this isn't a thing

Her eyes widened and a grin spread across her face. “Tay, is that okay?”

Taylor just nodded slowly, still staring at Neil. Olga snapped a picture of the two of them quickly and uploaded it, tagging the location and nothing else.

“Sorry to intrude,” Neil was saying when she looked up. “I just wanted to see if our photos were still up.”

“They are!” exclaimed Taylor. “As if we’d take down the photos of the team that turned the Foxes into Exy legends!”

Olga saw Andrew roll his eyes and pull out his phone, tapping away at something. Her phone pinged with a notification seconds later and she saw Andrew Minyard retweeted your Tweet flash up on the screen. Her eyes widened as notifications began flooding in almost instantaneously. Speculation about the involvement of Andrew and Olga in the scene featuring Neil and his alleged girlfriend was rife, and sports news accounts were picking up on it before she could blink. Most people were assuming it was a double date, but they’d got the couples the wrong way around. Olga couldn’t help the hysterical giggle that escaped her.

“Sorry,” she choked out as everyone looked at her. “I just ... how is this my life?”

“Come on,” said Taylor cheerily, pulling her jersey gently over her girlfriend’s head. “We’ve got a few minutes until I have to go; let’s show Neil and Andrew the new additions to the Fox memory board.”

Olga nodded and gestured for the men to follow them to the far side of the room, where half the wall was covered in various photos and news article print-outs.

Neil walked purposefully over to one section immediately and reached out to a photo of his old team reverently. He laughed as he saw the photos of him and Andrew almost touching the ceiling.

“Remember when you threatened to get them down with a ladder?” he asked Andrew, a fond smile on his face. “Matt and Nicky just kept raising them higher.”

Andrew was holding a long knife in his hand before Olga could blink and she froze instinctively. Andrew flicked her a glance before walking over to the wall of photos and prising one off that would otherwise be out of his reach.

As Neil moved to pick it up, Olga was afforded a glimpse of two figures standing in front of a wall of windows, one with ginger hair and one blond, standing merely a breath apart.

“I hate that one,” remarked Andrew flatly.

Neil snorted. “We may as well steal it now. It's not like we can put it back where Matt stuck it.”

Andrew plucked it out of Neil's hands and glanced over it with a bored expression, remarking, “150%.”

“You wanna keep it that bad, huh?” asked Taylor as Andrew gave her a flat look, not deigning to explain.

Neil tilted his head, a question in his eyes that Olga couldn’t interpret. Apparently Andrew could, because he glanced over at the girls and then sighed, telling Neil “yes” before turning to leave.

Neil watched as he disappeared out of the room before turning to the girls. “The percentages are just how much he wants to kill me.”

Olga was surprised by the admission and by how much Neil had shared in general. Taylor only shot him an incredulous look, glancing back after Andrew, who had taken the photo with him. “Are you sure about that?”

Neil just shot them a wry smile and moved to stride out of the room.

“Why are you telling us all this?” called Olga before he could leave. “It doesn’t seem very in-keeping with your preference for privacy. How is that -” she gestured between Neil and the door Andrew had just left from “- still a secret.”

Neil shrugged. “Because we wanted it to be. Let’s just say we have something planned.”

“You’re going to come out?” asked Taylor in a small voice.

“All I’ll say is if you want to give your girlfriend a celebratory kiss for the cameras at the end of the game, don’t worry about us. You’re not going to blow our cover. Going along with this whole dating mix-up was just a bit of fun.” His expression turned serious. “And if it’s ever not fun for you, let me know. I don’t want to force you into anything just because you haven’t told me ‘no’”.

Olga nodded and with that, Neil left. Seconds later, Taylor’s coach hurried in to drag her away, leaving Olga standing in front of a wall of memories, now with a blank space in the middle, thinking of the future.

