“Good idea,” I said, and fished my hand in my pocket looking for my phone. “Shit.”
“What is it?”
“That little session in the park could end up costing me a few hundred quid.”
“I wasn’t planning on charging you for it,” Michelle said. “And if I did, I’d like to think I could charge more than a couple of hundred pounds.”
“I lost my phone,” I explained. “I guess it must have fallen out of my pocket when we were... occupied.”
“Ah. Well, don’t you have that thing to locate your phone?”
“Only via my tablet, which is back home. Unless I can download the app and log into my account on your phone?”
“Sure,” Michelle said, throwing me her phone. “I doubt anyone has found it given that we were somewhere so well hidden.”
It took a frustratingly long time to download the app and log into my account. I had to download my password manager and then find my two-step authentication codes before I could get in. It would have been quicker to have just taken a car back to the park, but I wanted to make sure it was there first.
“That’s weird,” I said, looking at the blue dot on the map. “I guess someone did find it.”
“We’re not going to go chasing some thieves around London now, are we?” I can barely move in these heels, and I can’t change into flats without Maisie knowing we came back to the hotel.
“We don’t need to,” I said. “The phone is at the police station, so I guess they handed it in.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, that’s a stroke of luck. Come on, let’s get out of here, before the urge to take you again becomes impossible to resist.”
-*-
“I never expected this summer to include so many trips to a police station,” Michelle said, as we walked up the stone steps to the old building that looked like it could be a museum and not a place where drunks were locked up on Friday and Saturday nights.
“I’ve spent more time here than I would like over the last eight years,” I admitted.
“Let me guess—Winston?”
“Yep. He kept insisting on asking me questions. I went along with it at first, even though I was under no legal obligation to do so, but Hodgson warned me about him so I got my solicitor involved.”
“Why does he hate you so much?”
“I was close to Shaun’s father, Gary, and he did some things that were outside the law. I guess Winston thinks I’m guilty by association.” Probably because I am.
Lying to Michelle made me feel like shit, but what was the alternative? If she ever found out what I did eight years ago, she’d never forgive me and neither would Maisie. I wanted more than anything to be honest with them, but not at the cost of losing Michelle. That was a price I was not willing to pay.
“How can I help you, sir?” the desk sergeant asked.
“I lost my phone and I believe it’s been handed in here.”
I gave him a description of the phone and the desk sergeant went off to the lost and found.
“Are you here to drop off my tickets?” Hodgson yelled from down the hall, having apparently seen us arrive.
“At this rate, if anyone gave me tickets I’d probably lose them.” I told Hodgson about losing my phone for the second time in the space of a few weeks. The desk sergeant came back with the phone and Hodgson helped speed up the process, and saved me filing out a bunch of paperwork.
“This was found at the pub,” Hodgson said. “I hope you weren’t drinking. The World Cup is only a month away; the country needs you in your best possible shape.”
“I’m keeping fit,” I said, with a sly look over to Michelle.
“What’s this bloody thing on your head?” Hodgson asked, seeing the baseball cap I had put back on after our little tryst in the park. “You’re not a Chargers fan are you?”
“No, don’t even know what sport they play. It’s just to keep me in disguise.”
“Ah, well I’m not sure it works. I spotted you easily enough on my way to the bathroom. Speaking of which, I had better be going.”
We left the police station quickly before we had the misfortune of bumping into Winston. That man always put me in a bad mood, and the last thing I wanted right now were my memories of an almost perfect evening being ruined by him.
The text message I received from my friend Jaxon on my way home made the night even better. Soon I was going to be busy with the World Cup, but there was time for one more fun day with Michelle, Maisie, and Shaun, before I had to start intensive training.
I replied to Jaxon, and took him up on his offer. Michelle and Maisie had seen me perform well on the rugby pitch, but next weekend I would be making a complete fool of myself instead. Oh well, anything for charity.
“Soccer?” Maisie asked. “We’re going to a soccer game?”
“Yes,” I replied. “But you should probably get used to calling it football. If there’s one thing the natives hate it’s the word soccer. I’m not even that into the sport, but hearing the word makes my skin crawl.”
“Why are we going to a soccer game?” Michelle asked with a cheeky grin. The grin I couldn’t resist.
“Football isn’t even on at the moment,” Shaun said. “The season finished months ago.”
“It’s a charity game. And I’m playing in it.”
“You’re playing football?” Shaun’s laugh said everything there was to know about my ability at kicking round balls.
“Yes. I have a friend who’s a former footballer and now he works behind the scenes at Liverpool United. He was impressed by my efforts to increase the profile of women’s rugby and asked if we could get together and discuss opportunities.”
“So how will this work?” Michelle asked. “You’re going to play in an exhibition match?”
“We’re organising a friendly, which I guess is the same thing, and it’s going to be a mixture of rugby players and football players. When I met Jaxon, I teased him a bit about footballers being a bunch of pansies—”
“Which they are,” Maisie said.
“Damn straight,” I agreed. “Jaxon thought it would be a good idea to have rugby players play a game of football against retired footballers and then vice-versa for rugby. I politely pointed out that if those big girls’ blouses attempted to play rugby they would likely get killed.”
“Excuse me,” Maisie said, hands on her hips. “Big girls’ blouses? That sounds like a sexist insult.”
“Well, in the case of footballers…”
“Fair point. I’m going to let it stand. Continue.”
“Jaxon actually isn’t the stereotypical footballer to be fair,” I admitted. “He’s not the sort to go down like a sack of shit whenever someone breathes on him. And he’s been through a lot. But anyway, we ended up agreeing to play a football match where the teams would be a mixture of retired footballers and current rugby players, including yours truly of course.”
“At least it’s safer than rugby,” Michelle said. “I still cringe whenever I see you get tackled.”
“You’re still going to cringe when you watch him play football,” Shaun said. “But for a different reason.”
Shaun had really come out of his shell these past few weeks; I was starting to wish he hadn’t.
-*-
Michelle and the kids got whisked off to an executive suite, while I shook lots of hands. Jaxon and I had only decided on a charity at the last minute. We had initially planned to raise money for the promotion of women in sport, but that had never sat right with either of us because everyone playing the friendly game was a man. It would look a little patronising for the men to be raising money for the women.
In the end, the decision was easy. A major natural disaster happened in the Middle East the week before the game, and the charitable organisations on the ground needed all the help they could get.