Royal Baby (A British Bad Boy Romance) (37 page)

“Do you ever see them?” I asked.

“No. Haven’t seen them since we ran out.”

“Have they tried to get in touch?” I didn’t want to seem too nosy, but I got the impression that there were things Liam wanted to say, even if he didn’t admit that desire out loud. “They must know what you do now.”

“After I started getting successful they started trying to get in touch.” Liam kept his eyes straight ahead of him as he spoke. “I’d like to think…you know…they weren’t able to find me until then—big city, lots of people. I’d like to think they didn’t just get in touch because all of a sudden I had money.”

“But?” I said the word that hung in the air between us.

“If they’d been looking, they’d have found us,” he said. “It’s not like we changed our names or something. Hell, when we first ran away we didn’t even go that far.” He paused. “Doesn’t matter. I couldn’t forgive them anyway. I know that probably makes me a bad person but…I just can’t.”

“Do they still try to get in touch at all?” I was so close to my father, had been so well brought up and so loved, that it was coldly horrifying to hear this story of parental neglect and separation.

“No,” he replied. “When I had the money, I bought their flat and sent them the deed. It’s theirs, they don’t have to worry about rent again. They haven’t made any effort to get in touch since then. They got what they wanted.”

Again, I felt that silence was best, and my heart went out to Liam as he continued his story.

“Every Christmas I transfer some money into their account,” he said, his voice as emotionless as his face. “I guess if I ever feel the need to speak to them again, then I’ll stop doing that. I’m sure they’ll be in touch then.”

“What about Dean?”

Liam half-smiled. “He says I’m a bloody idiot for sending them anything at all, that they don’t deserve it.” He paused a moment. “He remembers those times better than me. I was so little. I don’t want to have anything to do with them, but I’m sorry that things couldn’t have been different, that we couldn’t have been a proper family. Dean just hates them. Really, truly, hates them.”

He turned to me. “Please don’t think I’m trying to make you, or anyone else, feel sorry for me. I don’t need pity from anyone—I’m one of the luckiest men on the planet. I’d hate for you to think that I was trying to use some sad sob story to get your sympathy, and…”

I stopped him by gently stroking his cheek. “I don’t think that,” I said quietly. “Not at all.”

I really didn’t. I finally trusted him now.

Smiling, I pulled my hand away from his cheek and kissed him, and when we broke apart, I saw a new light in his eyes.

“Seriously,” he said, “luckiest man on the planet.”

My heart soared, and we walked on.

“So, is the disguise really necessary?” I wanted to change the subject but it had also been playing on my mind a little, ever since I’d wondered about it earlier.

“I do get recognized a lot. Especially round here.”

“And here I was thinking you were just ashamed to be seen with me.”

I said it in a joking tone, but there was a kernel of truth behind it which Liam seemed to pick up on.

“You don’t really think that, do you?” he asked, pausing on the street and turning to me.

I was a little afraid to meet his gaze in case it became clear just how much I’d considered it this morning. “I think you seem pretty comfortable with people recognizing you anywhere. And I think, listening to the way you talk about this place, that despite everything you have a real affection for it, and that actually you’d quite like to be recognized here. Not out of arrogance, but to be an inspiration to the kids here. You’re proud that you come from here, and with that being the case I can’t see why you wouldn’t want to be recognized when you come here. So I thought that maybe there was another reason. That’s all.”

It was Liam’s turn to look away. “Shit. I said I wouldn’t lie to you, and here I am doing it again.”

What?
What had he lied about?

My fear must have showed in my face because he hastened to continue.

“I’m not even remotely ashamed of being seen with you. I’m proud of being seen with you. And whether we’re dating or not—I know you don’t like the word but I really hope we are—I’d be over the moon to be seen with you on the front of every newspaper in the world, with an article all about how I’m done with the bachelor life. That’s how I feel. But…”

“Brian.” I knew it before he had a chance to say it. He was still worried about my job.

Liam sighed. “I know I shouldn’t let him intrude into my personal life like this, but I can’t let him ruin your career. And he will if he sees or hears anything about me being with you. He says being single is my brand, that it’s why I’m popular. And he’s right. He’s a good manager.”

