With a glance at my watch, I stood from the couch. “She’ll be here shortly. I suppose I better go change my shirt.”
“Smart boy.” She paused. “You didn’t make her take the train from Oxford, did you?”
“No. She said a neighbor let her borrow her car.”
“I’ll get out of your hair.” She patted my face as she passed. “Use your manners, Jude Michael McAllister. Open doors, pull out chairs, and don’t attack her as soon as she walks in, all right? You ask her questions and listen to the answers, treat her like a normal human being.”
“As opposed to treating her like a non-human?”
“Don’t get smart. You know exactly what I mean. Women aren’t vessels created simply for your enjoyment because you get paid millions of pounds to kick a ball around.”
I felt only slightly defensive when I answered. “I know that.”
While Rebecca put away the last of the cleaning supplies and checked on the dinner she’d popped into the oven, I bounded up the stairs to my bedroom to change. Mine was the biggest room in the house, with large windows overlooking the stretch of green grass in the garden. Smack in the middle was a king-size bed decorated in shades of gray. As I tossed the offending T-shirt into the wash basket, I thought for the thousandth time about the best way to tell Lia about what I did.
It was the part I was least looking forward to. The fact she hadn’t recognized me, that she thought I was normal, was a huge part of the appeal.
Football to her meant a choice, something you might like or you might not. And if you didn’t like it, you simply chose something else.
Football here was embedded in our lives. It was a culture running in your bloodstream, not just a match that you flipped to if you were bored. And as a nod to that, given I’d have to admit what I did sooner rather than later, I reached into the wardrobe and grabbed one of my bright blue Shepperton shirts. The logo on the chest was small, so it wasn’t like I’d be opening the door wearing a full kit with my name on it.
“Jude,” Rebecca called. “You have a visitor.”
“Oh shit,” I whispered, tugging the shirt on. By the time I reached the bottom of the steps, my entire body felt charged with excitement. No, it wasn’t ideal for my housekeeper to be the one greeting her at the door, but she was here, and that was what mattered.
Rebecca said something that made Lia laugh, and the sound of it had me smiling.
They stood by the front door, and in the full light of my home, she was even more beautiful than I remembered. Her hair—which had been long and curling down her back the last I’d seen her—was pulled back off her face.
She was wearing something yellow, but to be honest, I didn’t really care what she was wearing.
“Don’t let him take credit for the dinner, my dear,” Rebecca whispered loudly with a hand on Lia’s shoulder. “That’s my secret recipe, and he’s an absolute disaster in the kitchen.”
Lia’s eyes met mine, the blue of them so deep it was like a gut punch. She smiled. “Duly noted.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Atkinson,” I said. “Have a lovely evening.”
Rebecca gave me a warning look, and I knew that even in that brief window of time, she found herself just as charmed by Lia as I had been. “It was wonderful meeting you, dear,” she said to Lia.
Lia smiled. “You too.”
Rebecca left, closing the door quietly behind her. And it was then I noticed Lia’s fingers knitted tightly together in front of her and the high color in her cheeks.
She was nervous.
“Come on in,” I told her. “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got red and white, if you want wine.”
Lia tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I actually wouldn’t mind some water, if that’s okay. Still or sparkling, doesn’t matter.”
“Of course.”
I went to get her a bottle from the fridge, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her wander around the family room, looking at pictures of me and my brother over the years. She stopped at a small white frame and picked it up.
The photo had been taken years ago, after my first game as a top-tier player. I’d changed and showered, so I wasn’t in my gear, but Lewis and I were both grinning widely, showing off our Shepperton shirts. There were no smiling parent pictures along the same vein, so she could look all she wanted for more hints of my family, but she’d not find a single one. Life was complicated, and the idea of trying to tiptoe into that conversation with Lia—about my job or my parents—felt just a little bit impossible.
Knowing what I did, it would change the dynamic between us, and suddenly, I found myself wanting to protect this small piece of reality.
I’d tell her. Eventually.
She set the frame down and met me in the kitchen just as I grabbed a second bottle of water for myself.
“Your house is beautiful,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“My brother was a professional football player in the States.”
I choked on my water.
She kept going as if I hadn’t. “He won a championship actually. And now he’s the defensive coordinator for the same team.”
I rubbed at my chest. “What now?”
Lia shook her head. “I could’ve explained that better. I’m sorry. I’m more nervous than I thought I’d be.”
As carefully as I could, I set the water down, my mind spinning with the strange turn of events.
“I’m telling you because I didn’t want you to think I was just … making fun of soccer for the hell of it. I really don’t understand it, and that’s not an excuse, but my entire life was centered around Logan’s job.” Her fingers, long and graceful, started picking at the label on the bottle. “Football, American football, is what I watched every single weekend for my entire life. I grew up watching game film with him while I did my homework at night. I grew up knowing defensive schemes and depth charts and what the spread of each game was, and that was my life because he raised me and my sisters.”
Her lips, pink and soft, moved with careful precision as she spoke, and I got the sense she’d practiced every word of what she was telling me right now. The light from the garden caught the side of her face and the length of her neck, and all I could do was stare.
In my silence, she kept speaking. “So basically, I’m trying to apologize if I was rude at the bar for what I said. I know I haven’t been here long, but y’all are really protective of your football, and I shouldn’t have said it was boring.” Her eyes searched mine. “Or the thing I said about flopping on the ground. That was rude too.”
Maybe I’d invited Lia because I would’ve cut my arm off to sleep with her again, but with every word, she dug a strange foothold somewhere behind my chest. If what she said was true—and there was no reason it wasn’t—I managed to stumble upon a woman who would know precisely what the insanity of my life could be like. She’d understand every facet because even though the sports were different and the culture was different, there were very few people who didn’t play who genuinely realized the level of dedication it took to do what I did. She’d appreciate why I’d bleed myself dry for the game.
I walked closer, and she sucked in a breath at my sudden nearness.
My hands reached out, stilling hers where they fidgeted with the bottle. Her fingers were ice cold.
Lia tilted her chin up. She was taller tonight, probably wearing different shoes, and I found that I very much wanted to see how easily I could kiss her from this angle. I wanted to boost her up onto my kitchen counter and step between her legs so I could press as closely as possible.
I barely knew her. Why did I feel like I did?
“Why are you so nervous?” I asked.
“Well, there’s the whole
I’m in a stranger’s house thing, and I still don’t know for sure you won’t murder me and hide my body.”
I grinned, coasting my hands up her arms, then dragging them back down again. “So suspicious.”
Lia swallowed, eyes huge on my face. “Are you going to do those things?”
“I wasn’t planning to, no.”
“Good.” While she may not have been touching me back, she allowed me to slide my fingers between hers. The drag of my skin on hers, which was far softer, far smoother, felt dirty somehow. Like we were naked, like we were already in bed. Judging by the flush on her cheeks, she felt it too. “You’re not like … secretly married or something, right?”
My smile was slow. “No wife, no girlfriend.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.