by Avery Wilde
“Stay here another day and have dinner with me tonight.”
The words seemed to hang in the air between us; they were out there, there was no unsaying them, and they had to be addressed.
If Liam Croft had asked me out to dinner a mere twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve asked if it was a business dinner, and assuming the reply was in the negative, I would’ve laughed in his face—or perhaps just said ‘no’ in a nice way, since I’d been brought up to be polite. If he’d asked me first thing this morning then I might have thought ‘what the hell, I just woke up in his bed and it might be nice to refresh my memory of what happened’, but in the end, I was reasonably sure that I would still have said ‘no’.
But now…it was amazing how much could change in just one morning. Of course nothing had actually physically changed; the changes were within me. My opinion of Liam, which had been pretty close to rock bottom this time yesterday, had been wildly altered by spending a bit of time with him. The night before had been fun, and the fact that he hadn’t taken advantage of my drunkenness, when he almost certainly could have, was more than I would’ve expected given his reputation.
But it had really been our conversation during our interview which had flipped me over from not being a fan of his to really liking him. Of course he could’ve made every word of it up—a good sob story to win the hearts of those fans as yet unconvinced by his trademark laddishness. But the story—and his demeanor—was so far from that trademark that I thought otherwise. Besides, I’d watched him as he talked. No one was infallible when it came to sorting lies from truth, although every journalist liked to think they were, but I was as certain as I could be that every word Liam had spoken had been true. He’d meant it all, and it was clear that certain events still haunted him.
Did all that mean I was hedging towards saying yes?
Maybe…
Though I was still a little loathe to admit it to myself, I did like the idea. He was a nice guy deep down, he was handsome as hell, and, of course, he was Liam Croft, which I just couldn’t ignore.
But I didn’t want to say yes, just like that. I didn’t want to seem too keen; too much like all the other girls he apparently went out with. And of course I couldn’t guarantee that I was even available for dinner—I had a story to write and then I was supposed to be heading back home.
“Let me think about it,” I finally said.
“Think about it?”
Liam was obviously not used to women having to think about whether or not to have dinner with him, but there was no arrogance in his voice this time—just uncertainty with a hint of nervousness, which made him all the more appealing to me.
“I just have to call my editor,” I said. That much was true, if not the whole story. “I’m supposed to be back at work soon, and now we’ve done the interview there’s no reason for me to stay. As far as he’s concerned, I mean,” I added quickly, not wanting him to think that I had no reason to stay.
Liam smiled, accepting this as a reasonable outcome. “Okay, fair enough. Let me give you my mobile number.” He scribbled it out on a notepad and passed it over to me. “Call me when you know your plans.”
“I will,” I said.
I meant it.
***
“Good night, love?” asked Mikey from the front of the cab. Calling him had seemed easier than looking for another cab in the busy London streets.
I considered the question, but I didn’t really have to. “Yeah,” I said with a smile. “Really good night.”
“Same clothes you went out in?” suggested Mikey. “Hey, hey.”
I blushed a little. “Nothing happened.”
“Well, that’s a crime. Lovely young lady like you should be getting all the fellas.”
“I mean…nothing like…” I wondered what I did mean. Something had happened, just not that something. Something better perhaps. Damn, this was all happening so fast. “I met a guy at the football,” I finished.
Hey, it was partially true.
Mikey grinned broadly. “That’s how me and the wife met. Shouldn’t have happened really: she was United, I was City. Like Romeo and Juliet. We ended up doing it round the players’ entrance. Bit of a brawl when the families found out. But there you go, love’s funny like that. And I was happy to convert for her. For the sake of the kids, you know. Fifteen years now. I still cheer for City when she’s not around, but the truth is I don’t really miss it.”
I settled back in the seat. “Tell me about her.”
Mikey was happy to continue talking and I was happy to continue listening. It was funny—the stories that circled around and wove in and out of a game of football. The game was great in itself of course—fun, exciting, engaging—but the people who played and supported, who came to every match—they had stories too. People like Mikey and Liam and even me; that was where the real drama was. How many stories like that would there be in a country as obsessed with the game as England?
I began to wonder if there was a larger story here than the one I was telling.
***
Back in my hotel room, I got out my laptop, laid my notepad to one side and began to write. About half an hour later I stopped, saved what I had written, and started over. Though what I’d written was probably too good to lose entirely, it wasn’t the opening of an article. It was the opening of a series of articles. Or possibly a biography. With the wealth of information Liam had managed to give me in a short morning, combined with my own opinions and impressions gleaned from watching him tell the story, I was finding it hard to craft something so short, so shallow. There was so much more to say.
It took another three false starts and a raiding of the mini-bar to finally turn out the finished product which I hastily emailed off to Alan Granger. It was a decent article, I thought—polished and well-written—but it wasn’t exactly what I’d really wanted to write. It was the ‘For Dummies’ version of a much longer story. But however much I wanted to tell that story, I was also aware that I was already starting to struggle with thinking of Liam as merely ‘a story’.
