Chapter 13: The First Date
The shop was closed, the blinds drawn. Hadley had spent the afternoon in the armchair, the green blanket a shield against the occasional flash of a camera phone pressed to the glass. She’d watched Roman Holiday with the sound on this time, letting the dialogue wash over her. The knock at the back door, three firm raps, came just as the credits rolled.
She knew it was him. The press used the front. She peeked through the curtain.
He stood under the bare bulb of the alley, a silhouette carved from shadow and tension. But he wasn’t in his usual hoodie and joggers. He wore a suit. A dark, impeccably tailored suit that fit his shoulders like it was poured onto him. The white of his shirt was stark against the alley’s grime. No tie. His hair was ruthlessly controlled, but a single strand had already escaped, falling near his temple.
Her breath actually did catch. She fumbled with the locks.
He stepped inside, bringing the cool evening air with him. His eyes scanned her face, then the room, landing on the blanket still draped over the chair, the empty mug. A flicker of satisfaction in his gaze. “You stayed.”
“You built it,” she said, her voice a little rough from disuse. “Wasn’t going to waste the effort.” She gestured to him. “You clean up.”
“We’re going out.”
A laugh burst out of her, sharp and incredulous. “Out. Eli. There are approximately fourteen people with telephoto lenses currently treating my sidewalk like a safari park.”
“I know. We’re not using the sidewalk.” He held out a hand. “Do you trust me?”
It was the real question, wasn’t it? Underneath all the flowers and the films. She looked at his extended hand, then back at his face. The suit wasn’t armor tonight. It was an offering. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere no one will find us.”
She took his hand. His fingers closed around hers, warm and absolute. “I need to change.”
“You’re perfect,” he said, and it wasn’t a line. His eyes tracked over her simple cotton dress, the one she wore for arranging, dotted with tiny, faded lavender sprigs. He said it like a fact.
He led her not to the alley door, but to the internal staircase that climbed to her small apartment above the shop. “Through here, down the fire escape on the other side. My car’s in the next building’s garage.”
The operation was clinical in its precision. He’d scouted it. He had a black cap for her, which she pulled low over her blonde hair. They moved through the dark, musty building, down a rusted metal staircase that groaned under his weight, and into the sterile concrete belly of a residential parking garage. His car was a nondescript sedan, not the flashy SUV the press usually tailed.
He drove with a focused intensity, weaving through backstreets. He didn’t speak. The city lights slid over the sharp planes of his face.
“This feels very spy-versus-spy,” she murmured, watching the world pass by.
“It’s ridiculous,” he agreed, his voice tight. “But it’s the only way to get a table.”
The alley was so narrow the car barely fit. The sign—Pizzeria da Nonno—flickered a tired neon red. Graffiti decorated the brick. The smell hit her first: roasting garlic, woodsmoke, yeast.
He came around and opened her door. As they approached a heavy, unmarked wooden door, it swung inward.
An older man, his apron dusted with flour, beamed. “Elias! Finalmente!” He grabbed Eli’s face in both hands and kissed him loudly on each cheek. Eli endured it with a patient, almost soft expression Haddie had never seen.
“Vittorio, this is Hadley.”
The man’s bright eyes turned to her, assessing, then warming. He took her hand. “A friend of Elias is a sacred thing. Welcome. Your table is ready.”
The place was tiny, maybe eight tables crammed together. Every surface was worn wood or chipped tile. A wood-fired oven roared at the back. It was empty except for an elderly couple sharing a carafe of wine in the corner. Their table was in the back, beside a shelf stacked with wine bottles, a single candle in a chipped holder burning between them.
Vittorio brought wine without asking, a deep red in a plain carafe, and two glasses. One had a small chip on the rim. The other was older, heavier, with a name etched delicately into the base. Eli handed her the chipped one without comment and took the engraved glass for himself.
She sank into her chair, the reality of it settling over her. The cacophony of the outside world was gone, replaced by the crackle of the oven, the low murmur of Italian from the kitchen, the intimate pool of candlelight that turned Eli’s face into a landscape of gold and shadow. The harsh lines of his brow, his jaw, seemed softer here.
“He kissed you,” she said, taking a sip of the wine. It was lush, peppery.
“He’s known me since I was seventeen,” Eli said, rotating his glass by the stem. “I broke a window playing football in this alley. He made me fix it. Then he fed me.”
“And the glass?” She nodded to the one in his hand.
He turned it, showing her the etching. Giorgio. “His brother. Passed away. He gives it to me every time.” He said it quietly, a simple statement that held volumes.
Vittorio brought food. Not a menu in sight. First, small plates of fried artichokes, zucchini flowers dripping with ricotta. Then pasta. Simple, fresh tagliatelle with a ragu that tasted like it had simmered for days. Eli watched her take the first bite.
