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Winnie has been friends with Michael since they’d done a group project together in their second year of Uni. The project was in a psychology class that had nothing to do with Winnie’s Computer Science degree, nor Michael’s Business degree, and they had thus been a little out of their depth, but they’d managed to get a passing grade on the project, which was good enough for Winnie.
When they graduated, Winnie’d gotten a job in IT for a cybersecurity firm and Michael had gone into some sort of finance. Winnie honestly doesn’t understand Michael’s job and at this point, it’s too late to ask.
They don’t get to see each other as often as they used to, what with Winnie based out of Enfield and Michael in Richmond-upon-Thames. It’s only about an hour’s drive (on a good day) but with Michael constantly travelling, their opportunities to visit are cut down significantly. That doesn’t mean they never see each other.
Like now, for instance. Michael has just gotten back home from Dubai and has a whole two weeks before he has to fly out to New Zealand, so they’ve chosen a weekend to meet up in London.
Winnie can tell immediately that something has changed in Michael’s life. He’s all smiley and giddy as they order their drinks - coffee with cream for Michael, rooibos tea for Winnie. He can’t wait to tell her something, and Winnie can’t wait to hear it.
“So,” she says once they’ve found a table outside. “Did you meet a cute boy or something?” Instead of rolling his eyes at her, Michael wiggles his eyebrows, holding back a grin. “Holy shit! You did!”
“I did,” he confirms.
“Where? When? What’s his name? Tell me everything.”
“Calm down, Win,” he says, but he’s laughing. “In Richmond. He almost ran me over with his car.”
“Oh, meet-ugly.”
“I- what?”
“Nevermind, keep going.”
“It was about a month ago-”
“A month! Oh my god, how long has it been since we talked? We need to text more.”
“I thought you wanted me to keep going?” Michael teases. Winnie rolls her eyes and motions for him to go on, then. He does. “He offered to get me a coffee ‘as an apology’ and we ended up trading numbers. He took me out for that coffee the next day.”
“Awe, that’s sweet.” Michael doesn’t say anything more. “Wait, is that it?”
“Yes! It’s only been a month, what do you want me to say?” Winnie gives him a look and he sighs. “Fine. He’s really sweet. And funny. And he’s so hot. Oh, and his name is Colin. ”
“Michael! I’m so happy for you!”
“I could be happy for you too, you know.”
“Ugh, not this again. I’m not asking out Cute Bus Girl.”
“Clearly. You haven’t even managed to ask for her real name.”
From then on, Winnie does make it a point to text Michael more often. He ends up texting her with updates on how things are going with Colin. Things like, “he loves video games but thankfully I at least know Animal Crossing” and “he doesn’t mind when I have to travel for work because he does, too.”
He also texts things like, “Colin isn’t out to anyone, and I think he’s still getting comfortable in his sexuality.”
“What makes you think that?” Winnie had messaged back. Apparently, Colin tends to hide his face whenever they go out in public, which isn’t actually that often. They’ve mostly been having home-cooked meals or takeaway in their respective homes.
“But I’d wait for as long as he needs, I think.” Michael finishes with.
“You’re in deep, huh?” Winnie had responded.
She’d proceeded to walk face-first into Cute Bus Girl on her way off the bus.
So, Winnie and Michael text more regularly, other than one week when Michael, for some reason, dropped off the face of the earth. His excuse was relationship troubles, but he and Colin seem to have come out the other end with an even stronger relationship than before, so Winnie doesn’t even have to go all protective-best-friend on him.
In no time, a year has passed. Michael talks about Colin all the time, but they still talk about other things. Work (Winnie quit her job a month ago), stage plays (Michael wants to drag Winnie to one soon), and Cute Bus Girl, who is a reporter named Nadia and who Winnie has been dating for nearly ten months.
Winnie still hasn’t met Colin in person, but she’s spoken to him over the phone a couple times while on call with Michael. In turn, Nadia has spoken to Michael over the phone, too. He seems really great, and he and Michael are all sappy with each other.
“Hey,” Winnie says when Michael finally picks up the phone. “I’m gonna be in Richmond tomorrow. Lunch?”
“Tomorrow? Hold on,” she hears some papers rustling in the background. “That works. My lunch break is twelve to one.”
