by Avery Wilde
I frowned in amusement. “How much alcohol does it include, Mr. Croft? I’ve seen the pictures of you out on the town, and any diet you’re on is at least seventy-five percent liquid.”
Liam laughed but I could see the awkwardness returning to his face, mingled with guilt. I knew he wanted to have dinner, but the media would go nuts if he was spotted having dinner with me, and I’d be out of a job before I knew it. He didn’t want to be the reason I potentially got fired; he’d made that very clear, and I loved him for that.
“Why don’t we eat at my hotel? Room service. We can smuggle you up, and I won’t lose my job,” I suggested.
His face broke into a broad grin. “Sure. You’re the best.”
“I really am.”
“It would have to just be dinner,” he added. “I really do have to get to bed early.”
“Who said I wanted anything else? Not all women are just after your body,” I said, although deep down I had been hoping for a repeat of our earlier adventures.
“I know there’s all the stuff about me going out the night before a match and not taking training seriously,” Liam said. “But…”
“It’s not true?” I asked hopefully.
“Oh no, it’s true all right,” he said. “Bad habit. But since it never seems to make a difference, I’ve never tried to shift it, but now…”
“End of the season’s coming up.”
“Well, no. I mean, that’s important,” he said. “Although I think we’ve got it stitched up. But…”
“England selection!” I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it before. Liam had risen to the top ranks of the game so quickly, seeming to come from nowhere, that he was only now getting his first shot at selection for the national squad, with the World Cup just around the corner. A lot would hang on his next game; not just his team’s victory of the premiership, but his own chances of playing for his country in the future.
Our dinner was a pleasantly casual affair, seated cross-legged on my hotel bed, picking at the room service food between us. We chatted more about the upcoming game and Liam’s chances of England selection. We also talked about my job, and my father and grandfather who’d instilled so great a love of football in me.
At the end of our evening together, we kissed goodbye.
“I’ll be busy with the premiership final training for a while,” Liam said, his eyes apologetic. “But I can still chat with you on the phone, or through texts.”
“I know. It’s cool. We’ll meet when we can.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I’ll call you as soon as I have a minute to myself. You’ll be able to stay here? In the country, I mean.”
I smiled. “Hopefully. I’ll come up with something.”
“I’d move, you know.”
“What?”
Liam looked deep into my eyes. “What you told your boss about me moving to America—I’d do it, if that turned out to be the only way to stay with you and save your job.”
My eyes widened. “But you’d be throwing away your whole career. English football doesn’t matter in America.”
“You matter,” he replied.
And as I looked into his eyes, I knew that he meant every word.
Chapter 16
Liam
Lying on my bed the wrong way around, I looked up at the frame that hung on the wall above it, one which had hung on the wall above every bed I’d owned since I was around fifteen or so. It didn’t frame a picture, but contained a small and fairly unassuming metal disc, like a coin. It was a medal I’d been awarded as the player of the season, the year that my local youth team had won the inter-borough league. For all the plaudits I’d received since then, it remained the one of which I was the most proud, partly because it marked the point at which my whole life had changed, but also because I’d worked so damn hard for it.
Allison was right. Brian Thomas wasn’t the only reason my career was doing so well. I’d worked for it all, and I’d worked fucking hard.
The medal also reminded me that nothing in life worth having came easily. Frankly, I should’ve probably looked at it more often, given the way I’d been behaving since joining the Premiership. If my flat had been on fire and I only had time to save one thing—aside from my brother, of course—then that medal would be it. And yet… it had now been supplanted by something of even greater value. I’d reached a new turning point in my life, and while I’d carry the symbolism of that medal with me for the rest of my life, its physical significance had lessened, or had perhaps become transfigured into something new.
Lying on my bed, I reached a decision, and I smiled. It was the right thing to do.
After all, being with Allison would always be the right decision.
***
Since leaving Allison in her hotel room the other evening, I hadn’t seen her in the flesh for several days. I’d been busy with finals training, which was—as I’d predicted—hectic as fuck, but I’d still texted her several times a day and called her whenever I could grab a little private time. I’d also Skyped with her every evening, without fail, to say goodnight.
I was determined to be the good boyfriend that everyone imagined I could never be, as London’s supposed resident ‘bad boy’. And Allison was cool with me saying I was her boyfriend—I’d checked. We were officially dating, which was something I never thought I’d say, at least not any time before my thirties. Obviously, I wasn’t used to dating or being in a relationship, and I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be like.
So far, I thought it was absolutely fantastic, and I fucking loved it.
Why were people so down on relationships? What could possibly be the negative side of having someone in your life who cared about you so much, who made you smile, made you think, who made everything you were doing, no matter how mundane, better by nothing more than their presence? At this point, I hadn’t actually been in the room with Allison since we’d officially entered a relationship—so how much better was it going to get?
That was the thing about a girl like Allison. Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, they did get better.
