21. Robbie
ROBBIE
What the fuck am I doing? I can still smell Cassie’s berry-scented shampoo that filled the small interior of the car better than any expensive air freshener I’ve had, even as I wait in line at the service station coffee shop.
I run my hand along my face and tug my hat closer to my head, although I doubt I’ll be spotted or even recognized.
This place is a ghost town. The only customers are a man sitting in the cafe with a muffin, and another elderly couple in the Edinburgh Wool Mill shop that’s inexplicably in every service station in the country.
I won’t be recognized, but the redhead waiting for me in her car somehow attracts attention without even trying.
By the time they’ve finished warming up the sausage roll in the oven, I’m imagining the car being surrounded by screaming fans.
I don’t even want anything to eat. I don’t want anything in my body other than what my nutritionist allows, but I needed an excuse to get away from the car.
Jesus Christ.
Why did I let her go on my phone? Why did I let her look through my music? Why did I not remember the playlist I specifically made one evening when I was hard and aching and just wanted to hear her sultry voice crooning in my ear?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the app, ready to delete the godforsaken playlist and forget this ever happened, but I can’t bring myself to.
What have I gotten myself into?
As soon as I saw her face when she had that phone call, I knew I had to step in.
I’ve never seen her like that before. She’s certainly never been afraid to speak her mind with me but faced with the weight of her parent’s expectations, she clammed up so tightly it was like she was suffocating right in front of me, and I couldn’t stand it for a single second longer.
She needs space. She needs a chance to just be a person rather than The Cassandra that the whole world is watching 24/7. And I can give that to her.
I’m just helping her. Giving her a break. I was going this way anyway, and she’s just taking advantage of my carpool. We’ll spend a few days in Wales, and then she can go right back to her glamorous lifestyle, and I can get back on the pitch.
I’ve only been away from the pitch for twenty four hours, and I’m already antsy. I haven’t even been able to fit in a workout all day because I’ve been at a party chatting to all of Cassie’s perfectly pleasant friends and laughing in a car with her.
“Iwan?” the server calls, and I grab the two coffees and sausage rolls.
I grind my jaw on the way through the station, keeping my eyes down and trying hard not to focus on the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Maybe I’ll leave Cassie the keys and run the rest of the way. How long would that take me? A couple of hours?
I cross the empty car park, but I can already see her standing against the passenger side door, her long red curls cascading down her back as she stares into the middle distance.
“I thought I said stay in the car,” I tell her as I sidle up beside her.
“I didn’t know you were the boss of me,” she replies, tilting her chin towards me.
I almost bite back a moan. Does everything with her have to be an innuendo or am I just way too horny to be around her?
“Here,” I say instead of pouncing on her. “Latte good?”
“Perfect,” she says with a grin as she takes the coffee from my hands.
“Come on, we’re only an hour or so away.”
I round the car and slide into the driver’s seat, quickly turning the radio on before she has any other ideas about snooping through my playlists. Cassie reaches her hands to take the tray off me and I let her, trying hard not to think about the simple domesticity of the act.
I’ve never gone on a roadtrip like this.
Even though this journey is less than four hours and it feels like we spent longer than that in her car driving to her house, there’s something about taking a girl home to meet my family that has my brain tripping over the facts.
I’m not taking a girl home. I’m taking Cassie.
I’ve barely even given a thought to what’s going to happen when I pull up outside my family home with an incognito pop star, and it’s enough to make me ask myself—again—what the fuck am I doing?
Hi Mum, I didn’t tell you I was coming, but I’m here for the weekend. Oh, and this is Cassie. I’ve kidnapped her. We are Just Friends.
Fuck’s sake.
A rustle distracts me from my impending doom, and I glance over at Cassie, who’s now rummaging through the bag.
“What’s this?” she asks, peeking inside.
“Sausage roll.” I turn the ignition on and let the car rumble to life. I turn over my shoulder to reverse out of the spot and see the grin lighting up her face as she examines the hot sausage wrapped in pastry like I’ve bought her a diamond bracelet in a greasy paper bag.
“For me?”
“No.” I turn the wheel and pull out. “I just wanted my car to smell like hot pastry.”
“I’ve always wanted to try one of these,” Cassie beams, wiggling slightly in her seat as she pulls the roll out of the wrapper.
