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He made his way through jubilant team mates and harried-looking journalists asking for interviews from the champions, ignored them all to reach John and the soft smile adorning his face. He was holding Summer in his arms as she waved. Frank stopped beside him, and that close he could feel the pride radiating off John like a hearth. Frank let the warmth of it washed over him as he closed his eyes. John leaned closer and put an arm around his waist, easy and familiar, and for a split second Frank wondered if he’d kiss him there and then.
But of course John wasn’t that stupid, and he settled his face instead against the crook of Frank’s neck, seemingly breathing him in. A shiver traveled up his spine as John nosed a particularly sensitive spot.
In John’s arm, Summer shifted forward, wanting to hug Frank too. John pulled back and balanced her weight on one arm so they could hug, Frank smiling a bit wider as her small arms wrapped around his neck.
‘We’ve won, Papa,’ Summer said, her smile blinding brighter than the flashlights surrounding them, the soft wisps of her golden hair tickling his face.
Any other time, he would’ve gently reminded the child that they’re in public, and that she isn’t to call him ‘papa’ in front of strangers, remember? but he’s still coming from the high brought by the whistle ending the game and the score line that favoured them that he was finding himself willing to let her call him anything she pleases.
‘Yes we did, button,’ he smiled back, tucking a stray lock into the back of her ear.
‘We already know we’d win, though,’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Georgie and Isla and Luna and me. We all know.’ Summer looked like she’ll burst from pride, and Frank couldn’t help but to lean down and bussed her cheek. When he pulled back John was looking at them with such fondness, a much softer emotion than the intensity of elation running through the air under darkening Amsterdam sky that evening, something private and fragile that he normally won’t see among so many people.
John’s arm around his waist tightened a bit and he pressed a fleeting kiss on Frank’s temple.
It was enough.
Frank tugged at him and angled his head at the stairs towards the podium. ‘C’mon, let’s collect our medals so we can go home,’
John smiled wider at that and nodded, deposited Summer back on the ground so she could walked—although in reality she ran—towards her twin brother and their handler. She managed to steal a few seconds hugging Frank’s knee before bolting off to launch herself on Georgie who almost lost his balance from his sister’s antics.
‘She’s getting faster,’ Frank observed. John snorted beside him.
‘Sure she is, since she wants to be a great goal scorer like you.’ There was a twinkle in John’s eyes. ‘I’m not cool enough anymore since I’m just a defender,’
‘I’ll tell her neither of us are strikers.’
‘Won’t matter to her, she still thinks you’re the best.’
Frank couldn’t help smiling at that, pleased, but then John was leaning towards him again, his mouth dangerously close to his ear shell.
‘I agree with her,’ he whispered against his skin.
Frank tried not to look too flushed as he started his trek up the stairs, fans congratulating him left and right, the heat of John’s presence on his back familiar, but still thrilling.
Stop.
To touch and feel each thing in the world, to know it by sight and by name and then to know it with your eyes closed so that when something is gone, it can be recognized by the shape of its absence.
--'a man walks into a room', nicole krauss