His tongue’s practically hanging out of his mouth.

It’s the first time we’ve ever played on what could be considered grounds. We usually play on a pitch behind the college that Helen gets for us for free, but we get bumped if one of the college teams needs to use it, which happens a lot.

I look over at the other team and it’s easy to see why Alistair’s so excited.

Even Gregor looks like he’s going to pop a boner.

The other team are fit.

There are lads of all shapes and sizes, if those shapes and sizes are bloody massive. They’re already in kit, a black shirt with about a dozen logos across the front of it.

They look like they want to eat us alive.

“Fucking hell,” says Gregor beside me.

“You can say that again,” says Liam.

“Eh, no you can’t.” Helen turns and shoots Gregor the stink eye.

He goes red again.

“They look like proper footballers, though,” says Liam.

“And what are we, pastry chefs?” says Alistair, snarky as ever.

“I am, actually,” says Liam.

“Calm down, Mary Berry, you work in Greggs,” says Alistair, giving him the once-over.

Give him his dues, Alistair’s a pretty good footballer. I’m not the only one who wonders why he plays for Mosaic, when he could play for a team that might actually win sometimes.

But then I see him flick his sequinned scarf back off his neck, and I know why he plays for us.

The other team’s captain wolf-whistles as Alistair gets off the bus.

I would have been mortified. I hate it when people do that sort of thing, like when they say ‘yes, ma’am’ in shops or when the girl at Starbucks looks at me funny when I give a guy’s name.

But Alistair takes it in his stride, waving back at the guys who wolf-whistled and batting his eyelashes, pretending to blush.

It gets a huge laugh.

As the rest of Mosaic go inside to get changed, I hang back a bit.

Helen’s just about to light up a fag when she spots me.

She doesn’t like smoking in front of us, even though we all know she smokes.

“It’s OK,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone.”

She laughs, but still puts her fags and lighter back in her pocket. “What’s up?”

“Um,” I say to Helen. She’s cool, but for some reason I’m still funny about asking her for stuff. I hate feeling like a hassle. “Where am I going to get changed?”

It takes a second for her to realize what I’m asking.

“Oh fuck, yeah.”

At the college I get changed in a separate changing room. I thought it would be weird, but actually it’s fine. No one’s mentioned it. I don’t think anyone’s even noticed. If you were lucky enough to get changed in a room full of fit guys every week, you’d have a hard time caring about anyone who wasn’t there, right?

“Sorry, dude,” says Helen. “I’ll sort it. Totally my bad.”