by Avery Wilde
“You really take your job seriously, don’t you?” he asked.
It was nice that he would ask that question with a straight face, to a person seated in his bed in nothing but underwear.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Well, I wasn’t lying or cushioning the blow in any way. I do have a say in who gets it. That’s why I’m giving it to you.”
“The interview?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re seriously giving me the interview?” I asked. I knew I was beginning to sound like a broken record, but I needed to make sure.
“Yes. It’s all yours.”
Without thinking, I squealed and threw my arms around Liam to hug him. Then I quickly realized that I was still in my underwear and darted back into my protective cone of blankets.
“Thanks,” I murmured, casting my eyes down.
“I told Lauren already,” Liam said, trying and failing to not grin at my embarrassment. “She’s disappointed, but Dean is taking her out to make up for it.” He shook his head. “They really seem to get along. But yeah; I’m all yours.”
He threw his arms wide, grinning the smile that had weakened the knees and the resolve of so many impressionable women.
“Thanks,” I said again, more thoughtful this time.
Liam dropped his arms. “You don’t sound quite as happy as I’d expected.”
I thought for a moment. “This will sound presumptuous, but I don’t want you giving me the interview and expecting…anything else.”
“I’m not. Y’know, I’m not that much of a man-whore.”
“And I don’t want to get it because of…anything else that may or may not have happened.”
Liam drained his coffee mug, and I could see he only did so to hide a smile. “I told you, nothing happened last night! I promise. Tell me, how many goals did I score last season?” he asked upon swallowing his last mouthful.
“Forty-one.”
“How many of those were penalties?”
“Fifteen.”
Liam cocked his finger at me. “And that’s why you get the job. You know your stuff.”
“You know, Lauren could probably answer those questions as well,” I said.
I hated myself for saying that, but I wanted to know that I’d really earned the job. I was sure that Lauren deserved it just as much as me, if not more.
Liam shrugged and sat down on the end of the bed, only a foot or so away from me. “Maybe. Maybe she could even answer them as quick as you—although I doubt it—but I’m going with you. I think you truly love the game. She doesn’t. It’s just a job to her, no matter how good she might be at it.”
I nodded. “I really do love it.”
“You wanna know a secret that no one’s supposed to know?” Liam said, leaning in closer. “So do I. I fucking love it to death. I know my brand is supposed to be about girls and partying, but if I had to choose between the money, the lifestyle, all that bullshit, and the game...I’d give it all up in a heartbeat for a kick-about in a park with friends.”
Well, well, well…maybe the real Liam Croft wasn’t as much of a sleazy prick as he made himself out to be in the papers and gossip blogs.
He got up off the bed and strolled towards the door. “And you can consider that the start of the interview. We can continue over breakfast. Oh, and you can get dressed if you want…but you don’t have to...”
I rolled my eyes as he left the room. Just when we’d been getting along, the usual sleazy Liam had come out to play.
Well, at least I got the interview, right?
Chapter 6
Liam
About half an hour after I had left her in my bedroom, I looked up to see Allison enter the kitchen, showered and fully dressed.
“You decided to put clothes on?” I said, with mock disappointment.
She always seemed to blush when I embarrassed her, and I loved seeing those rosy cheeks as she tried her best to avert her eyes. In the short time I’d known her, this seemed to be the only way I could get any sort of reaction out of her—sleazy jokes and lame come-on attempts.
Better than nothing, I suppose.
Allison shrugged. “Just seemed more professional.”
She was very hard to read. Or at least I found her hard to read, perhaps because she was so different from the sort of girls that I usually went around with. Those girls were easy to read; large print and with pictures. Allison was more like a novel, possibly in Russian—harder going, and you might have to read some of the chapters twice, but in the end, it was so much more rewarding.
“Croissant?”
I’d sent down for a selection of French pastries—Allison seemed like the kind of gir…woman who would appreciate that.
Allison smiled, helped herself, and sat at the table opposite me.
“Okay to start the interview now?” she asked.
“All right, we can talk as we eat. Where would you like to start?”
Allison flipped open a notepad; she was seemingly old-school when it came to note-taking. “I guess with your childhood. You were born in Croydon, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “Not far from there, yes.”
A subject which I didn’t relish talking about was coming up, and there was little I could do to stop it.
“What was it like as a place to grow up in?”
“The place was fine, I suppose,” I said, hearing the slight strain in my own voice. “You sometimes hear bad things about the place on TV or whatever, but really, it’s not as bad as some people make it out to be. Great people. Great community. They help each other. I guess that’s why I never exactly moved on. I still go back there all the time.” I paused as I took a bite of pastry. “There were times when I was little when I’d have given anything to leave but…you get older and you realize that it’s not the place that’s the problem. Then maybe you choose to stick around to prove that it doesn’t have that hold over you. Exorcise those demons of the past. I guess that’s why I go back a lot.”
