The journalist's footballer (Rúben Dias)

Chapter Seven

Rúben

"At least she's hot", I hear Phil say when he sits next to me after training.

"What?"

"The girl you like. Katie talked to Becca and Becca talked to me, bro. What a way to fuck up".

I groan and cover my face with my hands.

"But I saw your story about that interview. I'm guessing that's the famous Christina and...yeah, I get it".

Well, the famous Christina has been avoiding me for long enough now. I thought reposting their interview will get me a thank you or something. And I could use that to start a conversation but...nothing.

Should I just message her instead of waiting?

Ugh. Why is this so difficult? I'll go to the gym to clear my mind and decide what to do.

Christina

"Matty", I say to him when I see him leaving without even saying goodbye.

"I need to go home".

"Don't you want to go have a coffee with me?", I say, hopeful my offer will make him stop walking so fast.

"I'm not in the mood right now".

"Matty, please".

He finally stops and turns to look at me.

"Why did you lie to me?", he says, voice laced with hurt.

"To...to avoid this", I say, hoping he gets what I mean.

"I'm a big boy, Christina", he says with a sad laugh. "I can hear about you being with other men. I won't break".

"It's not that. It's just...I didn't want to hurt you for nothing. What Lewis is insinuating is just bullshit. You have to know that. Rúben and I haven't seen each other since the interview, ok? He just asked me if I wanted the tickets and I said yes. I haven't even talked to him since the day of the match".

"It's hard to know if you're telling me the truth right now".

"No", I say with eyes filling up with tears. "Don't say that Matty. Please. It's not fair".

But he just turns and leaves. I try to control my urge to cry and just go downstairs to catch the bus. When I'm waiting at the bus stop, my phone buzzes. I take it out of my pocket quickly, hoping it's Matty but it isn't. It's Rúben.

"Hi. Hope everything is ok. Xx".

"No, nothing is ok".

I type and send before thinking better about what I'm doing. I put my phone back in my bag, go into the bus and ride home staring outside of the window.

Rúben

I wasn't sure whether I should expect Christina to answer my message or not. But I definitely didn't expect her to answer that.

Has something happened to her? Is she just angry at me?

I send her a message asking what's wrong but I see 10 minutes later that she hasn't read it. So I send another one. And another.

It's been 30 minutes and I start to worry. Why isn't she reading the messages? I mean, she could be somewhere with bad wifi, but she could also be hurt or something. If I had her phone number, I could call her now.

I start pacing around the dressing room, not knowing what to do when I get a message.

"Sorry, I didn't want to scare you. I just had a crap day and you messaged me at the wrong time, I guess".

I take a deep breath and try to relax. She's ok.

"Send me your phone number, I'll call you when I'm home".

"Rúben, I don't need you to call me. It's fine".

"Send me the number, Christina. Please".

I see her writing and deleting a couple of times. But she finally sends something. A number. Her number.