London is Pink

Chapter Two

"So," Auba said, raising his head to look at me. "United on Saturday."

He was lying on my living room sofa, eating my crisps, and more than likely connected to my home wifi, but it was a small price to pay for the positive vibe he brought into the room with him.

"Yeah, United," I nodded, picking up a photo from the stack, and a football cutout, and positioning them on the page before me. "We got this, you know."

"Hmm. Reckon Unai will start you? First game back from the ban."

"Should do," I shrugged. "I'm feeling confident, and I'm not out of form."

I glared at the photo I'd picked up, not realising until then who exactly was in it.

"Oh, why is this in here?" I groaned, showing Auba.

"Well," he grinned, if you're gonna document your football derbies in scrapbook form it should probably include that one time when you punched Dele Alli in the..."

"Alright, I know what happened," I cut him off, rolling my eyes. "Not exactly one of my favourite memories, is it?"

"Oh come on Jord, you're not still annoyed at him, are you? That was nearly a month ago!"

"Yeah, but he's the reason I haven't been able to play football all month," I retorted. "Of course I'm mad."

"Hmm," Auba nodded, eyeing me. "Hey, didn't those photos come out today? You know, the Adidas ones?"

"Oh yeah, you're right," I nodded, my eyes widening.

I jumped up, and went to grab my iPad, which was charging in the kitchen. I returned to the living room, and shoved Auba's legs off my sofa so I could sit down.

"I wanna see too," he said, sitting up and moving next to me, as I loaded up Adidas' instagram, and sure enough, there were the photos. "Hey, they look great!" He smiled, as I scrolled over the individual shots of Dele and I. "Admit it, you find him attractive."

"Auba what the hell!" I exclaimed.

He laughed, and nudged me playfully.

"It's okay, you can tell me."

I rolled my eyes at my friend, and continued to look at the photos.

"I thought they were going to use the shots of both of us... oh."

I broke off, as I came to the last photo. They hadn't used any of the ones where we'd actually been posing together. In this one, we were holding the ball between us, our eyes locked on each other. I remembered the moment when we'd been fighting over the ball - they must have still been taking photos then without us realising.

"Woah," Said Auba. "That gaze is electric."

"That's fully candid," I frowned. "We didn't pose for that, we were fighting over the ball."

"Oh really?" He raised an eyebrow, turning to look at me. "That is some passion alright, and that was what they wanted. Are you sure it's just rivalry tension, and not tension of any other sort?"

"Auba! Stop it!" I complained. "Okay fine, yeah he's good looking, whatever. But that doesn't mean there was that kind of tension, okay?"

Auba didn't reply, but continued to look at me with that stupid grin on his face.

"What?" I groaned, putting the iPad down on the coffee table.

"See I know you, Jord, and you've never been able to lie. But hey..." he held up a hand, checking me as I went to respond. "I'll believe you."