EXTRA

Olga buried her face in her pillow and screamed. She had kissed her girlfriend in full view of a thousand camera phones connected to the internet and she didn’t regret a thing. Local news sites had already mourned the death of the non-relationship that was Neil Josten and Palmetto State’s own Taylor Michaels, but had heralded the start of new gossip such as why were Neil and Andrew hanging out with each other outside work if it wasn’t because their girlfriends were friends? Olga heard her phone chime with a notification but ignored it, until a second followed shortly after and she glanced at the screen to see a tweet notification from Taylor pop up.

@NeilJos10 OH MY GOD YES PLEASE.

Olga’s heart jumped in shock. What had Neil tweeted? She opened the app with trembling fingers, the tweet taking an infuriatingly long time to load over the campus Wi-Fi.

‪Good game, @Taylorra. If you and @Olgamaze want tickets to our next game @Minyandrew and I would be happy to hook you up.

‪Olga screamed for a second time, then slapped her hands over her mouth lest her neighbours think she was being murdered. A second later, another notification came through. She opened it up, finding another tweet from Neil.‬

‪I think Andrew really took a shine to you. He’s talking about Exy outside a game for the first time ever.

‪A reply from Taylor came through like lightning. I’m flattered, wow.

‪Neil responded before Olga could even begin typing a reply. He might even tell you goalie secrets or whatever when you come to the game.‬

‪By the way, the photo has found a new home on the fridge. Andrew still claims he hates it.

‪Attached was a picture of the photo of Andrew and Neil stuck on the fridge alongside pictures of cats, the two men with their friends and teammates, and various novelty fridge magnets. ‬

‪Despite being shell-shocked to high heaven, Olga couldn’t stop grinning. Not only did they now have inside jokes with Neil-freaking-Josten, Neil and Andrew had just indirectly come out through a Twitter conversation with her and Taylor. ‬

‪As she expected, her notifications were blowing up with people screaming, I KNEW IT WHAT THE FUCK ANDREIL LIVES and HOW DID WE DUMBASS ANDREIL STANS NOT REALISE THEIR CATS WERE THE SAME. News sites were dissecting every detail and no doubt contacting Neil and Andrew’s agents for statements. Olga was sure they had something in the works. ‬

Well, she definitely wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her essay with that news buzzing around her head. She gave in with a sigh, grabbing her bag and the keys to her newly-temporarily-fixed run-down car and heading out to buy food. If she was going to be pulling an all-nighter she’d need sustenance, preferably of the sugary kind.

Pulling into the nearest twenty-four hour supermarket's car park, she hummed appreciatively at a sleek black car parked near the entrance. While she didn’t know the brand, it looked expensive. She snapped a poorly-lit picture on her way past to show Taylor later; she appreciated these things more than Olga did. She saw a couple of camera lenses pointed out of car windows, also trained on the car, but quickly disregarded them. It must have been a fancy car thing.

Olga plodded through the aisles lethargically, looking for the familiar labels that indicated sugar and caffeine, grabbing a couple of tubs of raspberry sorbet as an afterthought. If Taylor were to show up at her door freaking out over the Josten sighting she’d need to be prepared.

As she exited the aisle a flash of orange caught her eye, and she was drawn to it like a moth to flame. It was only once she was standing behind said orange item at the checkout that she realised it was an old foxes jersey. She saw the number three, and then the name Minyard and then ... ginger hair?

It was Neil Josten.

Wearing Andrew Minyard's old jersey.

She must have made some kind of noise, or maybe Josten was just very aware of people at his back, because the former Foxes starting striker turned slightly to glance at her.

She blinked out of her stupor and offered him a wavering smile. “Late night sugar cravings too?" she asked, her voice coming out an octave higher than normal. She was suddenly very self-conscious of her accent. Not quite Russian, not quite English, but definitely not American.

Neil frowned slightly before looking down at the ice cream in his hands, expression clearing.

"Oh," he said slowly. "No. I don't like sugar."

"Okay," Olga squeaked, feeling stupid, even if it was the supposed sugar-hater who was carrying three tubs of chocolate ice cream, not her.

