Part thirty-two: World Cup Memories
Another year, another ankle injury.
The England and Spurs knew he had to take things easy to ensure a return to fitness within the season, but there was little more frustrating to him than lingering at the side-lines and watching others compete. Harry Kane was born for professional sports, and rest and recuperation were not concepts that came easily to him. Already, January 2020 was grinding by, watching the Tottenham squad roll out to play without him – and often, with lesser results.
It wasn't really an ego thing. Harry was a humble kinda guy, in his own way. He just really loved being part of the team, and the adrenaline rush of that battle together... the highs, the lows, the in-betweens. The life of an injured player left him restless and on edge.
An afternoon of gentle exercise in the gym awaited him today, as he clacked his single crutch through the corridors of the club's expensive training complex, but he was delaying that to see the lads run out onto the pitch for their training session. There was some masochism in seeing this, of course, and really highlighting his inability to jog out after the boys and pitch in: but there was someone in particular he needed to see, after all. As he leant his crutch to the wall and hobbled his sore foot with him to the side, the Spurs lads filed out of the dressing rooms to the right in a hurry. Their faces were lit with determined smiles, ready to face off against Watford on Saturday.
`Hey, Kane!' trilled young Harry Winks as he sped out at a jog, giving a gloved wave on his way past. The fresh-faced youngster was followed by Eriksen, and then Sanchez, and so on. A flash of white and dark blue polyester as the boys emptied the changing rooms and made their way out to the wide open exit doors. Harry counted them off in his head and held up his injured ankle a little as he stood there, a 6'2 tower of authority getting nods of respectful sympathy from one player after the other. He wondered if they liked the gesture of his presence, or if they thought him a bit sad, or if they just didn't give half a fuck.
Out of the dressing room door tumbled the only person whose opinion really mattered just now, shrugging on a training jersey over his shirt and scratching at the soft cropped blond of his hair. A hesitant smile lit Harry's face as Eric Dier spilled out into the corridor then slowed down, allowing the last couple of stragglers to jog ahead of him.
Hey,' Dier grunted in his low, cheery voice, pausing on his way past. What are you doing down here, big man?' He reached and stroked a hand gently against the sleeve of Kane's top.
Just thought I'd say hi before hitting the gym,' Harry said in a quiet, measured voice, his eyes flitting about the ruggedly handsome features of the other player's face. You know... Hi.' A weak smile, pushing away his envy that Eric got to run out there and do his thing while he had to slope off and be all weak and injured and pathetic in some corner of the gym with a physio watching his every move.
`It won't be long,' Dier told him, seeming to read all of this into his typically blank expression.
It feels it,' Harry complained, but without really expressing just how frustrated he was. He looked down the corridor as the last of the others disappeared outside, knowing he should let the stocky defender follow. Hey,' he murmured, before this could be the case, `after you finish training, we could...'
Mate,' Eric said with a crushingly platonic tone, I can't today... Gotta get away quite sharpish after, actually...' Another brief stroke of the arm. But soon, mate, soon.' A wide-eyed look from those crystal blues. Harry nodded, quickly, cleared his throat a bit. I better go,' Eric mumbled.
Yeah, of course, go play,' Harry said with a hurried nod, and he gave a manly slap to the other tall bloke's shoulder, and reached to grab his crutch. Smash it. Give the lads an earful from me, hah.' He forced an encouraging smile and watched the guilty pang on Dier's face before the big puppy-like defender loped after the squad and out into the chill.
It had started about 18 months ago, on a hot Russian night in July. England had just bested Tunisia with a conservative victory of 2-1, and though it hadn't been as convincing an opening performance as the national side hoped, Harry had felt on top of the fucking world. Both goals had come from his gifted feet, and he had been made to feel like a legendary England captain all night.
The celebrations had been sober but joyous, with friends and family of many England players joining them in the hotel bar, sealed off as a private team party. Harry's fiancée, jetlagged and exhausted, had already called it a night, so no conjugal benefits for him! But he hadn't really cared. He was just basking in the glory of the win, the hype of the unfolding tournament.
