Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad Book 3)

by Jessica Peterson

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, it’s fine. I thought—well. Never mind. I’ll be right back.”

  Fernando is just where we left him earlier this afternoon. He’s bundled in a mound of blankets and a faded red puffer coat. His spot on the sidewalk is thrown into dim relief by the light of a streetlamp. He’s sitting in his chair, holding the blistered remains of a cigarette butt to his mouth.

  “Rhys!” His eyes widen with recognition as I approach. Did you find Miguelito?

  We did, I reply in Spanish. Right where you said he’d be. Thank you very much for your help, Fernando.

  “De nada,” he replies with a grin. You’re welcome.

  I hold out the bottle and the bag. A gift, for your help today. You really saved our asses, and we can’t thank you enough. I saw your jug was emptier earlier, so I got you some wine. Here’s a bocadillo, too—ham and cheese. Looked good.

  Still holding the cigarette butt, Fernando reaches out slowly. He wraps his fingers around the bottle, the paper crinkling beneath his grasp. I probably shouldn’t be supporting this guy’s alcohol habit, but it just felt like the right thing to do. Plus, the boccadillo, or Spanish-style sandwich, will help soak some of the wine up. Right?

  Right.

  Thank you, he says. Thank you very much, Rhys.

  I meet his eyes. Do you have a place to stay tonight?

  Right here. He pats his chair. Dropping the cigarette, he twists off the screw top on the bottle of wine (I thought it was safe to assume the guy didn’t own a corkscrew). This is my place. Has been for years.

  I huddle further down into my coat. But it’s really cold tonight. You should go someplace that has heat.

  Fernando holds up the bottle. This will keep me warm enough. Salud.

  Salud, I reply. It’s the Spanish version of “cheers”. Laura and her girlfriends say it practically every time they have a sip of red wine.

  I wait for Fernando to drink, but instead he holds the bottle out to me.

  Drink with me, he says. It would be an honor.

  I grin. With a match coming up, I shouldn’t drink. But a swig or two won’t hurt, and I know it will make Fernando’s night.

  So I take the bottle, still wrapped in paper, and hold it up. Salud, Fernando.

  I take a quick sip. It’s decent wine—the best bottle Alfonso’s Liquor had—and even just drinking that little bit makes a zing of warmth move through me.

  Behind me, I hear the electric whizz of Laura’s window rolling down again.

  “Are you two having fun without me?” she says, smiling. Never in a million years did I think I’d be drinking bum wine in a bad neighborhood, the three of us—me, Laura, Fernando—laughing together. But here we are, and I wouldn’t trade this moment for the whole goddamn world.

  I turn around, a shit-eating smile on my face, and hold the bottle of up.

  “Salud!” I say.

  And then I’m blinded by a camera flash.

  The click of cameras going off fills the air as my heart plummets into an icy pit. I blink, fluorescent streaks painting the backs of my closed eyelids like graffiti. A sharp blade of pain slices through my head.

  Fuck.

  There, standing on the sidewalk across the street, is the lady from the newspaper stand—the one who burst into tears earlier today when Laura and I asked her if she’d seen Miguel. It appears she brought half the neighborhood with her—kids, teenage girls, old men—along with a gaggle of paparazzi. They’re greedily snapping pictures of me as I stand here like a complete idiot with my dick in my hand.

  Only it’s not my dick I’m holding. It would be better if it were. But it’s a bottle—a bottle wrapped sketchily in brown paper.

  My heart stops beating altogether. I’ve just been caught passing a bottle of bum wine back and forth with a nice but rough looking homeless dude.

  My father was photographed several times in similarly compromising circumstances. Those pictures put the nail in his coffin; everyone was hoping he’d turn his game around, but when the pictures became public, he was ruined. He was finally, truly outed for the addict that he’d become. There was no saving him after that. He was dropped by the team. No one ever heard of him again, except for the occasional sob story in the tabloids.

  How careful I’ve been up to this point to protect my image, my reputation. So goddamn careful. Years’ worth of work and planning and building relationships that could be gone in the literal blink of an eye.

