“What is that? A serial killer alarm?” When I nod, he smiles. “Good one. Come on, I’m hungry.”
“I’m not dressed for dinner.”
“Don’t worry, my maître d’ has a tie you can borrow. And if you’re very nice to me, I’ll show you more footage of baby Lachlan and allow you free rein to take the piss out of an unfortunate mullet I sported for three weeks of the 2014–15 season.”
“Well now, that is an incredibly tempting offer. And Idoneed to watch these videos…”
“What better way than with an expert who can explain thingsin a way that’s so simple, even your feeble American mind can comprehend?”
“Yeah, like why don’t you just pick up the ball and throw it down the field like inrealfootball?”
“I’ll not have you discuss that ‘sport’ in my presence again.” He reaches up and hovers his hand over the speed button. “Now say yes or I’ll set this thing to a hundred miles an hour.”
“You really need to work on your threats.”
Lachlan smiles and picks up my bag, and I follow him into the hallway like an obedient dog tailing its master. I guess I’m doing this, going to dinner at Lachlan Ramsay’s house in pink spandex and a Beatles T-shirt. Not quite what I would have imagined, but then again, very little about the last month has gone the way I thought it would.
Chapter Six
The hallways of the trainingcenter are quiet as we head for the exit, and the silence allows my mind to wander. I’m running back through all our conversations so far and realizing that Lachlan has never, not once, mentioned his wife in my presence. Have I been gaslighting myself? Is it possible I didn’t actually read that on his Wiki, that Claire Ramsay is a figment of my imagination? But no, I definitely saw pictures of their wedding during my internet stalking of her; I remember being astounded by the sheer volume of her poufy white dress and the deep orange of her spray tan. My shoulders creep up. Is he cheating on his wife? Or trying to, at least? Or is she about to be waiting at his house, ready to tell me off for being in a car alone with her husband?
“You all right, Yank?” he asks once we’re on the road headed out of the complex. The streetlights punctuate the gathering darkness with warm yellow tones, bathing his face in a glow that makes it look like he’s starring in a Range Rover commercial.
I brush aside my slightly damp bangs and use the motion to take a surreptitious sniff of my armpit (in tonight’s production, the part of “Glamorous Range Rover Wife” has been hilariously miscast). “Yeah, it’s just…Are you sure you don’t have anything better to do?”
He rolls his eyes. “We’ve been over this: I have no other friends. At least not until preseason starts. Though to be fair, it’s your access to old Mersey matches I’m actually after. I’d be just as happy if it were only your laptop buckled into the seat there.”
“Have you ever considered that you don’t have any friends because you’re an enormous asshole?”
“It’s crossed my mind.” He winks.
We’re quiet again as I work up the courage to ask him what I’m really wondering. “Is your wife going to be home? I’d love to meet her.”
His knuckles go white as he grips the steering wheel harder, and the light in his eyes dims a shade, from radiant to merely enchanting. “No, she’s still in Spain.”
“Packing up your old house?”
He presses his lips into a tight line. “We’ll see.”
Instant regret! So, so much regret! Why did I poke the bear? My heart is thumping wildly and I can’t help feeling that I’ve royally fucked up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” He sighs, checking his blind spot as he changes lanes. “To be honest, it’s a bit of a sore subject right now. We’re…not in a good place. She really didn’t want me to come back to Liverpool.”
“Why did you?”
“I was only supposed to be in Spain for three years, but she didn’t want to leave, so we stayed for six. Playing for Mersey again was always my dream, and I don’t have that many good years left, especially with this bum knee. I’m staring down the barrel of obsolescence, and this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
I’m struck by the poetry of the phrase, but also how sad it must be to understand that life as you know it is ending when you’re barely in your thirties. Then again, what have the last few monthsof my life been about if not facing that exact same truth? Maybe Lachlan and I have more in common than I thought.
Still. The other line of inquiry is more pressing. “Your wife doesn’t understand that?”
“No, she does. But Claire is complicated. Well, no, that’s not true: She’s actually pretty easy to understand. She loves her life in Spain, she loves the other WAGs at the club, she loves the Spanish tabloids that always publish photos of her…she doesnotlove Liverpool and rain and, in her words, the ‘unrelenting gray’ of this country.”
“But isn’t she Scottish, too? I thought you people were used to the rain.”
“What do you mean, ‘you people’?”
“God, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
