Page 37

Twenty-six

Ysolde

I wasn’t even all the way sure that Fletch would be there, but I figured it was my best bet.

That I’d at least know someone there. Tommy Langford, who’s been Fletch’s best friend for forever, he’s on the team too.

Or Elliot Harper, who he used to flat with for a bit when they were just starting up.

There’d be someone there—someone in Manchester who wasn’t connected to my stupid fucking boyfriend. Ex. Ex -boyfriend.

Just…connected to my ex-ex- ex -boyfriend. Much better.

I pull up outside The Cliff in a taxi around the same time Tommy’s walking in—an act of God.

He spots me.

“Oi.” He grins. “What are you doing here?”

“Is Fletch here?” I ask. I don’t really feel like chatting.

I’m eleven minutes away from having an absolute, full-body shutdown and I need to go somewhere where no one can see me collapse.

I’d like to think I’m hiding that fact well, but Tommy’s face bends in concern.

“Yeah, he’s—” He nods his head towards the building. “Do you wanna c—”

I shake my head and he nods a couple of times, getting it. Or perhaps not getting it at all but so deeply convinced he’s ill-equipped for whatever might be about to happen next that he just backs away towards the door.

“Alright. Stay here.” He looks confused. “I’ll go grab him.”

I’m standing out there—teeth chattering—probably not cold enough for that, if I’m honest, but I’ve always been colder than everyone else.

About 9°C outside right now, dark too.

There’s a man across the street who followed me from the venue—the stalking victim in me is a tiny bit paranoid about him, but I think I recognise him, and the part of me that wants to believe that Joah isn’t a complete sack of shit wonders if he sent him to make sure I’m okay. That, or spy on me.

Either way—when it gets back to Joah that I came here, he’s going to shit a brick. Good. I actually hope he shits two. And gets an anal fissure whilst he’s at it.

“Hey,” says that other ex-boyfriend of mine. The good one. The one I probably shouldn’t have broken up with in the first place. He reaches for me. “Are you—?”

And then I immediately start crying.

Freddie Fletcher’s face falls heavy with a worry he’s had for me since the moment we met.

I’m safe with him, you see. I’ve always been.

Our mothers were best friends, did you know?

He holds my face in his hands, looking at me properly.

“Hey, hey, what happened?”

He pulls me in towards him, holding me against him.

“Solly.” He kisses the top my head because he’s just like that. “Talk to me.”

I pull back a little, shaking my head at him.

“We’ve been trying to avoid unnecessary drama in the papers, so he told me not to come because it’s been a lot lately—”

“Right—” He nods, waiting.

“So I didn’t. But then I did—” I pause for dramatic effect. “To—you know— surprise him —”

Freddie grimaces. “Uh-oh.”

“He just wanted to hook up with his ex.” I sniff.

His face falls on my behalf. “Shit.”

I start shaking my head. “And I didn’t bring Aleki—”

“—Why?” he asks, tone sharp. He knows about Mark Draper.

“Because—” I give him a look. “I don’t really need to when I’m with Joah. There’s always so many people around them anyway, plus there’s usually security—he was just sort of doing nothing—he needed a holiday!”

Freddie shakes his head. “Don’t like that.”

“I was going straight from the airport to Jo! And—” I shake my head again. “I don’t know where I am. I haven’t booked anywhere, I don’t have a place to stay—”

He gives me a look like I’m silly as he tosses an arm around me.

“Yeah, you do.”

***

It took some convincing because I didn’t want anyone to see me and for rumours to start already that Jo and I are over— are we over?

I suppose we are. We are. We definitely are—but Fletch promised that the boys at the club wouldn’t say anything when we had to go back to the locker room to pick up his stuff.

There were a few whispers when I walked in.

I think you could probably tell I’d been crying.

People can always tell when I’ve been crying.

Lala says it’s because my eyes go like sphalerite.

Pix says it’s because my mouth goes extra pink and boys want to kiss it better.

I don’t know which is true, if either is—the point is, Manchester United do stare when I walk in with their right midfielder.

He grabs his stuff, says bye to his friends, and we walk to his car in relative silence. A black Porsche 911.

He opens the passenger side door for me, bends over, buckles me in, and he hovers—our faces all close how they’ve been a million times before this and probably will be again a million times after it too.

He’s really beautiful, Fletch. Obviously, you know that—you’ve seen him. We’ve all seen him. He’s the biggest deal in the world when it comes to football. In the papers they say that god gave with both hands when it came to Freddie Fletcher.

