Sweeper

by Amy Daws

  Why do I like the fact that she was there so fucking much? I’ve had girls at my games before. I always have a couple of tickets at will call for whoever I’m sleeping with at the time. But I’ve never looked up into the stands for a girl. I’ve never cared to impress one or sought out encouragement from a chick. All I’ve cared about is fucking them afterward.

  Which is one hundred percent what I want to do with Daphney too.

  But I also want to just bask in this feeling with her. Tonight was literally the most incredible moment of my entire soccer career, and I’m sitting in a crowded bar staring at her like a stalker because all I want to do is go back to her place and celebrate in private.

  This is the clearest my mind has felt since I arrived in London. I’m not thinking about the DNA results. I’m not obsessing over that jealous twinge I felt when I saw Vaughn and Tanner embrace Camden on the sidelines after he scored. I’m not thinking about my mom or my dad.

  I’m just thinking about Daphney and how she’s the best thing that could have happened to me here in London.

  Phoebe snaps me out of my thoughts as she drops down onto the open bench beside me. She leans in close and yells over the live band, “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

  I tear my gaze away from Daphney at the bar and take a drink of my beer. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because you’re not talking to anyone,” she exclaims and nudges me playfully. “You’re not dancing. You’re not celebrating your big victory with your teammates at the bar. You’re just drinking your beer in the corner and staring at my best mate like you’ve seen her naked.”

  I lift my brows and shrug. No sense in lying to Phoebe since she already knows the situation.

  “You know she’s more than a piece of meat, right?” Phoebe says, pinning me with a serious look.

  “I know.”

  “But do you really?” She narrows her eyes at me. “Do you know how talented she is?”

  “You mean her music?” I side-eye Phoebe as she nods back at me before adding, “Of course. I hear her through the walls every day. She’s awesome.”

  Phoebe pauses for a moment, tapping her long fingernail on her glass. “Do you ever hear her sing any of her own music?”

  I frown as I glance back at Daphney, who’s talking to some guy at the bar. “You mean the Tire Depot stuff?”

  Phoebe shakes her head and laughs. “No, like her own original music. Not the stuff for the adverts.”

  I pause as I process this comment. “She said she only does commercial stuff.”

  “Now maybe.” Phoebe licks her lips thoughtfully. “But she has nearly an entire album worth of original music she’s recorded. At least a dozen songs. Really beautiful stuff. She’s poetic—like Sara Bareilles meets Adele.”

  I clear my throat, feeling a little unnerved that I had no idea she possessed that kind of ability. I knew she was musical. She plays her instruments like they’re not even there. And her voice is obviously stunning. But why does she only do cheesy commercial stuff then?

  “Has she ever tried to do anything with her songs?”

  “You should ask her that.”

  Phoebe takes a long drink, and I get the feeling she’s trying to stir the pot, and I should leave this alone. But I’m actually kind of annoyed that Daphney would hide this part of herself from me. For what? Why is it a secret? I flat-out asked her if she wrote her own stuff before, and she very clearly said no. Why would she lie about it?

  “Am I interrupting?” Daphney asks, taking a seat across from me and waggling her eyebrows.

  My interest is piqued, so I can’t stop the words that come from my mouth next. “Phoebe was just telling me about all these original songs you’ve recorded.”

  Daphney’s face falls as she shifts her attention to Phoebe. “Why are you talking about that?”

  “I didn’t say anything bad.” Phoebe holds her hands up. “I just said you’re talented beyond Tire Depot.”

  Daphney shakes her head, pursing her lips as she takes a drink of her beer. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Why did you tell me you only do commercials?” I ask, propping my elbows on the table and watching her reaction.

  “Because I do,” Daphney replies crisply, showing me that she’s clearly not happy with the direction of this conversation. “I don’t write my own music anymore. Just stuff that pays the bills.”

  Her nostrils flare as she hits me with a look like I should drop this subject. It reminds me of how my mom acted when I started pestering her about her time living in London. It puts me on edge.