  I take a deep breath, let it out. Keep calm, I tell myself. No need to panic. Not yet. I’ve been playing really well, paying my dues at the club. No matter how the press portrays me, no matter how they spin this, my team and my coach will know the truth. William Wallace knows I’m not an alcoholic. He won’t sack me over something as small and stupid as this.

  Only, me being caught with a bottle in my hand the night before a match isn’t small. It’s big. It’s a big deal. It states clearly in my endorsement contracts that my sponsors can drop me at any time for engaging in behaviors that could potentially tarnish their reputations. And this behavior the press thinks I’m engaging in right now, trolling around a bad neighborhood with a bottle in my hand—well, it definitely doesn’t look good.

  I swallow the panic that fills my chest and threatens to strangle me. I knew I was being followed. I was an idiot not to act on that suspicion. Not to be more careful.

  Keep calm.

  “What is you doing there in a street?” someone calls out in badly mangled English.

  What are you doing with him? someone else says, clearly referring to Fernando.

  You shouldn’t be drinking before a match! You’ll be following in your father’s footsteps before long!

  You’re so handsome!

  You’re not as good as they say you are!

  I look back at Fernando, my mind a white-hot blank. He meets my gaze, his eyes darkening in confusion. I have no idea what to do.

  “Keep breathing.”

  I look up at the sound of Laura’s voice. She’s climbed out of the car and is making her way toward me.

  “Just keep breathing,” she says, putting a hand on my arm. “It’s going to be okay, Rhys.”

  My heart slows its staccato death sprint, just a bit.

  The paparazzi are getting more aggressive, approaching us on the street. A couple of them call out to Laura, taunting her, and it’s all I can do not to grab their cameras so I can punch them in their smug faces.

  “We should really get out of here,” she murmurs.

  I press the bottle back into Fernando’s hand.

  Sorry about all this, I murmur, nodding at the growing crowd. I have to go.

  He looks at me. Who are you?

  Figures I would meet the only grown man in Spain who doesn’t know a thing about football. Not that I blame the guy—I mean, he can’t exactly flop down on the couch and watch a match or two on the weekends.

  I already told you, I say. I dig my wallet out of my pocket. I don’t have much cash on me, but it should be enough for a few nights at a hotel at least—or a months’ supply of wine. I’m Rhys. And this is for you. Stay warm tonight. Thank you, Fernando.

  I’m about to take my coat off so I can offer it to him, but the crowd is pressing in on us, and someone jabs an elbow into my gut, knocking the wind out of me.

  “Let’s go,” Laura grunts, tugging me toward the car.

  I loop an arm protectively across my middle. We make it a few yards before my trainer catches on a broken piece of pavement. I lurch forward, cursing as Laura struggles to help me to my feet. As if this situation could look any worse—now I’m stumbling around like I really am pissed out of my mind.

  All the while, the click click click of cameras surrounds us. A cigarette hangs from a nearby paparazzo’s mouth. The acrid smell stings my nostrils.

  “Please,” I straighten as best I can. I blink, remembering to speak in Spanish. Please, everyone, give us our privacy. I’m helping my girlfriend with the kids she’s teac
hing at Santa Caterina, just down the street here—

  Bullshit, someone hisses. You’re here getting drunk. Just look at you! You can hardly stand up.

  Laura and I exchange a glance. Her calm confidence wavers, her eyes brightening with fear.

  “We should just go,” she says.

  “All right,” I say. I try to hold Laura close to me; I want to protect her from the crowd that presses in on us from all sides. But my ribs still ache every time I take a breath, making me double over in pain. Laura ends up holding me as we scurry for my car.

  We’re almost there when we stumble head first into the lady from the newspaper stand. She’s obviously a fan—I mean, she cried tears of joy when she saw me—so I don’t want to be rude. I’m sure she didn’t mean to cause me or Laura any harm. But I’m still mad as hell that she put this little circus together, and forced me into such a shitty situation.

  How did you find me?, I say to her in clipped, urgent Spanish.

