by Emma Scott
He hmmph’d. “So you say. Or is this a ploy to spend more time with Monsieur Rousseau?”
I bristled even as my cheeks flushed. “It’s for the sake of the story,” I said. “Please. Let’s see how Paris Central does against Lyon-Dejeres this weekend. Or even better, wait until the final in two weeks. If Central stays in the top three and advances up, that is a much bigger story, oui?”
“Mon Dieu, I never asked for an exposé. What’s the angle?”
I bit my lip. Adrien’s real story was almost entirely off the record. I wasn’t about to betray his privacy, but my instincts told me if I had a little more time, something big might happen.
“Following the star center forward through his last games as a semi-pro. The finale is PC advancing, maybe even winning the championship.”
Antoine frowned. “I don’t care about the championship. PC winning or losing isn’t the story. Adrien Rousseau is the story.”
I agree completely.
“Please,” I said. “One more week?”
Antoine pursed his lips. “One more week, and that is final.”
But that week, whatever I’d been hoping to happen with Adrien’s story never came to fruition. Over the next four days. I hung out at La Cloche with the footballer group, ignoring Olivier’s crude jokes and innuendo, and becoming better friends with Brigitte and Lucie.
“Olivier’s a bastard, but he’s one of the best defenders in the league,” Brigitte had told me on Monday night as we sat gathered in their booth—our booth, now that they welcomed me as one of their own. We drank kir and listened to a never-ending stream of American music.
“He’ll probably get called up by scouts, too,” Lucie said, her lips pinched, “where he can be an ass to a whole new set of teammates.”
Things were tense between Olivier and Adrien, which made Robert nervous. But Adrien ignored Olivier. Most nights, he joined the group late and left early, though he never brought another girl around like he used to. More than once, I found him watching me, his eyes heavy with something that looked like longing, but I couldn’t let myself believe it was for me. On the field that Sunday, I’d asked Adrien to deny his playboy reputation and he never did.
And I refuse to be another notch on his belt.
But Antoine’s snide commentary played in my mind. Was I prolonging the article just to spend time with Adrien? What did I think was going to happen all these nights at the club? That Adrien’s story would miraculously break open?
So I sat, wedged between the girls every night, and not talking to Adrien. The guys ribbed him about the fast-fading bruising under his eyes, but he never told them how he got them. Every night, a different story. Once, he walked into a pole. Another, Sophie had punched him.
He joked the questions away, and never looked at me as he did.
By Friday night, I’d begun to feel like an extra in a movie, taking up the same spot in the booth, steadfastly trying not to look at Adrien. It had become painful; the sight of his beautiful face conjured a frustrating mix of emotions.
I wanted him to take me seriously as a journalist and as a woman, but some moments, a surge of heat would rush through me to remember him on the field, sweaty and fast, and better than any player there. In those moments, I had wild fantasies of him taking me home with him, of being one of his women. To lose myself in him and damn the consequences.
I felt stuck, immobile with confusion, and irritated at my girlish heart that couldn’t stop thinking about him.
That Friday night, the club was playing all of Jefferson Airplane’s album, Surrealistic Pillow. When “White Rabbit” came on, Brigitte and Lucie decided we had to dance. They tugged me to the dance floor where, under beams of white and blue light, the dozen or so dancers looked as if they were underwater.
I was self-conscious at first, but it was just what I needed. To stop thinking so damned much. I swayed to the music, losing sense of time and place. My eyes fell shut and my friends, La Cloche, all of it just fell away. Grace Slick’s haunting voice took me back to America—but for the first time, I felt no pang of nostalgia. I drifted along the currents of the music.
Someone nudged my arm. “What is it about?” Lucie asked. “These words?”
“Drugs,” I said, with a lazy smile, then closed my eyes again. “Escape.”
The music ebbed and flowed through me, and I was sorry when it ended. I started to move off the dance floor and then Adrien was there.
“Dance?” he asked, staring down at me, his blue velvet eyes even darker in the dimness of the club. His smile was his usual cocky grin, and I hated that my heart stuttered at his sudden nearness.
I tried to push past him. “No, thank you.”
Adrien caught my arm, held it gently but firmly. His grin slipped away. “Please. I want to talk to you.”
“You can talk to me at the table,” I said, tugging my arm free.
“Can I? Or will you barricade yourself between Lucie and Brigitte, and hardly look at me? What I have to say isn’t for everyone.”
I turned to where our friends sat. They were watching us as we stood in the middle of the dance floor; Brigitte raising her brows at me.
“Come on,” Adrien said. “One dance.”
I nodded vaguely and let him take my left hand in his, while his arm slipped around my waist. My breath caught, and I turned my face away from his, the beauty of it.
“Is this so terrible?” Adrien asked lightly. “Do you still not like me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Is that so?” Adrien laughed. “You work awfully hard to not like me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t like Olivier. That’s obvious. So you ignore him, and it’s easy.” Adrien’s voice softened. “But with me, you have to put effort into avoiding me.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” Adrien cut me off. “I catch you, you know, looking at me. You look away but I see you try not to see me.”
“Your imagination.” My cheek was resting on his chest and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it.
