5. Lockheart
LOCKHEART
“What the fuck did you say to her?” Emilia fumes at me and I hold my head in my hands and sigh loudly.
“Something completely uncalled for and unnecessary. Something I need to apologise for. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll try to catch her now.”
I launch myself out of my chair and run from the office before Emilia can say or do anything to me, because from the tone of her voice, her Louboutin heel was close to piercing territory.
I run down the stairs, too frustrated to wait for the lift, and by the time I make it to the car park, I can’t see her anywhere.
Jumping into my car, I head for the exit thinking I can probably catch her at the traffic lights if I guess the correct direction she went in. I pull out of the garage and look to my left. Where I spot her sitting at the bus stop.
She isn’t driving?
Before I know what I’m doing, I pull up to the curb and lower the window. “Nicole, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Let me give you a lift somewhere.” A car honks behind me and I flip him off through the open window.
She looks to the car and to me again and sighs loudly as she stomps over to me.
As she sits in the passenger seat and slams the door, her scent fills the car and I discreetly take a long inhale of it.
She smells like vanilla, and it reminds me of my favourite whiskey.
The one I was drinking the night we met.
The same one I haven’t been able to enjoy since because it reminds me of her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble and she folds her arms over her chest and looks out of the window.
“I shouldn’t have used that against you.
You told me that in confidence and I shouldn’t have done that.
” I try to focus solely on the road, but her scent is making me lose focus.
I open the window to try to get some air, but when she shivers slightly I close it again.
“Apology accepted. Could you drop me around the corner please? I’ll grab a bus from there.”
Her voice is robotic and it pisses me off. I prefer her laughing or smiling. I should be hating on her, but Emilia’s doubts have sunk into my head.
“No.”
I smile when she baulks at my refusal.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I’m not dropping you at a bus stop. I’ll take you home.”
“No!” She practically shouts, and flinches back before turning in her chair slightly so she's facing me. “I have another appointment and I can’t be late. So if you could just drop me at the bus stop please.” She reaches up and fiddles with her hair, and I know she’s lying.
“Tell me where your appointment is and I’ll drop you there. I’m free for the afternoon. I had training this morning and was heading to the gym now, but I can skip it.” I didn’t mean to let personal things slip out, but it’s done now.
“Training and then the gym? Is this because you’re worried they’ll sell you?
” I give her a frown and shrug my shoulders and she rolls her eyes.
“Off the record. I was concerned, that's all. I’m not always looking for a story, Owen. No matter what you believe about me.” She crosses her legs and flips her hair behind her shoulder and I sigh loudly.
“I’m sorry, again. I’m just wary of journalists. The first story you wrote about me screwed me over,” I admit to her quietly.
“I didn’t write it.” Her voice is filled with ice and a small flicker of hope starts to ignite in my chest.
“It had your name on it. Or ‘Nic Moran,’ I should say.” I scoff as she smirks back.
“My former boss wrote both stories under my name. The first one I refused to write when the bimbo approached me, but he thought it was too good of an opportunity to miss out on, so he wrote it. I wasn’t in too much of a position to complain, but I still did.
A retraction was printed with his name as the reporter, but it was tiny and worthless.
A lot like he was. I didn’t write kiss-and-tells then, and I still don’t want to now.
I take it you didn’t see the retraction in the paper a few weeks later?
No? I’ll have it sent to you. Believe me, I didn't want any association with that story at all. I wouldn’t want people thinking the wrong thing about me now, would I? ”
She turns in her seat and faces the window again as I try to get some oxygen back into my body and my thoughts war in my brain.
Can I believe her? Why would she make something like that up?
She didn’t look like she was lying, and she knows I could easily search for that on the internet and prove if she was.
But she isn’t, I know she isn’t, and all of a sudden the truth of the last six years smacks me in the face.
What I thought was a betrayal on her part seem to have been a colossal fuck up on mine.
My mouth is moving before my brain can shut it up.
“But you could’ve told me that at any point in the two months we were together.
You didn’t. You let me go on and on about how much I hated Nic Moran, and you were him the whole time.
And that second story?” I know I’m clutching at straws, but before I condemn myself as wrong I want one last shot at being right.
“I could’ve.” There’s no defence in her voice, just gentle acceptance laced with undeniable regret, sending my already tailspinning head further into freefall.
“I’m sorry I didn’t. But I never wrote the second story either.
I’d have done a better job if I had. Any story I wrote about you would’ve shown who you really were, the kind genuine person I grew to know and f…
” She pauses slightly and bites her lip before taking a breath, and I’m desperate for her to finish that sentence, but she doesn’t.
