The away dressing room at Hillsborough was not a place of quiet focus. It was a carnival.
"He scored from a corner!" Jonathan Rowe was yelling, re-enacting Emre's 'Olimpico' with a water bottle and a bin. "He actually bent the ball around the space-time continuum! That's not a goal; that's a science experiment!"
"And the penalty!" David Kerrigan was preening in front of a mirror, admiring his own reflection. "Did you see the fear in his eyes? The captain? The big, scary Premier League legend? He was terrified of my raw, unpredictable talent. I broke him. Mentally."
"He fouled you because you were playing like a five-year-old who'd had too much sugar," Grant Hanley grunted, but he was grinning, a huge, rare, and beautiful sight.
"But I'll admit, it was effective."
Ethan stood in the middle of it all, a feeling of deep, profound, and slightly hysterical joy washing over him.
