Manchester Rain | NEON LIT

The rain hammered Hough End like it had a personal vendetta against Sunday league football. I'd twisted my hamstring in the seventy-third minute trying to round their keeper, and now I was limping toward the prefab buildings that passed for changing rooms.

"You're not walking that off, mate." Keisha appeared beside me with a golf umbrella the size of a small continent. "Treatment room. Now."

I didn't argue. Nobody argued with Keisha Okafor. She'd been the unofficial physio for three teams in the South Manchester league for five years, working out of a converted storage room she'd equipped herself. She was also built like the kind of statue ancient civilizations would worship—tall, broad-shouldered, with curves that her tracksuit couldn't hide no matter how baggy she wore it.

"On the table." She gestured to the massage bench while shaking rain from her braids. "Shorts off. Can't work through fabric."

I stripped down to my boxers while she washed her hands. The room smelled of Deep Heat and eucalyptus, small space heater working overtime against the Manchester chill.

"You pulled it proper," she said after probing the back of my thigh. "Another centimeter and you'd be looking at weeks out."

"Good thing you're here then."

"Good thing you didn't try to play through it like you idiots always do." Her hands were warm, slicked with some oil that smelled of pine. "Now shut up and let me work."

For twenty minutes, I did exactly that. Keisha's fingers found knots I didn't know existed, pressure points that made me gasp, tension I'd been carrying since childhood. The woman was a genuine healer—everyone said so. She'd trained properly, had the certificates on the wall, could have worked with actual pro teams if she'd wanted.

"Why do you do this?" I asked during a brief respite. "League teams would pay proper money."

"Did for a while. Preston North End's youth academy." Her hands moved higher, working the connection between hamstring and glute. "Couldn't stand the politics. The egos. The boys pretending they were men." She pressed harder, and I groaned. "Rather help people who actually appreciate it. Even if you lot pay me in pints and curry."

"I appreciate it."

"Do you?" There was something different in her voice. "Lie on your back."

I rolled over, suddenly very aware that her ministrations had had an effect beyond just loosening my muscles. The boxers weren't hiding much.

Keisha glanced down and raised an eyebrow. "That's new."

"Sorry, I—"

"Didn't say it was a problem." She moved to work on my quad, but her eyes kept flicking south. "Happens sometimes. Blood flow increases. Natural response."

"Right. Natural."

"Very natural." Her hands slid up my thigh, maintaining the fiction of massage while clearly abandoning any therapeutic purpose. "Question is what you want to do about it."

"What are my options?"

She stopped, both hands resting on my leg, thumbs inches from where I desperately wanted them. "Option one, I ignore it, finish the treatment, send you on your way. Option two..." She licked her lips. "We acknowledge that I've been watching you play for two years and wondering what you look like under the kit."

"Two years?"

"You move nice. For a striker." Her thumb traced a circle. "Strong. But not rough. Always help the other lads up when they go down. Hold the door for the ref even when he's had a mare."

"Didn't know you were watching that close."

"I watch everything close. Professional requirement." She pulled her tracksuit top over her head, revealing a sports bra struggling heroically against its contents. "So. Option one or two?"

I sat up and kissed her. She tasted like the ginger tea she always drank on the sidelines, warm and spicy and perfect. Her body pressed against mine was all heat and softness, the sports bra giving way to my searching hands like it had been waiting for permission.

"Table's not big enough," she murmured against my mouth.

"Floor?"

"Got yoga mats. Physio equipment. Very versatile."

She wasn't wrong. The yoga mats provided cushioning while Keisha provided everything else. She was magnificent naked—brown skin gleaming with residual oil, breasts heavy and responsive, hips wide enough to get lost in. And the sounds she made when I touched her right would have drowned out the rain if it hadn't redoubled its efforts.

"There," she gasped when I found the spot that made her back arch. "Right bloody there. Don't you dare stop."

I didn't stop. I stayed exactly where she needed me until her whole body shook and she cried out something that might have been my name or might have been Yoruba—I wasn't qualified to judge. Then she pulled me up and guided me inside her, where everything was warmth and welcome and the kind of rightness that made two years of watching each other across muddy pitches suddenly make sense.

We moved together with the rhythm of the rain, finding a pace that built and built until neither of us could hold back anymore. She came again, clenching around me, and I followed immediately after, collapsing onto her chest while her heartbeat drummed against my ear.

"Not bad," she said finally. "For a striker."

"Strikers are all about finding the back of the net."

She laughed and swatted my shoulder. "That's terrible."

"But accurate?"

"Very accurate." She kissed my forehead. "Rain's not stopping anytime soon. Fancy round two? Call it extended treatment."

Outside, Manchester did what Manchester does—rained like the sky was trying to prove a point. Inside, Keisha's magic hands found new ways to heal me. By the time the storm passed, I couldn't remember which leg I'd injured.

But I showed up to training Tuesday just to see her on the sideline. And she smiled at me like she'd been waiting two years for exactly that.