However, though I would’ve never admitted it to her, there had been some concerns at the back of my mind. I wasn’t afraid of falling out of love with her—hell no, that was crazy talk—but part of me had worried about missing my old life. However much I hated ‘Media Liam’, with the fast women, heavy drinking and expensive lifestyle, there were fun aspects to playing that role. I hated to admit it to myself, but I’d enjoyed it, and now I found myself momentarily worried that giving up regular partying and casual sex with an unending stream of beautiful women would be hard to do. But so far: no.
Not at all.
I’d surprised myself with this; I’d expected at least a few withdrawal symptoms and some level of sexual frustration—especially as I hadn’t seen Allison in a few days—and yet, again: nothing. Whatever sexual frustration I might’ve expected seemed to be entirely negated by my regular chats with Allison. I’d wondered if I should tell her that my conversations with her were better than sex, but I decided that it might be too easily misinterpreted as me saying she was terrible in bed.
And my god, she was the exact opposite of terrible. She was the best I’d ever had.
It was all so confusing to me. Like a teenager going through their first love, I was learning it all as I went along, and it was all so bloody wonderful.
The only thing in the way at the moment was football, and while I could never resent something that meant so much to me, I did wish that these two vitally important areas of my life hadn’t come together at such an inconvenient time. I was training day in, day out. When I wasn’t training alongside my teammates, I was in the gym or out for a run, and when my body needed to rest and recuperate—because over-training was as bad as not training at all—I flopped down on the sofa with a balanced meal and watched match tapes.
I watched my own performances with a critical eye, always on the look-out for faults and flaws, weaknesses that might be ex
ploited by another team. I watched tapes of the opposing team, again looking for weaknesses, though this time for ones that I might be able to exploit, but also noting their strengths so I could know what to avoid and where best to hit. Allison also helped me by watching the same tapes and comparing notes with me. We discussed tactics over Skype and ran ideas past each other until one or both of us fell asleep each night.
All in all it was a busy time, but since I was splitting that time between Allison and football, the two great loves of my life, it was also a very good time.
Right now, I was on the phone to Dean, who’d finally called again from wherever the hell he was to let me know that he was alive. I filled him in on everything that had happened recently, and when I finished recounting the exploits Allison and I had shared over the last couple of weeks, I took a deep breath before opening my mouth to speak again.
“I think…I think I’m falling in love with her,” I said. “Actually, I think I’m already in love with her.”
I listened to the sound of my brother laughing on the other end of the phone for about thirty seconds before rolling my eyes and interrupting.
“I’m serious, Dean.”
Another ten seconds of laughing and Dean managed to get some control on himself and his breath back. “Sorry.”
“A good brother wouldn’t have done that.”
“Liam,” Dean began, “I’ve known you all your life and most of mine. I’m relatively sure you love me. I’m very sure you love football. I’m absolutely certain you love yourself. That’s it. Or at least it always has been. You can’t blame me for being skeptical when you announce that you’re falling in love with a woman. You’ve never even been in a relationship that’s lasted longer than a fortnight!”
“There was Jenny Jones!” I said indignantly.
“Sticking with a girl because, and I’m quoting here, ‘there was no one else fit at the club tonight’, is not a relationship.”
“Fine, fine. What about Sadie Hawthorne?”
“You were planning to dump her after a week but you came down with food poisoning and didn’t leave the bathroom for the next seven days.”
Goddammit…he wasn’t wrong about that.
“Well,” I said, struggling to find any glimmer of decency in my romantic past, “you’ve got to be a little impressed that I remembered their surnames.”
He chuckled wryly. “Yes, well done.”
Truth be told, I was starting to understand why Dean had laughed, and I was starting to wonder if I could actually make this work. Did I have it in me?
Fuck, of course I did. I needed to stop doubting myself, and Allison was different; I’d never felt this way before. Never. I told Dean this, and he was silent for a moment.
“In that case, you might be in trouble,” he finally said.
“Why trouble?”
“First love can be complicated, and you’re dealing with it at a very late stage. I mean, you aren’t old; you’re only twenty-four. But most people go through their first love when they’re around sixteen or so.”
I paused. “I don’t ever want to be without her again. I know it sounds crazy but I…I sort of miss her retrospectively. For all those years I didn’t know her and wasted my time with other girls—I miss her. Is that insane?”
“No,” Dean said. “That’s love.”
“That’s what I thought,” I replied. “Where are you by the way? Still in the Maldives?”
“No, I’m…hang on, I’m not actually sure.” He spoke off the phone. “Where are we again?”
I heard Lauren’s voice reply. “In bed, sexy.”
“I mean where in the world?”
“Indonesia. But more importantly…in bed in Indonesia…” she said, her voice sultry.
At this point, I decided it was best to hang up before I got treated to a live phone-sex show.
***
Now, two hours later, there was Brian to deal with as I tried to work out.
“I don’t want to criticize,” he said.
From the look in his eyes, that was an obvious lie.
“Brian, I need to train.”
“Nonsense,” Brian scoffed. “You need to be out with a pair of Swedish supermodels, and I’ll see how many newspapers I can get to use the word ‘threesome’ in a headline. My record’s five.”
