He hums contemplatively. “And how are the lads?” Ever since I bought the team, he’s taken to calling the guys on the teamthe lads, as if they’re all his close personal friends by association.
The camera was turned the wrong way when Dadanswered my FaceTime call to tell him the news. After five minutes, and a lot of swearing while trying to explain to him how to get it to flip around, I gave up and told him I bought the team and was officially moving. I hadn’t seen him move that quickly in a long time as he launched himself out of the chair and started cheering, ‘I’ve got season tickets!’
“The ladsare fine.”I steer us toward a bench so he can rest, because he’ll never ask for it on his own. He never has.
“What about that Stone fella?”
Something in my stomach pitches at him bringing Tieran up. “What about him?”
“He didn't play the best last year. Do you think this year will be any different? I want to hedge my bets properly.”
“Dad! You can’t bet against our own team!” My voice raises before I remember there are people around me, and I clench my lips closed, afraid of nosey ears. I learned long ago that anyone would sell you out for a quick buck or fifteen minutes of the spotlight.
“I can if they’ll make me some money,” he chuckles.
“You know I can take care of you.”
He’s shaking his head before I can finish my sentence. “I never took money from you before, and I won’t now. It’s already bad enough that I let you pay for that nurse.”
“Oh, come on.” I bump my shoulder against his. “You like Myrah, I can tell.”
“She’s alright.” He looks away from me, saying hello to a Dachshund trotting by and evading my observation, but I swear, there's a slight pinkening to his already ruddy cheeks.
We sit for another half hour, letting him rest and catch up on the week apart. He peppers me with more questions about the team, thankfully not bringing up Tieran again, and I ask about his friends from the local pub as we watch the sun slowly start to set, casting London in a warm golden glow.
My first week here has been far from smooth, but it’s all been worth it to have moments like these again.
“Dad,” I call out from the open refrigerator door. “Why is there no food in here?”
He grunts out something unintelligible in response as I make my way toward the front of the house, grabbing my bag and slipping my shoes back on.
“Where are you going?”
“M&S to get stuff for dinner. I’ll be back soon.”
“Why don’t we just order take away?”
“How many times have you ordered in this week?” My hands ball and rest on my hips in reprimand.
“That’s an inconsequential detail. Doesn’t a chippy sound nice?”
To be honest, it does. Nothing makes me feel more at home than fresh fish and chips, but someone has to make sure he stays fit to stave off the worst of his symptoms. He’s already a little off balance, and seeing tremors in his hands as he stirred his tea this afternoon made me want to cry. It was a fight holding back tears to avoid drawing attention to it, but Archie McKallen is, and always will be a prideful man. Needing assistance to do menial tasks made him feel weak, and I didn’t want to pour salt in a festering wound by crying about it in front of him. In the moment it was a relief, but it made me feel like a coward, being willing to follow his lead just so I could avoid the reality of his mortality a little longer. It’s still early stages, but watching your favorite person—someone who has always been larger than life—get older and slow down is excruciating.
“I’ll see you in an hour with something green,” I say as I step out the front door.
“No brussels sprouts, please!” His request trails out to me just before the door shuts.
Twenty minutes and three phone calls to Jaded’s manufacturer later, I’m walking through the automatic doors of the local M&S Food with a hope and a dream butabsolutely no plan. My stomach starts to grumble the second I smell the premade hot food lining the far wall. Doing a food shop while hungry was a fatal mistake, considering how everything is now tempting me.
Grabbing a cart, I make my way over to produce first, grabbing a couple zucchinis, a head of garlic, and a few lemons before somehow finding myself veering into the snack aisle.
Maybe just something small to tide me over until dinner?—
I stop dead in my tracks when I see who’s at the end of the aisle. Oh. Oh no.
What deity did I piss off?
Why, in a city of roughly nine million people, can I not stop running into Tieran Stone? How on Earth is he somehow in this same food shop, on the outskirts of central London, looking irritatingly good in jeans and a slightly cropped graphic tee that shows off the tattoos on his arms, giving the tiniest peek of his toned abdomen as he reaches up for th?—
