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The year starts with Daniel leaving. Luis' transfer wasn't unexpected, done and dusted way before pre-season training even began, But Daniel's going was this long dragged out thing that tilted between will he- won't he for a while. Jordan doesn't see Luis again before he leaves, except for a few pictures of him with Steven, Steven's forehead looking like it'd gained more wrinkles from another one lost to the siren call of trophies and titles.
So Luis was gone, and Pepe followed swiftly, gone to play second string to Manuel Neuer. Daniel leaves almost a day before the transfer window closes, a choice that already smelled faintly like regret.
Jordan brushes past him on the corridor down from the manager's office a couple days before it'd been announced, Daniel leaving like he's on his way to put out a fire somewhere.
Jordan calls his name. Daniel spins around and looks faintly apologetic, hair mussed and dark rings under his eyes. “Sorry, Jordan, I was just-” He stops and shrugs, walks back to where Jordan was standing.
“It's fine mate. So,” Jordan didn't know what to say. There were rumors, but then there'd always been rumors. “Is everything-?”
Daniel fidgets with the collar of his shirt. He looks at Jordan with something strange in his eyes, made Jordan wish he hadn't called him back. “Yes. It's all sorted.” He puts out a hand.
Jordan takes it, thinking oh, so that was his decision. “Good luck, Danny.”
“Thanks.” He says, and is gone before Jordan lets his hand drop to his side.
2 weeks later Jordan gets the vice captaincy and understands a little better.
4 months later Steven announces his intention to transfer to LA Galaxy, and Jordan thinks, nonsensically, if that meant Daniel would have been captain, had he stayed.
But that all came later.
-
The season hadn't really started with Daniel leaving, of course. It felt like there was barely any break in between last season (the one Jordan tries to not think about except in narrowed down list form, in hurtful keywords like title contenders, slip and red card) and this one, the World Cup and friendlies through the long hot American summer, and then immediately it was a triumphant home win against Southampton on a cloudy day in Liverpool.
Jordan remembers it clearly- taking the ball off Tadic- dodging around Schneiderlin- sending the perfect pass to Razza, Razza's cool finish.
The crowd roared and it was Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool . Jordan remembers it- relief at the fact that the season still might be theirs, even if it's without Luis.
He meets Adam later, shoulders scrunched under his turned up collar, expression rueful. Jordan wonders if it's a relief to be injured when Liverpool's playing against his old team. Some things are still raw at the eve of a new season. Adam looks a bit pale, evident circles under his eyes. They exchange a greeting, and that was the first time Jordan sees him after he joins the club, quiet and withdrawn.
-
Liverpool slid like a slow wreckage out of August and in to September, falling apart even though nothing seemed wrong in training. The days get shorter and colder and the matches are bewildering, the team's not clicking and no one knows why, but after all it's still the beginning of the season.
Jordan's visiting Flanno at the training center when he sees Adam again.
“How's it going?” He asks Flanno, who's flopped over the exercise bike with his bottle in hand.
“How'd you think?” Flanno replies, wry. Adam's leaning against his own bike and laughs appreciatively.
“What about you?” Jordan turns to him. They've played together before, in the England squad, of course. And even though Adam's gotten himself injured before the season began, he had dropped in to the changing room and introduced himself, hanging around and making small talk with the lads. It's still strange, just a little bit, seeing him in a Liverpool training shirt.
Adam shrugs. “I'm cleared for the next match, so that's good. I'm glad.” He adds, smiling. Jordan never noticed before but Adam's eyes crinkled ferociously at the corners when he smiled.
“Good.” Jordan says, and claps him on the shoulder. Flanno rolls his eyes and flattens out on the exercise bike, groaning. Jordan pats him too, gently, and that makes Flanno laugh a little.
Jordan catches himself grinning when Adam looks at him, and thinks, brief thought that fizzled out as soon as it arrived, that's new.
-
September blows past like a bad record, stuttering and stopping at the worst moments. Jordan tries to blame it on the fact that they were all too young and new and learning how to link up as a team, but there's no denying it now, seeing their intentions of winning the league title get more and more ephemeral with every point tossed away.