At some point in the night, overcome with the heat of the bar and the Russian summer, he'd nipped out away from the wide open French windows and across the terrace for a moment's quiet, enjoying the view out over a Russian suburb he still couldn't pronounce the name of more than a year later. There had been a ripple of breeze and he'd undone a few buttons of his silky white shirt, leaning on marble railings to relax his muscles. And then suddenly he was not alone, and he was glancing about into this crystal-blue eyes.
Wondered where you'd got to, cap,' Dier said in a low, almost sulky voice, drifting up to him in a more wildly patterned short-sleeve shirt, with even less buttons still done up, exposing patches of tanned chest and sun-bleached hair. Harry had felt one heavy warm hand pat and rest against the middle of his back, and felt glad that Dier off all the lads was out here to connect with. The England squad was not short of Tottenham lads, that year, but few had felt as close or as friendly to him as Dier, his equal in height and age. Ready to become top goalscorer for the competition?' he'd asked, and Harry remembered scraps of the ensuing conversation. He'd jokily took a huff at that, claiming Eric was jinxing him: of course, it had actually come true, even if they didn't make the final.
Harry had really just smiled along, feeling drunk even after the few measly low-strength lagers they'd been allowed. A mix of excitement, dehydration, jetlag and atmosphere easily recreated the same effect as a dozen much stronger pints, and he'd found himself relaxed and grateful as Eric began to hug and stroke and flatter him with compliments.
`You were great too,' Kane told him with a deep laugh.
Yeah, once I got off the fuckin' bench,' Dier chuckled back. Then, after turning to share in his view of the city's twinkling lights in the distance, he'd asked, Where's your missus at right now, anyway?'
Oh, she's gone up,' Harry said. Shattered, bless her!'
Eric had scoffed. `Mate... the sex ban starts tomorrow! The bird is leaving you to yourself the night after our first win? Shameful behaviour, shameful...'
Harry had just laughed this off, a thought he'd dismissed himself earlier, but Eric was not wrong. The next day, intense training would assume for their next game in the group stage, and it might be a good few nights before any action was allowed by Southgate's strict regime. Well, we don't all have it as easy as you,' Kane grumbled back, running fingers through the neatly combed quiff of his golden brown hair, a little damp with humid sweat. How many Russian hookers you taking up to yours and Trippier's room tonight, eh?'
Eric rolled his sparkling blue eyes, leaned in and gave him another hug, and then leant backwards on the marble balustrade, letting the last two little buttons of his gaudy shirt pop and whip open a little to display some of his six pack, which caught the dim lighting of the terrace bar. His shirt flickered about and Harry caught an oddly exciting glimpse of pinkish-brown nipple. Eric had fixed him with a stair then, as if accusing him of looking too long at his exposed chest.
You get the wrong idea about me,' Dier had told him in a voice that was quiet and playful and, looking back, completely seductive. I'm a good boy, really.'
`That is NOT what I hear,' Kane chuckled to him.
Don't believe everything you hear,' Eric said firmly, leaning in closer in this secluded corner, where exaggeratedly tropical pot plants shielded them from anyone's view. Just... believe what you... see...' As he'd spoken, Harry hadn't been able to stop his eyes wandering down again, and he could still see it now: the vein in the side of Eric's thick muscular neck... or the way those short chest hairs curled golden against tanned skin... or the little fleshy valley running between each gently defined ab down to the waist of his linen trousers, and... `You do believe what you see, don't you?'
`Hmm?'
And more importantly...' Eric must have leaned in really close then, do you like what you see, captain...?'
That first kiss had been electric. Harry had felt himself leaning in as if pulled by gravity, lifting a hand to one strong shoulder of the other guy, and then Eric reaching forward, and their warm soft lips brushing so briefly and gently and... Harry remembered vividly how he'd shoved Eric away and spat at the floor in terrified disgust. It filled him with horror how he'd almost thumped the other man, and fled back across the balcony to escape that tender moment.