“Oh my god,” she mumbled, her eyes closing.
When she opened them, he was just looking at her, a quiet intensity in his gaze. “Good?”
“It’s illegal to be this good.” She twirled another forkful. “So, this is your place. Your actual place.”
“One of them. The only one that matters.”
“How did you even find it?”
“I was hiding,” he said simply, cutting a piece of pasta with the edge of his fork. “From everything. The academy, the scouts, my father. Vittorio found me out there, covered in brick dust after fixing his window. He didn’t ask questions. Just sat me down and gave me bread.” He took a drink. “This is where I come when the noise gets too loud.”
The candle flame danced between them. “You brought me into the quiet,” she said.
He nodded, holding her gaze. “I wanted to.”
The main course was a perfectly seared scallop with a risotto so creamy it was a revelation. As they ate, something in him unlocked. He told her about Vittorio teaching him to make pasta, the disastrous first attempts. He talked about the pressure of his first professional contract, sitting at this very table with Vittorio pouring grappa until the fear dulled.
And he remembered things. Small, offhand things she’d said.
“Try this,” he said, drizzling a plate of roasted mushrooms with oil from a small, unlabeled bottle.
“What is it?”
“Truffle oil. You mentioned it once. The one from the market that sold out.”
She had. Weeks ago, in a rant about overpriced grocery stores. She stared at him. “You remembered that?”
He just shrugged, as if cataloging her passing comments was a normal thing to do.
When the conversation lulled, it wasn’t awkward. It was full. The silence was a shared space. He leaned back in his chair, the suit jacket open, and without prompting, in a low, rough voice that was nothing like the polished actors on her screen, he recited a line from Brief Encounter.
“I didn’t think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.”
It wasn’t the romantic line. It was the aching, desperate one. He said it not to impress her, but as if the words had simply surfaced from some deep, internal pool.
She felt it like a physical touch. “You know it.”
“I watched it. After you mentioned it last week.” He looked into his wine. “I wanted to understand what you saw in it.”
“And what did you see?”
His eyes lifted, the candlelight caught in them. “People trying to be good, and failing. Because the heart isn’t good or bad. It just is. And it wants what it wants.”
The air between them became charged, thin. Vittorio tactfully left a plate of almond biscotti and two tiny glasses of amber-colored liquor, disappearing back into his kitchen.
Hadley’s mind was a riot. This man, this globally famous athlete who the world saw as a grumpy monument, was sitting in a hidden alley quoting British melodramas and remembering truffle oil. The loneliness she’d sensed in him wasn’t just an absence of people; it was the absence of anyone who saw this.
“Eli,” she started, but her phone buzzed on the table. A news alert. She glanced at it instinctively.
The headline was a punch to the gut: BEDFIELD’S MYSTERY WOMAN: FLORIST FRIEND OR DISTRACTION BEFORE SEMIS?
There was a picture, taken that afternoon. Her, blurred behind the blind in her shop window. The text was speculative, nasty, questioning her influence on his focus.
The warm, golden bubble of the evening popped. The world rushed back in, cold and sharp.
She looked up, her face pale. He didn’t need to ask. He’d seen it a thousand times. The slow, creeping dread of being consumed by his orbit.
He reached over and took her phone, turning it face down on the table. His hand covered hers. His expression had hardened back into the familiar, daunting lines, but his thumb stroked over her knuckles, a steady, rhythmic counterpoint.
“They don’t get this,” he said, his voice low and fierce, encompassing the table, the candle, the quiet kitchen sounds. “They don’t get to have an opinion on this. This is mine.”
“But they have the photos, they have the narrative—”
“Let them.” He leaned forward, the intensity in his eyes burning away the last of the softness. “I have a game on Saturday. After that, we do this properly. No alleys. No hiding.”
“What does ‘properly’ mean?”
“It means I walk you to your door. In the light. It means I take you to dinner where they can see us. It means I stop letting them dictate what my life looks like.” He squeezed her hand. “But only if you’re with me. It will be a storm, Haddie. It won’t be quiet again for a long time.”
The choice hung in the air between them, as tangible as the candle flame. Stay in the quiet, secret world, or step with him into the blinding, noisy light.
She didn’t look at the phone. She looked at their joined hands on the worn tablecloth, then back at him. At the man who built reading nooks and recited old films.
“A storm, huh?” She managed a shaky smile. “Good thing I sell flowers. We’ll need something to weather it.”
A slow, real smile broke across his face, transforming it
The smile lingered, a rare and unguarded thing in the flickering light. He didn’t let go of her hand. Vittorio emerged, clearing plates with a knowing grunt, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He placed a small, paper-wrapped parcel beside Eli. “For the morning. You don’t eat enough.”