Studge gets injured again. The days get even colder. The grass on the pitch in Melwood cracks in the frost in the early morning when they run drills in silence, punctuated by Lukas' occasional jokes and Mario's chuckles. Their breathes come out in clouds of steam like dragons, and Jordan keeps waking up in the middle of the night, leg spasming like he was itching to kick a ball. Adam's a regular part of training now, messing around with Phil and Razza and getting beat by Enrique in the rec room table tennis tournaments, smiling with his eyes all crinkled and his hair flopping around.
Their break comes against West Brom. Jordan's flick, Adam's goal. It's a perfect play, something beautiful and glorious in it's spontaneity. He grabs Adam's face in his hands and loses time, not very sure what he's yelling but knowing that they were on fire, affection blooming in his heart like something tenacious growing out of concrete.
He scores himself, too, and that felt like something proven, the phantom weight of an armband against his bicep.
-
International break was strange without Stevie. Studge too was still out, so he naturally gravitates to Adam when they're picking seats on buses and planes, Adam who's kind of an enigma, difficult to unravel. He was soft spoken and easy going but serious on most occasions. He joked around like one of the youngsters, but Jordan knew he'd been captain at Southampton and knew how to handle responsibility. He looked shy, like he'd be easily intimidated, but Jordan knew- the tackles on pitch, Adam screaming abuse in the opposition players' faces- that the soft voice and easy smiles didn't mean he was a pushover.
It's also strange how much better break was, when he had Adam's now familiar presence by his side.
-
-
After the break Liverpool still showed no signs of actually getting back on track for anything. No one came out and said it, but it's just one of those things. It was going to be just one of those seasons, a rebuilding-and-reigniting season. Jordan accepts it with only mild frustration, recognizant of the fact that they've still got the new year to come.
And there was still this, after all:
After QPR, Raheem holds up an arm in the locker room on Loftus Road, hand clutching a sock, and asks dreamily, “I have a question.”
Jordan squirts water at him as he tugs off his boots. Everyone in the room bursts in to cheers again for absolutely no reason. Enrique throws his water bottle across the room, yelling something garbled in spanish.
Steven turns around, shirt off, and waves his arms to make everyone quieten.
“Go on, Razza.” Steven says, trying not to smile himself.
“How the fuck did we win that match?” Raheem finishes, and Jordan starts laughing so hard he chokes. Martin leans over and slaps him between the shoulder blades, and he says between breathes, “Your cross to Dunne was great. Maybe we should sign him for Liverpool. Striker partnership.”
“Aw, I can't do that to Ads.” Raheem says, grinning, slings an arm around Adam who grins and shoves him. Steven's humming something, smiling faintly, head ducked down. It seemed familiar. Glen's recounting one of the goals to Simon, waving his hands in the air, while Simon still looked mildly shell shocked.
Jordan cracks up again, and it's only later when he's humming as he throws his hair gel and clothes in to his kit bag does he realize what the song was. Liverpool, we love you, oh, we do.
-
and this:
They're 1-0 up against Swansea in the middle of the game and Alberto's scored already. Steven's on the bench this time, face tight but voicing his encouragements to the team before they ran on to the pitch. Jordan's wearing the armband again, but this time it's exhilarating.He watches, half in disbelief, as the ball rebounds off Adam from Fabianski's clearance and curves a beautiful parabola towards the open net.
Someone's yelling “what the hell was that”, over and over, and laughing and Jordan thinks it might be Dejan or Raheem and he’s screaming back, “It’s fucking Liverpool!” or something equally nonsensical. Adam’s face was pure glee, but then again Adam always looked so intensely fucking happy when he smiled, and Jordan’s laughing so hard he might be getting a stitch.
The match ends 4-1 against Swansea. The year- this long, long year- ends with Liverpool in 8th place, 5 points short of Champions League.
-
Then the new year rolls around and Steven announces his intention to transfer.
In retrospect it was dizzying, like stepping down a flight of stairs and then missing a step, something that had come completely out of the dark, a sickening moment of free fall and disorientation. Jordan texts a bunch of people, sitting at the couch while Elexa played with her dolls by his feet.
He checks his inbox for messages and half of them are people congratulating him. Jordan distractedly answers a few of those and then gives up. His phone keeps buzzing. Did you hear Steven Gerrard is leaving? Did you hear- Did you hear- Did you hear-
-
The team's quiet in the locker room before the first training back, a distracted sort of quiet where everyone wants to say something but no one wanted to be the first to do so. Steven starts his apology in the silence, scratching his head and shuffling a bit. Jordan didn't think it necessary- he hadn't owed them anything, not really. It was his own decision to make.
