“Yeah, no thanks,” I agreed. “Loads of people gathered ’round one structure ain’t for me. Plus, I’ve already been once for a secondary school trip, y’know.”
“I, too, visited the Iron Lady during my school days back in Milan.” Antoni backed up my story with a knowing nod. “The Eiffel Tower is perhaps a too popular school trip here in Europe. Most of us have already been once.”
“And once is all you need for the Eiffel Tower,” Max pronounced, his tone dead bored on the other side of me.
“Oh, sure...” Kayla’s face fell a little. “You don’t want to go again, I understand. That’s cool. Yeah, I’m…I’m just going to go use the ladies room now if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure.” I stood up with her, appreciating the view from behind as I watched her head toward the “Toilette” sign near the lounge’s entrance.
Almost as soon as Kayla was out of earshot, Bruno and the rest of the French team gathered around me, congratulating themselves on their acting.
“Why do we not have our own reality show?” Bruno demanded loudly—in English, but with an extra dose of French outrage in his voice. “We are so very good at this!”
I laughed along with the other players, relieved they’d been able to pull it off as promised.
Not going to lie, I was starting to get caught up in all their camaraderie.
There had actually been movies and docs made about FC Greenwich’s particularly violent hooligan Greenie fan base. And that was cos the team tended to produce nutters like meself—real aggro players who could barely stand to be in the same room and talked all the shite if their fellow teammates failed to play their very best.
The Paris Triomphe footballers were a great time, though. Friendly, warm, and able to have fun without chopping up each other’s egos or getting into unnecessary pissing contests.
It was easy to sit back down with them and make like we were having a friendly conversation in anticipation of Kayla’s return from the loo.
Which was why it took me so long to realize Kayla had yet to return from the toilet.
“Excuse me, mates,” I said to the other footballers about twenty minutes after she left. “I’m gonna go check on her.”
I saw the problem as soon as I turned the corner where the lounge’s single WC lived.
I could easily imagine Kayla making the practical decision to go downstairs to the regular toilets for the rest of the club.
However, there was also a line outside that loo.
Suddenly, I was even more grateful for Kayla’s outfit choice.
“Oi, any of you lot seen a Black woman wearin’ a yellow dress?” I asked the line of women queued up beside the door of the ladies toilets.
One of the women pointed to a cracked open door at the end of the hallway. Then she asked me something in French.
I didn’t understand what she said, but since her question ended in “Andy Atwater,” it was easy enough to figure out. Also, after she asked, the other women in line turned and stared.
“Don’t speak French,” I muttered. Then I made my way to the door at the end of the hallway before anyone could follow up in English.
The door let me out into an alley at the back of the club.That’s strange.Kayla didn’t come off to me as the sort of woman who smoked. But why else would she…?
My heart stopped when I spotted her a little farther down the alley from where the actual smokers were speaking in French and expelling small puffs of smoke into the chilly night air.
No, Kayla wasn’t smoking. But she was furiously texting with someone. And from the intent look on her face in the glow of her phone’s light, it was obvious that whoever she was texting had her attention. Her full attention.
You’re the one who deserves my attention right now. Not him….
With a heart-sickening thud, I remembered what she'd said this morning about transferring her attention from the wanker who was trying to get in touch with her to me.
But that had been this morning.
Kayla had agreed to meet me in the warmth of Max’s club. But here she was, outside in the cold. Texting with the ex she said she’d blocked!
CHAPTER14