Now, making slow pace on a treadmill and listening to the droning voice of his middle-aged Scandinavian physio, assigned to him yet again during his recovery months, Harry could almost laugh to reimagine that scene. He could forgive himself that first reaction, because what thought had the Walthamstow lad ever given to kissing a bloke before then? Fucking none. Dier reckoned the tension had been brimming between them for months before that, but it had hit him completely by surprise.
`Let's try the next speed up,' Kane said distractedly, with a glance at the medical expert.
He was given a firm no, and told to concentrate on how he was using his injured foot. He sighed restlessly and stared into the mirror opposite him, watching his own tall physique work under the glossy layers of training kit. This was NOT the level of work he was used to on a Tuesday afternoon at Tottenham Hotspur, but... little by little.
He looked into his own handsome reflection, tried to adjust his gait and tread more carefully on the injured foot, and let his mind wander.
It had been some nights later, in the next stage of the tournament, when things had picked up again. Another victory, this time far more tense and frantic, and another celebration, this one with a little less strict control of what the boys got to drink.
The game against Colombia had gone to penalties, and the nail-biting finale had gone down to the wire, and then none other than that blue-eyed boy Eric Dier had nailed the final goal to take them through. By that point, Harry reflected, he must have more or less deleted the balcony kiss from the front of his mind, because he remembered being all over Dier with the rest, manly hug after sweat manly hug on the Russian pitch as the England players went bonkers over their penalty shootout win, a symbolic turning point for the revitalised national side.
And during the party that followed, Harry remembered getting drunker than at any other point during the World Cup of 2018. In the haze of foreign beer and wildly excited teammates, he could remember being oddly fixated on Dier, but without any real acknowledgement of that awkward moment between them. He had ended up propped by the bar on his own for a while, for once not the only celebrated goalscorer of the night, and he had found himself watching as Dier, in the same gaudy shirt, had drifted from embrace to embrace, much cheered by all for his calm delivery of the winning penalty.
Kane looked at the beer in his hand and decided he had probably had more than enough. It wouldn't look good for the captain of all people to get fucked off his head tonight, and embarrass himself! He put down the near-empty bottle on the cool surface of the bar and rubbed a big hand over his flushed face, then surveyed the room. Eric, hero of the hour, had vanished for now, and for some reason this was a mixture of relief and mystery to Harry in his late-night tipsy daze.
He was quickly distracted by his fellow Harry, Maguire, and Kyle Walker at his side, appearing at the bar with demands for him to buy everyone shots. Kane had laughed along with it, but awkwardly, knowing there was a fine line tonight, and that Southgate would only tolerate so much. He'd caved after a bit of chiding from the two burly defenders, though, and before long the three big blokes had been knocking back a couple of tequilas each, and then Maguire and Walker staggered off with arms about each other's shoulders, mouthing off about karaoke bars and after-parties.
Kane decided to try and call it a night at that point, a renewed sense of his own tipsy state sinking in, and an awareness that there was a lot of media stuff to be done tomorrow, not to mention prep for the next fucking round of the tournament. He had shook himself and left the bar of another identical luxury Russian hotel, and made his way to the lifts. He wasn't sure if Cahill had already gone up to their shared room yet or not, but he just needed to get back up there and down a few glasses of water. He punched lazily at lift control buttons, and eventually made it to the right floor. The corridor hummed with the sound of air conditioning and seemed to stretch off endlessly in either direction like something from a horror movie. Tour life could become a blur, and Kane realised he wasn't 100% sure whether his own room was to the left or the right.
He laughed at himself, shook his head, and gambled on right. Then quickly doubted himself, spun on his heel, and headed left. He was wrong, but that hadn't quite been the problem. The problem had come when, thirty seconds into strolling down the corridor in the wrong direction, he'd passed a hotel room door wide open, with a night breeze blustering through, and low volume R&B music drifting out of a tinny Bluetooth speaker.