Everyone gathers around him and he clasps a few hands, hugs Lucas and Martin and pats Phil on the back, accepts their words of awkward gratitude with a faint smile and bowed head. Jordan walks up last, offers his hand. Steven looks at him for a beat, sharp and appraising, and Jordan feels like he's being weighed up and all his faults and talents judged.
Then Steven steps in and claps a hand to his back. Jordan shuts his eyes briefly.
This is the way it goes- Liverpool plays Wimbledon in the FA cup to a crowd of 4000 and no one expects Liverpool to lose.
This is the way it goes- Liverpool plays Wimbledon and Steven Gerrard scores both goals in a narrow 2-1 win. It wasn't Istanbul. The ground was quiet and the cheers were smattered and the mud churned up on his boots. It was cold. Jordan looks at him wheeling away from the goal, finger held up to his lips, the back of his shirt-the number, the name- bellowing in the breeze. It was quiet, and it was cold.
Jordan thinks, How can he leave?
-
Steven calls him up a few days later. They meet down by the Docks, and Jordan had no idea why he was there. Steven doesn't clarify, and instead Jordan just watches him eat a sandwich. He'd expected no explanation, but he'd thought Steven was going to offer one anyway.
Steven looks at him thoughtfully, squinty eyed from under his wrinkly forehead.
“You'll have the armband after I go.” Steven says. It wasn't a question.
“It's not official yet.” Jordan says, careful, glancing at him.
“It will be.” Steven says. He's looking out across the water, fiery ripples as the sun neared the horizon line. “You think you have what it takes?”
Jordan lifts his chin, unconscious he was doing it. “Yeah. I do.”
“Good.”
Jordan blinks at him and Steven smiles like a kid, impish. Steven offers him a fry from the sandwich, and after a pause Jordan takes it.
“Good.” Steven says again, and claps him hard on the shoulder.
They're quiet for a bit and Jordan thinks about asking something. Here was his chance, after all. To learn from the Captain before he left, as if he hadn't already been learning for the past three years. Still, he wondered if there was anything he could ask, a phrase or a quote or another first hand account of an inspiring memory of some past victory.
The captaincy- what did it mean to the kids out there? Jordan remembers himself, mostly, a boy with too long limbs and stuck out ears and nothing guaranteed in the years to come, only the vague and nebulous promise of glory if he could keep improving, if he could keep himself out of injuries.
And there was Steven Gerrard on the television, leading men on to the pitch, heading in goals that seemed to be impossible. Steven Gerrard with the Champions League trophy, and the way he dragged everyone up and onwards, making the future in to a waking dream.
He doesn't talk, or try to bring up the past. Instead Jordan looks straight ahead, out across the water, shoulder to shoulder with Steven, looks at the sun blazing orange and red as it sank in to the Mersey.
-
So it was- they fought harder. It wasn't going to be a rebuilding season after all. It was going to be an all or nothing season. Jordan watches it all come together, slow but sure. Simon's determination and tight little smiles every time he blocks a shot. Philippe's small frown as he bites his lip, practicing his crosses with Razza in training.
In the midst of it all, Stevie's injured. The armband begins to feel like something familiar, when Jordan tugs it on before matches. Lucas helps him adjust it sometimes, tucks a thumb under it to make it flatten and then clapping Jordan between the shoulder blades. Jordan always rolls his eyes a little, but Lucas was vastly comforting, with his easy manner of existing, at home in both Anfield and the training grounds, always ready to jostle Jordan out of anything that resembled despondency.
They play against Aston Villa on a cold evening. Steven's probably watching from the sidelines, arms crossed over his suit jacket in anxiety, an impotent ball of nerves. Jordan looks at the pitch, the crisp white lines of paint, frost clinging to the tips of grass blades, clouds cast ominously over it. Lucas leans over to ruffle his hair when they're stretching on the pitch before kickoff.
“It'll be okay.” He stops, mid ruffle, Jordan about to raise a hand to bat him off. “Jesus, you have a lot of hair gel, it's all crispy-”
“Fuck off!” But Jordan's laughing, anyway. They beat Villa 2-1, and make it the 4th win out of the 5 past league games.