“Before you stormed into the office, I was mid rant about how I wouldn’t work for an immoral bastard anymore.
You kinda ruined my vibe, but it’s okay.
” She shrugs and offers a small smile in my direction, but I can’t respond.
I’m too busy trying to stop the words six years flying through my mind.
“Nico, I didn’t… I should’ve… I’m sorry. Shit! I’m so sorry.” I pull into an empty spot and unbuckle my belt so I can face her. “Nico? Please?”
“It’s Nicole, and your apology’s accepted, Owen. We’ve all made mistakes, it’s okay.” Her voice has softened and she turns in her chair to face me. And all I want to do is reach across to her and touch her.
As my eyes meet hers, the anger she’s had in them since the office is burnt away leaving the fire that I used to see in her all the time.
She licks her lips and I track the movement with my eyes.
I take a deep breath and raise my hand, just about to touch her when her phone rings, and I bring my hand back quickly as she answers it.
“Hello…is he okay? Oh my God. I’ll be right there. Tell him I love him and I’ll see him soon.” She hangs the phone up and I let the words ‘tell him I love him’ sink into my soul.
She’s taken. She has someone else.
“Owen, could you drop me home please? There's been a family emergency and I need to get back there as soon as possible.” Her eyes are filled with unshed tears and she bites on her lip furiously.
I set aside the pain at the idea of another man's hands on her and nod my head.
She rattles off an address, and I frown when I realise it’s in a not great area, but keep my mouth closed. It’s not my place to tell her where she should be living with her boyfriend. It’s up to them. Maybe that's why she wants this story. She wants the money to move out to somewhere nicer.
If she was with me, she’d be living in a mansion in Hampstead, but hey. I frown at my errant thoughts and scold myself mentally. I haven’t seen this woman for six years, and for most of those I questioned her morals daily. The only reason she isn’t with me is because I fucked up royally.
We drive in silence, and when I pull up down the street from her house, she turns to me and places her hand on my forearm. “Thank you, Owen. I really appreciate the apology and the lift. Think about the series. It could be really good for you.”
She lets go of my arm and jumps out of the car as I gaze at where she touched me.
It feels like it’s missing something, and I know it’s her touch.
And a realisation hits me like a fucking ball to the face—my whole life for the past six years has been missing her touch, missing her.
I tried to blot it out, tried to convince myself I felt nothing for her, but it was all lies.
I missed her. I want her. And now she’s someone else’s and not my Whiskey Girl.
I shake my head to rid myself of this nonsense and go to drive away, but something stops me.
Her files are in the footwell of the passenger side.
I grab them and flip through the papers.
The series is a good idea. Letting people into my private life could be just what I need to do to get more endorsement deals, maybe even managerial work or TV punditry.
Without the public on my side, I won’t get anything when I retire.
I pull the contract out and sign it, knowing if Emilia has seen it, the team lawyer has already looked over it. The Shark does everything by the books.
I jump out of the car and head toward Nicole’s door. I know I’m overstepping, considering I have no clue what happened to her boyfriend, but I want her to know this series is in the bag. I owe her that at least.
I knock on the door twice and step back and wait. It opens, but I don’t see anyone on the other side. Until I look down when a little voice squeaks out ‘eeeep’ As my piercing blue eyes meet the same staring back at me, I take a breath in.
“Oh my gosh. You’re him. You’re my Lockheart. Will ya sign my gloves? I’m a goalie like you. Mumma!”
He runs off into the house and I hold onto the doorframe to steady myself. That kid looks a hell of a lot like I did when I was younger. And did he call me his Lockheart? Before I can filter through everything, he’s back with a sharpie and a pair of gloves and is shoving them into my hands.
“You’re my bestest player. I like Marcello and Bennett but not as much as you. Look, I got your angry face down.”
He frowns at me and the kid could be a mirror image of myself thirty years ago. Shit!
“Ouch. Dat hurt. I cut my eyebrow today. I felled over and scraped it on a rock. But I didn’t cry cause I’mma big boy. I’mma whole five years old.” He points at the steri strips on his eyebrow and I can’t get my words to come out of my mouth. Instead, he grins at me cheekily and I grin back.
“Lucky, who are you…” Nicole comes to a stop in her hallway and looks like she’s seen a ghost. Her face is deathly pale, and before I can say a word, her eyes flutter shut.
In one of my greatest saves, I dive across the hall to catch her, making sure this woman doesn’t hit the floor. Because I need her to be conscious and coherent when she explains exactly why her five year old little boy looks just like me.