He paused and looked in, just as a towel-clad figure emerged from another door at the far end of the big twin suite, looking surprised. Oh shit,' Eric said, has that bloody door swung open...? Fuck...'
Inside the room, big sliding windows were open onto the thin balcony, and the breeze had tugged at the unlocked door. Harry Kane stood in the doorway feeling a slight out of body nausea, and watched as glistening wet Eric Dier approached him, a little red in the face too, either from drink or heat or sunshine. Kane stepped inside the room, gave a laugh, then shut the door behind him.
It's what I get for leaving it unlocked,' Dier mumbled cheerily, one hand firmly on the knot of his pale pink towel, the other reaching to check the door was shut properly. How are you doing, pal? You look... a bit worse for wear.'
Harry leant self-consciously on the door for a second then laughed it off. I've had a couple of shots,' he admitted with an eye-roll. You know what Maguire's like, big keen bastard.'
Dier nodded and chuckled. `And he is shite at taking no for an answer.'
`Huh, yeah.'
`You're okay though, otherwise?' Dier asked, a bit insistently.
Yeah, yeah, fine,' Harry had told him, or something to that effect. What he remembered most vividly was how he just couldn't take his eyes off the other man's body. And then, after really staring him up and down, saying something like, You were great tonight, with that penalty... You're so great, Eric, you really are...' Definitely the word `great', more times than was necessary in one conversation. He could also remember the low boyish giggle from 26-year-old Dier, the look of bemused affection.
I'm sorry,' Eric said eventually, the two of them standing there very close. About that night after Tunisia, I just...'
`You just what?' Harry asked, but not angrily.
It just seemed something I wanted to do,' Eric said slowly. So I did it.'
Harry stared at him with a sluggish awakening of desire. He stretched his shoulders and then his arms and then flexed his fingers almost one by one until... The embrace was too long coming to be decisive, and yet when it came, it came with force. He had grabbed Eric in his arms and felt the moistness of his body against his white linen shirt, and then pushed their lips together in a second and very different kiss. The men had bit and snarled at each other's faces in a drunken frenzy, stubble on stubble. Eric grabbed and practically tore at the buttons down the front of Kane's shirt, and his towel fell away easily. Kane gasped at that, a line crossed, and found himself reaching down to feel what lay beneath it. Eric's thick nob and low hanging balls, fresh and clean in his sweaty palm, the scent of expensive shower products and shampoo filling his senses in the airy hotel room. Eric's lips nibbling at his neck, and his strong hands pushing down the back of his long shorts to feel at his arse cheeks within.
`Oh fuck,' Harry mumbled, beginning to pull away.
It's okay,' Eric hissed at him. It's just...'
I'm engaged,' Harry snapped, and then, even more firmly, I'm STRAIGHT...'
Me too,' Dier had said almost mockingly. Well... I reckon so, but...'
`Stop grabbing me...'
But you started it?' Dier returned, his voice a gentle laugh. He kissed Harry on the neck again and pulled the tall striker up against the hard flesh of his naked body. You taste gorgeous, buddy, you really do...'
`Mmm... mate, just stop, this is...'
Feel how excited I'm getting,' Eric interrupted urgently, just feel it...' And then he had snatched at Harry's awkward hand and wrapped it about his hardened length. The first other man's cock that Harry Kane had ever felt, thick and throbbing in his hand. That's just cos of you, mate,' Dier whispered to him. Seriously... just cos of you... Now what you gonna do about it, buddy?'
And for the second time that World Cup, Harry had yanked himself away from the edge of desire. He'd mumbled and swore and grabbed at the torn front of his shirt, and backed away from naked, stiff-cocked Eric Dier, and stared at him in stupid horror. And this time Dier had looked – what, hurt? – rather than just gently amused. The sight of that boyish smile wilting to regret seemed to haunt Kane's mind as he fled the room and searched the corridor for his own, eventually greeted by Cahill's rasping snores and climbing into bed without the longed for rehydrating glasses of water.