“Perfect! Bring Colin?”
“He’ll be at work,” Michael says. It occurs to Winnie that she actually has no idea what Colin’s job is. She’s about to ask, but then Michael continues. “What are you doing in Richmond?”
“Just another job interview.”
“That’s great! I’d ask you to tell me more but I’m supposed to be working right now. Text me about it?”
“Oh shit, sorry,” Winnie says, not really sorry at all. “See you tomorrow!”
“See you. Good luck with the interview!”
She gets distracted taking the cookies she just made out of the oven and forgets to tell him about the job. By the time she remembers, it’s pretty late and Nadia is being very purposefully distracting. She’ll just tell Michael at lunch.
Winnie has been job searching since before she even quit her last job, but she wasn’t able to find anything new before she got absolutely sick of the last job and decided it would be better for her mental health to just quit right away, even without a new job already lined up.
It means, however, that she’s gotten a little desperate, pretty much applying for any and every job she’s qualified for. That’s how she ends up at AFC Richmond - yes, a football club, of all things - to interview for a position in their (admittedly small) IT department.
It’s after the interview - which went pretty well, as far as Winnie is concerned - that Winnie starts to wonder if she’s somehow entered an alternate universe.
It starts when she gets lost trying to leave. She ends up in a long hallway and walking amongst people who actually work here. Which is why she’s surprised when she hears a voice that sounds a lot like-
“Colin?”
The person the voice belongs to stills, then turns abruptly from where he’s standing in a circle of other people to look directly at her. She suddenly realizes that she’s now the centre of attention for this group of men. She wonders what their jobs are, and if the guy she’s talking to really is Colin. Maybe he’s a reporter? Although these guys all look a little too young and a little too muscly for that. Huh.
“Yeah?” Maybe-Colin says.
“Um,” Winnie says.
“Hello!” says another man, giving her a bubbly smile. “I’m Sam. Are you the new physiotherapist?”
“Oh. No. I’m lost.” Smooth, Winnie.
“Ah,” Sam says. “Where are you trying to go?”
“Home?” Winnie cringes. “Sorry. I’m Winnie. I was just here for a job interview and I’ve somehow gotten lost trying to find the exit. ”
Maybe-Colin’s eyes go wide. He recognizes her, she thinks, which means he is Michael’s Colin! Before either of them can acknowledge each other, someone behind Winnie shouts down the hall.
“Oy!” The boys and Winnie jump. Winnie spins to see who’s talking. The man is wearing an AFC Richmond jacket. “Why are none of you in your kit?”
“Sorry coach!” A guy with dyed hair says, though it sounds more like sorreh coach. It takes a moment for the connections to connect but when they do, Winnie has the mortifying realization that the people she’s talking to don’t just work for AFC Richmond. They are AFC Richmond. They’re players. Football players.
And Colin is one of them.
The guys leave in a hurry. Colin goes with them. He doesn’t make eye contact with Winnie as he passes, just rushes off. Sam points her to the exit before he leaves, at least.
When she finally gets to the little bistro to meet Michael for lunch, her friend is already there. He smiles and waves at her as she approaches.
Winnie plops down into the seat across from Michael, sets her hands on the table, and says, “You’ll never guess who I just ran into.”
“Oh?” Michael raises an eyebrow. “Who?”
Winnie opens her mouth to tell him, but stops before she can. Because what if Michael doesn’t know? He doesn’t know a damn thing about football. Not that Winnie knows much, herself, but Michael wouldn’t have even recognized Roy Kent as the person who yelled at the players earlier.
So, what if Colin hasn’t told him? On one hand, her friend deserves to know. It’s kind of a big deal to be linked with a famous football player (she looked him up in the cab on the way to the bistro). An even bigger deal because, oh yeah, Michael is gay dating said famous footballer. Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, she thinks Michael deserves to hear it straight from the source, and that Colin deserves to be the one to tell him.
She improvises. “So I was interviewing for an IT job with AFC Richmond,” she watches for Michael’s reaction. He doesn’t so much as twitch. “And I got lost on the way out. I ended up running into Roy Kent! And then Sam Obisanya-” (she’d looked him up, too), “helped me find my way out!”
Michael laughs. “Wow!” he says.
“You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”
“No, not a clue.”