There were still three people in the queue ahead of them and Olga fidgeted, wishing she'd never opened her mouth.

"Good thing my British upbringing taught me how to queue," she blurted out. Whoops, she did it again.

Neil glanced at the queue, then back at Olga with an appraising stare.

"You're British?" he asked.

"Russian," replied Olga. "But I grew up in England."

She vaguely remembered something about Neil's mother being from England, and she once again cursed her big mouth. Everyone knew about Neil's parents, but they also knew not to mention it.

"So, uh." Olga grasped desperately for a way out of the hole she'd dug herself. "The ice cream."

That was the best she could come up with?

But Neil only huffed slightly, a smile tilting the edges of his lips up. "Yeah, it's not for me."

"Ah." She resisted the urge to ask who it was for. If the jersey he wore was any indication, she thought she may already know the answer.

Her eyes widened. The jersey. Those had been reporters with cameras loitering in the car park, she realised. She hadn’t connected the dots until she’d seen Neil, but they'd definitely been there. Perhaps they had advance information on the global Exy star’s presence here and maybe they'd been drawn to the expensive-looking car outside, hoping the owner was someone worth photographing; she realised now that the flashy car she'd seen on the way in had been Andrew Minyard's. And Neil had driven it here.

"Uh, Neil," she said hesitantly, getting his attention again. He didn't seem surprised that she knew his name. "I think you should know that I saw reporters outside the store on my way in and, uh, your jersey -" She indicated vaguely, but Neil only frowned again in confusion.

"It's my old foxes jersey," he said. "I'm going to the game tomorrow. They probably already know that."

"It's, uh, not yours," Olga finished in a small voice, waiting for the penny to drop.

And drop it did. Neil's eyes widened as he tried to crane his neck back to look at the rear of the jersey.

"Shit," he murmured. "This is what I get for dressing in the dark. Being considerate is the worst decision I ever -“

"Wait," Olga interrupted, having a sudden brainwave. She brought her bag from earlier, which meant - yes! She pulled out Taylor's jersey. At a guess, it was a couple of sizes larger than Andrew Minyard's. "Put this on over the top. It's my girlfriend's - she's on the team. You can give it back at the game tomorrow. I'm supposed to be wearing it."

By the time she’d finished her rambling it was Neil's turn in line.

He accepted the jersey gingerly. "Thank you," he said, voice soft. It occurred to Olga that he probably wasn't used to people doing nice things for him. Or at least he wasn't until he joined the Foxes. Olga knew how these stories went.

As predicted, the jersey slightly swamped Neil's small frame, hiding the one underneath perfectly. He smiled at her again as he paid for his - Andrew's - ice cream, and called, "see you at the game tomorrow!" as he left.

As Olga exited the shop, the reporters were following Neil to his fancy car, badgering him with questions.

"Who's Michaels?" one of them asked bluntly, gesturing to the jersey.

"Oh," Neil shrugged, glancing in Olga's direction. "Just someone I'll be supporting at the Foxes' game tomorrow."

Olga grinned.

"Why the hell is Neil Josten wearing my jersey?" was the first thing Taylor said when Olga picked up the phone. She knew it was coming; she'd been staring at the news article for the past ten minutes. Is Foxes goalie Taylor Michaels Neil Josten's new girlfriend? asked the tagline beneath the title: All’s Fair in Love and Exy. Below lay a host of pictures of Neil in the jersey and some commentary about how he said he was in town to support the owner of said jersey, along with speculation about whether Neil and Andrew may get along better now that Neil had moved on from Renee.

Olga groaned. "I'm sorry for mixing you up in this, Tay. He'll give it back at the game tonight. I'll still wear it, I promise."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Olga hesitated. She didn't know whether she should tell Taylor about the fact that she'd seen Neil Josten wearing Andrew Minyard's jersey, and driving Andrew Minyard's car, and buying Andrew Minyard ice cream. Not to mention the fact that he’d implied that he was being considerate of someone he was sharing a room with by dressing in the dark late at night and it was Andrew fucking Minyard’s clothes that he’d picked up by mistake.

