03.24.19

Summary: When Neil Josten is offered a position as a starting striker for a professional Exy team, he feels like all of his dreams are coming true. He signs the contract, not caring about the strict morality clause that controls who he can and can’t date in the public eye.

Then he meets Andrew Minyard, the top-ranked goalie of a rival team, and then Neil thinks he might just have to care after all.

Status: 26/26 chapters, complete. Word count: 134,296 Characters: Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day, Riko Moriyama, Laila Dermott, Matt Boyd, Jean Moreau, and a bunch of unidentifiable white men who ruin everything. Tags and Warnings: angst, romance, forbidden love, violence, Minyard vs. Josten rivalry, explicit sexual content, threats and blackmail, implication of/reference to rape, homophobia. A/N: This took me from March 2017 to August 2018 to finish. It has been one of the longest, most stressful journeys of my life and I’m really sad to have it be over, but with every new person who reads, I guess it sort of continues. This is like my love letter to Andreil. Thanks for everything, kids.

“I wish I knew about him before I signed that contract,” Neil admits, allowing himself to look weak in front of Kevin, because Kevin will know how to smack it out of him, how to end it.

Kevin turns a fierce look on him, pointing a wild and waving hand in his face. “He is not any more free than you are, even with his contract. He is a dream you need to get over. You’ve worked too hard for this. Don’t throw it away over what could be nothing.”

It feels like a punch, and Neil takes it unguarded. But then he pauses, and stares at the wall behind Kevin’s head, and thinks -

Could be?