Young Writers Society

As a few more players started to arrive my pulse started to get faster again. The world number two, Aljaz Kastinov, sat his bulking frame down next to me. Then Miko Rehnsner, the world number freaking one sat across from him, and I could barely stop myself from asking for their autographs. I had played them both, and even put up a good fight against Rehnsner once. But dinner with them was a whole other matter. This was so cool, but my words kept sticking in my throat and making my brain spin around.

“Léo,” Camillo whispered, “You okay?”

I turned to face him and locked eyes with him. I murmured, “Yeah. Yeah… I’m fine. Thank you.”

I felt myself calm again and took a deep breath. I looked back up at Natalie and said, “How’s your food?”

She grinned through a mouthful of spaghetti, then chewed as fast as she could. Once she’d swallowed, she said, “Wonderful! If Camillo is actually homesick I really wouldn’t mind him being homesick more often.”

Camillo shook his head. “Just wait til I get really homesick and you end up drowning in Syrian hummus.”

Natalie’s smile dropped for a second and her frown looked worried. Then she said, “You know you can talk about that whenever you like, Cam. Your past, that is.”

Camillo snorted. “Hah! That worked even better on you than it does on reporters.”

I jerked my head round to face him as Natalie went back to her food. “You mean that was an act?”

“What, right there?” he said, wiping his brow as he stopped laughing.

“No, with the reporter… Oh, yeah, just now. Uh, shit.” I gulped and hoped I hadn’t spoken loud enough for Natalie to hear. Luckily Maderic had started talking to her about backhands.

Camillo leaned in to me and whispered. “No, I promise that was real. Talking about my past hurts. Doesn’t mean I can’t use that to wind up my friends though.”

I nodded, staring into his eyes. We stayed like that for probably slightly too long, but the people immediately around us were involved in conversations between themselves. We could have stayed like that for longer, I think, but Camillo broke his gaze away and went back to his food.

Suddenly, I felt something on my foot. A soft pressure, rubbing back and forth. I was still looking at Camillo, but he was busy eating. Besides, it wasn’t coming from the side. I looked up at Natalie. It was coming from directly opposite me. Was she playing footsie? She smiled at me, smirked almost, looking me straight in the eye. The room was fairly dark, the sun having gone down and the lights not yet turned on. The table’s candles were really all that let me see the twinkle in her eye. Oh God, she was hitting on me.

Shit. I hated coming out this way. She was so nice though; I had to tell her the truth.

Once again, the bathroom came to my rescue. I excused myself and rushed to the empty room, straight into one of the stalls. Sitting on the closed over shiny porcelain lid, I found her number in the WhatsApp group and texted her.

Was that your foot on my leg?

As soon as I sent it I saw how direct it was, but this had to be direct. I had to get this overwith.

Uh, yes, she replied, Sorry if that was too much. You’re cute J

I ran my hand down my face and hung my head. Sometimes I really, really wished I was bisexual. But I’d tried before, and it hadn’t worked. I was gay through and through. And although I would never, ever tell a journalist, at least not until I retired, I couldn’t just try and brush her off. That wasn’t fair.

Thank you. You’re cute too. Afraid I’m gay though. Please don’t tell.

The next reply took quite a while to come through. So long in fact that I had to leave the bathroom in case someone worried about me. I opened the slick, discreet bathroom door, which was actually discreet because the restaurant was posh, but it certainly helped me feel stealthy anyway. As I slipped through, I immediately bumped into Natalie.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nearly stumbled back into the bathroom. Why would she ask that? Had I already been in the bathroom that long? But she knew why I was there anyway. What the-

“Oh,” I said, realising what she was talking about, “I uh, I came out when I was fourteen. Don’t worry about me, been dealing with this shit for a while.”

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes looked down at her feet and she didn’t say anything for a little while. She said, “I was going to say you could talk to me about it if you needed.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

She looked up. “I mean that. My brother’s trans. I saw what it was like when he didn’t talk to people.”

I looked into her eyes, my legs starting to shake a bit. “Thank you. I’ll, um, text you if I need to talk to someone. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, “Okay, I actually do have to go to the toilet now though.”

I laughed. “Okay, see you when you get back.”

She nodded and practically leapt into the women’s bathroom. I smiled all the way back to my seat, forcing out of my head memories of being the only gay kid in school. It seemed tonight I’d made another friend, and that was definitely bigger than a baby step.