Eli stood, pulling out her chair. The suit moved with him, a whisper of expensive fabric. He helped her into her coat, his hands lingering for a second on her shoulders. The gesture was possessive, protective. It felt solid.
Outside, the alley air was a cold slap after the restaurant’s warmth. The neon sign buzzed overhead. He didn’t rush for the car. He leaned against the brick, looking up at the narrow strip of night sky. “Thank you,” he said, the words quiet.
“For what?”
“For not running.” He turned his head toward her. “Most people do. Or they cling. You just… sat there. And ate the mushrooms.”
She bumped her shoulder against his arm. “They were incredible mushrooms.”
He pushed off the wall, his hand finding the small of her back to guide her. It was a simple point of contact that burned through the layers of wool and cotton. The drive back was different. The tension wasn’t about evasion now. It was a thick, shared silence, full of the decision they’d just made.
He pulled into the dark garage. The engine cut, leaving them in sudden stillness. The world was waiting, but here, in the concrete gloom, it was still just them.
“Saturday,” he said, staring ahead at the blank wall. “After the final whistle. Whatever happens.”
“You’ll win,” she said, with more certainty than she felt.
“That’s not what I meant.” He finally looked at her. “I meant, after the game, that’s when it starts. The storm. Cameras at your door. Questions at my pressers. Stories in the blogs. It won’t be a few guys on the sidewalk. It’ll be a pack.”
She undid her seatbelt. The click was loud. “I have a very sturdy door. And I’m excellent at ignoring people.” She reached for the handle, but his voice stopped her.
“Hadley.”
She turned.
He was closer than she’d realized. The dashboard glow lit the fierce set of his jaw. “If it gets to be too much. If you change your mind. You tell me. You don’t just vanish into that shop and hide. You tell me.”
The raw plea in his voice undid her. This wasn’t the confident athlete issuing a command. This was the man who’d been left before, who expected it. She cupped his face, her thumb brushing over that stray strand of hair. His eyes shut at the touch.
“I’m not going anywhere, Eli.” She said it slowly, so he’d hear every word. “You bought me a chair. I’m invested.”
A rough sound escaped him, part laugh, part relief. He turned his head, pressing a kiss into her palm. The warmth of his lips on her skin was an electric jolt. He released her, opening his door. “Come on. I’ll get you upstairs.”
They used the same route in reverse. The fire escape was colder now, the metal biting. Her apartment was dark and quiet, still smelling of the freesia she’d been wiring earlier. He stood just inside the door, a towering presence in the small space.
“You should go,” she said, not wanting him to. “Big week of training.”
He nodded, but made no move to leave. His gaze traveled over her living room, the TV, the small kitchenette. It was like he was memorizing it. “Lock this after me. And the window by the fire escape.”
“Yes, sir.”
That almost-smile returned. He stepped back into the hallway. The space between them felt charged, vast. “Saturday,” he said again, as if it were a vow.
“Saturday,” she echoed.
He left. The door clicked shut. She locked it, leaning her forehead against the cool wood. She could still smell his cologne, cedar and something darker, clinging to her dress, her skin. The quiet of the apartment felt different. It wasn’t empty. It was full of the echo of his voice, the phantom pressure of his hand on her back.
Her phone, face-down on the entry table where she’d dropped it earlier, buzzed again. She ignored it. She walked to the window, peering through the blinds at the street below. The photographers were fewer now, just a couple of figures huddled in a van.
One of them looked up, directly at her window. A lens glinted, aimed. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t step back. She held the gaze for a three-count before letting the blind fall.
She wasn’t just a florist in a lavender dress anymore. She was a line in a headline, a mystery to be solved. She was the person Elias Bedfield quoted old movies to in hidden restaurants. The weight of it was terrifying. It was also, somehow, solid.
She made tea, using the leaves from the tin he’d left in her reading nook. She carried the mug to the armchair, wrapping herself in the green blanket. The scent of him was there, too, woven into the wool. She didn’t put on a film. She sat in the quiet he’d built, sipping her tea, and stared at the shelf of movies.
For when you need to escape.
But she didn’t want to escape. Not from him. For the first time, the thought of what was coming—the noise, the chaos, the relentless scrutiny—didn’t make her want to curl into a ball. It made her straighten her spine.
She finished her tea. She picked up her phone. There were twelve new messages, mostly from friends who’d seen the alert. One was from an unknown number with a London prefix. She deleted it without opening it. She typed a text to Eli.
The truffle oil was a low blow. Now I’ll never be satisfied with the regular stuff.
His reply came almost instantly. That was the plan.
She smiled. Outside, a car engine started, then faded away. The street was finally, briefly, clear. The storm was holding its breath. She curled tighter in the chair, waiting for it to break.