“Can you make that two negronis?”
The bartender nodded, glancing between the two of us. “Of course, sir.”
Mindyturned fully round to face me. “Thank you. And now you know my name, what’s yours?”
I shook my head. “I guess it has to be Mork.”
“What a coincidence. It’s good to meet you – Mork.” She held out her hand, her nails painted a different colour from the last time I’d seen her.
I took her hand in mine, feeling that warmth seep through my skin and translate into electricity that made my heart beat faster than any training session.
“What brings you to Manchester?”
She smiled, perfectly straight white teeth on show, framed with pretty pink lips. “Work. How about you?”
“A business opportunity. How was your flight back after I saw you in Houston?”
Mindygave a nod. “Good. Some turbulence. Only one emergency landing.” She shrugged. “How was yours.”
“I slept through most of it. Didn’t manage much sleep the couple of days before, so I needed to catch up.”
She gave me a knowingly proud smile. “You were tired?”
“Exhausted. A woman called Penny stopped me from sleeping. Terrible thing.” I handed my card over to the bartender. If he checked out my name and recognised it, he didn’t show it.
Mindy tapped her nails against the bar. “Terrible. This Penny, what was she like?”
I knew my grin was wicked. “Delicious. She was delicious.”
“Was she now? Did she taste fine?”
“Like champagne.” I sipped at the negroni the bartender had placed in front of me, the taste taking me straight back to Houston. “Every time I drank from her.”
Mindy didn’t blush or give away anything she might be thinking. “Do you think you’ll see her again?”
I raised my brows. “Well, I don’t think she’s a stalker. If I see her, it’ll be coincidence. She didn’t give me her phone number and she didn’t ask for mine, so maybe I wasn’t champagne for her.” I didn’t think this was the case. Penny had been one moment in time, and how the hell I was now sitting with her at a bar near my new city was worth a few theories.
“I think you were champagne. Don’t doubt that. Maybe she thought that trying to carry it on wouldn’t be viable. Career women and all that.” She gave a shrug and took a sip of her cocktail. “You travel around then?”
“I do. A different place every week. Just in England though.” We had an away match almost every week from now until Christmas, with cup and league games. There was an international break in a few weeks when England had two World Cup qualifying games. One was in Germany, the other at Wembley. I was hoping for another call up.
Mindy toyed with her hair, placing it round her like a screen, just as I’d seen her do before.
“Do you travel?” Or was she living in Manchester too? My chest tightened at the thought.
“Kind of. I tend to work temporarily in one place for a few months at a time. I’m here overnight on business though.”
That would be disappointment I was feeling.
“Just one night?”
She nodded. “Just one night.”
Just one night might be enough. Maybe we weren’t meant to have been done in Houston, and we needed that extra night to get this out of our system. “Where are you going back to tomorrow?”
“Norfolk. I’m in the middle of nowhere on a country estate for the next two weeks. Then London.”
I swallowed, took another sip of my drink. “I’m in London in another three weeks.” Our first away match of the season was against Arsenal, my old club.
