Glory Of The Football Manager System

I saw her before she saw me.

She was walking through arrivals with Jessica, pulling a carry-on, her red hair catching the light. She looked tired. She looked like she hadn’t slept properly in 7 weeks.

Then she saw me.

Her whole face changed. She stopped walking. Just stopped.

I crossed the space between us without thinking about the cameras or the press or any of it. When she reached me, she dropped her bag and I pulled her into me, my hands on her back, and she made a small sound, surprised, like she hadn’t expected me to feel real.

I could feel her. All of her. The softness of her breasts against my chest, the curve of her waist under my hands, the way she fit against me like she always did. 7 weeks and she still fit exactly the same.

She buried her face in my neck and I felt her breathe me in. Felt her hands grip the back of my jacket like she was afraid I’d disappear. Then she made a small sound barely a moan, right there in my ear, and it took everything I had not to pull her back and do something we couldn’t do in front of all these people.

”Hi,” she whispered against my neck.

”Hi,” I said.

She pulled back just enough to look at me. I could see it in her eyes the same thing I was feeling. The same need. But we didn’t move. Just looked at each other for a second.

”Good flight?” I said, and my voice sounded wrong. Too rough.

”Long,” she said. She was looking at me like she was trying to memorize my face. ”You look tired.”

”I am.”

”Liar.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ”You look like you haven’t slept either.”

Jessica appeared next to us with a raised eyebrow. ”Come on, you two. We’ve got a schedule.”

Emma’s hand found mine and squeezed. Just for a second. Just enough. I could feel the tension in her grip. The 7 weeks. The need.

The lift doors closed and we were alone.

She didn’t wait. She turned to me and pulled me down to her, and this time there was no restraint. No cameras. No performance.

Her mouth was urgent against mine.

Her hands were in my hair, pulling me closer, and I could taste her taste the coffee she’d drunk on the plane, taste the 7 weeks of missing her. I pushed her against the lift wall and she made that sound again ”Mmm...” the small moan that went straight through me.

My hands found her waist and I could feel the shape of her, the softness of her, and I wanted to touch her everywhere at once.

The lift dinged. We broke apart. She was breathing hard, her lips swollen, her green eyes dark.

We made it to the room somehow. I don’t remember walking. I remember her hand in mine. I remember the key card. I remember the door closing behind us.

Then she was kissing me again, and this time I didn’t hold back.

I pushed her against the door and she wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down to her. Her mouth was soft and warm and I could feel her heartbeat racing against my chest, matching mine. ”7 weeks,” she whispered against my mouth, and the way she said it like it was a confession, like it was breaking her made me want to give her everything.

”I know,” I said, and I kissed her again.

She pulled my shirt over my head and I felt her hands on my skin, exploring, relearning. Her fingers traced the muscles of my chest, my shoulders, my back.

She kissed my neck, my collarbone, my chest, and I could feel every touch like she was branding me. Her breath was warm against my skin and she made small sounds ”Mmm ” against my collarbone, a soft sigh as her lips moved across my chest that made my pulse race.

I unzipped her dress and she stepped out of it, and then she was in front of me in just her underwear. I had to stop for a second just to look at her. The swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the heavy roundness of her hips. 7 weeks and she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

”Don’t stop,” she said, and there was a smile in her voice.

I didn’t. I pulled her to me and kissed her again, and her hands were on my belt, undoing it, pushing my trousers down. We stumbled toward the bed, still kissing, still touching, like we couldn’t bear to be separated for even a second.

She pushed me down on the bed and straddled me, and I watched her. Watched the way her breasts moved as she breathed. Watched the way she looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Her red hair fell over her shoulders and she ran her hands down my chest, my stomach, and I felt my muscles tighten under her touch.

”I missed you,” she said.

Her voice was soft but there was hunger in it. She leaned down and kissed me, and this time it was slow. Deep. Like she was trying to say everything she couldn’t say out loud. Her tongue moved against mine, and I could feel her breasts against my chest, could feel the w7 of her on top of me.

I flipped her over and she gasped ”Ah...” her eyes going wide for a second before they darkened with need. Then I was kissing her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts. She arched up into me, her hands in my hair, pulling me closer. ”Danny,” she breathed, and the way she said my name made me want to give her everything.

I kissed my way down her body, and she made small sounds ”Oh...” as my lips found the curve of her waist, ”Mmm...” as I kissed the inside of her thigh.

Her hands were on my shoulders, my back, my hair, constantly touching, constantly connecting. When I got to the inside of her thigh, she made a sound that was almost a sob. ”Please,” she whispered. ”Please, I need...”