I stopped. I hadn’t meant to say as much as I had. Allison was a very good journalist, not pushing or wheedling, but knowing when to let me speak and reach these hard-to-say words of my own accord. I didn’t particularly want to be saying any of this stuff, to be honest, but Brian had made it clear—when I did the interview, it had to have an impact. It had to make people listen; make them see the ‘real Liam Croft’, in order to keep people interested in me, seeing as in the future, some people might start to tire of my party-boy image and want something deeper.
So, even though what I was saying to Allison was true, it still somehow felt like manufactured bullshit.
“Times were tough?” she said.
It wasn’t a specific question. She wasn’t probing. She was simply allowing me to talk about what I wanted to talk about.
“Our parents were tough.” I wouldn’t meet her gaze, my eyes fixed on the steam that rose from my coffee, watching it dance in the morning sunlight that spilled from the large window at the far end of the kitchen. “They…I guess they had it tough too. Work was hard to come by and we—me and Dean—we were mouths to feed. Dad was tough. If we did something wrong, we knew it. So did Mum. But I think it was the booze more than anything. Both of them changed. And then one day…I don’t know really…they just never changed back. That was it. End of childhood.”
I stopped to breathe—in and out, slow and steady, as if I had to learn how or I might stop. I’d never said any of this to anyone before and yet there it was, lurking just below the surface, ready to come out. Who knew?
“I wonder sometimes if that’s why I drink. The way I do, I mean. Show I’m not scared of it, I can take it. It’s got nothing on me.” Another pause. “I don’t want to insult anyone…you know? There’s worse off than me, and then some. I don’t want to make out like I’m hard done by. I’m not. Look at where I am. Look at how I turned out. But yeah—I took my lumps. Not like Dean, though. It was always worse on him. Because he would protect me, you kn
ow? Or he’d try, and then I’d hide under the stairs while our father made him pay. Then he’d find me half the time anyway, and I’d get a hiding too.”
I swallowed uncomfortably, trying to swallow back the memory that had bobbed up to the surface, as if drawing it back within myself could actually make it un-happen. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Dean. I reckon he saved my life back then, when we were small. And then again, when we ran away. He didn’t have to take me with him; I was just a liability. But he wouldn’t leave me behind. He looked after me, made sure I was fed and all that. And now…now I make sure he’s looked after.”
I shook my head, and Allison kept looking at me, her expression softer than earlier as she listened to my story. “I’ll never be done paying him back,” I continued. I grinned wryly. “He’ll probably hold it over me too, the bastard.”
For a long moment, I stared at the kitchen table, wondering a little at my own life. It was a life of narrow margins and near misses. The odds against me ending up here seemed astronomical. If that theory about there being millions of different universes playing out all the possible decisions was actually true, I was sure I was the luckiest version of myself—few of the other Liams would have made it to their sixteenth birthday.
“Can we…?” I looked up at Allison, finding her still engrossed in what I’d been saying, but she caught on quickly to what I wanted.
“Of course. Let’s talk about football. How did that start?”
I barked a sharp laugh. “Dean and I were running away from…a truant officer, I think it was. Could be wrong. We seemed to always be running away from someone back then. Our own fault sometimes—we were a couple of proper tear-aways. Anyway, we were always looking for someplace to hide, and the best place is always in a crowd amongst others, because they’re always a bit cagier about dragging you off when there’s people about. We ran into a youth football team training. I’d never played before, beyond kicking a ball against a wall, but when we had a TV I always watched. Our Dad liked a game—mostly to bet on, but still. So we just joined in, and when the truant officer was gone, I didn’t want to leave.”
“Dean played too?”
“For a bit,” I said. I sometimes wondered what sort of a player Dean could’ve been if he had cared more. “But all it took was for a pretty girl to walk by and he was off. I’d sooner play. There’s a switch, huh?”
The interview went on, Allison continuing her low intervention style of questioning; letting me talk and allowing me the space to say the things that my image as the bad boy player had always precluded. I spoke of how I’d been talent-spotted when I was in my last year of high school, how Dean had worked two jobs to ensure I had time to train during the week after my classes were over, and how I’d helped out as much as I could by working a crappy factory job on weekends. I spoke of my first professional match, my first goal, the rush of hearing the crowd cheer my name, the simple joy of kicking a ball down a pitch.
For me, it was an incredible relief to, if only for a morning, shed the mantle of the Liam Croft character which I spent so much time playing, and finally be myself, a man who unashamedly loved what he did. The media’s version of me could never admit that he was the luckiest man in the world, could never say that he adored every second he spent on the pitch—that jackass was supposed to think he deserved it all for his God-given talent, was supposed to consider the game boring and easy.
Truth be told, I hated the false Liam with a passion that I’d been forced to conceal for all too long.
“What are your goals for the future?” Allison asked, her pen poised.
“Keep playing as long as I can,” I replied. I went on, realizing that this was an opportunity to voice a long-held dream for the first time. “Maybe do a bit of good as well, if I can.”
Allison’s brow furrowed adorably in interest. “What sort of good?”
