by Alison Ryan
Patrick Sievert, on the other hand, lay, unmoving, on the pitch at the City of Manchester Stadium, in a growing pool of blood. Players milled about, some daring to look, others shying away. Two Chelsea midfielders joined hands in prayer. A Manchester City defender vomited into a rubbish bin near the team bench.
The crowd was “Sixty thousand people collectively as silent as a child during Christmas Eve services at St. Paul’s Cathedral” according to a writer for one of the London dailies. After twenty minutes, Patrick was stretchered off the field, unresponsive, but no longer bleeding from the horrific gash over his left eye.
Patrick arrived at the hospital suffering from swelling on the brain, a shattered left orbital bone, a deep laceration above the left eye, and a fractured left cheekbone, among other, lesser, injuries.
Sarah Sievert, Patrick’s widowed mother, and his best mate, Shelton, both flew into Manchester, the former arriving the next morning from South Carolina, the latter that evening from Florence, where he was scoring goals for Fiorentina in Italy’s Serie A.
Sarah and Shelton spent most of the next five days at Patrick’s bedside in Manchester’s Royal Infirmary, waiting for his medically induced coma to subside. Shelton was placed on “compassionate leave” by his Italian team and permitted to miss the time, as the entire worldwide football community came together in support of a fallen warrior.
Two fallen warriors.
Tacko Seck played the remaining few minutes of the first half but was replaced at halftime. Early in the second stanza, seated behind the bench in his tracksuit with the reserves, Seck lost consciousness.
Video of the collision was ubiquitous. In a sport where goals are replayed from umpteen angles, all in high definition, cameras miss very little.
When both men leaped for the ball, Seck had a few centimeters advantage, but not enough to dissuade a defender, especially Patrick Sievert, from sticking his nose in and attacking the ball. The Senegalese youngster, however, misjudged his jump and crashed his head first into the unforgiving frame of the goal, which sent his skull snapping back into the path of Patrick’s head, the Senegalese striker’s teeth and Patrick’s own orbital bone combining to rip the defender’s forehead open.
On Thursday morning, Patrick’s eyelids fluttered open to reveal the stark white of a hospital room, the faces of his mother and Shelton quickly moving into his field of vision.
Before the nurses arrived, Patrick whispered a question that surprised nobody who knew him: “Did we win?”
Shelton laughed. “1–1 draw, hoss. Nice to see you, too.”
Sarah leaned over and hugged her only child, grateful tears streaming down her face.
In the same hospital, on the same floor, the family of Tacko Seck stood vigil. Patrick was kept through the weekend for observation, and on Saturday afternoon, with permission from the family, he went to visit the man with whom he’d be inextricably linked for the rest of his career, if not his life.
Sarah Sievert pushed her son’s wheelchair into the room in which Tacko Seck lay, and, after a moment of awkward silence, she was embraced by Tacko’s mother, Amina. The hug was powerful, two mothers sharing grief and fear, but also sharing forgiveness and love. Tacko’s father, Jawara, a tall, striking man with a regal bearing, rose and extended a hand to the bandaged Patrick, cradling the unharmed right side of his face in his large hand and looking him in the eye.
“I’m so sorry for your pain, my son. My family welcomes you and your mother as our family. We bear no grudge toward you. Tacko admired you, felt it a great blessing to have the opportunity to compete with you.” Mr. Seck, as Patrick would always call him, spoke English with a heavy French accent, but his words were clear and unmistakable. “You will always be our family, always welcome in our home, we invite you to Dakar whenever is convenient for you. There is nothing but love here.”
Patrick, understandably nervous about meeting the family of the player whose promising career his aggressiveness may have ended, was relieved wholly of the burden he’d carried since waking up and finding out the fate of Tacko Seck. Sarah held Tacko’s hand and prayed quietly over him as Patrick was hugged and had his tears wiped away by Tacko’s mother.
The competitor’s reunion was short-lived, broken up by hospital staff who needed to keep visitors to a minimum, but during the few remaining days of Patrick’s stay at the Royal Infirmary, the Seck and Sievert families were often in one another’s company.
