Ziam Smut

Glory and Grace

Zayn's teammates weren't helping, either. They all kept jogging past to nudge Zayn with obvious nods to the singer, or cat call as he ran past, or even, in Tomlinson's case, make some pretty lewd gestures that the younger members on the audience may be scarred by. They only stopped once Coach Cowell threatened to bench the lot of them.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Liam asked Harry.

Harry shrugged. "Keeping you out of trouble."

Liam raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.

Soon enough the game was getting started. Tomlinson won the coin toss, and fist-bumped Zayn as he ran to his position as centre midfield. Zayn and Gregson set up the ball on the half line while the rest of the team fell into position behind them. And then the whistle blew.

The game moved almost too quickly for Liam to keep up with. Zayn kicked to Gregson, Gregson to Harris, Harris booting it up forward while Gregson sprinted to get it before the opposition's left-wing could send it back again. Men were near-colliding with each other; legs sticking out in tackles that the fans booed at, ball fighting at peoples' shins, men jumping up sporadically for headers that almost always resulted on players stumbling on top of members of the opposition. The refs were being put to work, whistles blowing every few minutes as someone grabbed onto someone else's shirt for a second too long or accidentally-on-purpose knocked someone over.

Tension was running high and it took Liam a little while to figure out why. Liam hadn't heard much about the game, had been too preoccupied with various gigs and publicity events. It was only when he heard one of the women surrounding him murmur 'one hell of a semi-final' that things started to make sense.

Liam expected things to calm down once the initial adrenaline had calmed down, but it seemed like opposite was to be true. The ball was flying across the field so quickly and sporadically that Liam felt himself becoming dizzy with it. The players were running around everywhere, some sort of organisation to their movement that Liam didn't recognise. So, he decided that it was too hard to follow the game, and instead just watched Zayn.

The man was clearly exhausted after sprinting for the better part of the match so far. He was hunched slightly, shifting on his feet as though to keep his blood flowing. His eyes seemed to be tracking the ball despite it being way down with the defence. Liam noticed distantly that blue really suited Zayn.

When the ref blew a whistle to signal half time, the players quickly ran to the coach's box to meet Cowell, all either looking down at their feet or otherwise avoiding the coach's eyes. No one had scored yet, and by the look on Cowell's face he wasn't too happy.

"They're favoured to win, you know," Harry said conversationally, eyes wide. "By a landslide. West Brom is shut."

"Hey," Liam said defensively. West Brom was his favourite team growing up.

"Who's side are you even on?" Harry laughed.

Liam just shrugged, hands in his pockets. "When did you get so knowledgeable about footy, anyway?" he asked.

"I may have been doing my research," Harry answered slowly.

"Why?" Liam asked, eyebrow raising in curiosity. "You planning on representing some of the lads?"

"I'm too busy with your decision-ignoring ass," Harry snapped without heat.

Liam just grinned. "Why, then?"