I didn’t hide that I’d noticed them, and I could swear that the sly grin on her face was because of that. She was slender, the type of slender that came from working out, but she had the sorts of curves that I appreciated. Her hoodie didn’t disguise that her tits were more than a handful, and her hips offered something to hold on to.
Footballers had women thrown at them. There was always a social media star in the making who longed to be on the arm of a Premier League footballer, knowing their status would automatically be elevated to wife-and-girlfriend. WAG. It was a ridiculous acronym.
For some reason, women seemed to see me as more of challenge because I avoided being seen in the press and I was single. I had a reputation for not hooking up with pretty girls in nightclubs and bars, because I didn’t go to nightclubs and bars. No one knew of any steady girlfriend, because I hadn’t had a steady girlfriend since I was twenty, and she’d never been caught on camera, and I hadn’t talked about her.
We’d split because business didn’t mix with pleasure, and our app designed as a platform for all those athletes who wanted an online training programme for people to subscribe too, had been sold, leaving us millionaires. Lotte had moved to California; I’d signed for West Brom already and was making the first team. We could plan our next project together online, and we’d realised that the sex was just convenient rather than mind blowing.
Our relationship had been convenient too. Neither of us had any regrets when it ended.
“I offered. Don’t do that man thing where you try and steal my thunder.” She looked at me from under long lashes, that had to be false, but looked good enough to get away with the possibility of being real.
I took the barstool next to her, securing my laptop against the bar. “I’ll let you buy the round after this too to apologise.”
Her smile changed, this one looking like she’d just discovered something surprisingly good. “Can I open a tab?” she called over to the bartender, leaning onto the bar.
I watched her overtly while she passed her card to him, signing something to set the tab up. She was confident, sexy. Her manner had something very, very contained about it, her posture that of someone completely in control.
“Do you always drink negronis in airports?”
She laughed, turning on the barstool to me, the bartender putting the drinks in front of us.
“Usually it’s champagne.”
Her expression told me it wasn’t.
“What’s yours?”
“Water. Or whisky. But I try to avoid airports.” They were one of my least favourite places, along with supermarkets.
She gave one nod. “So why are you here?”
“Returning to Manchester. I was here on business.”
“Not for Comicon or some sort of computer convention?” There was a tease to her words, and to be fair, if I’d have seen me right now, I’d have assumed that’s what I’d have been doing.
I shook my head, tasting the cocktail which was strong. Two or three of these and I’d be sliding off the barstool. “That would’ve been more fun. You?”
“Work. Heading back to England for more work.” She shrugged, taking another glug of her drink. “I’m considering being stranded here a holiday.”
I laughed, because it kind of was. A couple of days of no one to pester me for anything. The likelihood was that we’d lose signal at some point. The free Wi-Fi in the airport had already gone down. “What do you do?”
She toyed with the straw in her drink. “I manage my own business. You?”
I left out the footballer detail. “I work in tech.” It was true but sounded boring enough for no one to want any more details than that, unless they were a fellow techie themselves. I didn’t ask her for any more details. Business was as deliberately vague a term as tech. “Is this your favourite cocktail? It’s an interesting one.”
“One of them. This is what I drink when I have absolutely nothing to do the following day.”
“And if you have? What do you drink then?”
“Martinis. Maybe a piña colada, if I’m on the beach. Sometimes I’ll have a whisky sour. But today seemed like a negroni type of day.”
Rain had started to pelt at the windows of the bar. The glass no longer clear.
“I think you might be right. I know what you do, kind of. I know what you drink, but I don’t know your name.” And I wanted to know what name went with this dynamo of a blonde just as much as I wanted to know what was under that hoodie and those ripped jeans.
“Penny.” She knocked three times on the bar.
I tipped my head back and laughed. Like fuck was it Penny.