  “Why don’t you do it anymore?” I pry further.

  Daphney’s blue eyes narrow. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t matter, you should play one of them here tonight.” I hit her with a smile that she does not reciprocate. “The mic is open right now.”

  “Forget it,” Daphney says, forcing a laugh.

  “Come on, Daph,” Phoebe coaxes, her voice almost tender as she looks at her with a soft smile. “I haven’t heard one of your songs in ages. It would be so lovely to hear one again.”

  “Would you guys please stop?” Daphney stands up, backing away from the table. She shakes her head, then grabs her handbag off the table. “It’s getting late. I’m going to head home.”

  She offers a weak wave and turns on her heel to walk out of the pub. I watch her, stunned into a rare silence because she’s clearly upset. Something I haven’t seen on Daphney since the moment I met her. I’ve seen her angry. I’ve seen her nervous. But this moment right here…she looked almost…broken.

  “Mind telling me what that was about?” I ask, looking at Phoebe for answers I’m sure she has.

  A sad look flits across her face. “I think I’ve already said too much.”

  Daphney

  My mind is racing as I strip out of my jeans and Bethnal Green jumper and slip into silk shorts and a camisole. I throw on my robe and turn on some music to calm my nerves as I head into my loo to take off my makeup.

  Damn Phoebe. This is all her fault. We were having such a laugh, and she had to go and ruin it by bringing up stuff she knows I hate talking about. And to bring it up in front of Zander of all people is just maddening.

  There are things I didn’t plan to discuss with Zander. My ex being one of them. It’s been nice re-inventing myself here in London and feeling more independent. Maybe I’m a casual sex kind of girl like Phoebe now. I feel like I’m doing pretty well with Zander so far, so why does she have to muck it all up?

  A light knock on my door has me freezing in front of my mirror. It’s either Phoebe or Zander, and I’m not sure who I want it to be less. I quickly dry off my face and pad barefoot over to the door to look through the hole.

  I sigh heavily as I see who’s on the other side. “I’m not in the mood tonight, Zander.”

  I can hear Zander’s huff of laughter muffled through the door. “I’m not here for sex, Ducky.”

  I roll my eyes and swing open the door. The momentum causes him to nearly fall in as he was bracing his hands on the door. “When are you not here for sex?” I cross my arms over my chest.

  He barks out a wounded laugh, and I don’t miss the way his eyes flash to my chest. He redirects his focus on me and holds a hand to his heart. “That cuts deep.”

  “You’ll survive,” I grumble.

  He tilts his head and hits me with a soft smile. “I mean it. I don’t know what that shit was down there, but I know you left upset, and I don’t like to see you upset. It gives me flashbacks of the mouse incident, and no one wants to see you in that horrible mouse-catching getup again.”

  I fail to fight back the smile that spreads across my face. Damn him. “So, what do you want from me then?”

  “I want to cheer you up,” he says coyly, chucking me under my chin. “But you’re going to have to let me inside to do that.”

  I exhale heavily and step back to allow the man entrance because…well…I’m weak, and Zan
der smells really good right now. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “I’ll have a water, thanks.”

  I retrieve a couple of bottles of water, and as I close the refrigerator, I spot the cookie I took out of the freezer earlier today. I had planned to give it to him tonight after he got back from his match and nearly forgot.

  “To keep the tradition alive,” I announce as I hold the cookie in front of his face.

  “Oh,” Zander exclaims with a bit more volume than seems necessary. “You really didn’t have to.”

  “Of course I did,” I reply with a huff as I sit down on the other side of the sofa. “You’re on a winning streak, and you don’t want to mess it up.” His face looks a bit odd as I sit and wait for him to eat it. “Well, go on then.”

  “Aren’t you going to have one with me?” he asks, his eyes looking somewhat nervous for some peculiar reason. Maybe it’s just the dim lighting in here from my twinkle lights.

  “No, I can’t stand raisins.” I scrunch my nose up and shake my head. “That one’s all yours. Enjoy.”