God, she really needs to talk to Colin, doesn’t she?
She doesn’t end up getting the job at Richmond, which is fine, because she ends up with a higher-paying job at a different cybersecurity firm based out of Richmond. She’s only disappointed because it means it’ll be extremely difficult to talk to Colin alone without outright asking Michael if she can talk to Colin alone, which would just arouse his suspicion. That’s the opposite of what she wants to do.
In the end, she doesn’t get a chance to talk to Colin one-on-one, and then it doesn’t really matter if she does. She wakes up one morning and Michael’s name is all over the news.
“Have you seen this?” Nadia says as they eat breakfast in Winnie’s kitchen.
“Seen what?”
Nadia shows Winnie her phone. An article is pulled up. The headline reads “AFC Richmond’s Colin Hughes: Everything You Need to Know About That Kiss”. The byline says “Colin Hughes locks lips with long-time boyfriend Michael Liu after match against West Ham.”
“What the fuck?” Winnie says, grabbing the phone right out of Nadia’s hands. She scrolls through the article. There’s a photo a paragraph down, and sure enough, that’s her Michael kissing Colin Hughes for everyone to see.
She googles Michael Liu and dozens of articles and blog posts and YouTube videos pop up. Google Images is full of different angles on that kiss.
She calls him.
“What the fuck, Michael?”
“Oh.” He starts laughing. “It’s in the news, then?”
“Yes! Oh my god, when I ran into Colin at Nelson Road I was so worried he hadn’t told you!”
“You ran into each other?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He was probably freaked out,” Michael says, voice gone soft. “You’re not the first person to accidentally find out, and your job interview was just before his best friend found out and stopped talking to him for a few weeks.”
“What? That’s fucked up.”
“No, they’re good now.”
“Oh. So you did know?”
“Since the fifth date,” Michael says. “Sorry for not telling you.”
“No, I get it. He must have been in a really tough place, huh?”
“Yeah. But his coaches and his team have his back. And I’m pretty sure Rebecca Welton already put out a statement in support.”
“And you’re happy? You’re okay with being in the spotlight?”
There’s a long pause. “Yeah. If it’s with him, then yes. I am.”
“You fucking sap.”
“You liar!” Winnie says the second Michael opens his door. Somewhere inside his house, Colin laughs.
“Nice to see you too,” Michael says. “What’d I do?”
“You pretended not to know who Roy Kent and Sam Obisanya are!”
Michael laughs and ushers her and Nadia into the house. Colin is at the kitchen island, pouring some wine for them. “That’s my fault,” he says. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Please, babe,” Michael wraps an arm around his waist. “I could have said I recognized their names just as easily as I pretended not to know them. I just like messing with Winnie.”
“Fucker,” Winnie says affectionately. Nadia giggles into her wine glass. “Also,” she digs into her tote bag, grabbing a book and slamming it down on the kitchen counter. “I can’t believe you,” she jabs a finger at Colin, “managed to stay in the closet as long as you did.”
“What?” his brows furrow. Winnie picks the book back up and shoves it in his face.
“You literally walked into a bar called Prik in Amsterdam.”
“You what?” Michael says. Meanwhile, Colin’s mouth drops open in understanding.
“I told you about that,” Colin says. “When I got pissed on vanilla vodka with Trent.”
“It’s in the book?” Michael asks, taking the book out of Winnie’s hands.
“I told him he could write about it after I came out to the team.” Michael gets this unbearably sappy look on his face. He and Colin stare into each other's faces all in love. Winnie looks over at Nadia and they simultaneously roll their eyes.
“I can’t believe you bought the book,” Michael says later.
“Oh, it’s Nadia’s,” Winnie says.
Nadia shrugs. “Trent Crimm was a little harsh in his earlier work but he’s a good writer. Plus, he was a gay sports journalist, I’m a queer business journalist. It’s nice to see he could make it work, you know?”
Winnie ends up forgetting the book at Michael’s place that night. When she eventually remembers to get it back from him, she finds that it’s been signed by Trent Crimm. Nadia absolutely loses her shit when she sees and asks if they can frame it.
“Oh,” Colin, who pretty much lives with Michael at this point, says. “I can introduce you to him.”
Nadia nearly faints.