clearing the litter box and petting her belly. Whenever he tried to kiss her feet she would claw at him, but then curl up against his belly.

On Saturday he watched Manchester United play Tottenham on telly. Premier League had started, and he was following it studiously. Marcus Rashford was a big idol, but he did admire Kane and Son, who played for Tottenham. He was still revelling a little bit in the memories from his own match, but his thoughts kept turning onto Louis Tomlinson.

Before all this had started, Louis had been a nuisance he would rather forget about when he could. He’d been just another bothersome thing that came along with school, like homework or being forced to play gently during football in P.E. class — simply a disturbance. Now, Louis was still all of those things, if not worse. He was the co-captain of the football team. Before, he’d been annoying during practice, but now the bloke had actual power over the team. Harry tried to balance Louis’ random blasts of stupidity with sense, planning, and morale, but he still only had fifty per cent influence over the direction the team was taking. He supposed he could only trust that Coach Abrahams would step in if Louis went too far.

To be honest, Harry believed Louis already had. How could Coach allow them a captain who wouldn’t even pass the ball? Were those the qualities Coach wanted in the leader of their team? He truly doubted it.

Louis didn’t even care about the boys on the team. He cared about himself. Harry knew that for certain after spending most of the previous night in pissing rain. The guy hadn’t even appreciated the fact that they managed to get a draw — probably would have preferred them losing than Harry making the crucial goal. Harry supposed he would need to have a chat with Coach about all of this.

What he couldn’t wrap his head around was what seemed to happen to him each time the two of them fought. All this energy became pent up in his body, and the fact that Louis was fit as hell just seemed to snap the system out. It hadn’t been like that before. It wasn’t until this year that their fights had turned so physical, and it wasn’t until that’d happened that it became sexual.

Perhaps it wasn’t Louis, he pondered. Perhaps Harry was just into fighting? People could be into weird things, sexually. He felt a little bit optimistic for a moment, imagining the fact that it wasn’t Louis Tomlinson that made him feel hot. To test the theory, he opened YouTube and found a UFC fight to watch. After living through and understanding the manner in which someone’s nose can change place on their face, he could confirm that it certainly was not physical fights that got him in the mood. Revolting, really.

He didn’t know what it was then. And he wasn’t particularly happy about it. He didn’t want to be attracted to someone who was such a horrible person. He’d been kicked out on the street for Christ’s sake, twice.

The only good part was that he knew one thing for sure after that Friday. It was obvious that Louis wasn’t keen on sharing their business — which was a relief. Harry couldn’t help but grieve the fact that Louis hadn’t been especially nice about it, though, throwing shoes at his face.