Open Play: Ladies, Goals, The Everything System in-between

Chapter 42: [42] "Rose Part 6"

They talked about Zara.

Rose described her with the affection of someone who had been completely exhausted and rescued by the same person so many times that the two things had become inseparable, just like the two of them.

"She’s been my best friend since we were sixteen. She was already quieter than everyone else then. She’d just stand at the edge of a room and by the end of the night she knew more about what had happened in it than anyone who’d been in the middle of it."

"She has a strategic mind."

"Yes... and that strategic mind thinks you’re complicated."

"I hope I am."

"She thinks complicated is a warning label."

"She’s right," Luc said. "Again."

Rose tilted her head. "You keep agreeing with her."

"If it’s logical, it’s logical."

Rose looked at him with a directness. "And yet you’re here, ’Mr Luc Beaumont’"

"And yet I’m here," Luc said.

---

He told her things he had not planned to tell anyone. Things that only Juliette knew.

About the hotel room in Paris on the night he signed the contract. Not the Chloé part. Everyone knew that part. The part before it, standing in the elevator with the contract in his hand, looking at his own name at the bottom of the page, and feeling the weight of having accomplished the thing he said he would accomplish.

He didn’t feel pride, but maybe it was something heavier than pride. At the moment he was on top of the world.

"It was the first time I had done something like that. Something outside America. College was easy. The trials were easy. I had done hard things but they were always the right size for me."

"You were scared?"

"I was, even though I used my loud mouth to mask it. Just ask Coach Henri."

---

At some point Rose had moved the second water bottle from the bed to the floor, dropped her mug on the table and was now lying on her side with her arm under the pillow facing Luc. Still talking, still asking things.

Luc told her about some of his teammates. About Hugo.

Rose smiled. "He sounds like Zara."

"He’s going to be a world class midfielder one day. It’s early, and he still has to recover from his injury woes but I’m sure of it."

Rose asked about Mateo. He told her about the training ground on the first day and the handshake that signified when he had earned Mateo’s respect.

She recalled what he said about the chip against the keeper in the trials and asked how he felt. Luc told her the exact details of it, the way the keeper’s weight had been committed before his foot even connected with the ball.

She listened like she was watching a film. Her favorite film.

The lamp was still on.

Luc was aware at some point that the conversation had slowed. The questions were coming further apart and Rose’s responses were shorter.

He was mid-sentence explaining something about the 2 nil loss in the last game when he realised she hadn’t responded to the previous thing he had said.

Rose’s eyes were closed. Her pink hair was across the pillow and her breathing had gone soft and regular. The mug on the bedside table still had a bit of cold tea in it.

She had gone to sleep mid-conversation.

Luc sat at the foot of the bed.

The city outside was quiet at 1 AM. That was how long they had talked for.

He leaned back against the wall at the side of the bed Rose wasn’t occupying and closed his eyes for a moment.

---

6:09 AM.

The early morning sunlight shone through the curtains. The street lamp outside had switched off.

At some point in the night his legs had stretched out and Rose somewhere in the hours between then and now, had shifted down the bed and was asleep beside him. Still fully dressed, still in her hoodie, her pink hair spread out around her on the duvet.

She was on her back, one arm across her stomach, breathing easy.

Luc sat still for a moment.

He had walked into this apartment at midnight after a 2-0 loss to a thirteenth-place side, and with the worst kind of press coverage regarding the loss already formatting itself for the morning papers.

He had spent hours talking to a woman with pink hair who read tactical theory for fun and had parents who were almost comically opposite. He realised it gave everything she had to meet him in the car park because the alternative was carrying her feelings.

She was genuinely good company.

Not in the way that Juliette was useful, intelligent and physically honest. Not in the way Valérie was useful, with power and the access, and the cold clear reading of what a situation required.

Rose was good company. She just was. Maybe the label was something closer to a ’friend’.

He had not expected that.

He stood up slowly, careful not to shift the bed or wake her up.

He went downstairs to the kitchen and found a notepad by the kettle and a pen that worked on the third attempt. He his number, tore the page out and left it face-down beside her phone on the counter.

He picked up his jacket from the chair by the door.

Zara appeared behind him with her arms crossed. She wasn’t naked this time, she had a hoodie on.

"Both of you didn’t sleep together right? I didn’t hear anything last night."

"No." Luc cut her off. He then said something in Spanish that meant, "Good Morning to you too Naked Lady."

He let himself out quietly.

Zara just stared then sighed.

The streets were empty as if also just waking up.

The Porsche was where he had left it.

He got in and sat for a moment before starting the engine.

"Rose Montgomery. The Paris Royal Women’s left winger. I wouldn’t mind having her around." He thought.

He started the car and pulled out onto the empty street.

The note on her kitchen counter said: "I enjoyed the company." Then his phone number.