-
The matches come and go. Jordan remembers them in condensed memories, nerves and the quiet of the changing room at halftime against Chelsea in the Capitol One cup, frustration and a lingering sense of helpless anger at the Bolton draw. Daniel returns in triumph at West Ham with a 2-1 win, and they move on past a draw with Everton to a win against Spurs, to a win against Southampton (Adam's face a little more set than usual, carefully stiff shoulders but he still crowds in when they celebrate the goals, yelling and happy), to a win against Manchester City.
“Liverpool's had an unbeaten streak since you've worn the armband, Jordan. How do you feel?”
Jordan blinks at the reporter. How does he feel?
He licks his lips and answers slowly, considerately. The usual spiel: the team comes first, he only hoped it would continue, it was the team's performance.
Inside he thinks it's a little bit like standing in the middle of Anfield at night with the floodlights on. Touching the hot metal of his car handle after it's been baking in the sun all day. The team's faces when Mario scored that absolute impossible beauty of a goal in training. Terrifying and wonderful; cream and stars.
-
In all this there's Adam. It seemed deceptively easy to ask him over, even though Jordan keeps an arbitrary line between teammates and well, just mates, but Adam's slowly blurring that line. Sometimes he shows up just to complain about Emily's weird food cravings from the pregnancy.
“It gets worse.” Jordan says, beatific and secure in the knowledge that Rebecca was far too sensible to have weird food cravings. Yet. Apparently every pregnancy was different and unpredictable.
Adam makes a dismissive noise and cracks open a can of beer. Jordan watches it foam up, Adam licking a finger absently before taking a long drink, throat bobbing.
“Thought of any names yet for your kid?” Adam asks. Jordan's flipping through channels absently, and stops at a golf program even though he though it was sleep inducingly boring. Adam perks up and leans closer, throwing Jordan a glance, half a smile on his lips. Jordan shrugs, faking nonchalance.
“Uh, nothing certain. We're thinking Alba for a girl and Theo for a boy.”
“No way.” Adam says, surprised, and then starts laughing at Jordan's confused frown. “Emily likes Albie for a boy.”
Jordan stares at him, confused as to what it means.
“50/50 percent chance baby Hendo and baby Lallana are going to have matching names!” Adam says, and flops down so he's wedged beside Jordan, arm pressed warm against him.
-
Liverpool's a force powered by desperation as winter slides in to spring, the desire for silverware like an actual noose around their collective necks. Jordan starts off thinking that this would drive them on, that if they all, every single one of them, wanted something to show for their hard work and their determination, that they were bound to succeed. That's how it always worked- you put the effort in, you get the results back.
Except it wasn't. Liverpool cracks before the snows stop and the weather turns warmer, before there was even a hint of warmth in the air. Adam's hands always cold when he forgot his gloves in training, grinning as he stuck them under Jordan's training jacket collar. Jordan swears at him but lends him his gloves anyway, Lucas laughing at them both.
Their unbeaten run is ended by Manchester United, some sort of divine irony at work and Jordan watching in disbelief as Steven walked off the pitch with his head lowered, his name and number so jarring against the red of his shirt.
Still they hoped.
-2-1 against Newcastle United, Liverpool are in fine shape for their upcoming clash against Aston Villa in the semifinals of the FA cup-
-can Liverpool keep Gerrard's dream of winning the FA Cup on his birthday alive for a little longer at Wembley?-
-
After the FA cup loss Jordan goes home, angry. There were a lot of conflicting emotions, really, but mostly it was anger. Confusion. Had they not fought hard enough? Not tried enough? Did they just fall apart despite working so well before?
He was no Steven Gerrard, certainly, and so- what's there in his future and this club's? How could he expect to fulfill all their expectations, when there was no becoming him.
Jordan thinks. He could only try his best, a persistent shine, pushing through the years, and hope it was enough. He knows it was enough. And then the answer was simple, because it was the only one that made sense.
He picks up the phone to tell them his decision.
When he finally hangs up the phone is warm in his hand, but he picks it up again anyway, dials another number, biting on a fingernail absently.
“Hendo?” Steven says.
Jordan takes a deep breathe.“I'm staying.”
There's a pause, and then Steven says, cautious, “Congrat-”
“It's not penance.” Jordan continues.
The silence is longer this time. Then Steven says, voice warm, “I know.” And Jordan breathes out.