  The woman points eagerly at my Lamborghini. Easy enough when you’re driving a big fancy car like that. I’ve never seen one of those before, except on TV! Khloe and Lamar used to have one, but I think theirs was white.

  Of course it’d be my own ridiculousness that screws me. Maybe Laura was on to something with that moped idea of hers. Probably much easier to blend in when you’re on a tiny little motorbike, even if it is pink.

  I nod at the paparazzi. And them? Did you bring them with you too?

  I work at a newspaper stand, she replies with a shrug. I have my contacts in the media.

  I give her a look.

  Fine, she says at last. I called my Uncle—he owns my stand—and he called our distributor, who called one of his papers, who called their lifestyle editor, who called a couple of his photographer friends. I didn’t think quite so many would come. A few of them said you left training early today?

  Laura shoves me into the car before I say something I’ll regret and climbs in after me. I bring my foot down hard on the gas pedal. The tires screech as I make a sharp turn to the left. Even though we’re out of sight from the crowd, I sit stiffly in my seat, afraid to so much as blink should my invisible audience snap a photo of me with my eyes closed. They’ll say I looked drunk behind the wheel, half asleep.

  I’m in trouble.

  I know, deep down I know, it doesn’t matter what the truth is. It’s all about how the situation looks, how the story can be spun to sell more papers and get more clicks.

  I almost jump when my phone starts to ring.

  Laura glances at me.

  I lift my hips and dig the phone out of my pocket.

  It’s George Cormier, my contact at the champagne company I did those billboards for. Oh, Jesus. The fact that George is calling me—I glance at the dashboard, it’s a little past 9 P.M.— on a night before a match is a really, really bad sign.

  Sponsors like playboys. They tolerate divas. But they have absolutely no use for deadbeats. They don’t want the guy caught guzzling liquor on the street to be the face of their company.

  Holy fuck I am going to lose my sponsors. I’m going to lose followers. If I lose those things, I’m also going to lose a lot—a lot—of money. This is bloody perfect timing. Mags just got into Oxford, Rachel had her baby and can’t pay her bills, mum found a house she liked in a nice neighborhood in Cardiff…how am I going to pay my bills now? My publicist will be working over time to fix this, and my agent is going to go apeshit…

  “Who is it?” Laura asks.

  “No one,” I clip. “Don’t worry about it.”

  My pulse thrums in my temples as I let the call go to voicemail. When the voicemail pops up, I listen to it.

  George says he saw a post on Facebook about me that his “organization finds deeply troubling”. He wants a call back ASAP.

  Fuck. I am so beyond fucked.

  “Rhys,” Laura says. “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine,” I say, putting my phone on silent before tossing it onto the dash. Of course things aren’t all right, but I don’t want to freak her out, not after the day she’s had.

  “This is all my fault,” she says. “If I hadn’t lost Miguel—if you hadn’t come to help me—”

  “Seriously.” It comes out more sharply than I intend. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. I’ll deal with it.”

  Chapter 27

  Rhys

  The Next Day

  I should spend the morning getting mentally prepared for today’s match, but instead I spend it pacing about my flat, fielding calls from my publicist, Cristina, my agent, my coaches, and pretty much all my sponsors. I hardly slept, too preoccupied with trolling the internet for any photos from last night that may have leaked.

  We’ve been lucky so far. Cristina managed to keep the photos out of the bigger papers and gossip sites; they’ve only popped up on a few personal Facebook pages and blogs, which is how my sponsors saw them.

  Still. Those sponsors are more than a little concerned. The sports drink sponsor wanted to drop me straightaway, but my agent worked his negotiating magic and promised it was all just a misunderstanding. They responded by saying I’d better prove it by playing well tonight.

  I’m not only worried about losing the endorsement deals I currently have. I’m also worried about losing future ones. If this story catches steam, I’ll be a pariah; sponsors won’t want to touch me with a ten-foot pole. I can kiss my dreams of a giant endorsement deal that would sustain me and my family forever goodbye.

  By the time I board the team’s flight to Seville, I’m so tired and so stressed I’m practically shaking. I need to play well tonight. If I do, it might make the story go away; good headlines replacing bad ones, that sort of thing.

