Genny and Guy hated each other with a passion that was sometimes scarier than the prospect of a tyrannical leader with access to a certain red button. They were both fiery and they both knew exactly how to push each other's buttons. In the wrong order.
“We’ve just signed Thomas LeContier from Paris on a three-year deal. Guy’s just given me the head’s up.” She picked up her glass of sangria.
“Does that mean you’re in work tomorrow?”
Her neat bobbed hair shook. “No. I am not in work tomorrow. I am not in work for the next three weeks. Guy will actually have to remember how to do things for himself and not expect me to clean up all of his messes.” Her chin jutted higher. “Also, Teddy’s been caught with his pants around his ankles – and I mean that literally.”
Teddy was one of the club’s younger players and had taken over Jude’s mantle of acting like an over-entitled toddler just because he was a big shot footballer.
“What are you going to do?”
She smiled serenely. “Nothing. We go on holiday in two days. My out of office is already on and I’m not intending to speak to anyone I don’t like.”
I nodded, sipping at my sangria. “Jude’s coming to France now.”
“That’s good. I was worried about him.” She studied me. “How do you feel about him being there?”
I took a mouthful of sangria this time.
Genny was the only person – as far as I knew – who was aware that Jude and I had hooked up a few times. Maybe it was more than hooked-up; I tried to keep it labelled as a casual thing and that was how it’d lived in my brain.
Maybe not so much in Jude’s.
“It’ll be nice to have him around.”
“Nice?” Genny raised perfectly groomed brows. “Nice? That’s the most repressed word in the English language. You think it will beniceto have Jude around. That’s it?”
“I think it’ll be nice to have him around. I can get started on his meal plan as well.” Jude generally took care of himself, but I knew he was prone to overeating when he was bored and he’d be impulsive with it. I also knew the best way to get him eating the way I needed him to in order to aid recovery would be to get him interested in the process.
“Let the poor boy have some fun, Neva. I worry about Jude when he’s not playing. It doesn’t help his head.” Genny looked over to where Jude was standing, holding a bottle of beer in one hand and a burger in the other.
Her looking meant I looked too.
It was hard not to like Jude. It had always been hard not to like Jude.
“It doesn’t. He needs to be busy.” It was something I’d learned when we’d been sneaking around seeing each other.
The sneaking bit had come from me. Not him. Jude didn’t know how to sneak around anything. He was upfront and honest, the words often out of his mouth before a thought had appeared. How he’d not given us away at any point was a miracle.
Or maybe not.
He knew I wanted to keep what we were doing secret. He knew that I wasn’t interested in anything long term with him, that it was just fun. He was too young at ten years my junior, even though he’d once messaged me a list of couples where the man was ten years older than his partner and no one had batted an eyelid.
“You would know.” Genny didn’t even look at me as she said the words. “You kept him very busy.”
“Shush. That never happened.”
She laughed, amused. “Neva, sweetheart, it totally did and you both still remember it. Why did it end?”
“Because he was too young to have a long-term relationship.” And that was what I wanted; a long-term relationship that was going to lead to maybe marriage but definitely a baby.
“Okay.” Genny looked away from Jude. “Makes sense. How did that date go on Friday night?”
“How do you think?”
“He looked a tosser on his profile so I’m thinking looks weren’t deceptive.” Genny fished a strawberry out of her sangria. “Are you seeing him again?”
“That would be a hard no.” I sat back, trying not to look at Jude. “I have a date tomorrow – a lunch date with an accountant who works for SFMG.” SFMG was one of the club sponsors, so this wasn’t a date with someone I’d met online.
