I’m supposed to be working on a highlight reel of some of Mersey’s greatest games from the last decade, so I pull up a video on my phone to watch while I walk. I put my headphones in and start the treadmill at a leisurely pace. And damn if it isn’t an engrossing game—nearly fifteen minutes pass before I’m even aware I’m on the treadmill, and at the twenty-minute mark I’m actually oohing and ahhing out loud along with the crowd. There’s a beautiful little run of play and then a Mersey player (whose name I don’t know; the announcer is saying everything so fast and in such a thick accent that I can barely understand what’s going on) slots a gorgeous ball into the back of the net. I’m cheering along, but I’m not the only one. From somewhere far outside the little world of my headphones, I hear “Gooooooallllll!”
The screech I let out could break glass. If the treadmill had been going faster than its current glacial pace, I would have fallen smack on my face and rolled down the belt, perhaps accompanied by farcical trombone sound effects. But because I’m barely strolling, I’m able to hit the emergency stop button and turn around as the belt slides to a halt.
In athleisure he wears far better than I do, and with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face, Lachlan Ramsay stands at the base of my machine. “Did I give you a wee fright there?” His grin widens, his eyes positively glittering.
I take off my headphones, and the now small, tinny sound of the announcer screaming wafts up from the earpieces, as if the mayor of Munchkinland moonlighted as a World Cup commentator. Some breath finds its way back to my body. “Ironically, you scaring the shit out of me raised my heart rate far more than the exercise.”
“I do what I can.”
“Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to be in the gym if there are still players in the building. I could have sworn everyone was gone.”
“What did I tell you about apologizing?”
“Sor—Okay wait, that feels like a trap.”
He nods at my phone, still playing the video. “I loved that match, though I did think that goal was going to be disallowed.”
“Because he was offsides?”
“Offside. Never anS,Yank. But yes. It was a tense few minutes on the pitch.”
“Hang on, you were on the team then?”
“Yep. That’s little Lachlan, right there.” He climbs onto the treadmill next to me and points out a tiny speck of a player.
I try to ignore how close he is, how his arm brushes against mine as he points at the phone, but I can’t. Lachlan Ramsay is standing next to me on a treadmill! What a world! “Oh my God, you were such a baby.”
“If only I could go back and tell that lad a few things I know now…” There’s a brief pause where he looks uncomfortable, but then he sort of vaults himself over the arm of the machine andlands back on the ground. He gestures to the wall of glass looking out onto the training pitches. “One thing I do know is that it’s a perfectly lovely Friday evening, and yet for some reason you’ve chosen to be in a room that smells faintly of jockstrap.”
“There are a lot of people in the world who would pay good money to smell what I’m smelling right now.”
“You’re very strange.” He laughs. “Do you want to get dinner?”
“With you? Now?”
“No, with Ringo in 1964.” He rolls his eyes. “Come on, I’ll cook you something.”
My eyes narrow. Lachlan and I have had a few chats since that first encounter in my office, but I wouldn’t have said we were at the “It’s Friday, let’s hang” level of work friendship. What’s his game? On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s somehow my boss, which is emotionally if not corporate-hierarchically true. Am I actually allowed to refuse him, or does that violate the cardinal rule? I have to ask: “Why me?”
“Because you moved to Liverpool ten minutes ago and I moved here nine minutes ago and it’s past seven on a beautiful Friday evening but we’re both still at work, so I’m guessing neither of us has big plans tonight.” Golden hour light pours in through the windows, bathing him in a rosy glow. “Why do you seem so skeptical?”
It’s weird being taller than him, but up here, I am. It gives me confidence. “Because you’re an internationally famous footballer and I’m just some girl from work? And there’s no way you don’t have cooler people to hang out with? And there’s a small part of me that thinks maybe you’re actually a serial killer and the whole football thing is just a ruse?”
He laughs and leans back, pulling against the arm of the treadmill like a bored little kid swinging on dress racks while his momshops. The light in his eyes is just as childish; it’s delightfully at odds with the crow’s feet that have started to branch down to his cheekbones. He holds his arms ramrod-straight, his feet pressed up against the base of the machine, like he’s doing a weird inverted vertical push-up. I wonder if I provide enough ballast to keep the thing from tipping over; I’m sure it wouldn’t reflect too well on me if I inadvertently crushed Mersey’s new signing before the season even started.
“Lachlan, here’s a free tip from a communications professional,” I say, as the silence stretches past the point of comfortable. “When someone accuses you of being a serial killer, it’s best if you don’t just laugh and then pivot hard into silence.”
“You’re funny, you know that?”
“Funny-looking.”
“Nah, just the good kind. Anyway, what do you say?” He nods at the windows.
“Prove to me you don’t have duct tape and plastic sheeting in your bag.”
“No, that’s all in the boot of my car.”
“Beep beep beep,” I say, flashing my hands like blinking lights.