“Well…” I edged forward on my chair, excited to finally say something that I hadn’t even shared with Dean. “Football got me off the streets. It saved my life, gave me something to care about and, of course, gave me a career. But I came to it by chance. It was luck, nothing more. There’s an awful lot of kids out there whose lives now are like mine and Dean’s were back then, kids who desperately need help and would give anything for something to focus their energy on. Football isn’t just a game; it teaches discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship. Stuff that’s useful whatever you do in life. I’m planning to start a foundation to help these kids. I needed luck, but they shouldn’t have to. They won’t all end up professional players—almost none of them will—but it’ll give them a place to belong and to be happy and to learn some life skills.”
I smiled without really realizing that I was doing it. “Sometimes all you need is something to live for. And that can be anything,” I added.
“That’s amazing,” Allison said quietly.
“And that’s only half of it,” I said, warming to the new topic. “Football’s just like the public face of the foundation—it’s what I know. Once it’s established as part of the community, we can go out looking for kids who are in trouble, we can give them a place to live, people to care for them, proper medical care; whatever they need. You know, not all kids want to play football, I don’t want to leave out the ones who don’t, I want to help them all.” I paused in my flow, realizing that all this sounded like pie-in-the-sky nonsense. “It’s all a bit vague. I don’t actually know how it would work or…I just don’t want any kids to grow up like I did.”
Although I’d been looking at Allison all through this over-enthusiastic spiel, it was only now that I really looked at her face, and I found her staring at me in quiet wonder.
“That’s amazing,” she repeated, and with a thrill, I realized that she meant it.
It’d been an odd morning, partly because I’d spoken of so many things, good and bad; things I’d never talked about before. The whole experience had left me feeling strangely energized, but it was also odd because I’d been focused wholly on the interview and its subject, and although the subject had been myself, I didn’t think that a single arrogant word had passed my lips. It was news to me that a person could talk about themselves for any length of time without being a smug prick about it. Finally, it had also been odd because I still felt a very real attraction to Allison; an attraction that seeing her in my bed this morning had only enhanced.
And yet I hadn’t made a move. Moreover, during the whole of the interview I hadn’t dropped a single hint or innuendo. It was like I was a different person right now.
Much as I liked being a different person, I was also very aware that the interview was now at an end and Allison was about to walk out of my life. It startled me to realize just how little I wanted that to happen. Perhaps now was the time to turn my famous charm back on, to reinstate the confidence and sexually charged bi-play that had served me so well with so many other conquests.
Then again, if memory served, none of that had worked too well the night before. True, Allison had wound up in my bed, but I’d been on the sofa, and she wouldn’t have been in my bed at all if she hadn’t been too drunk to make it back to her hotel and put herself to bed. I suppose I could’ve slept next to her, seeing as my bed had more than enough room for the two of us, but there was no way I would’ve actually done that. She’d been drunk out of her mind, and it wouldn’t have been right for me to sleep beside her, even if nothing sexual happened.
See? I wasn’t that much of an asshole. I didn’t take advantage of wasted chicks; no way.
Thoughts whirled like a blizzard through my head. “When are you heading back stateside?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” Allison said, sending my world into a spiraling nosedive of desperation.
“You don’t want to stay and see the sights for a few weeks? It’s London, baby!”
Allison laughed. “I’d love to, but I’m on the company dime, so—no go. Now that the interview is sorted, they’ll want me back within the next couple of days.” She held
up her notepad, filled with a hastily jotted account of the interview. “Thanks for this. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that I was the one to get it.”
“No problem.”
I watched in horror as she stood and began to gather up her coat and bag. Jesus, she was leaving right this second?
“I…” Allison started to say something and then stopped.
“What?” I asked. I was genuinely interested in what she had to say, but anything that kept her here was also a good thing.
“You’re nothing like I expected,” Allison finally said. “And, believe me, that’s a compliment, considering some of the things I’ve seen in the gossip columns.”
“Thanks,” I said with a grin. “I’m not sure it sounds like one, but I get it. I like partying. I like attention. I’m lucky to have this lifestyle and I’d be a fool not to enjoy it. But I love football. And other stuff too, but somehow that’s all been left out of the Liam Croft brand. Brian likes the media to only see me that one way—the playboy player. They seem to love it, and the public also seem to love it, so what can you do?”
“Try the truth?” suggested Allison. She tapped her notebook. “When this interview comes out, people are going to start to see the real you, and I think they’ll like it. I certainly do, and I’d love to see more of this Liam Croft in the post-match press conferences.”
“Would you like to see more of him anywhere else?”
I hadn’t been planning to say it but the words seemed to fit perfectly.
Allison stared back, as frustratingly hard to read as ever. “What?” she asked, though the rising blush in her cheeks gave her away.
“Have dinner with me.” There was no harm in a little confidence; that was part of who I was as well. “Stay here another day, and have dinner with me tonight.”
This time, I was sure she’d say yes.
Chapter 7
Allison