********
Two days after Christmas, the decision was made to allow Tacko Seck, the only child of Jawara and Amina, to slip away from the Earthly plane and return to God.
When the news reached Patrick in London, he wept bitterly. He would not play again that season, and seriously contemplated retirement.
Upon further reflection, he decided he didn’t want his career to end lying in a pool of blood in Manchester, and he worked like a demon to get himself in pristine physical condition for one final season in Chelsea blue. The Mad Monk would return to Chelsea’s home ground, Stamford Bridge.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Glasgow is treating me swimmingly. I’m not a fan of blood pudding, but I LOVE the accents here and it’s a beautiful city. How’s everything with you?
Ellie replied to Patrick’s text message instantly, despite Meg’s voice in the back of her mind telling her how desperate it would make her appear to respond too quickly.
He texted me first, why is it a crime to reply?
Ha! Blood pudding is definitely an acquired taste. I’m bored to tears here, wish I could get away. The team doctors are putting me through my paces, agent is trying to upsell me, management is pointing out all my flaws, and hopefully they’ll wrap this up soon.
Patrick sat in the stands at Celtic Park, admiring the pristine green grass, exchanging messages with the girl he’d just met but who consumed his thoughts. He felt like he’d known her a long time. Perhaps in another life.
Flaws? What flaws? Ellie chuckled to herself while responding.
I’m having a quick bite and then have to head back to work, I wish I had more time, hope they don’t take all afternoon listing your flaws!
Ellie hoped her sarcasm would come through via text, and was assured of as much when she read Patrick’s answer.
The way they make it sound, I’m a geezer ready for a rocking chair and a pension!
Good luck, old man! Ellie texted him back.
As she sat and listened to the Glaswegian accent and slang in conversations all around her, Ellie’s mind raced to keep up. Just the brief textversation with Patrick had her heart again ready to burst. Finally consuming a full, leisurely meal had her energized, and the activities in her morning shower still had her tingling where it mattered most.
Amanda Eleanor Peavey couldn’t be more in love with her life.
Meanwhile, the doctors at Celtic reported back to management that Patrick was fit for duty. He’d played his final season at Chelsea without incident, his facial fractures completely healed and impairing neither his ability nor desire to stick his nose in where angels feared to tread in order to win the ball. Occasional pain in his knees was attributed to arthritis and could be corrected with cortisone injections.
Tom Borchers presented Patrick with Celtic’s final terms, a one-year deal with the club’s option to pick up a second year. The financials were satisfactory to all parties, and the manager, Garry Shearing, promised the opportunity to compete for a starting position. Opportunity was all Patrick Sievert ever asked for, the old warhorse that he was, he knew what to do when it presented itself.
Which left him in a conundrum.
He attributed his success in football to his single-minded focus. No golf, no nightclubs, no yachts, no private jets, no alcohol or drugs, no women—none of the perils that caused so many careers to veer into ruin. His vices were books and reading. If he’d spent exorbitantly on anything, it was on filling his personal library with autographed tomes, first editions, and the oldest and rarest books he could get his
hands on.
He’d often been the butt of locker room jokes—no matter where he played—for always carrying a book, or books, with him everywhere. He’d more than once been the last one to leave the dressing room, even after the equipment managers, because he was rooted to his stool, absorbed in a book.
In fact, one of the reasons he’d been so eager to talk to Ellie on the flight was the fact that he’d accidentally left his book in the airport loo. He wasn’t much for e-readers, he loved the feel of the paper between his fingertips.
Not having a book to read, however, turned out to be a happy accident, having found an entirely engaging seatmate in Ellie—the rare woman in his circles who had no idea who he was—and he was smitten. The awkward, adorable, embarrassed smile with which she’d greeted him, the way she moved, the way she smelled. And for the first time since he called Crystal Carris in seventh grade to ask her to the school dance, he had butterflies in his stomach.
His father walked in while Patrick was rehearsing what he’d say if he could summon the courage to phone Crystal, and with a look of disgust, his old man asked him what he was doing, why he was so nervous.
