Mr. Match: The Boxed Set

by Delancey Stewart

  Silly French beret-wearing, champagne-guzzling jerk.

  “Unclench,” Mags suggested. “You’re thinking about LePoivre again, aren’t you?”

  I sighed, moving to look out the window of our suite at the little village below us. There was an honest-to-God castle off in the distance. Or at least one wall still standing. “Yeah. But I’m done now. Want to go check out the wine you’ve been talking about?”

  “Do you have time?” Magalie gazed longingly at the castle. She’d told me some story when she’d found out where we’d be playing—something about a second pope and a castle and some wine with thirteen different flavors.

  “We’ve got practice tomorrow night. Until then, we’re supposed to get rid of our jet lag.”

  “Should you sleep?”

  “Probably better to try to get on the local schedule. Plus, I slept all the way here. And alcohol is well-known for curing many ills. Probably jet lag too.”

  “True.” Magalie stepped close to me then, and my arms went around her automatically. This was the woman I’d never thought I’d ever find, a woman who seemed to understand the things about me that drove other people crazy.

  Magalie lifted her face to mine, and my heart expanded inside my chest as those sparkling brown eyes looked at me with the same love I felt for her. I lowered my head, kissing her softly. I almost didn’t even care if we won this silly match—I was just so happy to have Magalie here, in my arms. At my side.

  “You sure you don’t need to rest? Maybe drinking before the match isn’t a good plan.” She frowned, the little wrinkles on her forehead making an adorable furrow between her brows.

  “Just don’t let me drink too much, okay?”

  Magalie agreed, and soon we were leaving the hotel, heading through the French countryside in the back of a little car.

  Vineyards and little houses moved slowly by as we wound down the little lanes, and I felt like I was actually inside a postcard. I’d been to Paris once for a game, but this was different. Rural and pastoral, a lot like where Magalie and I had built our house, actually. It felt foreign and like home all at once, if that was possible.

  “It is nice to be home,” Magalie said, holding my hand as she gazed out the windows, smiling.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to visit Henri’s winery while we’re here?” I asked her. It seemed a little strange, coming to the place she’d grown up and not visiting the actual location of the winery where she’d learned her craft.

  “No,” she said. “I was so busy when I was working there, I never really got to explore the way I wanted to. There are so many other incredible wineries here.”

  She leaned back into her seat, a look of contentment on her face that I loved to see.

  Soon, we were pulling up in front of the first winery that Magalie wanted to visit, and our driver settled into his seat with a book and a thermos that I suspected might not be coffee as we walked slowly toward the long low building next to the impressive Mediterranean structure.

  “I’ve always wanted to come here,” Magalie said as we walked through the wooden doors into a dark space with barrels around the walls and a counter at one side. There were two men behind the counter, talking in low voices. They stopped and watched us approach.

  Magalie greeted them, firing off a string of rapid-fire French I didn’t understand, and both men laughed, pulling glasses from beneath the counter.

  I didn’t understand much of what the men said, and though Magalie translated a good amount, she got caught up in wine talk, which I still hadn’t mastered. Luckily, I’d long since mastered the universal language of drinking. I focused on that, wandering the small room and investigating the glassed displays on each side, which showed old timey pictures of the winemaking process.

  “Isn’t it phenomenal?” Magalie asked me at one point, coming to meet me across the room.

  “Tastes of elderberry,” I agreed, downing the rest of what was in my glass. “Are we going to visit another?”

  Magalie pressed her lips together, still disappointed with my lack of wine-tasting finesse, no doubt. “If you are willing, Trace.”

  Wine tasting was really not my thing, but I lived to make this woman smile. So we would taste some more wine if she wanted to. “Of course I am.”

  The smile that followed was my reward, and soon we were in the car again, heading to the next winery.

  Chapter 156

  It Always Comes Back to Cheese

  Magalie

  Wine tasting wasn’t Trace’s favorite thing, but he was being a good sport for me. These wineries were the ones I’d grown up hearing about, and while I’d been to a couple of them, I’d never gotten to visit as an adult—and never as a colleague.