I shook my head. “If I don’t train, then I don’t win. And if I don’t win, then there’s very little point in any of this.”
“Clearly you don’t understand media,” Brian said. “If you lose, I can spin that—bad boys are allowed to lose from time to time. But if you stop being yourself—well, that I can’t spin.”
“But it’s not myself!” I said. I’d been thinking about this more and more since Allison had taken me to task on the subject, and I was feeling less and less happy with the whole set-up with every minute that went by. “I’m a footballer! Winning matters to me, not getting smashed and hooking up with Swedish models.”
Brian shook his head. “Would it really kill you to do shots out of a stripper’s bellybutton while her friend gives you a lap dance? I mean, really…would it? We’re on the same side here.”
“I don’t have time,” I said through gritted teeth, still holding back the argument that I knew had to come at some point.
“How about getting caught in the back of a limo with the wife of a prominent public official?” Brian suggested, still not taking the hint. Goddammit, the man just didn’t fucking listen. “That wouldn’t take long. I’ve got the girl lined up, she seems keen. All it would take is a phone call.”
I finally bit the bullet. “I don’t want to do this stuff anymore.”
“What stuff?”
“I’m a fucking footballer, Brian!” I said, clenching my fists by my side. “And a damn good one. I could be even better if I applied myself, but I can’t do that because you keep telling me that to be a great footballer I also have to be a womanizing drunk! And I don’t believe it anymore. I’m truly grateful for all you’ve done for me, Brian, really I am. And I won’t say that I didn’t enjoy any of it, because we both know that’d be a lie. But I don’t believe it anymore. I don’t think I need to be that guy, to get the career I want. I know I’ll make more money your way, but that doesn’t matter to me.”
“What?” Clearly, I’d offended Brian’s religion.
“I’ve got enough money,” I said.
“You’ve got enough money?!” Brian pronounced the word as if someone had suggested using the Royal crown as a potty. “There isn’t enough!”
“What?” It was my turn to be confused.
“Money!” Brian clarified. “There isn’t enough money. Ever! There’s always more. And it’s tricky stuff—forever getting away. A few boats, a house in the country, a trophy wife or two, and suddenly it’s all gone. That’s why it’s important to keep on collecting it. You really think you have enough?” he scoffed. “Now come on, there’s a nineteen-year-old Miss Italy in my car wearing nothing but a fur coat and a smile, and she’s brought her own handcuffs.”
I shook my head. “No, I told you, I don’t give a shit about stuff like that anymore. I’m done.”
A new expression passed across Brian’s face. “Is that reporter still in town?”
I fought to control my own expression as alarm bells jangled in my mind. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen her for days, so she may have gone home. Why?”
“I think you know why.” Brian studied my face like Sherlock Holmes, reading arch deductions into every flicker of an eye.
I played my trump card. “You know exactly where I’ve been every fucking minute of this week. When have I had the time to conduct a clandestine love affair, which I assume is what you’re suggesting? I’ve been at practice, I’ve been at the gym, and I’ve been sitting in front of match tapes. And you can check all that with anyone. I don’t know how you got this reporter stuck in your head, but I’ve never had anything to do with her except for the interview.”
“You see, th
at’s what bothers me,” Brian said, his voice thin and threatening. “You’ve always insisted that you never had anything to do with her except the interview…”
“I didn’t!”
“Exactly!” Brian snapped. “She might not have been your ‘type’, as the media likes to put it, but we both know that’s never stopped you in the past. And the girl had all kinds of things in her favor. Pretty face, good figure, fabulous bambaloopas. A man could have a lot of fun in those—and yet you insist that you didn’t. That’s not the Liam Croft I know.”
I shook my head, trying to hide the panic creeping through me. Shit, I couldn’t let him find out; couldn’t let him get Allison fired.
“I hate to tell you, Brian, but my press isn’t all true: not every girl says yes. I get turned down sometimes.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’m the one who keeps those stories out of the press. But when it happens—even though I know the truth—you still tell me you did her. You’re not even lying about bedding this girl. That’s odd, Liam. That’s suspicious.” He leaned closer. “I can be on the phone to her editor in a moment. So if you’re really not seeing her, why don’t you put on some nice clothes and enjoy a tabloid-friendly evening with a pair of Japanese identical twin contortionists and their patented sex swing?”
It took all the effort I could muster for me to keep my composure and not punch Brian square in the jaw. I shook my head. “I have to train. Now stop being a pain in the arse and give the poor reporter a break.”
As I turned to get onto the treadmill, I could hear the sound of Brian dialing, but I jogged on. It was a game of chicken; I just had to hold my nerve. Brian would hang up.
At least I fucking hoped he would.
“Hello?” The phone had been answered.
I was grateful that Brian couldn’t see my face right now. It had to be a bluff. It had to be.
“Send my car around.”
I tried to suppress the sigh of relief I let out, and Brian strolled around to look me in the face again.
“This conversation isn’t over, Liam. But…” He held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Perhaps I have been a bit hard on you.”