  He nods and smiles as he takes a tentative bite. His lips purse together as he makes a noise in the back of his throat.

  “Good?” I ask excitedly.

  “Mm-hmm,” he mumbles and then points at his mouth, indicating he can’t talk since his mouth is full. After a long bit of chewing for such a small bite, he finally swallows and says, “Very kind of you,” before he hurries to uncap his water and take a large drink. “Makes me thirsty.”

  “Well, you played an amazing game, so you deserve it.”

  He exhales and puts the rest of the cookie back into the container, then sets it on the arm of the sofa behind him. It’s quiet for a moment, neither of us saying anything and both of us focusing on our water bottles far more than is necessary.

  “Well, this is awkward,” I say to break the tension.

  “Why is it awkward?” He frowns back at me.

  I huff out a laugh. “Maybe because we still have our clothes on?”

  Zander smiles and shakes his head. “We could sit here naked if you’d like. I’m a giver like that.”

  He winks back at me, and it causes my insides to flutter. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  He wipes a few cookie crumbs off his thigh before asking, “Do you want to tell me what that was all about at Old George?”

  My body tenses with embarrassment because I wish I wouldn’t have gotten so upset earlier. It was childish and stupid and not the direction I wanted tonight to go.

  It’s infuriating that my past is trying to overshadow my present. Especially because, as it turns out, I like my present circumstances! I have a cute footballer stretched out on my sofa. He’s sexy and big and brawny, and he’s looking at me with concern and offering me some form of comfort. What do I have to be upset about, really?

  I shrug. “You basically know already.”

  “I do?”

  “Well, I told you before about my ex that stole from me,” I begin because I’d rather tell Zander the full story than have him think I was being dramatic down at the pub.

  “Yeah…” He watches me thoughtfully.

  “Well, it was my music that he stole.”

  Zander blinks back at me, his face the picture of serious as he waits for me to continue.

  “I started writing my own songs when I was sixteen. I had fourteen fully produced tracks by the time I was twenty. I’d recorded them all in my sound booth back home. Just an acoustic album. Nothing fancy or professional. But I had these wild dreams of selling my stuff to a record company and hearing them performed by like Florence + The Machine or Tove Lo turning it into an ethereal pop song or even something really moody and haunting by Birdy.”

  “That sounds amazing,” Zander says, his eyes alight with so much genuine excitement, it kind of breaks my heart to know I’m going to let him down with what comes next.

  “Well, I was twenty-three and performing a few of my songs at local pubs. I really hate being on stage, and that will never change, but it’s the best way to get noticed if you want to sell your music to a label.”

  “Okay…”

  “Then I met Rex,” I state flatly, leaving no room for interpretation. “Or Rex the Hex as Phoebe and I refer to him now. He was at a pub where I was performing, said he loved my music, and we just hit it off. Honestly, I fell head over heels for him. I think it was the first bloke I really dated that felt like a proper grown-up relationship. He even said he had friends in the music industry he could share my tracks with, so I felt like I’d really hit the jackpot with him.

  “After we got a bit more serious, I gave him the files so he could send them to his friend, but it was months of nothing, and then finally Rex told me they weren’t interested. I was gutted but not really surprised. Honestly, I think my music is all pretty shit. I wrote most of it when I was still a teenager, and they need some serious work. I think my Tire Depot jingle has much more long-term potential.” I laugh, hoping to lighten the mood, but Zander is not laughing with me.

  “I don’t know if you’re qualified to judge your own work, are you?” he asks, pinning me with a serious expression.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs as he stretches his arm out over the back of the sofa. “We’re always our own worst critics, aren’t we? You shouldn’t get to judge your own music skills the same way I don’t get to judge my own soccer skills. We need unbiased parties.”

  “Right, well, that’s beside the point,” I reply, rolling my eyes at Zander’s sweet optimism. “About a year after I’d given Rex my songs, Phoebe comes running into my dad’s office where I was working at the time squealing about one of my tracks being on Spotify. I had no idea what she was going on about. I’d never uploaded any of my tracks to any site, but sure enough, there was my song.”