As I mulled over these thoughts, my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I knew that rack would get the job done!”
I rolled my eyes. “Hi, Alan.”
“Just got your email. Great article!” Alan Granger’s enthusiasm was evident even through the slight fuzz of the long distance call. “You’ve got real talent. I knew you were good but this article took serious writing balls! You’ve got a bright future here, Allison.”
“Glad you like it.” I was also glad that my boss wasn’t here to see me dancing on the spot with excitement at getting this sort of a response.
“This is a Liam Croft we’ve never seen before! The man behind the mask.”
“I was worried you might have wanted something a bit more in keeping with his public image.”
Granger scoffed. “Let his management worry about that crap. We got the real story! Arrogant jackasses only sell so many copies, but a guy with a sad backstory? I can sell the shit out of that all day long!”
I only hesitated a moment before asking my next question. “Does that mean you’d be interested in more like that?”
“More?” There was a promising edge of interest in Granger’s voice. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“I think I’ve got enough material to write a series about him,” I blurted, my enthusiasm getting the better of me. “I could expand what I’ve got into four or five articles at least.”
“Oh, hell no!” Granger replied. “The man’s popular at the moment but the game he plays is like a deadweight dragging our circulation down. If he takes up baseball or some other proper sport—one that people who buy our magazine actually watch—then you can write a series of articles on him. Until then; the exclusive is all we need. So get your ass back here and start writing articles like this one—man behind the mask stuff—about American sports stars. That’s the future, Allison.”
“What if he were moving to A
merica?”
The words were out of my mouth before I had the chance to think them through and examine them for the insanity that I was now pretty sure lay behind them. When had I become the sort of reporter who lied to my editor? I’d always looked down on those people, whilst secretly envying them for all the ridiculous stuff they seemed to get away with.
“Liam Croft is moving to America?” Granger’s voice was deafening through the phone. “He’s pulling a Beckham?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said hastily. That was true…after a fashion. “I heard a rumor that he was thinking about it.”
“Why?” asked Granger. “Even in the years AD—that’s After David, as in Beckham—the sport he plays, which, according to your article is the most important thing in his life, just isn’t played over here. In fact it’s widely derided. Because it’s dumb. Why would he leave a country where he’s practically worshipped as a god for one where…I mean, people here are interested in him for sure, but that’s about it.”
“Um…because it’s America?” I suggested.
I felt that I could hear Granger nodding sagely. “Hm…actually makes sense,” he said. “Soccer player or not, why live there when you could live here? So is he planning to play sport here?”
“I don’t know,” I said, all too aware that I was digging myself still deeper into my tunnel of lies.
“If he is, then that would be the sports story of the year! Beckham 2.0!”
“Yeah,” I replied, trying hard not to think about how all this was likely to pan out long term. “I mean…I guess I could stay and find out, do a bit of digging, ask a few questions…”
“You’re right. Stay as long as you need and dig as much information as you can out of him and anyone who associates with him.”
A few minutes later, I hung up the phone and sat on my hotel bed, staring at the wall and quietly considering the events of the last hour or so. I had misled my boss—in fact lied outright to him—so that I could stay in this country a little longer, and I had to ask myself…why?
Of course, England was a country that I’d long dreamed of visiting. There was so much I wanted to see here and it would’ve been galling to leave after so brief a stay, having seen so few of those things. There were certainly plenty of good reasons for me to not want to leave so soon; plausible, believable reasons.
And yet I knew that if I was being honest with myself, none of them were true.
As galling as it might’ve been to leave, I was simply not the type to disobey instructions from my boss. I was usually a good employee who did as I was told. Besides, I loved my work and would’ve been happy to get back to it, especially since my boss now seemed committed to awarding me more interesting and high profile assignments. There was no way that I would’ve given up such a great opportunity like that simply to do a bit of sight-seeing.
I stared at the blank wall of the hotel and an image formed in my head. It was the same image that I’d found drifting into my field of vision throughout the day. It had been there in the cab when Mikey had driven me back to the hotel. It had been in the elevator when I had gone up to my room. It had peered at me from the words of my article as I typed on my laptop. And now, there it was again, answering my question, whether I chose to accept that answer or not.
It was the face of Liam Croft.
What an idiot I could be sometimes. Where was the sense in denying something that was so obvious just because I didn’t want it to be true? As well as not being the sort of woman who lied to her boss, I was also not the sort of woman who made stupid, career-damaging decisions for a man, and certainly not a man whom I’d known less than a day.
Or at least, I hadn’t been that sort of woman until about an hour ago.
A new thought entered my head—it would seem that now I was that sort of woman, the damage was already done. And, this being the case, I might as well enjoy it…
Decision made, I darted across the room to where I’d left my bag, rifled through it and drew out the scrap of paper Liam had written his number on.
