Chapter 28: Baptism by Fire
The glass was cool against her palms, but the vibration of the crowd came up through the floor, through her bones, into her teeth. Eighty thousand voices were a single, living beast. It roared. It sighed. It held its breath. From the VIP box, high above the pitch, the players were little more than animated jerseys, but she only had eyes for one: number seven, moving with a loose-limbed, predatory grace during the warm-up.
Aurora’s stomach was a tight knot of chipped ice.
It had been a week since the rooftop photo. A week of dodging calls from unknown numbers, of deleting social media apps from her phone, of watching Callum’s jaw get tighter with each new headline. He’d insisted she come today. “They’ve seen you now,” he’d said, his forehead pressed to hers in his hallway that morning. “Hiding won’t make it stop. Come be with me.”
But he was down there, and she was up here, in this sleek, air-conditioned fishbowl where everyone pretended not to stare.
The box was full of a low, affluent hum. Club executives in tailored suits, sponsors with gleaming watches, WAGs who looked like they’d been assembled from glossy parts. She stood apart in her father’s old, oversized team jersey—the one she’d secretly worn for years—her messy bun threatening to unravel, her glasses smudged from her nervous fingers.
On the giant screen hanging over the south stand, a drone camera swept across the VIP level. It paused. Lingered.
Her own face, ten feet tall, stared back at her from across the stadium. She froze, her fingers digging into the glass railing.
Down on the pitch, Callum stopped juggling the ball. He looked up. He saw her enormous, anxious image on the screen. A slow, knowing grin spread across his face, the one the cameras loved, the one that sold sportswear and inspired memes.
Then he did it. A small, almost imperceptible act of rebellion. He adjusted the front of his shorts, a quick, mundane tweak athletes did a hundred times a game. But he did it while looking directly at her giant screen-face. And he winked.
The crowd noise shifted. A wave of knowing laughter rippled through the stands, followed by a swell of affectionate, thunderous cheers. He’d acknowledged her. To the entire world. It was crude, it was candid, it was intensely, bizarrely intimate.
Heat flooded Aurora’s cheeks. She wanted to melt into the polished concrete floor.
“Must be a special view from down there, eh?”
The voice was right beside her. A man with a television microphone, his cameraman a hulking shadow behind him, had materialized at her elbow. His smile was all teeth and no eyes.
“Sorry?” she managed, her voice thin against the stadium din.
“The pitch. From his perspective. He seems… quite taken.” The reporter shoved the mic toward her face. “Care to comment on the rumors? Is it serious? Are you the reason for his recent dip in form?”
The ice in her stomach turned to fire. A dip in form? He’d scored a brace last weekend. She knew this. She knew every stat.
She looked past the reporter, down to the field where Callum was now lining up for kickoff. He’d given her this. He’d pulled her into the light. She could either flinch or stand her ground.
She turned back to the reporter, pushing her glasses up her nose. Her heart was a jackhammer against her ribs. “His ‘dip in form’,” she said, her voice finding a steadier pitch, “is a media narrative. Not a statistical reality.”
The reporter’s eyebrows shot up. The camera’s red light glowed brighter.
“In the last nine matches,” Aurora continued, the numbers surfacing in her mind like familiar ghosts, “he’s had a ninety-two percent pass completion rate in the final third. He’s created fourteen big chances. His expected goals metric is the highest it’s been in three seasons. The goals will come. They always do.”
The reporter blinked, his smirk faltering. The low hum in the box had ceased. Everyone was listening.
“You seem to know a lot about the game,” he said, recovering, trying to reclaim the narrative.
Aurora shrugged, the fabric of her father’s jersey rough under her fingers. “I know a lot about him.” She gave the camera a small, tight smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the match is about to start.”
She turned back to the glass, her back to them, a silent dismissal. For a few seconds, there was only the sound of the crowd and the frantic beating of her own blood in her ears. Then she heard the reporter mutter to his cameraman, “Get all that? We’ll use the bit about the stats.”
She didn’t move. She watched the center circle, watched Callum take his position. Her hands were trembling. She clasped them together.
The whistle blew.
Ninety minutes later, the roar was a physical force. Callum had scored. Not once, but twice. A textbook volley and a penalty he’d won himself. As the final whistle sounded, he looked not to the celebrating bench, but up, straight at the VIP box. He pointed a finger, a single, deliberate acknowledgement, before being swallowed by a sea of teammates.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket before she even left the box.
Unknown Number: Aurora Bellweather? This is Lena Shaw from HarperCollins. We need to talk about your novel. The one about the footballer and the reclusive writer. The internet is very, very interested.
Aurora stared at the message, the noise of the dispersing crowd fading to a dull rumble in her ears. The ground beneath her feet felt unsteady. This wasn’t part of the deal. This was her own private vault, pried open.
She was still staring at the screen when another message came in, this one from Callum.
Callum: Player’s tunnel. 10 minutes. Bring your stat sheet.
A weak laugh escaped her. She looked out at the emptying stadium, vast and echoing. The safe, quiet life she’d built here was gone, shattered by a rooftop kiss and a wink on a jumbotron. In its place was something terrifying and vast and bright. And down in the tunnel, still smelling of grass and sweat, was the only person who understood the price of the spotlight.
She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders under the ridiculous jersey, and headed for the stairs.