I can’t help but chuckle as I pull onto the motorway at her excitement over a sausage roll from Greggs but almost crash the car when she lets out a low moan as she takes her first bite.
Jesus.
I clear my throat. “Nice?”
“Mhmm,” she replies around her mouthful, and I shift in my seat as my cock starts to come to life at the sound.
If I’d have known a bloody sausage roll would be an aphrodisiac, I would have never picked it up. Or maybe I should have imported one over sooner.
“Do you want to try?” She holds it up to me and I shake my head, unable to open my mouth to speak. I open the window to try cool the blood rushing to my head.
“That was so good,” she says when she’s finished, crunching the bag in her hands. “I love trying cultural dishes.”
I laugh, resting my head against my headrest. “I don’t think you can count a sausage roll as a cultural delicacy, Cass.” I consider it. “Or maybe you can.”
“Is it a Welsh thing?”
“Sausage rolls are a nationwide delicacy,” I tell her. “We have Welsh cakes, I guess.”
“I like the sound of a Welsh cake. Is it like a muffin?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve had one, I can hardly remember,” I say. “All I remember is my Nanna used to bake them, and they’d be as hard as rocks. My older brother and I used to pick the raisins out and fling them at each other.”
Cassie laughs. “Did you get into a lot of food fights as a kid?
“Only with Iwan. We were young. Like six and eight I think?” I lean my elbow on the door. “Yeah, it would have been before I got scouted.”
“You were scouted at seven?”
I nod. “Moved to the Academy pretty soon afterwards and spent like ten months of the year there.”
“How far away was the Academy?”
“Other side of London, so I didn’t really get home much.”
“You were so young.”
“Yeah.” The word hangs in the silence of the car.
“My dad came with me for the first few years, and we lived in this flat near the grounds, but then he had some health scares and had to come home to the doctors, and I moved in with my friend Tom and his mum. Lived with them till I was about seventeen and then I got the call up.”
“Is your dad okay now?”
I glance over at her to find all her attention is fixed on me.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s a spleen down, but otherwise as healthy as a horse.”
“That must have been hard on your family,” Cassie says. “For you to move out as a kid.”
“Those first few years were hard, I guess, but I was happy. Spent all my time playing the game, so I barely had a second to be homesick.” The next part spills out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Apart from late at night when I’d hear Tom and his mother laughing in the other room, and all I’d want was for mine to come in and kiss me goodnight. ”
My cheeks heat at the admission I wasn’t supposed to confess.
If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the renovations to my parents house and help Gwen and Iwan with their house deposit.
I wouldn’t have been able to buy tickets for the whole family to take the kids to Disneyland and see the pictures of their trip whilst I was prepping for my forty-fifth game of the season.
“That must have been hard,” she says softly and I shrug, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the road so I don’t have to see pity shining in hers.
“I love this song,” Cassie says, thankfully changing the subject, as Dream A Little Dream of Me by The Mamas and Papas plays over the radio. She turns to the window, and I keep my attention fixed on the road, even as she starts to quietly sing along.
Her voice is sultry and smooth. She’s not even trying, not performing for anyone but herself, but I feel lucky to even be here. It’s so effortless, the way she hits each beat with an ease that I’d envy if I gave any care to sing myself.
I’m silent, just listening, and when the song ends, I’m almost tempted to call the radio station and make them play it again.
The rest of the drive passes like that. We listen to the radio as the sun finally sets on the horizon, and whenever a song comes on, I keep my mouth shut just so she sings again. I don’t think she notices.
It’s only when I pull off the motorway, and we start to hit the quieter winding roads, that Cassie starts to fidget.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
No. “Probably could have asked that question four hours ago, trouble.”
I glance at her as she plays with the rings on her fingers, and I want to still her hands with my own.
“I can stay in a hotel,” she says. “I saw one back there. Hotel Gwesty?”
I can’t help the snicker I let out. “The Hotel Hotel?”
“Huh?”
“Gwesty means hotel. We’re in Wales now, Cassie. Two languages on the signs.”
“Well, that explains why there were so many signs for School Ysgol. I thought it was an anagram.”
I can’t help laugh in her face.
“Stop laughing. How am I supposed to understand Welsh?”
More laughter.
“Besides, you sound as English as Pip sometimes.” She giggles. “I forget!”