  I try to get some sleep, but the flight is really bumpy. Some of the lads handle it better than others. Olivier calmly reads Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, apparently the newest book in the series (I know, I know, you’d think he’d be reading French philosophers for all his airs, but our captain is diehard Quidditch fan—he’s serious when he says he wishes it were real, and may or may not have invested six figures in a development company somewhere in Northumberland that claims to have made a flying broom prototype), while poor Fred loses his lunch all over his lap and, of course, mine too, because this day obviously hasn’t been awful enough. I told him to have his barf bag ready, but the wanker swore he was fine—until he wasn’t.

  Coach is understandably angry with me about everything that happened yesterday, and spends the entire flight calling me a “small-dick clawbaw” (?) while hanging onto the hand rests for dear life. Of course he doesn’t believe the press, but the whole thing is an inconvenience, and a distraction for the squad besides.

  Sometimes the travel is the best part of this job. Other times, it’s the fucking worst.

  Today is one of those times.

  I thought the weird feeling in my stomach was just queasiness from the flight, maybe some leftover nerves from dealing with the leaked photos. But as our rain-drenched bus pulls into the stadium, it gets worse. I try to calm down, focus on the match, but I can’t. I’m in too much pain.

  “You all right, Cabbage?” Fred asks as we make our way to the locker room. We walk stiffly in our suits, still wet from all the club soda we used to clean ourselves up. My entire left leg feels tight—bad knee included—and not for the first time today do I wish I could’ve made it to the physio yesterday. “You look like I did twenty minutes ago.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Like you’re about to vomit all over yourself.”

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky and vomit all over you. Repay the favor.”

  Fred has the decency to blush. “Sorry about that. I really did think I was going to be fine. It just came up so…fast.”

  “I know. I was there,” I say, trying not to wince as the knot in my stomach tightens. I feel like it’s trying to tell me something. “Did you really have to eat fish for lunch?”

  “I did.” He grins. �
�Best protein on the planet.”

  Olivier sidles up beside me, tucking his book underneath his arm.

  “How’s Ron Weasley these days?” I ask.

  “In trouble,” Olivier replies. “Always, always in ze trouble, but Hermoine, she save ’im, every time.”

  “Hermoine is so badass,” Fred says.

  “Tell me about it,” Olivier replies. He turns to me. “And you, petit chou—’ow goes your little problem with ze photographs?”

  “It’s fine,” I lie, mostly because I don’t feel like talking about it anymore.

  As I go through the familiar motions of getting dressed for a match, I feel better for about three minutes. But then, as I’m lacing up my boots, the knot in my gut returns with a vengeance. Maybe it’s the rain that’s got me feeling so off kilter? I have one of the physios take my temperature, just to be sure it’s not some sort of bug, but all my vitals check out.

  I’m starting to think I just have a bad feeling about tonight. Something bad is going to happen during the match. But what can I do? I’ve got to play. I’ve got to make sure this story is replaced by the story of me slaying it tonight on the pitch.

  But the superstitious footballer in me won’t let it rest. It doesn’t help that Laura isn’t traveling with me tonight—she had to stay back in Madrid to study.

  As we wait to go out on the pitch, I take a deep breath, let it out. Usually that helps, but it doesn’t tonight. I look up at the muffled roar of the crowd as the lads start making their entrance in the pouring rain. I close my eyes, and pray that I’m wrong.

  ***

  Laura

  The bar erupts in shouts and curses when Rhys, sliding on the muddy field, loses the ball to an opposing defender for the third time tonight. My eyes are glued to the enormous television on a nearby wall. I nervously sip my beer. The taste of it turns my stomach.

  I couldn’t travel to Seville with Rhys because I’ve been working on the upcoming auction for Santa Caterina like a madwoman, first of all, and second of all I have a final Monday. My study group is meeting up this weekend for some much-needed cramming. Even though I couldn’t be at the match, I still wanted to watch the game at a bar, mostly to take my mind off what happened last night, maybe have a little fun.