by Tara Wimble
Jacque nods like she understands but she’s too far gone for higher thinking. “Come back to my rental. It has a couch.”
“Sold.” Bella yells out and finds that at the prospect of a place to sleep that won’t involve her waking up two children under the age of five when she stumbles in she’s yawning more than she can control.
They’d ordered two cabs but only take one back to Jacque’s place. When they get there Jacque refuses to take her bed and settles on the couch before Bella can mount much of a protest.
She feels guilty for the half a minute it takes her to fall asleep, dead to the world.
*
Before she’s even aware that it’s happening the shitty little coaching course she was forced to attend becomes just a smidge more manageable now that she knows Jacque.
Hell, it’s almost enjoyable.
Almost because no amount of Jacque footing the bar tabs or getting drunk and attempting to demonstrate her awesome Canadian dance moves, spoiler alert, not so awesome, offsets the fact that she’s fucking bored and this is absolutely not what she wants to do with her life.
She’s able to forget sometimes when she’s on the field late after everyone leaves and Coach Raymond gives her the keys to the field and let’s her lock up. When she kicks around on her own and remembers that yeah, she still has it.
Coaching is a thing you have to love, something that you have to throw your heart and soul into and want to impact lives, and Bella just doesn’t have that drive. The energy to go out there every day, to endure boring courses like this one, no matter the company, and still want to wake up in the morning.
And even though Jacque acts like it doesn’t bother her, that she’ll get back if she does but it’s no skin off her teeth if she doesn’t, Bella knows differently. She can see it in Jacque’s eyes every time that they reminisce about their playing days. Trading old stories and showing off their war wounds and there’s that spark in Jacque’s eyes, Bella recognizes it because she has the same look.
It’s that spark that has her Google, in what she tells herself is a joke, the Canadian citizenship process. And she tells herself it’s a seed that was only planted in her head when Jacque joked about marrying a Canadian the other night.
She tells herself it’s still a joke when she’s been researching for a few hours, has started compiling something of an information packet on the processes and the legalities and, quite frankly, everything you’d need to know. A veritable ‘Marriage for Citizenship’ guide for dummies.
And when she texts Jacque and tells her that she’s headed over her way she tells herself, even though all of the evidence is pointed in the opposite direction, that this is just a funny joking thing. Something she’ll pitch and they’ll laugh about and then hang out, drink coffee and absolutely not do their coaching homework.
But there’s a large part of her that knows this isn’t a joke at all.
*
“Here.” She thrusts out the papers when Jacque invites her to sit down at the table she’s saved, losing all semblance of cool that she’d practiced on her way over. Of course, people would argue whether that cool ever existed at all, but details, details.
“Well, hello to you too.” Jacque rolls her eyes but takes the packet from her, briefly glancing at the title.
They remain sitting because Jacque’s read the title and it’s not something that they both can just ignore and go off to the counter of the cafe and act normal.
Bella scuffs her shoe on the tile and then looks up at Jacque. “I know it was a joke when you said it but, uh, I was actually doing some research and it’s not insane.” At Jacque’s raised eyebrows she shrinks back defensively. “It’s not.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” Jacque’s voice takes on a certain incredulity that usually only comes out when Bella’s drunk and about to do something stupid. “Because it seems like you just handed me a research packet that basically, and correct me if I’m wrong, details how to marry a Canadian for citizenship.”
“Uh,” Bella tries to stop her voice from going to that uncomfortable place but there’s really nothing she can do about it and she hates that she’s not demonstrating the initial confidence she’d planned. “yeah. That’s--uh--that’s exactly it actually.”
“What? Am I the only gay Canadian you know?” Jacque laughs. “Or are you just trying to flirt with me?”
Bella hadn’t assumed so much as relied on the openness of the inner soccer circle to prove her guess right.
“You’re the only gay Canadian, actually person, that I can trust with this.” Bella flicks the page corner of the information she’d downloaded from the internet about all this. Her fifteen minutes of research has been ignored by Jacque so far.
“That’s heavy. We’ve known each other five minutes.” Jacque pauses. “I mean, other than that one slide tackle back in the day.”
“It was a pretty great slide tackle.” Bella jokes. “First base even.”
“You’re asking me to marry you. For citizenship.” Jacque points out. Her voice grows quiet to avoid attracting the attention of nearby customers. “You could at least buy me dinner first.”
Bella rolls her eyes. “I’ll cook you breakfast, lunch and dinner for as long as we shall live if you even consider this.”
“Consider how crazy this is?” Jacque sobers. “Do you even know what kind of shit we’d get into with FIFA or the government if someone finds out? And even if no one finds out? You’re not even gay.”
It sounds more like a statement than a question but Bella doesn’t object to it.
“It’s not crazy.” Bella fires out, seeing she’s losing Jacque. “It’s two friends helping each other out. Like a business deal.”
“It’s marriage.” Jacque restates. “It’s not like buying a house or deciding what colour to paint the walls. We’d be lying to everyone. People you haven’t even met yet and to play for a country that you used to enjoy beating the crap out of whenever you met.”
“I don’t dislike Canada.”