“Dad, I want to ask this girl Crystal Carris, she’s a cheerleader . . . I want to ask her to the school dance, but I’m so nervous. I think I have butterflies in my stomach,” Patrick explained.
Levelling his gaze on the nervous boy, Benjamin Sievert gave his son a piece of advice as only he could. “Butterflies, eh? In your stomach? Digest them, you sissy!” With that, he turned and left the room. Patrick sat, dumbfounded, then stifled a giggle and dialed Crystal’s number.
The cheerleader and star athlete dated through junior high and into high school, but during their sophomore year at Berkeley County High the pretty redhead’s family relocated to Boise, chasing a promotion for her father. Crystal and Patrick agreed that a long distance thing could never work at their age, and they decided cold turkey was the best way to make a break from each other. The Carris family went west without leaving Patrick a forwarding address. Crystal changed her phone number and e-mail address, and the two fought off teenage hormones to stay true to their no-contact pact.
By the time college rolled around, Patrick had matured into the hunk Ellie was taken by on the plane. He took full advantage of his looks, status as a star athlete, and promiscuity of alcohol-fueled coeds to more than enjoy himself. The sex, though frequent and fantastic, got to feel repetitive and unfulfilling. Chocolate cake is delicious, but eating it for every meal ruins it rather quickly.
He’d managed to fend off the advances of women for over a decade, was first angered by and then laughed off rumors of his homosexuality in the tabloids, and eventually got on just fine alone. Football was his wife, books his mistress, his mother and Shelton his sounding boards when things got darkest. When an important match was lost, when something reminded him of his dad, when Tacko Seck was brought up by a media moron for the zillionth time, he retreated within.
Meeting Ellie stirred something deep inside him, something he’d forgotten since Crystal. Playful flirting. Conversation without pretense. His physical attraction to her didn’t hurt, of course. Her curves, her walk that was really more of a sashay, her skin—so smooth and flawless. And what was best, is that Ellie seemed to have no idea how incredibly sexy she was. She was the best kind of woman.
He broke into a wide, goofy grin thinking of her. He had engagements with the press scheduled for the next morning to announce his signing, then some business with the club and looking at apartments, but the day after, his schedule was mostly clear. He brought up the day planner on his phone and put one word in capital letters across the entirety of the day:
ELLIE.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The second full day in Scotland for Ellie was filled with work, attending meetings and panels, compiling and filing reports. She’d been able to exchange only the briefest of texts with Patrick, who was himself being ushered all over Glasgow being introduced to Celtic Football Club dignitaries and meeting with the press.
An exhausted Ellie slipped into the bathtub in her hotel, needing to relax and forget market research for a while. She brought up her Spotify playlist and the bathroom filled with the sound of Chvrches, a Scottish band one of her local coworkers told her about earlier in the day.
As the steam rose around her and she felt the stress of the day melting away into the water, the music was interrupted by the phone ringing. Glancing over, she noticed “Blue Eyes” flashing on the screen. In her haste to answer, she nearly dropped her phone into the bath, saving it just before it hit the surface.
“H-hello, hello?”
The deep, rich voice of Patrick came through, laughing softy at Ellie’s breathless answer. “Forgive me if it was impertinent of me to call like this, unannounced, I mean. I hope I didn’t wake you?
Yeah, I’d be SO pissed to have my dream interrupted by a call from you, Patrick. That would be terrible, Ellie thought.
“No, not at all, I actually just got back to my room, it was a long working day today. I was running a bath and I guess my hand was wet, I almost dropped my phone. How was your day?” Ellie replied.
“Bloody awful. Shaking hands and kissing babies all day. I think I might be mayor of Glasgow now. Surely you saw me embarrassing myself on TV? I must have been interviewed on every channel in Scotland, including ones devoted to cooking, gardening, weather, you name it. Celebrity problems, right? I must sound . . . just tell me to sod off if I sound like too much of a twit.”
“Who are you, Roald Dahl?” asked a laughing Ellie.