I looked up at her and she was looking down at me, her green eyes dark and desperate and full of need. I could see the rise and fall of her chest, could see the way her fingers were clenched in the sheets.

I kissed my way back up her body, and she pulled me to her, her mouth finding mine. She was breathing hard against my mouth, and I could feel her heartbeat racing beneath my hands.

”I want you,” she said. ”I want you so much it hurts.”

”I know,” I said. ”I know, baby.”

She wrapped her legs around me and pulled me closer, and I could feel the heat of her, the need radiating off her. I moved inside her slowly at first, and she made a sound ”Ah...” a moan that went straight through me. ”Yes,” she whispered. ”Yes, like that.”

We moved together like we’d been doing this forever. Like our bodies remembered what our minds had been trying to forget that we fit together perfectly. That 7 weeks apart didn’t change that. That nothing could change that.

She kissed me while we moved, her tongue in my mouth, her hands on my back, her legs wrapped around me.

She was all softness and strength, all need and desire, and I could feel her building toward something. Her moans were getting louder, less controlled ”Oh... oh God...” and she was saying my name over and over like it was a prayer. ”Danny... Danny...”

”Come on,” I whispered against her mouth. ”Come on, baby. Let me feel you.”

She came with a cry that was muffled against my neck ”Oh...” her whole body trembling beneath me, and I followed her over, burying my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her.

We lay there afterward, tangled together, her head on my chest, her hand over my heart. I could feel her heartbeat slowly returning to normal, could feel her breathing evening out. She traced patterns on my chest with her fingers lazy, content. Her touch language. The way she said I love you without words.

I kissed the top of her head and she tilted her face up to look at me. Her green eyes were soft now, satisfied, but there was still something desperate in them. She reached up and kissed me again, slow and deep, and I felt it in my chest. Felt it in the way my arms tightened around her. Felt it in the way I never wanted to let her go.

”Don’t leave me again,” she whispered against my mouth.

”I have to go to the 8 o’clock,” I said.

”I know.” She kissed me again, and this time there was a hint of desperation in it. ”But after. After the game. Come back to me.”

”Always,” I said, and I meant it.

She settled back against my chest, her hand over my heart, and we lay there in the quiet. No words. Just touch. Just the two of us, finally in the same room, finally able to feel each other.

7 weeks. The guts of two months of a screen and a phone and a cold half of a bed, and it came off the pair of us at once, her hands in my hair and knotted in my shirt, mine everywhere they had been starving to be.

Not a word between us. There are no words for 7 weeks, and we have never needed them anyway. We say it with our hands, Emma and me. Always have.

And then there was no room, and no World Cup, and no Croatia, and no 7 weeks left between us. Only the two of us, and the door might as well have been the edge of the world.

A while later, when the room had gone quiet, the phone went. Bray. The 8 o’clock.

She felt me go still and did not fight it, though I watched her want to. She caught my wrist at the door.

”Win the game,” she said, and her voice cracked, only a little. ”That’s all I want off you this week. Win it, and then you can have me and a fortnight and that haircut, whatever order you fancy.”

Then she pulled me down and kissed me, slow and unhurried, no camera to perform for and nothing held back, and it said everything her words had not. When she let go she had that look on her, all belief and not a scrap of doubt anywhere in it.

”Go and win it,” she said. And God knows she meant it more than I did.

And I went, because there is no version of me that stays in the warm room when there is work, and she fell for that version anyway. Out the door with her still on my skin and her kiss still on my mouth and my head already turning, against its will, toward a 32-year-old in a red-and-white shirt.

Jessica caught me the next morning before training, a folder in her hand and business all over her face.

”10 minutes. You’ve ignored the world a month and it has not stopped for you.”

She gave me the list over a coffee. A boot deal worth more than my old man made in his whole life. A book I did not want. A documentary I wanted less.

And last, on its own sheet of paper, the Saudi number, which did not look real. A year’s managing out there, when the tournament was done.

I slid it back. ”No.”

”I knew you would. I flew 4,000 miles to hear you say it to my face.” She did not push, which is the reason I keep her.

”Take the boots, though. Honest money for shoes you’d wear anyway. The rest waits for a version of you that isn’t 3 days off the biggest game of his life. Go and train.”

So I went and trained.

Because when you strip the whole circus off it, the records and the murals and the boot deals and the noise, what is left underneath is a pitch and a ball and a team, and that is the only thing that was ever real, and the only thing I have ever been any use at.

Croatia on Saturday. Modrić in the middle of it, 32 years old and the best there is. A stadium full of people who wanted us on a plane home by teatime.

And 11 of mine, come from nowhere, who did not know how to be frightened any more.

I could not wait to get out there with them.

***

Thank you for 50 Golden Tickets.