  We stopped through two more chateaus, and finally made our last stop of the day, at a winery I’d always admired both for its looks and its wine. It was in a real chateau, or the closest thing we’d seen all day—the matched turrets and towers on each side of the arched doors made it feel very much like a medieval castle.

  “This is awesome,” Trace said, a certain amount of wine having made him slightly more enthusiastic about our adventure. I just hoped he would be okay for his match. I would never have encouraged drinking before a match if he hadn’t assured me repeatedly it would be all right. This particular game wasn’t important, he told me. For glory and bragging rights more than anything else.

  We entered the castle, following signs to the tasting room—it was a hotel as well—and found ourselves in a brightly lit room to one side of the structure, along with several other guests. There was a long counter on one side of the room, and next to it was a case full of cheese, which I assumed was also made at the chateau.

  “Cheese,” Trace said appreciatively.

  “We can take some back,” I said. “Your sister loves cheese.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Trace asked, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  The walls, surprisingly, held newspaper coverage and magazine articles about local events besides wine. Notably, they featured the local soccer team. And most of the pieces prominently featured the one man I knew Trace was looking forward to meeting on the pitch—Andre LePoivre.

  “Why do they have that weasel LePoivre on the walls?” Trace asked, spotting the photos at the same time I did.

  “I don’t know,” I said, stepping closer.

  We stared at one wall that amounted to a shrine to the French player, his team photo and individual photos everywhere, until a voice broke through our inspection. “Impressive, non?”

  “Non,” Trace answered automatically.

  I felt heat flood my cheeks. I wasn’t a LePoivre fan, but we were in enemy territory. Better not to start an incident.

  But it was too late. We turned to find ourselves facing an older man who wore an apron bearing the name of the winery and a severe frown. “You are not football fans,” he suggested. “Andre LePoivre is the best player in France. Maybe the world.”

  “Definitely not the world,” Trace said, shaking his head.

  The man’s eyes rose to meet Trace’s, and I shivered at the anger I saw simmering there. I wanted Trace to hold his tongue. Unfortunately, that wasn’t his strong point, especially after a certain amount of liquor. “And you are such an expert at football? You are Americain, non?”

  “Oui,” Trace answered with a bit of a sneer.

  Oh no, this was not going to end well.

  I began to apologize, attempting to distract the man by mentioning Henri’s winery, my current work in San Diego. “Are you the winemaker here?” I asked, noticing the faint purple stain on his fingertips and going with my gut.

  “Oui,” he said, turning to face me, his expression gentling slightly. “Would you like to taste?”

  I accepted eagerly, pulling Trace along by the arm to follow the man to the counter. “Stop irritating him,” I hissed in my fiancé’s ear. “He’s obviously a fan of LePoivre’s. You won’t change his mind, so just be quiet.”

  At the
counter there were several men working, chatting to guests and moving around, pouring wine. Our new acquaintance poured our first glass with a bit of an attitude, but it began to fade as we sipped and I asked him questions about his process and complimented the wine.

  I thought things might actually be okay.

  And then Andre LePoivre appeared behind the counter, coming close to the winemaker and asking him a question. I was too stunned to focus on what it was he asked, but I understood perfectly when he ended his query with “Papa.”

  I whipped my head to look at Trace, who was frowning hard at his nemesis behind the counter. “Is that …?” He said, a hint too loud.

  LePoivre glanced at us, throwing out a casual greeting and clearly intending to move back to where he’d been at the other end of the counter. But his gaze fell on Trace and stayed there.

  “Johnson,” he hissed, his gaze narrowing and the cheeks taking on color in high points on each side.

  “LePoivre,” Trace said back, his voice every bit as dark as the other man’s face, even as he maimed his name.

  “I had no idea you were a wine aficionado,” the Frenchman said, his face demonstrating that he did not, in any way, believe Trace was an aficionado of anything.

