Chapter 4
DOMINIC
“How we doing, Priest?”
The young man nods, raking his hair together into a bun at the back of his head. “Fair to middling, I’d say.” Jordan looks at me with an expression of grim determination. “Can’t say I haven’t said my prayers fourteen times over.”
I clap a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I believe in you lot, I do. Salford’s coming into this on a loss.”
“And so are we,” Jordan replies. “Two, in fact.”
I exhale heavily. “I know. But you’ve got this, alright?”
“Yeah?”
“Of course you do!” The deep, cheerful voice sounds from the other side of the locker room, and Nnamdi Adedayo smiles over at us. “You just have to believe, Priest. And we all do.”
The men around us nod and show fists and thumbs up to Jordan, whose face breaks into a smile.
“Well then, I guess we’ll see.” Jordan looks over at Ezra Martin, our goalie, and raises his eyebrows. “You ready for them? They’re hungry for it.”
Ezra nods, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m hungrier. Nothing’s getting past me tonight.”
“Right then.” Jordan looks back at me, squaring his shoulders. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“I know you won’t.” I shake his hand, and head out of the locker room. “Give ‘em hell, lads!” I call, clapping my hands, and am met with whoops and cheers from the team.
They sing the team anthem as I make my way down the hall to the stairs.
I want to watch the game from the benches, but I have corporate sponsors in the stands and need to attend to that duty tonight.
I huff out a breath as I pass the door to the field.
Sometimes I wonder how much I’m cut out for the corporate side of this venture.
The stadium is packed, everyone anticipating a victory after our last loss. The boxes are full of men in suits and women in expensive fur coats, sipping champagne and barely casting a glance down at the field below.
The lights are bright, the grass is green, and the rain stopped this morning.
Come on, god, or whoever’s up there, I say silently. Give us this. After the week we’ve had…
I head out to the stands to see where my new sponsors are hiding, and stop short at the sight of a woman in high boots and a tan coat lounging in the middle of the row.
Mia looks up at me with a half smile and a raised eyebrow.
“You came,” I say stupidly.
Mia shrugs and tosses her long, dark hair. “What made you think I wouldn’t?”
“The, uh, ‘I don’t give a fuck about the club’, and the slamming door in my face kinda made me think that maaaaybe…” I trail off with a grin, and Mia laughs.
“Well, I changed my mind. Besides.” She looks down at the field with a dramatic sigh. “I was bored, fancied a spot of football on this freezing night.”
“Are you cold?” I gesture to the boxes behind us. “You can go inside, it’s warmer.”
She waves a hand, adorned with long, peach-pink nails. “Oh god no, all those elites in there, I’d feel bang out of place.” She gives me another warm smile, her green eyes sparkling. “I prefer it out here.”
“Me, too.”
“Hopefully they make it worth my while.” She gestures to the field with a smirk. “Otherwise everyone might blame me for bringing bad luck or something.”
I chuckle and lean back in my chair. “I think they really want it tonight.” I glance at her hands. “Do you fancy a drink?”
Mia shakes her head. “No, I’m fine.” She looks over my shoulder and leans into me. “Don’t you have some corporate sponsors to woo or something? I wouldn’t want to steal you away from anybody.”
“They’re skulking around here, I’m sure.”
A flash hits my eye, from the bleachers below, and Mia groans, slumping back in her chair.
“I will bet money that’s Paulie bloody Hardcastle stalking me again.” She gives me a devious side glance. “Shall I give him the bird, make a right spectacle of myself? All that good PR gone to waste?”
“Maybe we’ll just let him believe you’re on your best behaviour tonight.” Without thinking, I take her hand and plant a kiss on the back of it. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to us. To the lads.”
Mia’s face betrays a hint of surprise, and she shakes her head. “Not at all. You better go find your sponsors before they get sad and take all their money back. Or the press catches another photo of you kissing my hand and then they’ll go and make everyone think we actually like each other!”
I raise my eyebrows in faux disbelief. “Can you even imagine?”
“The horror!” Mia holds her hand in front of her open mouth, and bursts out laughing. “Quick, go before it happens, Daddy-O!”
Reluctantly, I go and find the sponsors, waxing lyrical about the club, about the players, the long history, our established family name.
I gracefully avoid the question of our famous star player, assuring them that the lads are up to it.