“Roald Da—ahh . . . that must be English major humor, is it? You’re a cheeky one, Ellie.”
I have to watch myself with this one, Patrick thought to himself, surprised at being more than a little intimidated at how quickly Ellie pulled out a Roald Dahl reference at his use of the word twit.
“If I really wanted to impress you, I’d be able to name an author who wrote something called ‘Cheeky,’ but, alas, I’m coming up empty.” Ellie laughed again, music to Patrick’s ears.
“This is going to sound forward, and I apologize, but you said you were planning to take a bath, yes? I don’t want your hot water to go to waste, and truth be told, I could use one myself to wash all the handshakes and baby kisses of the day away. Mind if I join you? Over the phone, I mean, of course, like I’d take a bath ther—here, I mean, and you’d take yours and we’d talk about it? Talk during it I don’t know what I mean . . . I swear I’m not drunk.” The indigestible butterflies had returned to Patrick’s stomach after two decades away. He was trying to sound smooth, but the words were tumbling out of his mouth under their own volition, faster than he could put them in proper sequence.
Ellie subconsciously moved her hands to cover herself, her mind playing a weird psychological trick on her that sharing such an intimate thing as a bath would mean he could see her in it, something she was far from ready to share with him.
Realizing how silly she was being, and remembering that she’d told a white lie about drawing a bath, but not actually being in one, she agreed to Patrick’s proposal, standing up in the tub so that there’d be some sort of a splashing sound as she eased back down into the water.
“If it isn’t rude of me, I’m getting in while it’s still hot.” Ellie replied.
“Not at all, luv, I’ll run mine while we chat.” The sound of water crashing into the massive tub in Patrick’s suite filled the background on his end before he walked back into the bedroom and began removing his clothes.
He’s taking his clothes off RIGHT NOW, Ellie thought, stifling a squeal as she imagined him, naked, just outside the door to her bathroom.
“This tub is the size of a bloody swimming pool. It’ll take forever to fill. Hope you don’t mind staying up a little while. What’s your plan for the day after tomorrow, Ellie? Tomorrow is pretty full, but I’ve got the next day mostly free and was hoping I could see you.”
“I’ve got work tomorrow, then the day a
fter is the last scheduled day of work. I’m supposed to leave around lunchtime Friday. We got a lot done today. I think we’re supposed to have dinner as a group Thursday night, and somebody mentioned going out for pints,” Ellie explained, soaping herself in the tub.
Patrick pulled his shirt off and tossed it into the pile, standing naked in front of the mirror on the bathroom door, admiring his reflection, especially his legs, sculpted by years on the soccer field. He stuck his head in and found the tub filling more quickly than he’d expected, but still a few minutes short of being full enough. He walked over to the picture window overlooking the city and gazed out over the lights of Glasgow.
“I’m looking out the window, Ellie, trying to find your hotel. I don’t know this city well enough yet. Suppose I’ll get the chance soon. The club’s arranging an apartment for me over the next few days, though I probably won’t move in until midsummer.”
“I’m waving, but with my bathroom door closed, you probably can’t see me.” Ellie replied, laughing.
Thank God, she thought. I’d need bubbles at least a yard deep in this tub before I’d let Patrick see me take a bath!
“How’s Maisie faring with you away, Ellie? I always wished I’d had time for a dog, we always had them growing up, but with how much I travel it would hardly be fair.”
“Heather, my niece, sent me a picture while I was at work today. Maisie playing at the dog park. She couldn’t have looked much happier. Didn’t seem to miss me a bit!”
“I doubt that,” Patrick offered. “I’ll bet she’s counting the minutes until you’re home. I know I would be, he thought. “I think my tub’s close enough to full, I’m going to join you.”
Ellie bit her bottom lip at the thought and sound of Patrick sliding into the tub.
“How is it?”
“It’s divine. I should do this more often. The only tub I usually soak in is filled with ice water. After matches or training sometimes I’ll soak in ice water to keep swelling and inflammation down. I have a love-hate relationship with my knees,” Patrick replied.