He lowered his voice again so that I alone could hear him. “And when I try to get close to you, you move away.”
“I told you, I don’t like you,” I said.
He pulled back and looked down at me, and I couldn’t look away. He caught and held me with his gaze, and his hand holding mine…Our fingers had somehow become entwined and he held our hands to his heart that was beating too hard.
“You keep saying that,” Adrien said softly, “but right now you look as if you want me to kiss you.”
“I don’t…”
He leaned closer. “I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment we met.”
The words traveled through me like a current. Now my heart was pounding too and I couldn’t catch my breath. Adrien was stealing it.
“No,” I whispered.
He bent his head. “Say no again,” he breathed, “and I won’t.”
I didn’t say no.
Adrien hesitated a moment more, his eyes searching. Then he closed them, brows furrowed, and then touched his lips to mine. My eyes closed too, and a small sound escaped me, a soft little cry that turned into a breathy gasp as he deepened the kiss. My lips parted and his tongue slipped inside, softly. I gasped, utterly unprepared for how the taste of him, the feel of him touching me like this, turned my bones to sand and stole my breath. I moaned softly into his mouth and felt him react to my obvious want; I couldn’t hide it. I couldn’t pull away. My entire body vibrated with electricity, and Adrien felt every bit of it.
He angled his head to kiss me harder, thoroughly, his tongue no longer hesitant, but sliding against mine. God, he tasted so good. I tasted the kir he’d drunk: the sweetness of the black currant liqueur, and the sharper bite of wine.
All these thoughts flashed through me in the space of a heartbeat, as the La Cloche, our friends, the pulsing music…it all faded away, leaving me with Adrien’s m
outh on mine and nothing else.
I don’t know how long we’d been kissing when Adrien finally pulled away, gasping for breath. Our bodies were pressed tightly together, his arms wrapped around me, and I was dimly aware of a hard, hot pressure through his jeans straining against me.
“Janey…” he whispered.
I slid my gaze to the group; they were all snickering and whispering; grinning at us with knowing looks I didn’t like. I’d agreed to come to France to try to avoid being the silly girl who wrote about men, and men’s games, and men’s victories and triumphs, and here I was, falling under the charm of just one of those athletes who saw women as nothing more than another opportunity to score.
It’s not true; he’s different…
But if I continued with him, I wouldn’t know if that were true until it was too late to protect myself. My heart, normally so guarded, was falling for him fast. Too fast.
Tears burned my eyes, and I pulled back from Adrien, from the strong, warm feel of his arms. “I’m not going to be one of your women.”
His brows furrowed. “What? No…?”
Confusion flashed over his deep blue eyes, and then something I hadn’t been prepared to see: pain. Not the pain of lust unfulfilled, but something stronger. My pulling away left a wound. Maybe a small one, but a wound nonetheless.
His ego is bruised. What woman turns down Adrien Rousseau?
“I have to go,” I said stiffly. I left the dance floor and returned to the table.
“Janey…?” Brigitte’s voice was soft with concern.
“That’s what I call in-depth reporting,” Olivier said. “Next, she goes under the covers to get at Adrien’s big story.”
“Shut up, crétin!” Brigitte hissed.
My cheeks burned but I managed a tight smile for Brigitte. “I have to go. Lots of studying to do.”
I hurried out of La Cloche, not looking back, half-hoping Adrien would follow me. A man’s voice called out for me to stop. My heart jolted but then sank when I realized it was Robert.
“Yes?” I said tightly. “It’s late. I want to get home…”
“I’m going to be perfectly blunt: I want you to stay away from Adrien,” Robert said, his dark eyes hard under the street lamp. “At least until the season is over.”
“What? Why…?” My words burnt up in anger. “Actually, it’s none of your business—”
“It is my business. Adrien is the leading scorer on our team. A striker. The best striker in the league, if not all of football. He’s been different since you showed up. In his head a lot.” Robert rubbed his hand over his mouth. “You’re not like the other girls he’s brought around.”
I felt my body go stiff all over. “Exactly. I’m not one of his girls. I’m writing an article—”
“You were doing more than writing an article just now on the dance floor.”
Humiliation inflamed my skin and I stared, unable to find a retort.
“We need him to keep playing his best,” Robert said, simply. “Stay out of his head.”
He turned and stepped back inside the club, leaving me alone in the dark.
Adrien
Saturday morning, I changed into my uniform with the rest of the team in the small locker room. I suppressed a yawn as I pulled my jersey over my head. I’d gotten no sleep the night before, but tossed and turned all damn night, thinking of Janey and our kiss.
The feeling in my chest when I kissed her echoed the feeling of a thousand fans cheering my name. It was tasting something sweet and good and perfect; every kind of happiness I imagined for myself, but real. She was flesh and blood in my arms; heat and wetness in my mouth.
But the fucker—Olivier—had ruined it. The whole group had ruined the moment, and made Janey feel like she was just another of my ‘conquests’.
No, I fucking ruined it.
What a joke. I didn’t have any conquests. All the girls I’d ever paraded in front of my friends had been for show. To keep everyone at a distance. I let them think I was out, spending the Rousseau fortune on ‘my women’ when in actuality, I bought them a drink somewhere, maybe kissed goodnight, and never called them again.