"There was a slight wardrobe problem at the supermarket," she settled on. "You can ask him about it tomorrow, but I can't promise you'll get an answer."

Taylor was quiet for a moment before huffing in resignation. “Fine. I trust you.”

Olga let out a sigh of relief. If she’d had to choose between breaking the trust of Neil Josten and losing the trust of her girlfriend she wasn’t sure what she would have done.

“But really,” Taylor continued airily. “Renee Walker, then me? People must really think Neil Josten has a thing for Exy goalies.”

Olga couldn’t help snorting. Taylor didn’t know the half of it.

Nevertheless, no one would have believed it of three PSU Foxes before Kevin and Neil joined the team all those years ago but there they were, being considered for - or in Kevin's case, already - competing internationally against the best-ranked teams in the world.

One thing confused Olga, however, and that was Neil and Andrew's reported contempt for each other. She'd seen the photo board in the Exy building - courtesy of her girlfriend, who was the current PSU starting goalkeeper - and there were quite a few photos on there of Andrew and Neil together. In one, they stood a breath away against a wall of windows, staring at each other intently; in another, they sat together on the team bus, Andrew staring pointedly out of the window and poking one finger into Neil's cheek as Neil sat smiling and watching him out of the corner of his eye. There were other photos, pinned high on the board, that she couldn't reach. It was safe to assume that they had been pinned there purposefully by a taller teammate. Being barely taller than Neil Josten himself, anything that was out of reach of the small, auburn-haired striker was usually out of reach for Olga as well.

Andrew and Neil seemed amicable enough in the photos she could see, Olga thought. Why would Neil transfer to the same team as Andrew - willingly, by all accounts - if they hated each other? Why would Andrew then stick with that team longer than he had any other? And why would Andrew deny the call to Court the first time around, only to accept now that Neil was being offered a place? Furthermore, she'd seen them together off the court, bypassing the queue for Eden's Twilight in Columbia while she and her other nineteen-year-old friends were being turned away at the door. She had briefly considered following them afterwards - maybe her curiosity could be satisfied if she saw where they went at the end of the night - but even her inquisitive nature wasn’t justification enough to impose on someone’s private life so mercilessly, so she let it be.

Olga saw how well they interacted on the court as well - when they weren't yelling at each other, that is - and it always seemed that they worked better together than they had when they were on opposite teams. Andrew could always deflect the ball in such a way as to smack it up the court to Neil, as if he was effortlessly keeping track of the striker’s movements every second; Neil would receive it flawlessly every time, going on to score nine times out of ten.

It had been interesting to watch them playing against each other, though, the few times that it had happened. Olga didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, but sometimes Neil scored against Andrew and sometimes he just didn't. There didn't seem to be any predictable pattern to his attempts for Andrew to follow and his overall performance wasn't discernibly different on either occasion. And the funny thing was, when he didn't score and the camera was zoomed close enough to see his face, he would be grinning. No one could understand it. Why would Neil be happy to have been shut out of the opposing team's goal?

Nevertheless, reporters were quick to jump on the supposed scandal, speculating about how the relationship between the two former Foxes had gone so downhill after they graduated college. Was it their rocky pasts catching up with them? Was it a falling out over a girl? A few had speculated on the relationship between the two boys and one Renee Walker, and none of the other Foxes who had made it to pro teams did anything to dispel the rumours that emerged about Neil possibly beating Andrew up after he caught him with Renee. No one could find an alternative explanation as to why Andrew turned up looking rather bruised the day after he was spotted getting ice cream with her.

"Neil and Andrew always were very physical," mused one Matt Boyd, leaning into the microphone shoved in his face after a game against Neil's team - Neil himself had of course vanished before any reporter could catch more than a glimpse of ginger hair on their cameras. "Neil always got about five feet closer to Andrew than any of us other Foxes would have dared to. It was inevitable that they'd jump each other one day; he was quite literally asking for it."