-
After the last chance of a trophy they fall in to a slower rhythm. Not that the team didn't try anymore- it was just less focused, more of a wild dash than a teeth gritted sprint for the finish line. The games are spent like cards, Saturdays coming and going, everyone wanting to stretch with Steven in practice, everyone passing to him as much as possible in games. It wasn't the way to play matches, but none of them could help it. He was still there, and so he was the nexus of their world.
Jordan thinks with a cold clarity that perhaps, this was why Steven had to leave. They relied on him for miracles when there was no such thing as miracles, just a man who wanted, more desperately than any of them. Who wanted more desperately than all of them combined.
After the Crystal Palace game, the one where no one was thinking of the game but of what came after it, he's sitting alone in the locker room, trying to breathe for a moment, when Adam wanders in.
Adam meets his eye wryly, and they nod to each other, solemn. Jordan's absurdly grateful for it, that one goal of Adam's, how Stevie had looked when everyone piled in.
“How'd it feel?” Jordan asks, sudden.
“Fucking brilliant, what do you think?” Adam says, smiling so soft it took all the sting out of his words. He dropped a hand on Jordan's shoulder, and Jordan smiles back at him. He keeps his hand there for a while, and they listened together as the mourning crowd outside sang like an ocean in a storm.
-
And so, one last time. They're so quiet in the dressing room before that you could hear a pin drop, everyone shuffling uncomfortably on their feet. Steven turns around at the door and looks them all in the eye, making a slow revolution. He smiles, and tugs the armband on to his bicep.
“Come on lads.” He says, and then he's out of the door. Jordan follows. One last time.
-
Flip a coin and let it fall. The space between where it hits maximum elevation and terminal velocity is the same as this- twenty two men and a ball. Two nets, the center circle, a stadium. A city. A million beating hearts and clenched fists and eyes riveted to the screen as the beer quietly lost it's foam on the counters of sports bars. When the coin drops to the floor and hits the floor and rebounds, the ball catches the back of the net. Heads. It's the wrong net.
The coin is just a coin. The game is just a game. That's how football is- no one ever deserves anything, but you want so much.
-
-and it's Steven Gerrard with the ball- He's got a chance here-
Jordan slows to a stop and watches Steven run with the ball, wide open goal and the Stoke defenders aren't trying too hard anymore, after all they can afford to do that, and Steven times it perfectly so the ball hits the left corner of the net and the away fans are cheering, they're standing up with relief palpable on their faces, and Jordan thinks- how they will miss him, how they will all miss him, his arm stretched out and pointing to the center circle in urgency still, as if he was single handedly going to take them back, as if he was going to reenact something grander and more impossible than Istanbul. How they will all miss him, even though he's tried so hard and gotten so close and in the end still couldn't give them what they wanted, despite that, because.
-and Steven Gerrard scores for Liverpool-
It's the last goal of the season.
-
Afterwards there was nothing to say. Steven disappears after changing quickly, so no one knew what to do except get dressed and showered and head for the bus. Jordan watches them, Lazar and Dejan bent with their heads together, talking in soft voices. Raheem frowning, lips pressed in to a straight line, shoulders stiff as he gathered his clothes and shoved them in to his bag. Martin's barely harnessed anger as he stalked around, balling his socks up.
Adam comes over after, drops down heavily beside him. Jordan's listening to his music on earphones, a rarity because he liked to blast it after matches, but this time it would have been as appropriate as blasting it at a funeral. Adam tugs an earbud out of his ear and pops it in to his own.
“I don't know about you,” Jordan says slowly. “But I'm booking myself a holiday somewhere warm. I'm thinking beaches. Sun. Jet skis.”
Adam turns his head around and looks at him, disbelieving. Their eyes meet and Jordan cracks up, leaning back against the wall and giggling weakly. Adam shoves his knee, smothering a laugh. It was nice, sitting there for the duration of the rest of the song, staring at the one part where plaster didn't quite cover the cracks on Stoke's locker room ceiling.
-
He was never going to be Steven Gerrard. This was fact. There was never going to be another Steven Gerrard again, not at Liverpool, not at anywhere else. Jordan thinks, all of a sudden, that Steven Gerrard- the myth, the legend- is lost after the season's ending, that the man who boards the plane to Los Angeles is only that- a man.
The night before Steven's supposed to fly out to America, Jordan texts him, Thank you, Captain. Good luck in LA. Generic, but it felt like a step to be taken. The 10 years between them stretched out, impassable. But he's barely put his phone down before it buzzes again, and Steven had just texted back a heart emoji and a kissy face.