Easier that way, to let the group think I was too busy with my dates to have them over at my place, and getting serious with someone was out of the question.
Until Janey.
As we’d kissed, I’d felt hope rise in my chest that she wouldn’t care about the reality of my situation, as shameful as it was, and that she’d see past the playboy front I kept up like a shield.
But kissing her in front of the group—especially Olivier—had been a mistake.
It’s over now, whatever we might have started.
I waited for the relief that I could keep my private life private to hit me, but instead anger, frustration, and repressed lust boiled in my guts. I wanted Janey in all ways—in my bed and in my life. I wanted a different future than playing football, but the pressures of my situation were pressing me down and leaving me seething.
The rest of the guys were nervous for this match—the last one before the final—and were showing it by being extra crude and rough, shoving each other and laughing too loudly. Olivier made a lewd comment about some girl he was trying to screw and I slammed my locker shut. They all stared at me—Olivier included—with nervousness and hope in their eyes. As if I were the only one capable of giving us victory.
Such bullshit.
I wanted to shout that I wasn’t the only reason we were heading toward a winning season, but I swallowed it down. My anger simmered, and I tried to channel it into my muscles and bones and blood. To play as if I were on fire and give them no reason to doubt I wanted to win, and advance, and play this fucking game for the rest of my life.
Our coach, Philippe Desjardins, rallied us just before first whistle, and then pulled me aside as the rest of the team filed out.
“You look tired,” he said with his usual directness.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You sure?”
I itched to shake off his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
On the field, the stands were filled to capacity. I wondered if Janey was there, and remembered Robert’s words to me last night at La Cloche after she left.
“It’s better this way,” he said. “No distractions.”
The anger rose in me again on the field. Janey wasn’t a distraction, she was…something more. Or might have been, had Vietnam not torn my entire world apart. My eyes longed to search the crowds for her, but I kept them on the pitch, staring down my opponents like a bull ready to charge.
The whistle blew, the match began.
The Lyon players, in green and yellow, were weak on defense and their best forward was called for being offsides three times in the first twenty minutes. We hadn’t even scored yet and I knew we were going to win.
My blood felt like it was on fire. I ran faster and harder than I ever had, aggressively stealing the ball from a Lyon midfielder. I passed to another of our forwards, Johannes—arguably the next best player on the team, and a factory worker who desperately needed PC to advance. He was agile with the ball at his feet. We charged the Lyon net, two defenders and two wings bearing down on us.
They closed in on Johannes and instead of bolting to the side for a clear pass to me, I cut behind him. With perfectly timed precision, he danced the ball away from a Lyon defender, backwards to me. I charged and kicked, and watched as the Lyon goalkeeper made a diving try for the ball. But it hit the net, high and tight on the upper left corner, completely out of reach.
1-0.
My teammates pounced on Johannes for the perfect assist, then crowded around me. I weathered their congratulatory thumps on the back, my hands balling into fists.
“Nice shot, Rousseau,” Olivier said, and gritted my teeth at as he whacked me between the shoulder blades.
“Fuck off, Caton,” I muttered, and jogged back to center line.
“Someone’s on his period,” Olivie
r said as he ran past me to take up his position for the kickoff.
As striker, I stood front and center, and Olivier, some dozen meters behind me, called out, “Hey, Rousseau. I think I see your hot American piece of ass.”
“Shut up, Caton!” Robert hissed.
“Why?” Olivier drawled. “I’d think he’d want to play to impress.”
I couldn’t help myself, but looked to where our group always sat in the stands—front rows, at midfield. Even from the center of the pitch, I could see her. Janey sat among the familiar faces of my mother, sister, and our friends. Her hair glinted long and gold in the hot sun, and my stupid heart rose with hope.
Then she lifted the camera around her neck to take a photo.
For her story…
The referee blew the whistle and Lyon player kicked off by tapping the ball behind him. To me, the sound of the whistle was like a starting gun in a race. Before the Lyon player could pass, I was on him, intercepting his ball, and corralling it in front of me.
Then I flew.
Johannes was right with me. I drove the ball forward, dancing it out of the tangling feet of Lyon defenders and passing to Johannes when they swarmed me.
Johannes took a shot. The Lyon goalkeeper got his hands on it and the ball glanced off like a bullet, flying through the air, right toward me.
The defenders were all over me, but, without thought, I leapt up in the air and headed the ball back toward the net. The goaltender scrambled to get to his feet in time but the ball sailed over his head.
2-0.
The crowd’s eruption of applause reverberated in my chest the way loud music can at a concert. I felt it in my entire body and knew I’d done something extraordinary.
And it meant nothing to me.
The pain of that admission fueled my anger. Why shouldn’t I love this? What the hell is wrong with me?
My team surrounded me again and the congratulatory thumps and shouts were like hard blows on a bruise. And then Olivier was there.
“You magnificent bastard,” he laughed. “You’ve earned all the fucks from all the pretty girls—”
My vision clouded red. I don’t remember much; no thought or conscious act, but one second I was upright, the next I was rolling in the grass, grappling with Olivier.