Team Tomás (The Saints Team #2) (3 page)

Chapter 5

“I’m not here,” I called out as my bedroom door was
banged on, again.

“Ali…” My annoying
seventeen-year-old brother, Ryan, sighed. “Dad said if you don’t get up and
show us you’re still alive he’s calling an intervention of all your friends or
the police, depending on whether you’re just faking it or really are dead.”

“Fine then.” I pushed the quilt
off and realized I was a bit hard on the nose. I opened the door and my brother
reeled back screening his eyes and yelling in terror.

“Very funny,” I told him. I went
the two steps it took to reach our living room. Our whole house was the size of
Tomás’s garage... which reminded me of my new rule—everyone was now banned from
saying the name Tomás to me.

“Dad, I’m alive.” I presented
myself as evidence.

His hand went straight to his
heart. “Praise the Lord,” he said and Ryan laughed. Dad rose from his chair and
walked towards me. He gave me a hug; a strong hug that said he knew all about
the pain of relationships and he did. He had been through a few since he got
back on the horse after Mom’s death when I was fourteen. So in that respect, my
dad was pretty in touch.

“Do you want Ryan and me to finish
him off for you?” Dad teased.

I shook my head. “No, I hope to do
that myself, but thanks. I’m going to shower.”

“Good idea,” Ryan said.

I gave him a grim look.

“I bought ice-cream,” Ryan added,
trying to cheer me up. I looked at my handsome brother, who I swear had shot up
a foot in height in his last year of school and looked like a carbon copy of
Dad—the strong, silent, bookish type.

I smiled at him. “You’re my favorite
brother, Ryan.”

“I’m your only brother,” he
reminded me, giving me a dark look.

“Then you’ve got less
competition,” I said brightly and headed to the bathroom in our one-bathroom
house. Twenty minutes later when I came out sparkling clean and with washed
hair, Mia was sitting on the couch watching soccer with my dad. My brother, who
has had a crush on Mia for most of his life, was hovering between the kitchen
and lounge. He turned and went back into the kitchen and I nearly fell over
when Ryan and Lucas came out of there together. The world’s number one soccer
star was carrying drinks for the family and Ryan was following behind with
snacks. This was all too much; I wasn’t up to it.

Lucas greeted me with a smile.

“Hey Alice, I’ve dropped in to
watch the soccer with your old man, figured you girls had some talking to do.” He
smiled that melting smile.

“Ease up on the ‘old man’ talk,”
my father quipped from the couch.

Mia jumped up and took my hand.
“We’ll leave you men to it,” she said.

I could tell Dad and Ryan were pretty
pleased with the company. Dad was ordering pizzas and taking topping
suggestions from Lucas and Ryan as Mia led me back into my bedroom and closed
the door.

“Right,” she said, taking charge.
“You’ve been locked in your room for three days, you haven’t shown up at the
cafe for your shifts, you haven’t answered my texts and you skipped your
lecture today. Alice, we need to talk.”

I sighed, because she was right.

“I’m your best friend,” she
reminded me.

“I know but you’re busy with Lucas
now...”

“Wash your mouth out!” she
exclaimed. I don’t know where Mia got these sayings from but she had a
collection of good oldies in her vocabulary. She continued, “I’m never too busy
for us, never! Now sit.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and
she sat next to me and took my hand. We both dropped back on the bed and looked
at the ceiling. I had plastic stars stuck to the ceiling and if it was night,
some of them still glowed.

“Tell me everything,” she said,
drawing a deep breath in anticipation of the load I was going to put on her.

I ran through it all. She
commented every now and then. “Good... dangerous, you shouldn’t have got on
that bike... well that was gentlemanly... was Valentina nice? What’s his house
like?”

I filled her in. Then I told her
the worse part. Since that night in Tomás’s bed I hadn’t heard a word from him...
three days now. Clearly he didn’t want to work that hard to woo a virgin.

We sat in silence for a short
while as Mia processed it all. I had already regurgitated it in my mind five
million times, now, make that five million and one.

“Maybe he just wants to play the
field and respects you too much to take your virginity in his stride,” Mia
suggested.

“Take it, take it, I’m begging for
him to take it,” I whined pathetically. “I don’t care if he is rough; if the
super gorgeous Tomás Carrera can take my virginity I’ll live with rough, hell
I’ll live with not being able to sit for a week.”

“You don’t mean that,” Mia said.

“Yeah, I do,” I said, turning
side-on to face her. I didn’t say it out loud but I wanted to see that huge
mass in his boxer-briefs and feel what it would be like to have it inside me. I
wanted to orgasm and open my eyes to see Tomás’s dark chocolate eyes looking at
me and if it was just the one night, then I’d live with that too.