Strange, to think now of ever resisting Eric's advances. Harry had long since given up any pretence that he could say no to the other man. Eric's looks, his presence, his roguish humour, his playful appetite, all of it drove Harry wild in a way that he had not confided in a single person. No wonder it had bothered him so much when that fucking new kid caught them at it and became the only threat to their secret. But... Troy was a good lad, it seemed. No disaster had arisen. The Irish newbie had been true to his word.
Harry gave perfunctory thanks to the physio on his way out of the gym. It was weird leaving a fitness centre feeling like you'd barely worked up a sweat, but his doctor's orders were painfully clear at the minute. He swung his way out on his single crutch and paused out on the landing in front of the gym suites, where a long clear window gave a good view out over the training pitch.
Empty. That hadn't been such a long session after all for the lads. Coaches were taking it easy, presumably. Well, it was only Watford.
He fumbled in the pocket of his tracksuit top and slipped out his phone, filled with a pang of desire to speak to Eric now, even if there was to be no gentle fun before he drove home into the North London suburbs and his beautiful, oblivious wife. Aha, a text from Dier already. "Sorry m8, really got 2 run – c u soon xx" Harry almost read it aloud to himself, his lips nervously turning the words over. This thing between them had been smouldering along for over a year and still his heart jumped in his chest at all of their communications: a mixture of excited desire and utter terror at discovery.
The third night of intimacy had come not after another victory, but at the eventual loss, on the night Croatia had bested them and thrown them from the contest. Of course, Harry had found it hard not to blame himself for it. Captains took glory and defeat on their shoulders equally, he'd learnt that early. He'd held it together in front of the lads, and for the reporters, and then back at the hotel, he'd found a quiet spot and allowed himself a moment of fresh tears.
He was sitting out in the deserted hotel gardens by the pool, which glowed turquoise against the night, casting weird bestial shadows across the rising walls. Distant voices from the hotel bar drifted over, some he recognised, some he did not. He was hunched sideways on a sun lounger wiping the embarrassing little tears of defeat from his eyes, and trying to will himself to wander back indoors and find some of the guys, or his own family, and grin and bear it and act like this wasn't a crushing end to a beautiful summer dream.
And then, of course, he'd noticed him. Eric had his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts as he picked his way around the edge of the pool, crossing the shadowy gardens at a slow pace, giving Harry cautious looks across that eerie light. Harry straightened up a bit, wiped his face, and watched his approach with a vague smile of welcome. Cautious, to say the least.
`You alright out here, captain?' Dier asked gently.
`I've had better nights,' Harry said, and though he was only referring to football, the comment took on new meaning as soon as it was said aloud. Both guys seemed to think on its implications as Eric closed the distance, and sat down opposite him, on the next abandoned sun lounger.
The wine is flowing in there,' Eric pointed out patiently. Some of the guys think losing is a far better excuse for a party than winning, in fact.'
Harry smirked a little. `Let me guess who...'
`Oh, no points for that guessing game, big man.'
An uneasy silence settling between them, though the muffled sounds of commiserating footballers felt louder and closer. Harry thought it over, then – not the awkward memory of that first kiss or the rushed, fleshy embraces in the hotel room, but the reality of this situation now. The fact that everyone else was cracking open wine and drowning their sorrows, and that Eric alone had thought to come and find him and see how he was taking it. Nobody on the England squad or at White Hart Lane knew just how seriously Harry took his sport, his teammates, his career; nobody but Eric.
Just as he mulled these thoughts over, Eric got up, and crossed the short gap of terracotta flooring between them, and stood just to his side. He put his strong hands to Kane's tensed shoulders and begin to massage through the loose pale tshirt. His fingers kneaded at muscles that had not really relaxed in weeks, and then found their way onto his long neck and, after a few more moments, through his soft fluffy hair to pull soothingly over his scalp. Harry sighed, letting go. He rested his head back and let it fall gently against the firm backdrop of Dier's toned tummy.
