Page 230 of Off the Pitch

“Do you wanna call Félix?” Liam asked, as he carried my bag down to the lobby, where Christian and the rest of the team were waiting.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I’ll do it in the car.” I knew as soon as I heard his voice I’d break, and I wasn’t strong enough to do that here. If anyone knew how I felt right now, it was Félix.

After an emotional goodbye with Liam and Christian, and a few hugs and well wishes from the rest of the team, I found myself in a smart, black car heading back to the airport to catch a private jet back to London. I watched the countryside go past again, but the magic was gone this time. It was just empty fields under a blank sky.

Pulling out my phone, I realised it was early afternoon and according to the world clock on my home screen, it was nearly half four in LA. Félix would definitely be asleep and probably wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours at least. Still, I could send him a message and let him know. Or maybe I could try calling, just in case he’d left his phone on vibrate or something. Stranger things had happened.

I hit dial, exhaling deeply as I listened to it trying to connect. Félix’s voice came through the speaker, but it was only the recorded message for his voicemail. Something inside me cracked when I heard his voice, and the wall I’d so desperately erected around my emotions over the past few hours began to crumble.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “Um, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve torn my hamstring, and I’m being sent home… back to London.” My voice wavered as the realisation hit me that this really was it. There was no World Cup for me this year. “They think it’s gonna be at least six weeks, maybe longer. I don’t know.” To my horror, I felt tears begin to fall. “Fuck, Félix. I’m going home. Shit. I wish you were here. Sorry, I know you’re busy. I’ll um, I’ll see you when you get back.”

I hung up, letting my head thump against the back of the seat as tears flowed silently down my face.

Chapter Twenty-Four

#makeachoice

Félix

I woke to sunlight streaming in through the curtains, a soft breeze playing with the material.

I’d been in LA for a week, and I still had another few days of meetings to get through before I could hop on a plane to Costa Rica for a day or two before heading to Rome. If my planning worked, I should make it to Italy in time for the first England match. I hadn’t been able to get tickets, but there were plenty of fan-zones set up around the city for me to go to, and if all else failed I’d find a bar to watch it in.

The thought of watching Jordan play and spending several weeks in one of my favourite places, eating copious amounts of delicious food and drinking wine, was all that was getting me through some of my more tedious meetings. I really didn’t understand why some of them couldn’t have been emails or Skype calls. I hadn’t imagined that setting up my own company was going to be so much hassle or that I’d have to deal with so many people who had bigger opinions than brains.

I sighed, rolling over in bed and stretching, groaning as something cracked in my spine. As much as I loved my bed in my LA house, it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the one I’d gotten used to in London. I didn’t think any bed would ever be as comfortable as that one.

Reaching for my phone, I noticed a missed call from Jordan and a voicemail. Something in my chest flickered nervously. Jordan and I had started a routine of texts and calls, and the timing on his call was all wrong.

Rubbing sleep out of my eyes, I hit dial, pulling myself into a seated position as I listened to his message.

As soon as I heard his words and the crack in his voice, my heart clenched.

“Shit,” I murmured to myself. “Fuck!”

I felt the pain and devastation in his words. To come so close to getting everything you wanted only to have it ripped away… It was my own nightmare made real. In an instant I was twenty-two again, feeling on top of the world and daring to dream of a world-class career in the game I loved. And then I was back in the manager’s office with him, the legal staff, the club owner, and my agent as they told me it would be for the best if they didn’t renew my contract. That I was causing friction within the team, and it would be in everyone’s best interests if I didn’t play. That they’d continue to pay my wages until the end of my contract, but that I was summarily being dropped from the first team and the reserves. They’d say I was injured if I wanted. They could put out a press release saying I’d picked up an injury severe enough that I was going to be out for a long time, and maybe, I wouldn’t come back at all.

A nice, clean, carefully managed departure.

Nobody had to know the truth.

All I had to do was sign on the dotted line.

They’d give me the money, and I just had to keep my head down, leave, and never tell the public the truth. They even offered me a huge bonus payment as a sweetener.

The first thing I’d done was call Lucas and tell him the whole story. He’d been apoplectic with rage, but there was nothing he could do. And there was nothing I’d wanted him to do. Even if I took them to court, nobody on the team was going to want me to play there again. I’d be shooting myself in the foot. My career was over either way, so I’d decided I’d rather keep my dignity intact. It was just easier to take the money and leave. Maybe I’d been a coward for not standing up for myself, but I’d never been one for doing things the hard way.

I listened to Jordan’s message again, my heart breaking for him all over again. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and hold him close while everything broke around him. The fact that he was alone, half a world away made it all the worse.

And then there was the little hitch in his voice when he said,“I wish you were here.”

He needed me. Nobody had ever needed me before.

Wanted me, sure. But that was different. There were oceans between wanting someone around because they were fun or rich or got you what you wanted and needing someone because they were the person you wanted there when things got rough.

I’d never felt needed like that before.

Now I just had to decide what to do. A tiny voice whispered that it would be better to stay here in LA, to pretend I hadn’t heard the message and to continue as if nothing was wrong. To go to my meetings and Costa Rica and then back to London, pretending nothing had changed. Because what if Jordan didn’t really need me. Nobody ever really needed me. What if he was just saying that because I was convenient? Because I was the one who made him feel good and that was what he wanted right now. What if he didn’t need me as much as I needed him?

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