The journalist's footballer (Rúben Dias)

Chapter Twenty Eight

Rúben

The day the English boys come back, the mood is that of a funeral. We all make some small talk but don't really talk about the World Cup. Still too soon.

"Hi mate", says John, sitting next to me.

"Hey, good to see you".

"Yeah. You too".

But I can see on his face how affected he really is by the heavy defeat. And the press hasn't been particularly nice to the defenders, even though I don't think it was entirely their fault. But they always need a scapegoat and they found it in John and Maguire.

"Christina ok? With moving and starting the new job and stuff?", he asks me, surprising me.

"She is, yes. She's...great. Doing great, I mean", I say, trying to not give anything away.

But I can tell John's eyes are on me.

"Oh, thank God. You've already fucked", he says.

"What? We what?"

"Gotcha!", he says with a wink.

I look down to tie my shoelaces with John's laugh as background noise.

"It's good, though. I was worried you'll be waiting for months trying to prove a point or something".

I wish he was wrong but yeah, I was worried about the same thing too.

"Just, don't tell the others. We want to keep a low profile".

He raises an eyebrow. "Then you can never be in the same room at the same time. You were already looking at each other with lovey-dovey eyes before, I can only imagine how it's now".

**

Now that there are more players back, we can get as close to normal training as possible. That also means eating together after it.

"Hey! You're Rúben's girl, right?", I hear Kyle say.

I turn to look at Christina, who is staring at him not knowing what to say.

"What?", she says, looking at Kyle and not at me.

"You are Christina, right?"

"Yes?", she's adorable.

"So you're Rúben's girl. Nice to meet you".

"Nice to meet you too", she says and then leaves to go to the table where Tom and Pat are already sitting.

"She seems shy", says Kyle, now looking at me.

"More like you made her uncomfortable, Walks", tells him Joao.

"Why?"

"I'll explain it to him later", says John.

"Sorry about that. Kyle is...well, Kyle."

"Yeah, I see. It's fine. Just caught me by surprise. I thought only John knew about us".

"Only John knows. Don't worry about anything Kyle says".

I see her turning his head after reading my last comment. When we make eye contact, she smiles at me.

John kicks me under the table. "Low profile my ass", he whispers.

Christina

"We are going out tonight", says Kirby, letting herself into the office. We still need to have that talk about knocking.

"What? Why?"

"Because men suck", she says, throwing herself at my sofa.

"Can't argue with that".