“Hello?” The sound of Liam’s voice on the end of the line a few minutes later brought an immediate and unconscious smile to my face. Jeez, I obviously had it bad for the guy already, as much as I was trying to deny it to myself.
“Hi. It’s Allison. From this morning. And last night,” I said. Who knew how many Allisons a man like Liam might know?
“Hi!” He sounded pleased to hear from me—actually, he sounded delighted, and my heart skipped a beat at the sound. “You actually called.”
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly anxious. “I thought…you know…if you haven’t made any other plans—and if the offer still holds—maybe we could, um, meet up later. Maybe. I know it’s late to be making plans for tonight and for all I know you’ve got something else on already, and I wouldn’t want you to cancel anything or change your plans just because I became available but…”
“Allison?” he said, cutting me off as I descended into serious babbling territory.
“Yes?”
“Meet me at The Bridge stadium at midnight.”
“At midnight?”
“Yeah.”
Meeting men at midnight on a first date was another thing that could be added to the list of things that I didn’t do. Then again, this seemed to be the day that I was doing all the things I wouldn’t normally do…so why not?
“Why there?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Well yes, I understand that. I was hoping to get some sort of advance preview of what you’ve got planned.”
Liam chuckled, a warm sound which made me melt. “Trust me. You’ll like it,” he said. “Wear something casual and comfortable.”
“Do dates with you always come with a dress code?” As soon as I said it, I regretted my choice of words.
“This is a date, then?” he said.
I would’ve been prepared to swear on my life that I could actually hear Liam smiling.
“For want of a better word.”
“Nah. I like the word ‘date’.”
“I’m actually starting to prefer ‘meeting’,” I said in a coy tone.
“Well, whatever you want to call it…tonight at midnight, outside the stadium. You’ll be there?”
“Sure. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then. Bye.”
As I hung up, I took a moment to wonder if I was doing the right thing. Leaving aside the fact that I was taking my career into my own hands, it was all so sudden, all so quick, all so unlike the sort of thing that I would normally do. But then again, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. I’d often been told I was too uptight and serious.
Besides…how often did a perfectly normal girl like me get asked out by one of the most famous sports stars in the world?
Chapter 8
Liam
As a rule, I didn’t go through any great preparations before a date—just being myself was usually enough for me to get away with making the bare minimum of effort. But, as another rule, I didn’t usually go out with girls like Allison.
I had a feeling that being my usual ‘media’ self would not be enough for her. In fact, I couldn’t quite get over the sense that she was going out with me not because I was Liam Croft, but in spite of it. Usually girls expected me to be the arrogant playboy they saw on the news, but from what I’d seen of her serious attitude so far, Allison would probably roll her beautiful eyes and leave if I started acting like a cocky douchebag.
I found myself quite excited by the prospect of having to actually put in some real effort. The truth was that I didn’t much like the media’s version of Liam Croft—as I’d mentioned in the interview earlier—so it would be a relief to leave that idiot behind for an evening.
This being the case, I found myself putting far more effort into pre-date preparations than I usually did. I’d specified casual clothes to Allison and was dressing casually myself, but still spent several long minutes going through my wardrobe and trying to p
ick out the right casual clothes. I had to look casual, but I didn’t want her to think that I wasn’t trying at all. Then again, if I looked as if I was trying too hard, that would make me seem like the type of man who put a lot of stock in clothes, even when they were casual, and I didn’t want that either.
Goddammit…why did this stuff have to be so hard? Was this what women usually went through when they got ready for a date?
I had to hit a nice middle ground, and I had to do all of this without it seeming as if I had purposely done any of it. That alone raised even more questions. Should I shave or was stubble more attractive, or did leaving the stubble make it seem as if I was trying to appear attractive? And what about aftershave? If I wasn’t shaving, was aftershave redundant or presumptuous, even though it smelled nice? Was that too much for a casual first date at a football stadium?
Fuck, I had no idea. There was just so much stuff to consider; stuff I usually didn’t think twice about.
I was therefore running five minutes late when I left my place, baseball cap pulled low and hood up to avoid recognition, which was more and more of an issue these days, even at night. Fortunately I was, as ever, comfortable running without working up an unpleasant sweat, and I managed to only be three minutes late by the time I arrived at the stadium, where I found Allison already waiting for me.
“Thought you might have changed your mind,” she said, smiling at me as I approached. She said it with a joking tone, but I thought I could sense a genuine fear that she was hiding behind the joke.
I smiled back at her. “Not a chance. You look great.”
Allison did a little twirl so I could admire the tracksuit she was wearing. “They’ll all be wearing them in Paris this year.”
I grinned. “They won’t wear them half as well as you.”
Allison smiled shyly, clearly a little embarrassed by the flattery. Usually women ate up the flattering comments with no shame and trawled for more and more, but once again, she was different to all of them.
I fucking loved that about her.
“So why am I wearing this? Can you tell me now?” she asked.
