Ineeded to move.
But if I moved, I was in danger of losing the anger inside me. The one that pushed me and forced me never to forget. Anger wasn’t a new emotion for me. I’d spent years channelling all my feelings into football. The gruelling training sessions gave me focus and the thrill of running onto the pitch with my entire team around me, the roar of the crowdbehind me through every kick, the energy a tangible force… nothing in this world could beat it.
Now I was without a team and was getting ready to spend my days picking up heavy bags of mulch and moving them from one end of the store to the other. The stuff stank too. George kindly reminded me that morning when I complained for the fourth time about the smell, ‘It’s shit, bro. You’re handling shit. Of course, it fucking stinks.’
In my defence, the only green thing I had in my house was the half-dead broccoli in my fridge that was growing fur.
I’d donned a baseball cap with a deliberately inconspicuous logo and settled into the corner of the quiet pub. My half-finished pint was raised in the air when a high-pitched voice called across the bar.
Only a few patrons were milling about, talking amongst themselves. Interspersed with the odd clack of the pool table, and a few groans from the middle-aged men who seemed to be incapable of potting the 8-ball.
So the voice cut through the air like shattered glass.
I didn’t lift my head fully, unsure who the woman was talking to. I peeked over the lip of my glass, confusion settling on my face when I found a short blonde-haired woman bouncing up and down on her feet and grinning at me.Fuck.So much for a quiet drink.
‘You know her?’ George mumbled, a frown starting to form on his face. I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood for a crazed fan right now.
I saw another woman standing next to the human bouncing ball, her back was to me, but she was clearly trying to get her friend to calm down. She placed a hand on the blonde’s shoulders, stopping the bouncing momentarily, only for it to move to her hips as she started to wag them like a puppy.
George chuckled under his breath, also taking in the oddview. By now, he was used to people fawning over me. In the first few years of my career, whenever we would go out together, we couldn’t make it ten feet before people swarmed us. Paparazzi, fans, or groupies. I knew my brother indulged in those early years, being thefootballer’s brother. But after several women and a couple of men tried to get him to have a threesome with me and him, he hung up his one-nighter hat.
‘You are toilet guy, right?’ The blonde pointed a finger at me.
What the fuck?
‘For the love of God, Rosie, I will murder you on the way home.’ The woman next to Rosie hissed. I glanced once more at her friend. She had soft pink hair, her figure round with full curves.
Wait… I’d seen that pink hair before.
Rosie’s friend glanced over her shoulder at the two of us. Rich brown eyes met mine briefly before she turned abruptly and tugged Rosie by the arm, trying to usher her to the front door.
Then it clicked.
Fallon.
I couldn’t keep the smug smile from my face as I took a long pull from my beer before I called out, ‘I think they do have a restroom here. No need to coerce me into helping you this time.’
George tilted his head slightly, eyebrows raised in surprise. I never usually interacted with fans more than a quick nod and photo. I hadn’t told him about yesterday.
Fallon spun around so quickly that her hair flicked her friend in the face, not that the blonde minded. Her eyes were sparkling with delight. The same could not be said about Fallon, whose forehead creased into a frown, eyes narrowing as she glared at me across the bar.
‘First off, I didnotcoerce you. I asked nicely.’ She pointeda long elegant finger at me. ‘Secondly, I had no clue who you were. Actually, I still have no clue who you are.’
The muscles in my face twitched.
‘Someone care to explain what the fuck’s happening here?’ George leaned back in his chair, casting an intrigued eye between me and the girls.
‘He helped her pee yesterday.’ The blonde said gleefully—an elbow rested on the bar as her palm cupped her face.
‘It’s going to be slow and painful.’ Fallon glared at her friend.
‘You helped her pee?’ George asked, eyebrow quirked.
I drained the last of my beer. ‘She needed a bathroom. I let her use the one in the store.’
George glanced between the two women, lingering a few seconds longer on the blonde before he turned his head back to me. ‘So, the first day I give you a key, you let a stranger into my business?’
I propped my elbow on the back of my stool, tilting my body to face the room. ‘It was anallegedemergency.’