  “He uploaded your shit without asking?” Zander asks, his jaw taut with realization. “That’s total bullshit.”

  “Not only that, but he had been collecting royalties on them for months. It wasn’t a huge sum of money, but it was my work, and he clearly had no intention of giving me that money. When I’d discovered what he’d done, I demanded he take them down. I tried to issue takedowns on Spotify, but I discovered that he didn’t just steal my work…he had filed copyrights for all of my songs. He claimed rights to my creations.”

  “Holy fucking shit,” Zander replies, his nostrils flaring as his hands form fists on his lap. “What did you do?”

  “I had to hire an intellectual property lawyer and take him to court. It cost a fortune, and I had no money for that. My parents paid for everything, but we had to do something. It was every song I’d ever made out there under his bloody name.”

  “Fuck, what a piece of shit.” He shakes his head adamantly, and I feel my blood pressure rising as I relive it all again through Zander’s reaction.

  “Thankfully, I won the case and got my rights back, but he still hasn’t paid me any of what he’s supposed to. The lawyer says I’ll have to take him to collections court. It’s a nightmare. Meanwhile, I’m killing myself with all these jobs to pay my parents back because they didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “Well, neither did you, Daphney,” Zander snaps, his brows creased.

  “I know, but I shouldn’t have been so stupid.” I shake my head, feeling disgusted by myself. “I was young and naïve, and I thought I was in love. Rex made me feel so good about my talent. He encouraged me to create more songs, and it felt nice to have someone take my music seriously. Could I have been any more desperate?”

  “You’re weren’t desperate. You were hopeful,” Zander responds, sliding closer to me. He rests his hand on my thigh and squeezes it gently. “You’re an artist with a dream, and you were taken advantage of. That’s not your fault.”

  I inhale a cleansing breath. “And the worst part is, I was in love with him. I was in love with him, and he was stealing from me the entire time. Do you know how much that messes with me still? To find out th
at someone you care about is just using you? It’s sick.”

  Zander’s hand stills on my leg, and an unusual expression flicks across his face. He looks down at his hand on my leg as he says, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  The change in his mood is obvious, so I grab his hand and dip my head to capture his eyes with mine. “I hope you know I’m not talking about you, okay? I went into this knowing you and I are just about sex and nothing more. That’s honestly what I appreciate about our situation. There are no secrets here. What you see is what you get.”

  “Right.” Zander huffs as the muscle in his jaw tics. He clears his throat and looks into my eyes with a sheepish smile. “Well, I’m just really sorry that happened to you. It makes perfect sense why you ditched out at the pub.”

  I purse my lips thoughtfully. “Phoebe wants me to get over it and play my music again. I haven’t even so much as hummed any of my tracks since this mess happened. They feel tainted somehow. Ruined by all his ugliness.”

  “You know that’s stupid, right?” Zander snaps, his eyes severe on mine.

  “Fuck off.” I let go of his hand and frown back at him.

  “I’m sorry, but it is,” he says, stretching his arm around me and eyeing me sternly. “They’re your words, your notes, your heart and soul. No one can ruin that for you just like no one can ruin soccer for me. We only ruin it for ourselves.” He pauses for a moment and gets a serious look in his eye before he adds, “When I first came here, I told you I was struggling on the pitch. I couldn’t keep up; I couldn’t find my stride. And look what happened for me tonight. I played the best game of my life, and that wasn’t because of superior coaching or extra training. It was because I finally got out of my own fucking way.” His glossy hazel eyes flick back and forth between mine when he states, “Don’t let him take more from you than he already has. Get out of your own way, Daphney.”

  His words have such an instant effect on me, I can’t help but lean forward and press my lips to his. It’s a tender touch, as I hold his face, relishing in his light scruff as my tongue gently sweeps between his lips, asking for more. His hands flatten against my back as he pulls me closer and sucks on my lower lip, a deep growl vibrating in his chest.