“You understand,non?”
“I understand. But you don’t think I should just tell her when I get back to the hotel? Come clean about who I really am?”
“Non! Non! Non!” came a collective cry.
Bruno and the rest of the team waved their hands in front of their noses as if I’d just farted.
“It is certain she will leave you if you tell her the truth now!” Antoni, the Italian starting goalkeeper, pointed out.
“Show her the very best of times for the next two days and make it so she likes you very much,” Hiroki, the Japanese-French defender, insisted.
“Oui! Oui!” Bruno agreed with a nod. “You will put on display the kind of life you can provide over these next three days. You must make it so she does not care so much that you are a pro athlete who told maybe a teeny-tiny lie to woo her. This is a good plan,non?”
At first, I frowned at them.
Then, I grinned.
“Actually, it’s not a terrible plan,” I conceded. “And I think I might know just the place….”
CHAPTER13
Mick
MICK! My guy! No worries, bruh. I got you!
Max texted backin that particularly American way of his when I asked him for help with the French football club’s plan.
That night, Paris Triomphe and their English “prize winner” walked into Kentucky’s VIP lounge as Max’s exclusive guests of honor.
Kentucky was one of the latest clubs in Max’s self-dubbed “50 Clubbin’ States” collection—a vanity project of his to open 50 profitable nightclubs named after states in locations all over the world.
“I’m older now. I’ve got to think of the future,” he’d said with mock gravity when he opened his third club, Nevada—ironically not in Las Vegas, where his hotelier family was based, but in London—shortly after his 30thbirthday. “I’ve gotten to the point where I must also get paid to party.”
Kentucky was a swank red-and-gold affair located on the samerueas the Moulin Rouge. No pictures of any sort were allowed in the entire establishment—not even ussies. The VIP section was ultra-private, totally separated, and hidden away in the back of the club, with its own bar and dance floor. The lounge even had its own bouncer standing guard outside its massive double doors, making the call about who got past the exclusive interior velvet rope.
Magically, even the most beautiful women were turned away at VIP that night unless they were a WAG—married to or dating a member of the Paris Triomphe team.
Also, the WAGs who did get through were quickly “greeted” by Bruno. By “greeted,” I mean “given the drill,” so that when they came over to Kayla and me—who were sitting together on one of the red velvet settees—they introduced themselves and acted like they had no idea who I was.
I couldn’t say for certain about how good the French were at sex. But Bruno had been right about the drama and deceit parts. The Triomphe players acted their parts to a T, making a big show of asking Kayla and me over and over again how we were enjoying France as if they’d never even heard of me before I showed up late to their closed practice. And they also remembered to refer to me exclusively as Mick, not Andy or Atwater.
“Not feeling nearly as special as I used to, now that everybody’s calling you Mick!” Max groused under his breath while Kayla chatted with Antoni and his wife, a French fitness influencer/model.
“Don’t get jealous, mate,” I answered with a grin. “You’re still the only American male who gets to call me that.”
“Whatever. Your inner circle’s starting to look a little crowded,” Max grumbled. “What are you trying to do here anyway? Trying to settle down? Like my brother?”
Max wasn’t nearly as happy-go-lucky tonight as the last time we’d met up. Apparently, his older brother had decided to get married recently, and, for some reason, that had put him in a truly foul mood.
It probably also hadn’t escaped him that there were more wives than girlfriends in the lounge tonight, especially amongst the players who were also in their late twenties like me or their early thirties like him.
He threw a resentful look toward the Triomphe players, who mostly appeared to be chatting and dancing with their partners, paying little attention to the sexy dancers on top of the tables or the scantily clad waitresses discreetly offering products harder than liquor and wine. “So, what? Are these guys, like, your new scene?”
“It’s only for the next few days,” I reminded him. “After this, I go back to FC Greenwich and revert to the like-nobody bastard you’ve always known.”
That reminder appeared to mollify Max. He switched the subject to some club he planned to open in New Orleans.
But my gut twisted with guilt as I only half listened.