“But you don’t love it.” Jacque says calmly. “You have to love it.”
Bella scoffs. “I could love Canada.”
Jacque leans back against the chair. “That’s the thing. You say it but you really don’t get what you’re asking for here. It’s a world of covering up and scrutiny that you can’t even think of, and that’s before you even make yourself known to the recruiters.”
“It’s a chance.” Bella pleads. “It’s more hope than I’ve got here.”
Jacque doesn’t say anything for a long while. When she does, it’s followed by her shaking her head. “Go home. Sleep on it. And actually think about what you want as well as what you’re asking me to do.”
“Jacque--.”
Bella feels out of her depth and so much younger than Jacque when she turns around to silence her.
“Please.” Jacque pulls her bag over her shoulder. “Just think about it.”
Bella feels short of breath when Jacque leaves the cafe and it takes a good few minutes for her to calm down again. If there’s anything that tells her she’s serious, it was the hopelessness she felt watching Jacque’s back walk out on her.
*
Bella miserably sits in a coffee shop with her coaching homework. She’s stabbing her pencil into it more than she’s completing it and anxiously wondering if she’s screwed up what she had going with Jacque.
But when Jacque walked out on her Bella just had this inescapable feeling that this wasn’t the end of the discussion, that perhaps there was something she could do to set things back on the correct path.
In the middle of trying to choose the most effective drill to work on clinical finishing she gets a thought and nearly leaves all of her stuff in the shop in her haste to get out.
It worked for her and although she’s only known Jacque for a week or two, she’s sure that the gesture will work as well. Bella insists on picking no less than six different coloured cupcakes to put in the box for Jacqu
e. There’s no forms or internet sheets slipped inside to throw her off. Just sweet treats and Bella’s earnest look. As well as her final prop.
“You’re relentless you know that?” Jacque takes the cake topper out of her hand and flicks the string of hair that’s meant to be hers. “This is ridiculous.”
She peers into the box of cupcakes and Bella can almost feel the tug on the hook she’s thrown out. “That’s just how your hair looks.” Bella teases.
“And you’ve got me wearing the tux?”
“I think it suits you.” She holds open the box for Jacque to take one out, even if it turns reluctant when Bella finishes her sentence.
“Bella-”
“Just hear me out okay.” Bella pleads. “This isn’t about me being bitter because I can’t play for my country, it’s-”
“It’s a little bitter.” But she takes a cupcake anyway.
Bella starts to reel her in. “-It’s frustration that I’m not getting the chance.”
Just like Jacque isn’t giving her the chance here.
“You don’t think that I wouldn’t kill to be able to play for the US? It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, it’s what I worked for and because I stuck to my guns and decided I wasn’t going to be abused by a half-assed coach, I’ll never get there.” Bella loads out. “And if you’re just skirting around this because you think that I’m just doing this to get back at them?- Well, you’d be half right.”
Jacque raises an eyebrow but doesn’t interrupt.
“But the other half? I just want to play.” Bella feels the fight temper down. “I just want to show people that I can play, and if putting on a Canadian jersey and singing ‘Oh Canada’ down the line of teammates gets me there? Then that’s what I need to do. That’s what I want to do.”
“I don’t want to sound selfish,” Jacque pauses and shakes her head. “actually I do. What even is in this for me?”
Bella scratches the back of her neck. “I mentioned the breakfast thing, didn’t I?”
Jacque looks down at the ground, up at the ceiling, hell, anywhere but Bella and for a moment it feels like everything’s slipping away. But then she speaks. “Are you really serious about this? I don’t care about breakfast--but you will be making it, no doubt--nothing like that. I just need to know that you mean it.”
“I do.”
“Because if you don’t mean it then you’re wasting my time, the team’s time and it’s, in all honesty, unfair to the people you’ll be stepping over to do this.” Jacque pauses. “And I’d be basically be doing this out of the good of my heart.”
And just like that Bella can see years down the line. “I really do.”
“Fine then.” Jacque sighs and runs her hands down her thighs. One cupcake in and Bella’s pulled her aboard. “Bella Ansar, will you marry me?”
She sticks her hand out because it seems like the right thing to do in the moment because she doesn’t have a ring--and damn they’ll have to get those--they’ll need a lot of things but this seems like a promise.
No, a deal. It’s a deal and she smiles through it when Bella nods and laughingly accepts her handshake.
Jacque doesn’t want to even think of everything ahead of them. The legal hoops, the lying, the fact that technically she just shook hands with her fiancé; it’s all a little too much.
“I need a drink.”
“It’s like 2 in the afternoon.” But Bella still moves to the kitchen like she owns the place, cracks open a beer from the fridge, and places it in Jacque’s hands. “Better?”
Jacque sits down on the couch and motions for Bella to do the same. “Getting there.”
“So we just got engaged.” Bella states the obvious because it feels like if she doesn’t Jacque will just keep staring at the wall for the rest of the day, taking longs pulls of her beer, like she’s barely even there at all. “I feel like we should at least celebrate, if only so we can tell people the story.”