“He’s also an asshole, if he refuses to let you have a personal life. A real one, that is.”

“Yeah, he
is
an asshole. But he’s an asshole who’s on my side, which I guess is a pretty good description of a manager.”

I snickered. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Unfortunately, if I tell him to go to hell, he’ll be on the phone to your editor before you know it, and like I said, I couldn’t bear to risk your job.”

“He can do whatever he wants. Honestly, I can handle it. I’ll deal with the fallout from my editor. And if it comes down to it, there are other jobs.”

Liam shook his head. “Don’t act like this wouldn’t be a big deal for you; like you don’t care about your career, because I know you do. And I do too, so I can’t be the reason you get fired. Which unfortunately means I have to play pretend at still being single, which means I have to go incognito when we’re out together.”

I sighed. As much as I hated us having to hide our relationship, he was right. And not only was he right, he was also the wonderful sort of man who respected a woman’s need and desire to have a career. Even in this day and age, there were quite a few guys who didn’t support that, which honestly blew my mind.

“You’re right. But how long do you think we’ll need to do this?” I asked.

His reply wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but it did give me a glimmer of hope for the near future.

“Until I figure out what the hell to do in order to publicly be with you
and
save your career,” he said. “And after that, not a moment more.”

And with that, he took my hand and squeezed it, and we kept on walking.

Chapter 14

Liam

I wasn’t sure if it was by accident or design, through my own subconscious desires or because of Allison’s presence, but it seemed inevitable that my guided tour down memory lane would eventually arrive at a football pitch.

At
the
football pitch.

This one was a far cry from the magnificent multi-million pound, facility-laden stadium which I had shown Allison a few nights ago. It was barely more than a field overlooked by tower blocks, fringed by council housing and a condemned warehouse which had stood empty for years, waiting for someone to remember that it was supposed to be knocked down. The goal posts that stood at each end were covered in peeling white paint and looked as if they might fall down at the slightest breath of wind, one set severely skewed to the left. And yet this place meant more to me than I could put into words, and I felt a powerful need to share it with Allison.

“See there?” I pointed to an ugly, squat building on the far side of the pitch. “Locker rooms and showers. These days, a lot of youth teams have their own, but back when I started that was a proper rarity. Other teams used to love coming to play us because they didn’t have to change on the bus and they got to have a shower afterwards.”

There was always pride in my voice when I talked of my old team; nostalgia too.

Allison took in the scene, and it seemed like she appreciated the place as much as I did. She didn’t look down on it just because it was cheap. “Do you come here a lot?” she asked.

I nodded. “Sometimes I wish I’d never left. I mean, I love my life, obviously, but…growing up is such an arse, isn’t it?”

Allison laughed. “Sure.”

I returned my gaze to the pitch, and to the handful of local kids who were having a friendly kick-about. “It was so easy back then. We just played because, you know—we loved playing. And for a couple of hours you could leave all the other stuff behind. Nothing else mattered. Playing for love.”

I paused. Allison was so easy to talk to that I sometimes worried that I got a bit carried away. Then again, with her, I
wanted
to get carried away.

“I mean, I love it now. When I’m out there. But it’s never quite the same. So much else going on: press conferences, league tables, commercial endorsements. I can’t pick my own aftershave, my own car…” I paused again—did I dare say it? “Can’t pick the women I want to be with.”

Would she pick up the hint? I kicked at the grass and continued. “It’s not about football, it’s all about the money.”

“Does it have to be?” Allison asked quietly.

“You can’t change the world.”

“If that were true the world wouldn’t ever change.”

I sighed. From the outside, such change in the football industry probably looked easy, but I’d never found it to be so. “Maybe the world can change—but football? That’s set in stone. If you don’t go along with the advertisers, the pundits, the agents, then you’re finished. I’ve got, if I’m lucky, maybe ten years at the top of the game. I want to play. And if I have to put up with all the other bullshit, then okay, I’ll put up with it. I won’t like it, but I’ll put up with it.”