It was at this point that Matt was sidetracked by another reporter asking about his wife's rumoured pregnancy, but Olga had always wondered about the exchange. Matt's tone had seemed far too light and teasing for the subject he was supposedly talking about, and too heavy in innuendo.

In any case, Olga was looking forward to what the post-game interviews tonight might reveal. It was a momentous occasion for her and other fans of Foxes alumni, in that tonight was the first time that Josten and Minyard, as a united front, would take on the team of Kevin Day. And Olga was hoping for a miracle from whoever was assigning press duty to the team members.

By the end of the day it looked as if her well of miracles might have run dry. She was already running late after being held back at work, her car had broken down five miles from campus, and her girlfriend was still at practice, her phone apparently switched off and in her locker.

By the time the tow-truck had dropped Olga's car off at the repair shop and Olga had got a lift back to campus, the game was over. She ran into her dorm room and booted up her laptop, loading up a stream of the game coverage. Even if she wouldn't understand any of the references they made to the game, maybe, just maybe -

Yes.

Olga couldn't believe her eyes. Neil was taking questions from reporters for the first time in weeks.

"That was quite an intense game," the reporter for the TV network was saying excitedly. "How did it feel to go up against your old striker partner?"

Neil shrugged. "I let Andrew worry about him. Kevin's obviously been teaching his back-liners a few tricks since we last met on the court. They took up most of my concentration."

"You seem to have a lot of faith in Andrew," said the reporter. "We see how well you two play together. Does this mean your rivalry's coming to an end? Have you worked out your differences?"

"I don't know what you mean," said Neil with a frown, glancing back at Andrew. "We're the same as we've always been."

"Hurry up," called Andrew suddenly, in Russian. "I want to go home."

Olga was so surprised that she missed Neil's last remark to the reporter before he and Andrew wandered away again.

Everyone knew, from comments by their teammates, that Andrew and Neil spoke Russian to each other, but no one had been able to pick up any words from outside the court and none of their other teammates spoke the language. Kevin Day had only rolled his eyes when asked about it in the past. No one knew how they'd learnt the language either. Not as a module in college, apparently, and it wasn't exactly the most common of languages, so it was unlikely they'd happened to learn it independently.

As Olga sat and watched the game back, her mind kept wandering back to what Andrew had said. I want to go home. It seemed innocuous, but -

Olga wished Neil had been facing the cameras so she could see his expression. Andrew was about as expressive as a rock.

It didn’t seem as if Andrew and Neil were going to much effort to keep their private lives under wraps - either that or they truly believed they were the only people in America who would understand Russian - it was just that no one was looking in the right direction. Olga vowed that from this point on, she would pay more attention.

"There's already an Exy club at the local school, and it’s open to anyone under the age of eighteen,” says Andrew. "I asked Mrs Parkinson about it."

Neil sighs, expression falling into one of dejection. "Oh."

Andrew stares out at the balcony, regarding his improvised vegetable patch with a bored stare. "But okay, I'll bake something. I want to see what everyone else has to offer."

Neil smiles, knowing Andrew's thinking of all the cakes, brownies and pastries that will be available. "Joan's Chelsea buns can't hold a candle to your Battenberg cake."

Andrew rolls his eyes and steps closer. "The Battenberg was a one-off. Nicky wanted the same cake for his wedding as Prince Louis had."

"Nicky has an unhealthy obsession with German princes," chuckles Neil, altering his accent slightly as he leans close to Andrew. "Nevertheless, Joan's European baked goods are mere imitations compared to yours."

Andrew shivers slightly, as he can’t help but do on the rare occasion Neil puts on his mother's English accent, and pulls Neil in for a kiss.

"By the way," murmurs Neil. "Welcome home."

~

By the day of the street fair, Neil has told practically everyone in their building about Andrew's baking efforts. He couldn't help it; every time someone mentioned the street fair he had to tell them to visit the community stall to try his husband's pies. Andrew used to say that Neil could only think about Exy, and maybe that was true until he suddenly had a life outside of it. Now that he has a whole future to contend with, he knows there's so much more to be proud of than winning an Exy game.