Steven Gerrard- captain, talisman, leader of men. Steven Gerrard, and he's all that and more. Jordan chuckles to himself and starts a text to Lucas, What do you think about getting the lads together to watch Stevie's debut match in LA?
-
There's still two of England's qualifiers to go through before Jordan's holiday plans – beaches, jet skis, the works- and when he sees Adam again- hair fluffed on one side and smirk on his lips, brandishing his phone as he speed walks towards Jordan down the corridor of the hotel the team's staying in- Jordan laughs.
“You didn't.” He says.
Adam drags his suitcase up and waves his phone in front of Jordan's face, a wrinkly baby pictured on the screen. “We did! Look at Albie.”
They look at each other, teetering between laughing and not laughing, and Jordan's a bit mesmerized by Adam's mouth, the way his teeth sinks in to his bottom lip. He thinks, God, what am I doing?
-
If he were a better person he'd have tried to stop it. It's just that, the way things were, the way he'd tried to fight every fight this season that he hadn't seen this one until it'd bowled him over. Until he couldn't remember why it was a bad idea to linger after the celebration party, sitting too close to Adam and not drinking as much as he acted drunk. It was easy to reach out and touch him more, until finally they wind up on a couch watching Jack Wilshere attempt table top dancing. Adam's practically in his lap. The room spins to the dizzy bass.
“Let's go back.” Adam yells in to his ear. “I think I'm going to-” What else he said was lost because Jordan pulls back and nods, grateful. They had an early flight tomorrow.
The bar was in the hotel, so they make it upstairs with no problem. The hall lights are those weird sound trigger ones, going out behind them one by one as they stagger down the corridor while Adam tries to recall the room number. It seemed like oceans away. Jordan hits the wall several times, lurching past a corner, Adam complaining about the ground shifting as he held on to Jordan's collar, grip too tight.
They make it in the room by some miracle, but neither of them could muster the energy or focus to insert the key card in to the slot. The lights remain stubbornly off.
“Where's the card?” Jordan asks, oddly calm about it. He can see Adam move past him and collapse on to a bed by the weak light of the street lamps outside.
“I dropped it.” Adam says cheerfully, muffled in to his pillow.
Jordan laughs and the room tilts. He quiets, chagrined, and walks over to flop beside Adam. His heart's beating too fast for rational thought, so he just curls up beside Adam, and Adam mumbles something, folds an arm around him.
“I should go to my bed.” Jordan slurs at the ceiling.
“Yeah.” Adam says, so softly that Jordan nudges him in the side, hard.
“Don't fall asleep.”
Adam mumbles something that might have been fuck off, and brushes his hand away, clutches the pillow instead.
Jordan must have blacked out then, because he wakes up in the blue dawn, face plastered against Adam's stomach, Adam's hand curled in to his hair. His arm is over Adam's waist, hand flat on his back under his bunched up shirt.
He lies still for a while and then untangles himself and gets up, legs wobbly, staggers to his own bed two steps away. The sheets were blissfully cool and unwrinkled, and he slides under, pulls them up to his chin. He wasn't awake enough to stay awake, but he still turned to his side as he falls asleep. Adam's huddled in his covers, mouth a little open and hair all mussed. Jordan looks until his eyes ache and it's a relief to let them slide shut.
-
They didn't try to bring it up, the strange intimacy growing between them that trod the line between acceptable and concerning. Jordan thinks about it too much, he knows, but- there's nothing he can do about it. Afterwards during the holiday- sun, jet skis, wearing swim trunks under his clothes all the time and splashing happily in the pool and the sea in turns- he keeps remembering that night, and all the nights before it.
He's lying on the sand with an arm thrown over his eyes, thinking, Adam's face, those crinkles on the sides of his eyes, his effortless grace on the ball, frowning at golf programs on Jordan's couch. Adam falling asleep on planes and buses with his head on Jordan's shoulder, nodding along to Jordan's favorite r&b songs, Adam's eyelashes, the way he has when he's about to start laughing and his eyes get brighter, and his mouth-
Jordan groans and sits up, looks at the waves crashing on to shore. He gets to his feet and goes down to the edge of the water and tries to just not think about Adam, for one second. He's on bloody holiday.
