Footballer Follies (The Brotherhood: Legacy Book 4) by Merry Farmer

Author:Merry Farmer [Farmer, Merry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

It was a bloody nightmare, and as warped as it was, the only thing that got Rae through it was Ellis.

“Are you certain this is a good idea,” Rae’s mum asked as Ellis drove them and Rae’s dad through the pre-dawn streets of Ealing a day after the surgery to repair his ankle. “It’s so early.”

“Alice,” Rae’s dad said in a tired voice, clutching the coffee he’d bought at the hospital the second the shop had opened, “if Ellis says that taking Rae home this early is the best way to avoid the press, then he probably knows best.”

“Alright,” his mum said, shaking her head. “It just seems awfully early.”

“Would you prefer to travel with Rae in this condition, when all his supporters might be out crowding the streets to see him home?” his dad asked.

“Really,” his mum huffed and glanced out the window.

Rae rolled his eyes at his parents’ playful bickering, fighting not to smile. They were always like that. Rae didn’t know two people who loved each other more, but they tended to communicate that love through griping and taking playful jabs at each other.

“We’re almost there,” Ellis told them, glancing into the backseat through the rearview mirror.

He met Rae’s eyes, and despite everything, Rae smiled.

A moment later, he wiped that smile from his face. His parents had never expressed their disappointment or discomfort at him being gay. They’d actually been surprisingly supportive for people their age. But that never-ending fear that they would decide to turn their backs on him and deem him a waste of their time was always there.

“Are you comfortable back there?” Ellis asked, alternately looking in the mirror and at the street in front of him before he had to focus on the street to make the final turn on the journey home.

“Yep,” Rae said, squirming a bit so he wasn’t as squashed between his parents.

“Oh, look. We’re home,” his mum announced with delight.

Rae’s home was not at all the sort of place a football star was supposed to live in. Despite his Premier League paycheck, he still lived in the house he’d grown up in, the one that had once belonged to his parents. It was only slightly above average for the area, since they’d needed four bedrooms to house the whole family decades ago. It certainly wasn’t the sort of mansion that most of his other Eels teammates lived in.

Of course, he’d had a very small wall with a gate built around the house after his star had begun rising, since people knew who he was and where he lived. Ellis had to leap out of the car and punch the code into the gate before getting back in and driving through, then getting out to shut the gate behind them once he’d parked. He’d had an elaborate security system with cameras installed around the house as well, though he hated it. One break-in by an overzealous fan two years ago had been all he’d needed to take that step.

It had

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