Chapter 21: The Peas and the Promise
The fallen ice pack was forgotten, a damp spot on the carpet. The world beyond the glass was a silent, darkening bowl of emptied seats. Her weight in his lap was an anchor, solid and real. Her question hung in the air, a vibration against his skin.
Show me what you need.
He needed the fracture in his chest to close. He needed the constant, low hum of suspicion to quiet. He needed to not feel like a transaction waiting to happen.
His hands came up, framing her face, his thumbs sweeping over the high curve of her cheeks. He didn’t answer with words. He kissed her again, slowly this time, a deep, searching exploration that was less about hunger and more about confirmation. Yes, you’re here. Yes, this is happening.
Her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, holding on as if the chair might tip. His injured leg protested, a sharp, bright spark, but he ignored it. The pain was a punctuation mark in a sentence he was only just learning to read.
When they broke apart, breathing ragged, she rested her forehead against his. “Your leg is going to cramp.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when you can’t walk.” Her practicality was a lifeline back to earth. She shifted, careful, one knee on either side of his good leg, taking her weight off the other. The moss-green dress was rumpled, ridden up her thighs. “We should go. Before someone comes to clean.”
The ‘we’ echoed. It wasn’t a question.
Getting out was a clandestine operation. He texted Marcus, a single word: Southgate. He helped her down, his grip firm on her hand. The limp was pronounced now, the adrenaline fully gone, each step a reminder of the stitches pulling.
“Lean on me,” she said, not asking.
“I’m twice your size.”
“And currently held together with thread and hope. Lean.”
He did, letting her take a fraction of his weight. They moved through the back corridors of the stadium, a maze of concrete and pipes he knew intimately. The sounds of their footsteps were hollow in the empty spaces. A distant door slammed, making her jump.
“Just security,” he murmured, his voice low in the tunnel-like hallway.
“It’s like a horror film back here.”
“Less screaming, usually.”
She snorted, a bright, unfiltered sound that bounced off the walls.
Marcus had the black SUV idling at the dimly-lit service entrance, exhaust puffing in the cool night air. He gave a curt nod as Eli helped Hadley in, his face an impassive mask. The door thudded shut, sealing them in a capsule of quiet leather and recycled air.
The city slid by, a blur of neon and shadow. Hadley watched it, her hand resting on the seat between them. After a few blocks, her pinky finger linked with his. A small, seismic connection.
He didn’t take her to the sleek, public penthouse—the one featured in architecture magazines. He directed Marcus to a different building, older, with a faded brick facade and a discreet entrance flanked by potted bay trees.
“This is you?” she asked, peering up.
“One of them,” he said. “The quiet one.”
The apartment was on the third floor. No elevator. The stairs were a brutal, silent ordeal. He clenched his jaw, gripping the rail, each step a fire in his shin. She didn’t speak, just stayed a step behind, a silent presence at his back.
The door opened to a space that surprised her. It wasn’t the sterile showroom she’d half-expected. It was lived-in, but minimally. Wide-plank oak floors, a deep, worn leather sofa, shelves not of trophies but of books—real ones, with cracked spines. A giant, abstract painting in tones of charcoal and navy dominated one wall. It smelled of citrus cleaner and, faintly, of him.
And there, by the largest window overlooking a quiet, tree-lined street, was a single armchair. A worn, cognac-colored leather thing, soft and dented from use. It was angled, not toward a television, but toward the window itself, and a small, battered side table held a stack of old film magazines and a single potted rosemary plant, its scent a faint, herbal whisper in the room.
“Your chair,” she said softly.
He just watched her, leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed as if to guard the ache in his ribs. She walked to it, running her fingers over the backrest. She looked out the window. The view was of a few other buildings, the canopy of an oak tree, a sliver of sky. It was ordinary. Peaceful.
“This is what it’s pointed at,” she said, understanding dawning. Not a pitch, not a screen. A quiet street. A piece of the ordinary world he was so disconnected from.
He pushed off the doorframe and limped to the kitchen, a small galley off the living area. “Drink? I have water. Probably wine. Something.”
“Water’s good.”
He came back with two glasses, handing her one. She was still by the chair. He stood beside her, staring out at the same nothing-special view.
“It’s the only place no one wants a photo,” he said finally, his voice rough. “The only place I’m not performing. I just sit. And… nothing happens.”
She took a sip of water, then set the glass on the table next to the rosemary. She turned to face him, her back to the window. “Can I see your leg?”
The request was so clinical, so at odds with the tension in the room, it broke the spell. He let out a short breath. “It’s fine.”
“Eli.”
He sank into the chair with a grunt, stretching the injured leg out. She knelt on the floor, her movements efficient. Gently, she rolled up the leg of his track pants. The bandage was stark white, a small bloom of red already seeping through in the center.
“You need to keep it elevated,” she said, her brow furrowed. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Bathroom. Under the sink.”
She returned with the kit, and with a focus that was intensely calming, she cleaned the small blood seepage and applied a fresh bandage. Her touch was sure, professional. He watched the crown of her head, the way her blonde hair fell forward. The care she took with a simple task felt more intimate than anything that had happened in the box.
When she finished, she didn’t move from the floor. She sat back on her heels, looking up at him in his throne of solitude. “So this is it. The inner sanctum.”
“Not much of a sanctum.”
“It’s perfect.” She meant it. He could tell. She saw the quiet, not the emptiness. She saw the choice, not the lack.
He reached down, his hand curling around her arm, and drew her up. Not onto his lap—his leg throbbed in warning—but to sit on the wide arm of the chair, her side pressed against his shoulder. He rested his head against her hip. They sat like that for a long time, watching the occasional car pass, a light go off in a window across the street.
“I should get a taxi,” she murmured, her fingers stroking through his hair.
“Or not.”
“You need to rest. You have training Monday.”
“Marcus can take you in the morning.” He tilted his head to look up at her. The fear was there, a cold stone in his gut—the fear of being too much, of scaring her off, of this becoming a story she’d tell her friends about the weird, lonely footballer. But her face was calm. Open.
“Okay,” she said simply.
She used his toothbrush. She borrowed a t-shirt that drowned her. She slid into the side of his bed that clearly wasn’t used, the sheets cool and crisp. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, hyper-aware of every sound: the rustle of fabric, her breathing, the distant wail of a siren.
“Eli?” Her voice was small in the dark.
“Yeah?”
“What’s your favorite old film?”
The question was so her, so perfectly unexpected, that the tension in his shoulders unlocked. He thought about the stacks of magazines by the chair. “The Third Man,” he said. “The zither music. The shadows in the sewers.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I would have pegged you for a Western guy. Silent and stoic.”
“Maybe I’m just a man in a doorway with a ambiguous moral compass.”
He felt her smile in the dark. She turned onto her side, facing him. “My favorite is His Girl Friday. The dialogue. It’s like a machine gun.”
“Fast.”
“Yeah. No time to hide anything.”
He turned his head. Her eyes were gleaming in the faint light from the streetlamp outside. There were no more walls here. Just this room, this bed, this fragile, new space between them. He didn’t kiss her. He just watched her, until her breathing evened out and deepened into sleep.
For the first time in his adult life, Elias Bedfield wasn’t alone in his quiet apartment. The silence wasn’t empty. It was full. It was the sound of her, breathing beside him. It was the most terrifying and beautiful thing he’d ever heard.
When his phone buzzed on the nightstand at seven a.m., the screen blazing with his manager’s name, he silenced it without looking. The sun was cutting a sharp line across the floor, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. She was still asleep, one hand tucked under her cheek, the borrowed t-shirt slipping off her shoulder.
He watched the light creep across the boards, toward the bed, and he waited.