He texts Adam that night anyway. Thinking about preseason? What do you think about Australia?
Jordan could have thrown himself in to the sea after sending it, but Adam texts back almost immediately.
Can't wait to be honest. Miss ya mate.
-
The brief month of separation threw certain things in to sharp relief. Jordan sees it coming with inevitability, and he doesn't try to avoid it any more, gives in to the pull of Adam's smile.
Preseason was good, as always, and they could even go stretches at a time without thinking of Steven, the gap in their ranks almost healed with James and Divock and Nathaniel, by the ways they started to click together. They went through Thailand, the skies pouring rain till it seemed like they were wading around on the pitch, and then Australia, and Jordan has enough pictures of Mamadou cuddling a koala to blackmail him forever. Fearless defender taken in by small marsupial. He'd tried to get Martin to hold one, but Martin had just looked at him and backed away scowling with Kolo.
All of this and Adam, Adam beside him at signing events, Adam laughing with James, and he finds himself always looking for him on the pitch. He doesn't find himself looking for Adam off the pitch, because Adam was always right there.
They shared a room, of course, but it was just the usual. They went back together and fell in to separate beds and Jordan didn't try to do anything except be normal. They talked in the dark, at the ceiling, sometimes serious, mostly not.
Then it happens, with no warning, like moving from one breath to another. They're sitting on Jordan's bed, trying to make a picture collage of the more condemning koala photos and laughing too hard to do anything, and Adam leans over casually and kisses Jordan, mouth warm.
There's a pause after he pulls away. Jordan's too stunned to say anything. Adam wipes the back of his mouth with a hand and says, “If you shift that picture over to the right a bit, we've still got space for one more.”
Jordan slowly puts down the cover of his laptop.
“Ads.” He says. Adam looks up at him, a smirk staring on the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah?”
There are a million reasons why he shouldn't, but words like dependable, good family life, captain, seemed very far away from this.
Jordan leans forward. So that's what Adam's smile tastes like.
-
Adam calls a week before season starts proper.
“Thought about the fixtures coming up?” His voice gets ridiculously high pitched out of indignation at the end. Ruffling sounds, and then Adam's making shushing noises, probably to baby Albie. Jordan rubs his forehead, feeling a smile creep up on his face. “Stoke again. Arsenal soon.”
There’s too much light in the kitchen, Jordan thinks, maybe he should do something about that. There’s sunlight splashing in through the window blinds, so loud it's reverberating across the porcelain bowls, metal on the tap, the shiny little flecks on the marble countertop. Jordan tips the orange juice carton up and in to his mouth.
“I saw.” He says, swallowing. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Yeah.” Adam is quiet.
“We go again, all that.” Jordan says. He pours cereal in to the bowl. It’s all the same but it’s not. “See you for practice on Tuesday, Ads.”
“You will.” Adam says. He pauses. Jordan wants to turn down the blinds but doesn’t. It’s a rare sunny day. Let it be sunny, and blinding. He squints out of the window and there were some lads kicking a ball around on the bit of green outside, across the road. The weather forecaster had gloomily predicted some typical rain in the upcoming week, but it was so bright for the moment it's hard to believe it.
“You will.” Adam repeated. “I’ll be sticking around, won’t I?”
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Jordan goes to Anfield before the first match of the season. They're playing away, at Stoke, for the first match, and so there was no reason for him to go, but it felt like a compulsion.
He stands by the touchline, and thinks about Steven. Steven's gone, of course. He's long gone. He's played his first match in white now, scored his first goal. There's only the weight of the sunlight on Jordan's eyelids like heavy gold coins, and between his shoulder blades, and Anfield, silent around him. The wind rustles the grass on the pitch, across the barely dried paint, the empty stands, over Jordan's hair as he walks to the halfway line. The Kop looked remote from there. Everything looked remote, receded, hazy and bright at the same time. There's a gravid tension in the air. He breathes it in and waits.
He waits for a long time. There is no stutter-stop in the beat of his heart, no uncertainty, no doubt. And when he turns to leave, at last, he remembers to tap a hand on the sign above the stairs. This is Anfield. His fingers leave just the barest smudge against the newly polished glass, wiped clean from last season. This is Anfield. It waits, stilled red heart of the city, for the recharge, for the starting whistle and the people's songs.
He keeps going, after. Up the stairs and out.