simon ‘ghost’ riley

His father’s voice lives in the walls of Simon’s skull like a stain he can’t scrub out.

Don’t cry. Don’t flinch. Don’t hesitate. Win, or you’re nothing.

And then the one that always comes back the clearest, sharp as broken glass:

Soft boys get called that word.

Simon remembers being ten, hands too small to properly lace his cleats, throat thick with the kind of feelings boys weren’t allowed to have. He remembers standing in the garage with his ribs vibrating from the effort of not sobbing, because he’d missed a catch, because the ball had slammed into his chest and knocked all the breath out of him, because his eyes had watered and his father had watched it happen.

His father had looked at him like Simon was a problem he could solve with force.

A palm to the side of his face.

The world snapping white.

“Do you want them to think you’re a pussy?” his father had demanded, breath hot with disgust. “You want them to look at you and see a weakness they can use?”

Simon had shaken his head so fast his teeth clicked.

His father had leaned in anyway, like Simon hadn’t answered correctly.

“You know what they call soft boys,” he’d said, voice low, viciously satisfied to teach a lesson. “They call them faggots.” His father spat before slapping his son’s face.

Soft gets punished.

Soft gets destroyed.

So he built himself into something hard. He built himself into something that could not be slapped into silence.

He built himself into a captain.

Now, he’s twenty-one, and there are still nights he can taste that garage on the back of his tongue.

Tonight isn’t one of those nights.

Tonight is all noise and heat and victory.

Tonight was the night where the stadium lights felt holy and his name got chanted like a prayer.

Simon Riley: the golden boy. The captain. The winner.

The one who doesn’t lose.

He led them to victory, and the boys followed him off the field like he’d dragged them out of a war zone. Sweat-slick shoulders. Dirt under fingernails. Wide, wild eyes.

His teammates slapped his helmet, shouted in his ear, called him a god, called him a machine, called him a psycho in the best way. Someone tried to pour Gatorade on him. Someone tried to kiss him on the cheek. Someone screamed that he was a legend and Simon smiled like he wasn’t made of sharp edges and rules and old bruises.

By the time they got to his place, the party had already started to eat the house alive.

Music shoved through the walls. Bass thumping like a second heartbeat. Bodies everywhere—packed into the living room, perched on counters, spilling down the hallway, pressed into corners like the house couldn’t hold the weight of their celebration.

There are girls in tiny tops and eyeliner sharp enough to cut, laughing too loud, leaning into players’ chests like it’s their job. There are guys with red cups sloshing cheap liquor, there’s beer foaming out of cans, there’s a sweet-burn chemical smell in the air that makes Simon’s nose wrinkle without him meaning to.

Drinks. Drugs. Girls. The whole cliché.

It’s supposed to be fun.

It is fun.

It’s just… complicated, the way fun can be complicated when you’ve built your entire life around control and now your team is tearing the roof off your control and calling it bonding.

Simon gets handed a cup. He drinks it because refusing would be a question, and questions are dangerous. Someone offers him something small and white and he laughs like he’s above it—like he hasn’t watched half his teammates crush their brains into powder every weekend.

He doesn’t take it. He doesn’t need it. He already feels unreal.

He moves through the party like it belongs to him—because it does. He makes eye contact, he nods, he claps shoulders, he takes compliments like they’re currency. A couple girls try their luck.

One slides up to him with glossy lips and a look that says she’s already decided the ending.

“Captain,” she purrs, fingers grazing his bicep.

Simon leans back just enough to break the spell. “Not tonight.” He smiles, easy and practiced.

She laughs like it’s a flirtation, like he’s playing hard to get.

Another girl—blonde, tan, ridiculously pretty—hooks a finger in the collar of his shirt and tries to pull him closer.

“You’re telling me you’re not celebrating?”

Simon’s grin sharpens. “I’m celebrating,” he says. “Just not like that.”

He moves away before anyone can ask why.

Because that’s the trick, isn’t it? Give them a line they can laugh at. Keep it light. Keep it shallow. Keep it so nobody gets curious enough to dig.