And then Kane had felt it at his shoulder muscle, the heavy outline of that man's prick again, the one he had briefly held in his hand. He began to tense up, but Eric squeezed his shoulders. You don't have to do anything you don't want,' Dier said very, very quietly. But if you do want...'
Harry turned his head, leant back a little, and nuzzled his nose and the edge of his mouth against the outline in Dier's shorts. He looked up then, and their eyes had met in the very dim light of the pool. Then, Eric had taken him by the hand, pulled him softly to his feet, and they had retreated further form the pool's edge, further from view of the hotel, until they were in a dark, narrow space behind the closed pool bar, bordered by thick trees and bushes. And suddenly Harry was on his knees, holding onto Eric's calf muscles, and nuzzling at the front of those shorts again, desperate to kiss Eric's cock. He tugged on the thin fabric of the shorts, and found Dier was going commando. He wrapped his lips about the shaft and looked up, needing some sign of approval or encouragement.
That's right, captain,' Eric murmured. You want it, don't you?'
Harry Kane nodded, utterly submitting to this other man. `Fucking hell yes,' he whispered.
`Then have it, buddy,' Eric moaned.
Harry opened wide and took as much of it in as possible, and felt it get bigger and stiffer against his unpractised mouth. He pulled his lips and up and down as he'd felt his own fiancée do. Eric began to moan more and more. But he was new to this, and Eric's prick was quite thick, and teeth had been an issue. Before long, he was just giggling anxiously and tugging on it with his hand instead, while Eric chuckled gently and stroked his hair.
`We'll have to get you trained up at that, Kane,' he said teasingly.
I'm sorry,' Harry told him. I just want to...'
`Get up,' Dier told him, warm but firm.
Harry had got up to his feet then, with no real sense of what was expected of him. Eric had sidled about him until he was behind, and pushed him gently forward, so he was forced to lean on the rough plaster of the closed bar building, which grazed at his bare skin. Then Eric's hand had thrust down the back of his shorts and briefs and groped at the tight muscles of his backside, and he had almost shouted at him to stop, but the bond that had sprung into life between them in these moments was already strong. Just relax,' he heard Eric whisper, just relax and let me...'
Eric had licked at two fingers to lube them, and slid them between the smooth cheeks.
Kane lent heavily into the plaster wall and just let out shivering little groans of excitement as he felt the finger trace up and down his arse, and then find the tight clenched ring that had never been touched before. Eric was confident and authoritative, and the soothing purr of his voice did a lot of the work. As he repeatedly asked Harry to relax, he couldn't help but obey. He felt Eric's finger pressing into him and knew it hurt, but he also just wanted to feel something more profound than the pain of footballing defeat, and the horror of letting his teammates down. He leant further forward and rested his head amongst the fold of his arms, feeling Eric lean close to him, muscle on muscle, and kiss the back of his neck while he began to finger him. The man's other hand was reaching around and finding Kane's straining boner. With one hand, Dier wanked him off, a strange new feeling having the strength of another bloke doing it, and with the other, Dier managed to force two fingers into the tightness of his hole, and thrust them in and out with little lube and too much force. It really did hurt, but Harry was loving the force and danger of it, and it was all he could do not to scream into the Russian night.
Of course, he remembered now, he'd blown his load all over that wall, and then got to his knees, and wanked and licked and slobbered until he got Eric to a similarly well-deserved climax. And then the guys had wandered inside, and spent the rest of the night shooting wistful glances at each other across a `party' of defeat... Fucking hell. It seemed like yesterday, and also a century ago.