But there was more, I was in
denial pretending it never happened but it did, I had sent another text… I
swallowed and looked to Mia. “I texted him that I wanted him to be the one to
take it. Can you believe I did that the morning after I left his house? I am
beyond mortified.”

“Oh no,” Mia whispered.

“I know.” I bit my bottom lip.

“Right, but you didn’t say the
virgin word in the text?” Mia asked.

I sat up, grabbed my phone and
thumbed to the text. I shook my head. “I said that I wanted him to be the one
to take me.”

Mia breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well that’s okay,” she said, and sat upright next to me.

“Is it?” I turned back around to
look at her.

“Sure. If anyone sees that text or
he tells, you can say you wanted him to be the one to take you to the college
graduation ball, or take you for your first spin on a motorbike or...”

 “I guess so.” I felt a small wave
of relief. “I’m an idiot on so many levels.”

She rubbed my arm. “You’re not
Ali. You’ve just fallen in... smitten.”

I looked at her. “Do people fall
in smitten? Who still says smitten?”

Mia started to laugh and I joined
in and then I cried. “How many days?” I sniffed, trying to remember the
break-up or heartbreak pattern.

“Usually three,” Mia said. “First
day is shock and pain, day two is raw heartbreak, day three is when you start
playing ‘
I will survive’
and can start rebuilding again. That’s now.”

 I nodded. “I will survive,” I
agreed. “Finn Lalor called and texted, but I haven’t got back to him yet.”

“Really?” Mia brightened. “We like
Finn don’t we?”

I smiled at her. “Yeah, we do.”

There was a knock on the door and
it opened a few inches. “Is it safe to bring pizza in?” Lucas asked.

“Very safe,” Mia said.

I wiped my eyes and I tried not to
look at Lucas as he handed Mia a box of pizza. Then he squatted in front of me,
making looking at him unavoidable.

“Is there something I should
know?” he asked looking from me to Mia.

I shook my head and Mia spoke up.
“It’s all good, we’ve got it under control.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “Alice? Did
Tomás do something that I need to deal with?”

Mia smacked him on the arm.

“What?” he turned to her. “I
believe you, gorgeous, I just want to double-check with Alice,” he said,
rubbing his arm dramatically.

“Tomás was a perfect gentleman,
but thank you Lucas,” I said, sniffing again. I was pathetic.

Lucas looked confused. “Well
that’s good then isn’t it?” He studied my tear-stained face before turning to
Mia.

“No,” I said. “Yes, it’s
complicated.”

“Right,” he said, rising. He
leaned down and planted a kiss on Mia’s head before backing out of the bedroom
slowly and closing the door behind him. I think he was scared to turn his back
on me, sensing I was a lunatic.

Mia opened the pizza box.

“Come on.” She invited me to take
a piece. “Let’s eat pizza, ice-cream and then I’ll go for a jog to apologize
for my carb sins and tomorrow, you can start the new day with a new view... a
view of Finn maybe.”

I nodded and took a slice. I
bumped it against hers. “Cheers.”

I wondered what Tomás was doing
right now.

“No checking for texts, no looking
at his Facebook page or tweets,” Mia ordered. “You’re now looking forward, not
back. I think you should return Finn’s text.”

I nodded again. The pizza tasted
like cardboard. Did I mention that I was pathetic?

Chapter 6

The next morning I was back on top, so to speak. I
fried some eggs, made a round of toast and a pot of tea for me, Dad and Ryan;
even Dad said I was looking like my normal self again. I’m guessing that was a
good thing.

I had one day of prac a week in my
final semester of my events management course—every Tuesday I worked with Josie
from Planet Events. Trust me, Josie was a bit off the planet herself. She was a
one-person, small business dynamo who supplemented her staff by using students
like me. Josie was usually out of control—picture a thin, neurotic, hyped-up
and highly-strung forty-something woman with bird’s nest hair. Lord knows why
she went into managing events, nuh, he’s probably still wondering too.

That morning she lived up to her
neuroticism and left me to meet with two brides while she went to woo a
writers’ group into giving her their three-day festival to manage. The first
bride, Lucy, was a dream; everything was too easy, super relaxed and was going
to be “great fun”. I counted she said that eleven times, bless her. Bride two
was bridezilla—okay her real name was Laura but I’m sure her surname was
Bridezilla. It was pretty much downhill from her first question.

“So, Alice, how many weddings have
you organized before?” she asked, folding her hands over her chest.

“Well,” I stalled, not wanting to
lose business for Josie, “while I have been doing my three year degree in event
management, I’ve worked on quite a few and I’ve seen some wonderful and
successful weddings.”