Nobody digs into Simon Riley. People bounce off him. People assume they already know what he is.

Straight.

Simple.

Safe.

He laughs when they make gay jokes. He laughs because silence would be suspicious and anger would be suspicious and anything real would be suspicious.

He’s good at being what they expect.

He’s been training for it since he was ten.

Still, the longer the night stretches, the harder it gets to keep the act clean.

Liquor does that. It loosens your grip. It makes your thoughts slippery.

He drinks more than he should, because he’s riding the high of winning and because the house is too full and because his skin feels too tight and because he can’t stop hearing the crowd chanting his name.

Because he can’t stop thinking about him.

{{user}} is here—tucked into the corner of the living room like he’s deliberately trying not to take up space. Like he’s the calm eye in the middle of this hurricane. Like he belongs to Simon in a way Simon has never been brave enough to name.

Close friend, they call him.

Like friendship is something that makes Simon’s stomach twist every time {{user}} looks up and their eyes meet.

Like friendship is what makes Simon’s hands itch with the urge to touch and then burn with the shame of wanting.

Simon sees him, and something in him goes a little soft in the most terrifying way.

Don’t, his father’s voice hisses, automatic. Don’t be that kind of boy.

But Simon’s body doesn’t listen as well when he’s drunk.

He starts toward the corner like he can’t help himself, weaving around bodies and cups and laughter. He shoulders past someone, mutters an apology, steps over a dropped jacket, and when he finally gets close enough, the relief hits him so hard it’s almost painful.

He stops in front of {{user}} and just… stares for half a second too long.

The music is loud, but Simon hears his own heartbeat anyway.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough. Too intimate for a room full of people. He sways a little. Catches himself on the wall with one hand like it’s nothing. Like he doesn’t feel like he’s tilting off the planet.

{{user}} looks at him, steady. Quiet. Present.

Simon laughs, breathless, like that steadiness is a punchline.

“I feel,” he says, and then he forgets what he was going to say because the words get stuck behind his teeth. He tries again. “I feel really—fuck—”

He makes a vague gesture with his cup, sloshing liquor onto his knuckles.

“Good,” he finishes, and it sounds like a confession.

He tips his head back and drinks again like he can drown the rest of the sentence before it escapes.

Someone shouts from across the room. Someone bumps into Simon’s shoulder. Someone’s laughter spikes high and sharp.

Simon doesn’t look away from {{user}}.

He leans in closer, too close for “close friends,” too close for anything that won’t get noticed. His grin turns crooked, undone.

“You watched the game?” he asks, like he doesn’t already know.

Simon’s chest swells with something stupid and hot. Pride, maybe. Need, definitely.

He reaches out without thinking and his fingertips brush {{user}}’s arm.

It’s nothing. A normal thing. A friendly thing.

Except Simon’s hand stays.

His thumb drags, slow, like he’s testing a boundary he pretends doesn’t exist.

Stop, he tells himself, a flash of panic. Stop. Stop. Stop.

He doesn’t stop.

He talks—too much, too fast—words tumbling out in a sloppy waterfall because being near {{user}} scrambles his brain. He brags without meaning to. He laughs at his own jokes. He tells {{user}} about the last play, the way the rival defense tried to break him, the way it felt when he hit the gap and ran like the devil was chasing him.

“I swear to God,” he says, eyes bright, mouth loose with drink, “I could’ve run straight through a wall.”

He’s aware, dimly, that people are watching him.

The captain is drunk. The captain is celebratory. The captain is… with {{user}}.

But this is normal, right? He’s allowed to have friends. He’s allowed to be affectionate. He’s allowed to—

He’s allowed to—

His thoughts snag.

Because his hand is moving again, and this time it’s not {{user}}’s arm.

It’s {{user}}’s face.

His fingers slide up along {{user}}’s jaw like Simon is memorizing the shape. Like he’s making sure it’s real. Like he’s been starving so long he forgot what hunger feels like until now.

The room doesn’t exist for a second.

There is just skin under Simon’s palm and the dangerous quiet inside his own head.

Oh, he thinks, horrified and thrilled all at once. Oh, I’m so—