  “You know this gentleman?” The older man asked LePoivre, who was evidently his son.

  “Only by reputation,” LePoivre answered. “He is an American footballer. Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

  I heard the breath leave Trace, and could feel the anger vibrating around him. “Why, you …” he started. I wrapped a hand around his wrist to keep him from leaping over the counter.

  “Monsieur Johnson is the keeper for the Sharks team,” Andre LePoivre explained to his father. “The team we are playing tomorrow. He has a reputation for behavior that is an embarrassment to the sport.”

  The older man raised an eyebrow and looked Trace up and down.

  “I think perhaps we are ready to go,” I said, pulling out a few Euros and hoping to extricate Trace before this got worse.

  “I think you are an embarrassment to the sport,” Trace said, his voice menacing. “With your pink shorts and your fancy little shoes …”

  “The team’s colors are pink and black,” LePoivre pointed out, drawing himself taller. “And those shoes are the LePoivre Special, made for me by Addidas.”

  “Kinda sissy,” Trace snickered, elbowing me like I might laugh along with him.

  “Okay, I believe we’ll just—” I tried to pull Trace away, but the man was like a mountain.

  “Why did you come here? You knew this was my family’s winery and you wanted to come irritate me ahead of our match?”

  “We are very refined people,” Trace said, basically proving the opposite by stating this aloud. “We like to taste wine. My fiancée is a winemaker. And she is French.” He spat this last part out like the fact of my heritage might shock the LePoivres, but instead it just earned us a head shake.

  “Not all of the French have excellent taste,” LePoivre said, glancing at me and then back at Trace.

  What? Now I was becoming angry. “How dare you,” I said, before I could think better of adding fuel to Trace’s fire.

  “You weasely little …” Trace’s face was bright red, and he started to move me to the side, as if preparing for battle.

  Oh no, I couldn’t let Trace get into a fistfight before the match. The Sharks might be disqualified—Trace would certainly be. It would be bad for everyone, even if I would have liked to see him smash LePoivre’s snobby nose.

  “Stop,” I said, stepping in front of Trace. LePoivre looked every bit as ready to fight as Trace did, only his father was smiling and nodding and didn’t seem inclined to put a stop to things. “You cannot fight before the match. You’ll both be disqualified. You might disqualify your teams.”

  Both men stepped back slightly. They might hate each other, but I knew they loved football more.

  “Maybe you can settle your differences some other way?” I suggested. I glanced around the room. A drinking contest wouldn’t end well, and would not be good for the game the next day. I tried to think of something where Trace might prevail, despite LePoivre’s home turf advantage.

  “How do you suggest? One on one match?” LePoivre grinned as he suggested this.

  I thought of the hot dry parking lot, and imagined Trace and LePoivre going at one another out there. I doubted a soccer match would stave off the fistfight they were both angling for. It would probably end the same way. The cheese case caught my eye. “How about a food challenge?”

  I felt Trace perk up next to me, even as LePoivre frowned. “A what? Is this some American thing?”

  He spit out the word “American” in a way that made me feel protective of both my fiancé and my adopted home.

  “No,” I said. “It’s just a contest to see who can eat more cheese.”

  “We make the cheese here,” LePoivre’s father said, following my gaze to the cheese case. “Andre has been eating it since he was small. He will surely win.”

  “Let’s find out,” Trace said.

  Moments later, both men were settled at a small table in the far corner of the winery, a mountain of soft cheese piled in front of each of them.

  Chapter 157

  Milking Pigs is Serious Business

  Trace

  “What kind of cheese is this?” I asked. There was a pungent smell coming from the pile in front of me. Like Fuerte’s socks after practice.

  “It’s our specialty,” LePoivre’s father said, crossing his arms as he stood behind his son, as if he was his heavyweight boxing coach. “Made from a blend of milks. Goat, cow. Pig.”