Allison nodded, but I wondered if she really believed it. We’d only known each other a few days, but in that time she’d gotten to know the real me better than anyone, except for Dean, and she’d instinctively seen through all my bullshit posturing and pretense. Sometimes I wondered if I even believed those excuses myself anymore. It was true that I would’ve sacrificed almost anything to play football, but to say that I had no other option? I might have been sanitized and redesigned as a media brand, but the street kid who would break into a football stadium at night still bubbled beneath the surface. People might temporarily control me using football as a carrot to hang in front of me, but I instinctively rebelled against any form of captivity. If I really cared, if I really tried, if I really wanted it, then I could break away from that corporate treadmill. All I needed was the impetus to do it.

And Allison could very well be that impetus.

“Oh, look at that!” I was suddenly brought out of my thoughts as one of the kids on the field executed a superb bit of dribbling, taking the ball neatly around three opponents. “Beautiful!”

The kids had thus far been too distracted by their game to notice that they were being watched, but now they stopped to look up and ran over excitedly. I glanced across at Allison, who smiled back—she knew how the kids must idolize football stars.

Well, she was about to get a surprise.

The first kid—a few steps faster than his friends—ran up. “Hi, Harry!”

“Hi, Rob,” I replied, shooting a glance at Allison and enjoying the puzzled look on her face. “Looking really good out there, mate.”

‘Harry’ had been a necessary invention if I was to be able to come here as often as I did, without exciting unnecessary interest. I didn’t want the kids’ enthusiasm for football to be overtaken by their enthusiasm for a footballer. They liked ‘Harry’, they knew that he could play, and though they wondered at his physical similarity to Liam Croft, they were willing to accept it as a coincidence. After all, what would Liam Croft be doing here?

These visits always reminded me that being a decent man was a hell of a lot more important than being a football superstar.

The other kids arrived, chorusing greetings to ‘Harry’. One of them pointed at Allison. “Is she your girlfriend?”

I smiled. “This is Allison. She’s a friend of mine from America who loves football, and when I told her about you guys she asked if she could come watch you play.”

“My brother’s got
two
girlfriends,” declared Eric, the youngest of the group.

“Well, I’m not sure I approve of that,” I said with a grin, watching Allison’s face for some reaction. She seemed to be enjoying this surreal situation.

“You’re really from America?” Rob asked, turning to Allison.

“Sure am,” she replied with a smile.

“And you like proper football?”

I could always rely on Rob to speak his mind.

“Sure do.”

Rob looked suspicious—clearly he had been told about Americans and their heathen appropriation of the word ‘football’.

“My brother says American football is rugby for sissies,” Eric said. “Because they use pads.”

“I must meet your brother,” Allison replied, her lips twitching.

The youngster dismissed Allison’s suggestion. ““He’s already got a girlfriend, remember? Two of them.”

“Pass Allison the ball,” I said, keen to keep the subject confined to football—I loved these kids, but their mouths had no edit function.

Rob kicked the ball to Allison, who caught it on her foot. I watched with quiet pride as she repeated the impressive display of keepy-ups that she’d demonstrated the other night before passing the ball neatly back to Rob.

The kids were impressed, though they mostly managed not to show it, feeling instinctively that they ought not to be impressed by the ball skills of an American girl.

“Who’s your favorite player?” asked Rob.

This was a question the boys used to determine if someone was cool.

Allison shrugged. “I know it’s a cliché and everyone probably says the same thing, but I really like Liam Croft.”

There was a loud chorus of agreement and some chattered words to the effect that ‘yes, this was the easy, popular choice, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t the correct one’.

“Don’t you think Harry looks like him?” Will piped up.

Allison took a step back and critically eyed me. “You know, now that you point it out, he kinda does. Not quite as good-looking, though.”

She was clearly enjoying herself, and I happily played along, shrugging with acceptance. “Yeah, his face is loads more handsome than my ugly mug. Anyway,” I said to the kids, shooting a sneaky sidelong glance at Allison, “if my maths is right, and if Allison wouldn’t mind joining in, we’ve got enough for five-aside.”

Playing with the kids was always fun, and I wished I had the time to do it more often. It took me back to another time, when all that mattered was the game and my love for it. There were no sponsorship deals here, no one was getting paid—there was nothing on the line but pride and enjoyment, and all fought keenly for both.