He’s really tall. As tall as Joah, definitely (which, do remember, is very tall)—with this lean, athletic build that makes everything he does look effortless.

His skin’s this really warm, lovely brown that somehow seems to catch the light even when he’s not in the light, and he’s got these impossibly sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that always look like they’re sizing up the whole room.

His hair’s short and curly, neat but never too done.

He’s got this natural presence, you know?

As though he were born to take up space.

He is. Always has been. Annoyingly gorgeous, too.

We pull up outside his house in Worsley. Less than fifteen minutes from where they train.

It’s quite posh—definitely a bit big for just him—he said on our way there that he doesn’t mind it because usually he’s got a couple of the reserve players that can’t afford much themselves staying with him, which is very like Fletch. He’s just inherently good.

We walk into his home and I’m sort of impressed—he said his sister picked everything.

I’m not sure whether that means he likes it.

I know he likes his place in London more than this one, and I know that he did most of the choosing for the London flat, but Lauren wants to be an interior designer, and Freddie’s never been that good at saying no to her.

We take a sharp turn into his living room.

“Oh my god—” The room is completely kitted out.

Moody grey walls, massive windows, a marble coffee table polished to a mirror shine.

A gigantic TV so big it’s basically a cinema screen.

Beneath it, there’s a sleek, black cabinet with a state-of-the-art sound system and a stack of CDs arranged like art.

The lighting is soft, the rug is plush, the shelves have just enough books and memorabilia to look intentional, and there’s actual good art on the walls.

But there’s no sofa, no chairs…not a single thing to sit on in sight.

I laugh in disbelief. “Fletch.”

“No, listen—” He tosses his car keys down on the table. “I ordered a new couch—so I got rid of the old one—but then the new one was delayed so—”

“So—” I cut him off. “This is pathetic! Ninety thousand pounds a week, they pay you.”

“I know, I know—” He hangs his head in shame.

I shake my head at him. “What would your mother say?”

“Well, she wasn’t lovin’ it either.” He shrugs, helpless.

“No—” I give him a look. “I would think not.”

He chuckles as he sits down on the floor, his knees propped up.

“It’s fine—” He pats the space in front of him. “Good for you to sit on the floor. Come down off that high horse every once in a while—”

I put my nose in the air. “I’m not on a high horse.”

“You live on high horses.” He gives me a look. “Speaking of—what’s Evanthe up to these days?”

I flick my eyes, amused. “Oh, she has a boyfriend, haven’t you heard—?”

“Oh—” He chuckles. “I heard.” He pulls a face. “The way your fucking dad cares about that makes it sound like she belongs in a bell tower.”

I squash a smile. “No, you know him—he’s stuck in the ’30s—only proper thing a woman can do is be a wife, and she went off and became a doctor…”

Fletch gives me a playful look. “Better than a model…”

“Well,” I shrug in lighthearted defeat. “Anything is. Even acting.”

He smirks. “Crump still on that train, then?”

“Oh, well supposedly it’s her lifelong dream…” I breathe out my nose. “I think it’s just…the being famous part she wants.”

He nods. “Think it’s that for a lot of people, probably.”

“While we’re on the topic of the fame-hungry—” I pinch my eyes at him. “Where’s… Minty ?”

He gives me a long-suffering, sort of loaded look.

Minty is Fletch’s on-again-off-again girlfriend. They started basically as soon as we stopped.

She went to the same school as us. She’s a year older than Freddie, who’s a year older than me.

“Ibiza,” he says. “With the girls.”

She’s kind of a WAG. Acts like one, even if she isn’t actually technically one.

“And are you guys…?” I lift an eyebrow as I ask my very open-ended question.

“I dunno—” He shrugs with a grimace.

I give him an unimpressed look. “You don’t know ?”

“No—” He shakes his head. “It’s on and off and on and—I don’t know—” He shrugs. “It’s hard. You know, I’m away a lot—”

That’s why we broke up. He and I—our careers both sort of took off at the same time.

He went away a lot. I went away more. We started fighting all the time—which feels— I know , impossible —how can you fight with this man?

Believe me, you can, there are ways. I found all of them.

It’s just that at the minute, he probably strikes us all as particularly angelic in light of Joah.

I give him a nod. “I recall.”

“That—” He eyes me. “And my fucking ex keeps popping up randomly.” Our eyes catch, each of us knowing full well that I am the fucking ex. And I do pop up randomly. In varying degrees of oftenness…

“She doesn’t love that,” he tells me.

“Oh.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Would you like your ex to… stop —?”