She sniffed. It was one of those
nose-up in the air sniffs. I think she was slightly curious about the wonderful
weddings and how she could be sure hers qualified and that I’d be talking about
it for years. Bridezilla took a deep breath, looked at her mother, then back at
me and began.

“I hope you have a pen and paper
because this is what I’m expecting. The table linen must be crisp white and I
mean white... not washed, not tinged, not even the slightest mark of any former
wedding. The bride and groom’s seating should be slightly above everyone at the
front of the room so we can be seen. I’ll need my own large room to go to
during the day to have some moments alone, not one of those small powder rooms,
the bridesmaids can use that...”

She stopped to draw breath and her
mother began to speak. Bridezilla held up her hand to silence her. “In case you
have forgotten, this day is all about
me
,” she told her mother. “I have
a vision for this day,
my
vision and I’ll do the talking...” I tuned out
and began to wonder if it was too late to change my degree to law instead.

*****

“Longest day in the history of the world and it is
only lunchtime,” I told Mia over the phone as I stirred the froth on my cappuccino
during my break. “But on the bright side and there’s always a bright side,” I
cheered up, “I don’t have time to mope around thinking about certain sport
stars and I have my health.”

“Well that’s two bright sides,”
Mia said. “Hey, I called with some news.”

“You’re engaged!” I said, holding
my breath.

“What? No!” Mia exclaimed, “we’ve
only been going out a minute... but that would be cool wouldn’t it? Mia
Ainswright, yeah what a shame that Mia Carter sounds better. Mia
Carter-Ainswright is too much isn’t it? Anyway, so not going there yet.”

“Sorry, I’ve been hanging around
brides all morning, I’ve got weddings on the brain,” I explained. “Promise me
when you get married you won’t turn into one of those brides-from-hell.”

“I promise,” Mia said. “Actually
we should have a word... you know so if either of us is getting insane-like
during the wedding preparations we say the word and it reminds us to chill
out.”

“Agreed,” I said, “but not
something obvious like Bridezilla.” I undid my jacket—I had to wear a suit to work
on prac days—and slipped it off. “News, what new?”

“Oh yeah, thanks,” Mia said. “The
Saints management is looking for an event coordinator.”

I sat up straight. “Wow.” This was
good, very good.

“Yeah,” Mia agreed. “I’m reading
it online now. They are looking for a junior or graduate to manage all the Club’s
events including the home game day entertainment, best and fairest night,
annual gala ball, season launch, social media, and so on.”

“Wow,” I said again. Being an
event coordinator for a national sporting team would be fantastic for the CV and
since I would graduate in a few months’ time, it would be good to beat the rush
of jobless in the market.

“They’ll get hundreds of
applicants.” I pointed out the obvious. “That’s a dream job.”

“Yes,” Mia said, “but not every
applicant knows the game like you do and has been going to the game—that’s
impressive and they’re bound to ask that at the interview. Plus, not every
applicant can put Lucas Ainswright, captain of the Saints, as a personal referee.”

“I can’t ask Lucas to do that, he
doesn’t even know if I’m good at what I do,” I said.

“It was his idea,” Mia said, “and
of course you’re good at what you do.”

“OMG, Mia, he is the best, you
have to keep him,” I gushed.

“I’m planning on it,” she said.
“You’ll be working in the offices at the home ground so you’ll be surrounded by
all the atmosphere. You have to work match days of course, but...”

“But we both will be. You’ll be in
the physio rooms, and if I get the job, I’ll be doing event coordination. This
is so exciting, so exciting!” I said again, “I want that job.”

“Okay, do the application tonight
and call me after. Lucas said to let him know when you’ve applied and he’ll put
in a good word with the HR Manager.”

“Thank you, thank him,” I said,
then stopped. “Do you think it’s wrong trying to get a job through the back
door like this?”

“Are you crazy?” Mia said. “That’s
how a lot of jobs are secured. It’s not
what
you know it’s
who
you know... my parents always say that. I got my part-time job because my boss knew
my science teacher at school... I’m pretty sure they went out.”

“Must have ended well,” I mused. “M,
this is wonderful.” I used her nickname—there’s not a lot to work with when it
comes to shortening Mia. “Can you tell Lucas I’m stoked and tonight, straight
after I feed the men,” I said, referring to my father and brother, “I’ll do up
my application. Thanks again for telling me.”

After I hung up, on a wave of
highness if there’s such a thing, I texted Finn back and said I’d love to catch
up for a drink later in the week. The world was looking brighter.

And then my phone pinged with a
text which was nothing unusual—except this was one from Tomás.