With me on one team and Allison on the other to balance out the adults, and jumpers used for goalposts to reduce the pitch size to something more manageable for five-aside, our little game was played with as much heart and dedication as any cup final.

As fun as the game was, the greatest pleasure was seeing Allison in this context. Sports journalists could all too often lose track of why they became sports journalists in the first place—because they loved sports—but Allison played with as much heart, and with as much joy, as every kid on the pitch. If I could have framed that moment, then I would have—it was a portrait of everything I loved about her.

“All right! Let’s call it a draw!” I finally announced, to general disapproval. “Have you guys eaten? Who wants lunch?”

Everybody wanted lunch, and we headed across the pitch to a van parked on the road near us, which sold burgers, hot dogs and an array of food guaranteed to clog arteries.

“You gotta promise me you’ll all eat some fruit when you get home!” I said over the chorus of kids shouting their orders.

“What’ll it be, Harry?” the van owner, Ken, asked me.

Ken had run the fast food van here for as long as I could remember. He knew damn well who I was, but he was happy to play along for the sake of the kids. He’d watched me play as a kid, and he’d watched me graduate to the big leagues and become the highest paid and best player in the world. I knew he’d done all that with a great deal of civic pride—one of ours made good. That was what picked out people from round here; they cared about their own.

“Whatever they want, Ken,” I replied. “Allison?”

“Hotdog, please.” She smiled as she ordered it, her face shining and slightly red with effort, hair still loosely tied back to keep it out of her face. She looked almost painfully beautiful.

We sat on the low brick wall that surrounded the park to eat, the kids noisily and messily macerating their way through their food then licking the grease from their fingers. As we all ate, I quizzed them about football, about practice, and about where they were in the league, and the kids eagerly answered. Then, as we continued to talk, I subtly moved into more personal areas: how were things at home? How were their parents managing? It was a hard line to walk—I didn’t want to pry, and I didn’t want to offend, but I wanted to know.

As ever, the kids’ answers painted a picture of families who were always somewhat on the edge—incoming and outgoing expenses always see-sawing in one direction or other, averaging out as equal. But John stood out. Though he recounted his family’s problems with the same cheerful enthusiasm with which he talked about football, I recognized the symptoms.

They were struggling.

Finally, I wiped my hands on my jeans and stood up. “Look at the time. You all better be getting home.” There was an answering chorus of reluctant whining but ‘Harry’ was insistent. “I don’t want to get in trouble with your folks!”

The kids headed off their separate ways, all living within walking distance or, at worst, a brief tube journey. As John was leaving, I caught him by the shoulder.

“Can you ask your Dad to give me a call? He’ll know what it’s about,” I said.

It was never an easy call to take, but I knew that it was hell of a lot harder to make. No one liked to admit that they needed help.

John nodded and headed off.

Rob jogged back. “Harry? Sorry, but…” He held up a football boot with the sole hanging off.

I shook my head. This happened nearly every time. “I’ve told you about wearing them on the pavement. It takes two seconds to change your shoes after practice.”

“Sorry, Harry.”

I gave him a rueful smile. “You know the drill: tell Mr. Hancock to get you the new pair and send me the bill.”

I couldn’t just go and buy kids’ football boots by myself—there would be questions.

Rob nodded eagerly. “Thanks, Harry!” he said. Then he ran off again.

“Take care of them this time,” I called after him. I turned to Allison, who was watching me with a strange expression on her face. “That kid goes through more boots than the rest of the team put together. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was kicking rocks!”

“Do you always pay for their boots?” she asked.

I shrugged. I hadn’t brought her here today to show off what a wonderful charitable person I was. And in fact I wasn’t—look at how much money I had compared with how much I spent on places like this. If anything, I should be ashamed of how little I spent, when I could afford more, so I preferred to downplay it.

“The team only has so much money, so boots and kit tend to be low priority. I’m sort of their silent sponsor, I kick-in for stuff that needs fixing or replacing. Nothing over the top—I think it does them good to feel like they’ve done it themselves, you know. Although…” I turned around to look at the pitch. “I may have to mention those goal posts. If they fall over, they’re going to kill someone.” I shook my head a little sadly. “Be sorry to see them go, mind you. Those posts have been there since I played here.”