I tell them about welcoming Troy Everest to the team last year, an exciting recruitment no one expected from the established Man City midfielder.
They seem moderately impressed, but still want to know far more about Archie and his tactics. We’re definitely not out of trouble on this one, and I silently curse Archie’s name.
Fucking foolish bell end.
The official club line is that Archie is injured, and taking a rest. Even as the supposed sightings of him keep popping up on social media, and no one has a bloody clue where he is. It crossed my mind a few times that maybe a Spanish team was trying to scalp him, but even that made no sense.
That’s not how things are done. We all know that. Archie knows that.
And yet I still can’t shake the feeling that my spoiled, idiot son is up to something.
The stadium erupts into cheers and boos as the teams are announced. I watch from the box as Salford run onto the field in their light blue jerseys, the matching banners of their fans waving wildly in the stands.
Then our boys run onto the field, in their red, maroon and gold jerseys, amidst veritable thunder as the stands explode. I’ve never been so glad to have a home game as I am tonight. Jordan needs this, and the lads need it, too.
Thank fuck something worked out.
Down on the field, the whistle blows, and the players all burst into motion. The ball is a tiny blur of white, bouncing back and forth between them all, the stadium now a constant static hum of voices.
I leave my sponsors to their talks with Kasia, our PR Manager, and head out into the frosty night air. Mia looks up at me as I amble down the stairs, and I take a seat beside her.
“Enough brown-nosing for tonight?” She grins at me.
“There’ll be plenty more later, I’m sure.”
“Well, the game’s started,” she says, with a nod to the field, her hands tucked into her coat. “Let’s see if I’m actually a good luck charm or if you’ll be begging me to never attend another game again.”
“I guess we’ll-” I break off as the stadium erupts into anticipatory cheers, and we look down to see Adedayo intercept Salford’s centre, manipulating the ball away from him.
Adedayo bursts through the midfield, straight towards Salford’s goal.
Their defence aren’t where they need to be, their goalie preparing himself for a straight shot.
Adedayo’s right foot angles back, and then he belts the ball forward, the back of the net curving out as Salford’s goalie throws himself through the air too late.
The entire stadium cheers in unison, and the boys jump on Adedayo as he runs along the line, pointing at the crowd.
Mia jumps to her feet, screaming and clapping her hands. “Yes! He did it!” She grins down at me, “Guess I’m a good luck charm after all. Goal in the first 10 minutes?”
“You’re definitely coming to all the games.”
She flops back down into her seat, and rubs her hands together. “It was worth coming out here for this. I forgot how much fun this is.”
I look at her profile, her eyes bright, face glowing with joy. “You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself.”
She shrugs, smoothing her coat over her stockinged legs. “Would it be awful of me to say it’s more fun with Archie not here?”
“How so?”
“I don’t know.” Her mouth quirks as she tries to find the words, raking her impossibly long nails through her hair.
“I guess… at his games it always felt like it was about him, you know? And, yeah, it is. But… I’m not under pressure to be the WAG.
” She smiles over at me. “I’m just someone going to the football.
Just a loud-mouthed northerner who says fuck too much and-” She sits up straight in her seat as Troy Everest gets control of the ball, his kick sending it straight past the goal.
“Fuck.” Mia mutters, slumping back. “Poor Troy.”
“He’ll make up for it, don’t worry.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and point at the field.
“Troy always does this, he tests the goalie. He’ll never admit that’s his strategy, but I know it, every game he does that.
Now he knows how the goalie moves, his weakness, and he’ll land the next one, you watch. ”
Mia folds her arms over her chest with a smirk. “Anyone would think you know a thing or two about football.” She looks back down at the field. “Do you miss it? All this?”
I sigh heavily, and watch the game continue. “Sometimes. I don’t miss the injuries, or the training.”
“From the looks of you the training never stopped,” she says with a side-glance.
Heat rises in my cheeks, and I clear my throat. “Oh, you know, once you’re an athlete I guess…. I, um, I do try and get to the gym every day.”
“Mmm.” Mia shifts in her seat, crossing her legs, one over the other. “Have you ever considered managing the team? Seems like it would suit you better than all this corporate nonsense.”
“I did, yeah. But my dad…” I trail off with an awkward laugh, and Mia regards me with a raised eyebrow. “Sorry, it just sounds stupid to say something like, ‘My dad doesn’t think I’d be any good at it’ at my age.”