  I nearly vomited on the spot when he said pig. Andre actually looked nauseous too. I didn’t even know pigs made milk.

  Andre’s father wasn’t finished bragging, it seemed. “Sows are very protective of their teats,” he proclaimed.

  I stifled a laugh.

  “They are very aggressive, too,” he went on. “And milking a pig is not an easy thing. Therefore, the milk from the pigs, is especially …” he frowned, searching for the English word. “Special.”

  “I see,” I managed. “And does Andre here milk the pigs too?” I was enjoying the way LePoivre’s face was reddening as his father described the difficulty in milking swine.

  “Ah, yes. He is very talented at sow milking,” LePoivre’s father said, smiling proudly as Andre turned even redder. “He has a gift.”

  Even Magalie was stifling a laugh now.

  “Well, that’s very special,” I said, meeting LePoivre’s furious gaze. “Let’s eat some pig cheese, then.”

  “Rules,” Magalie said. “We will weigh the cheese before you begin. You have three minutes. We will weigh what is left. Whoever consumes the most will win. No water, no wine. Just cheese.”

  “And this is something the Americans do regularly?” LePoivre’s father asked, leaning into Magalie’s ear. “This food contest?”

  She shook her head. “I’d never heard of it before I met Trace,” she said.

  LePoivre raised an eyebrow, as if silently assigning blame to me for the fact he was about to lose this food challenge. And his pride.

  We weighed each pile of cheese, which was no small feat, since pig’s cheese is evidently soft and runny. At least the way the LePoivres make it. I’d have to investigate other varieties of swine cheese. Or not.

  And then, it was on.

  “Un, duex, trois … allons-y!” Magalie called out the signal and I scooped up a handful of cheese and shoved it into my mouth. I’d already settled on a strategy. Since the cheese wasn’t totally solid, I thought the best course was to attempt to forgo chewing, and to try to coax the cheese to just slide down my throat. I’d begun by pooling a ton of saliva in my mouth, and that helped the first huge handful slide right down the pipes.

  I grinned at LePoivre, who was daintily picking up a small bit at a time and chewing each bite.

  Rookie.

  I shov
ed a second handful of cheese between my lips, and began trying to swallow. This one was a lot tougher, but this wasn’t my first rodeo, either.

  “Andre,” LePoivre’s father grunted from over his shoulder. “Vite, vite.”

  I chuckled. No amount of urging from his papa was going to help the guy now. He was incapable of doing what was necessary to win, and I realized that my true strength lay in my willingness to make a complete ass of myself. It had worked when I’d gone after Magalie, and it was going to work today. I needed to remember this on the pitch during the match the next day too, though I wasn’t sure the lesson applied quite as well.

  I swallowed down another load of pig’s cheese and realized this just confirmed what I already knew about tending the goal—as long as I was willing to sacrifice myself, we would win. Soccer required more physical sacrifice—less sacrificing my dignity. But it wasn’t like dignity was something I was strong on in the first place, let’s face it.

  “Time!” Magalie called out, her voice gleeful as she squeezed my shoulder. The plate in front of me was a pig cheese massacre. Only a few little curds remained, along with a ton of the cloudy liquid the cheese had been sitting in. LePoivre’s plate was nearly full.

  “Cheese is meant to be savored,” he said, looking irritated. “If you had any idea the difficulty in milking a sow …” he shook his head and stood up. “Idiot,” he muttered.

  I chuckled and wiped the cheese from my face with the tablecloth, earning me a deeper scowl from the guy’s father, who looked equally disgusted with his son and me at this point.

  “I think we had better be getting back,” Magalie said.

  “See you tomorrow LePoivre,” I called.

  “Perhaps,” he said, turning to give me an evil glare. “Or perhaps you’ll find that pig’s cheese is notoriously hard to digest. Best consumed in small amounts.” His eyes danced with light as my stomach gave its first awful clench, and I wasn’t sure if it was the cheese or LePoivre planting the suggestion in my mind.