Harry clacked his way down the stairs, needing to go and sign some paperwork on his treatment plan before he could quit the training centre and start his journey home. He'd been cleared to drive, but he had to take it easy, so he was tempted to get a taxi instead. Such mundane thoughts passed through his mind as he lumbered about downstairs, passing a few of the other players on their way out of the dressing rooms, all looking relieved at an early finish. His eyes darted amongst them for Eric, but no sign at the moment. Not that it mattered, Dier probably had been the first to go, since he seemed in such a busy hurry today. Harry was sure he would find out later if he gave him a discreet call before bedtime.
He found his way to the medical team office at the far end of the building, and did what needed to be done. He regretted his sulkier mood of earlier today, as he listened to the chief medic's consoling advice and thought about what a great team they had here. He needed to just be grateful that his injury was minor, and his rest break would probably be quite brief. With this in mind, he made his way back through the training building, which was pretty quiet now.
He was just about to quit the building altogether, and limp out into the car parks, when he decided to torment himself with a last look out onto the training pitch, and he went the other way. He made it to the end of the corridor and stared out of the windows of the locked doors, at the open space of the playing field. It would be a good number of weeks before he was out on there, stretching his legs, working on his skills, getting back in the thick of it. Fuck.
He stood there, leant his wait on the crutch, and sighed, and then – what was that noise?
A faint scrabbling or muffled cry from somewhere to his right, down the little passage that led to all the kit storerooms for... Hah, the cupboards he and Eric had privately enjoyed more than a few times in the last year or so! In fact, the very storerooms where they had lost control of themselves and failed to take enough caution and been caught by... hah...
Harry heard another little noise, and he couldn't help himself. He swung the crutch and his strong legs and made his way down the narrower passage, turning through a couple of open doors into the long row of storerooms. It was the end one on the left that he and Dier always used, he thought idly, longingly to himself. There was no real reason they kept to using the same one, it was hardly romantic, and yet... It was the little secret patterns of the affair that seemed to give Harry the most joy these days, as sad as that might sound to anyone else. And here... That shuttered space wasn't QUITE shuttered, as he supposed was the problem last time, when...
The feeling of dread was already rising up in him as he made his way down the passage, as if he knew almost exactly what he was going to find. With each step, the noises got clearer. The dull clattering sounds of disturbed equipment, the soft thump of footfalls, the suppressed breathy noises of private enjoyment, and a voice that was painfully recognisable as Eric's. Harry let his crutch go clattering to the floor as he hurried the last few paces, almost tumbling on his sore ankle in his rush. He lurched down, grabbed at the bottom of the shutters, and wrenched them angrily upwards to expose the scene inside.
There he was, Eric, with his strong arms reaching behind him to prop himself up against a cage of spare footballs, his training shirt yanked up beneath his armpits, ruffled about nipple height, six pack bared, and shorts about his ankles, much of his strong torso and legs on show, but a bowed head blocking view of his crotch. Eric's eyes widened, and he stared in dismay right at Harry, those sparkling blue irises dilated with the alarm of discovery.
`Harry, mate...'
Kane just stared at him, and let his eyes rove down, as the head at Eric's crotch turned round, an earnest face of pale sandy brown, thick eyebrows raised in shock, furrowing the forehead beneath a tight mass of dark curled hair. Dele Alli looked more furious than worried, lips curled back in a hungry snarl, precum dampening the edge of his pouted bottom lip. The midfielder ran a tongue along this lip, let out a gasp of frustration.
`Harry, I can explain,' moaned Eric.
Kane tried to spit out the words for what he was feeling, but they didn't come. He just grabbed the metal edge of the shutters, and tugged them back down with as much force as he could, then let go, sending them noisily to the bottom of the doorway, and he lurched backwards in shock. He knelt in pain, grabbed his crutch off the floor, and hurried away as quickly as his ankle allowed, his world in a spin. He rushed for the car park and his expensive BMW, and for the roads home. Home to his wife, who would be excited to see him, but would have no fucking idea why her dear husband's heart was completely fucking shattered.