There’s a million things that Jacque wants to say. Happy things, realistic things, boring things like ‘it’s not that easy, we need to think seriously’ but then she looks at Bella’s face. It’s all wide eyed excitement like she can already see past all of the work, like she can see herself with the crest over heart. And it stops Jacque in her tracks.
They should at least have this one moment. “You order the pizza.” Bella smiles and starts to pull out her phone, already with the perfect place in mind. “I’ll grab the champagne.”
*
It doesn’t take long for the whirlwind of actually agreeing to marry Bella, and the celebratory hangover, wears off and the reality of it all takes over.
There’s so much red tape that they need to deal with and legal bullshit and actual major life decisions that they have to somehow make together despite the fact that they barely know each other. What they’re going to do, where they’re going to live, money and traveling and family.
A lot of it is up to Jacque, as Bella’s sponsor, which means that there’s a ton of financial work she has to sort through before they can even start the ball rolling.
She gets Bella to come over to the rental Louisville is paying for her to stay at while she’s on the course, and bring as much of her financials as she can. When she shows up she hands her a muddled up folder full of mismatched financial documents and holds a full grocery bag in the other as an apology.
“Nice glasses McDreamy.” She offers over the bag of groceries first.
Jacque hums. “Yeah, yeah. Get in loser.”
It takes her an hour to sort through what Bella handed her and to organize her own stuff and by the time she even has a place to start Bella is calling her for dinner.
Jacque is pleased to find out that Bella wasn’t actually kidding when she said that she could cook a mean meal and it’s almost enough to make her forget about the mess of tax documents, income sheets, and application forms she has waiting for her on the couch.
By her own admission, Bella isn’t really much help on all of this but Jacque doesn’t mind her just hovering next to her. She disappears a few times to clear the kitchen and Jacque grins to herself at Bella getting all domestic on her already, which she comments on to Bella’s playful offense at being called a housewife. But as the evening stretches on and Jacque keeps adding everything up, Bella slowly starts to sink into her side.
It’s when Jacque gets to the section on housing and all the technicalities there that she speaks. “You realize you’re going to have to move to Canada with me?”
She pushes her glasses up into her hair so that when Bella blinks up at her she’s looking straight into her eyes. “I sort of figured as much.”
Jacque rolls her eyes. “Well, don’t sound so excited.”
Bella doesn’t move from her arm, just shifts up a bit. “I know I have to move to Canada, I’m sure once you’re done with all of this boring financial crap we’ll start looking for places together.”
“I already have a place in Toronto.” Jacque states, pride starting to fill her voice. “It’s pretty awesome actually, you’ll totally love it there.”
“Considering the gunk I just had to scrape off the bottom of your pots, you’ll forgive me if I reserve judgment.”
“That’s not my fault, those came with the rental.” Jacque defends. “Don’t diss the digs.”
“The digs?” Bella laughs closing her eyes again. “Sure, wouldn’t want to do that.”
“You’re uninvited if you keep insulting my apartment.” She pauses and it’s like a bright light goes off in her head. “Fuck. You need to apply for a work visa or they’ll deport you.”
“Already started.” Bella mumbles.
“Of all the things to be ahead of the game on, it’s that?” Jacque grumbles but gets back to work, figuring that with Bella closing her eyes that the conversation was pretty much over.
Bella returns to her slow decline on her side and Jacque immerses herself in her bank history over the last year.
Jacque doesn’t even
notice the dead weight on her shoulder until she tries to reach for her drink and stops suddenly so as not to dislodge the sleeping girl on her arm.
For all the talking and the insisting and thanking that’s come from Bella in the last few days, it’s this gesture; staying up with Jacque while she does something that she doesn’t understand or have much to contribute to, that Jacque appreciates the most.
Bella slips just enough down her arm for Jacque to move it. Her drink is cold by the time she can reach it and when she puts it down there’s no other comfortable way for her to keep working than to lay her hand on Bella’s side.
It’s oddly calming to feel someone breathing and the latent stress that all of this is happening to fast starts to ebb away.
*
The day comes for them to finish the course and head back to their respective colleges. Well, if Bella hadn’t decided to change that plan by coercing Jacque into marrying her.
Jacque closes the back door of her car and stares at her reflection in the window. “How did this even happen?”
She’s taken a leave of absence from Louisville. Jacque doesn’t want to outright quit until she has a better idea of where she’s going to be back in Canada. She’s spoken to a few schools there but nothing is being handed to her on a plate. Jacque doesn’t even want to think about training with any soccer team, W-league or National, until she’s settled back into her apartment in Toronto.
The last bag is tossed on the passenger seat and she’s set.
Bella on the other hand.
“Are you serious?” Jacque asks with a note of shock creeping into her voice. “We have two cars, two whole cars. How are you struggling to fit things right now?”
Bella looks up from where she’s struggling to shove a suitcase into the backseat of her car. “I’m moving to another country! I have to take all of my stuff.”
“Bella,” Jacque leaves her already full car and walks over to where Bella is making an adorable fool of herself. “half of that shit won’t fit in the apartment anyway. You’ll have to put it in storage whether it’s in Toronto or here.”