There’s a steady stream of people visiting the community stall all morning, buying goods and submitting ideas for the neighbourhood initiative the funds from the stall will go towards. Neil sees Andrew slip his own application into the pile, and smiles widely enough that Andrew pushes his face away in disgust.

Neil just laughs and flags down two young girls who have been eyeing the raspberry pies for about five minutes.

“Would you like to try one?” he asks. “This one’s a bit uneven so I’ll give it to you for free.” He stops and glances exaggeratedly towards Andrew before turning to whisper conspiratorially to the girls, “Don’t tell Andrew I said that. He’s very particular about quality control.”

The smaller of the two girls pauses at the sight of Andrew.

“Aren't you Andrew Minyard?" she asks, forehead creasing in confusion as she looks between him and Neil. "But aren't you two ... like ... enemies?"

The taller girl next to her whacks her arm lightly. "They're on the same teams, dummy."

The smaller girl scowls. "Yeah, but they're always shouting up and down the court at each other."

Her friend shrugs and crosses her arms. "So what? My mum and dad shout at each other a lot too, and they're not standing a hundred yards away from each other. It doesn't mean they're not in love."

Neil can tell Andrew's been getting bored with the conversation, but his head tilts slightly towards the girls at that last remark.

The smaller of the two gapes, then points between Andrew and Neil frantically, lowering her voice to an exaggerated and not-at-all-subtle whisper. "They're in love?!"

The other girl rolls her eyes. "Well, duh."

"I'll tell you a secret," says Neil, taking pity on the young girl. "When I'm shouting down the court at Andrew, it's not because I'm mad at him."

"Apart from that time when I didn’t pick up cat food before the game so we had to drive around searching for a 24-hour supermarket at midnight,” says Andrew, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

Now it's Neil's turn to roll his eyes. "Apart from then." He turns back to the girl. "Usually, we're just messing with our teammates by having conversations in Russian. It's like our own secret language on the court." Neil feels a soft smile spread unbidden across his face.

"See," mutters the taller girl, gesturing to Neil's smile. "I told you they were in love."

The other girl still looks sceptical, but takes the pie Neil offers her gladly.

Neil doesn’t miss the way Andrew watches carefully for her reaction when she takes a bite, and he turns away quickly before Andrew can notice his fond grin.

~

“Congratulations to our winner, Mr Minyard-Josten of Bellevue Terrace,” says Mrs Jones jovially, handing over an enormous novelty cheque displaying the sum of the proceeds of the community stall that will go towards his project. She’s already announced his winning idea to the assembled crowd, and Neil is proudly telling everyone how Andrew grew the raspberries for the pies himself.

“I tried to grow French beans last year and they shrivelled up within a week,” says a forlorn Madame Picard. “That’s very impressive, Andrew.”

Andrew is looking on passively while holding a giant stick of candy floss and acting as if he’s not paying attention, but Neil can tell by his eyes and the set of his mouth that he's pleased.

“A community allotment?” asks Neil later, a small grin tugging at the old scars on his cheekbones.

“Well, your Exy idea was stupid,” replies Andrew, as if it explains everything.

And suddenly, Neil gets it. Andrew took Neil’s failed idea and turned it into something else. Something positive for the community and for himself. Something he could be proud of, and that Neil could be proud of him for rather than dwelling on his own failures. It was a kind of metaphor for their lives, Neil mused, this thing that would start small and grow into something impactful and wonderful. And as he regards Andrew’s calm expression while he sets out ready-made designs on the dining room table, he wonders just how long Andrew has been planning this.

He wonders if Andrew had spoken to Bee about it - this new idea that he’d started to care about. Whether it scared him, excited him, whether he’d felt joy when the plan came to fruition.

“Was it worth it?” he asks softly, as he considers what may have lay under Andrew’s mask of detachment.