Chapter 817: Balance
In the eleventh minute of the game, Grealish did something that made Marcus Reid actually stop typing on his laptop.
Jack drifted in off the left flank, taking up a pocket of space between the midfield and defensive lines. Thwack.
A fizzed pass came in from the back. Jack took it on the half turn with Joel Ward breathing heavily on his neck. Instead of taking a touch outside to protect the ball, Jack stopped it completely dead with the sole of his boot.
He just waited. In a frenetic, high-speed pre-season game, with a defender ready to snap his ankles, he simply stood on the ball and waited until Ward committed his weight.
The moment Ward lunged, Jack rolled the ball the other way, opening his hips, and threaded a perfect, cutting pass straight through the defensive line into the feet of the striker.
[JACK GREALISH. FLAIR 17. COMPOSURE 16. VISION 16.]
We had paid ten million pounds for him. The market thought we had overpaid for a Championship playmaker with a reputation for partying. The market did not have my system. The market did not know that Jack Grealish was going to tear the Premier League apart in my system.
On the touchline, standing next to the medical coolers, Mateo Kovačić watched the entire session. He wore a heavy brace on his knee. He had his arms folded. He did not say a single word for the entire hour. He just watched the angles, absorbing the tactical shape, analyzing where he would fit when his knee finally healed.
I walked over to him when Sarah blew the whistle for a water break.
"Pierre talks too much," Kovačić said quietly, his eyes never leaving the pitch.
"He does."
"It is necessary," Kovačić added. "Someone has to set the line. I will have to sit in a chair until September, so it is good that he is doing it."
"You stick to the rehab," I told him. "We will need you for the winter schedule."
By one o’clock, the session was over. The players dragged themselves into the dressing room, exhausted, coated in sweat, complaining about the heat but smiling. The culture was building. The standard was set.
I went up to my office, poured a glass of sparkling water, and sat behind my desk. At exactly two in the afternoon, my phone rang. Ring, ring. It was Dougie.
"Talk to me," I said.
"Krul is done," Dougie said, his Scottish accent thick over the line. "Two years. Basic wage structure, heavy appearance bonuses. Medical on Tuesday. He is thrilled to be back in the Premier League."
"Good work. And Madrid?"
There was a heavy pause on the line. I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. We had been trying to pry Achraf Hakimi out of Real Madrid for a month.
"They countered," Dougie said. "They want twenty million. For a twenty-year-old boy who was worth five in May."
"And what is the structure?"
"They have accepted fifteen million up front, with five million in add-ons based on appearances and European qualification. No buy-back clause."
I let the silence hang in the office. Fifteen million guaranteed, twenty in total. It was expensive. Before the World Cup, before I took the Morocco job for the summer, we could have had him for a quarter of that price.
But then the summer happened. I took Morocco all the way to the World Cup final. We lost four to three against France in Moscow, a brutal, exhausting match, and Hakimi played every single minute of that tournament for me. I stood on the touchline in Russia and watched him track Kylian Mbappé. I watched his lungs burn and his legs keep moving. I saw exactly what he was made of, and I knew exactly what my system said he was going to become.
"Do it," I said.
"Danny, twenty million is a massive chunk of our remaining budget."
"I know exactly what it is, Dougie. I watched him in the flesh for a month. I watched him in a World Cup final. If we wait a year, he is a fifty-million-pound player. At twenty million right now, fifteen up front, it is a phenomenal signing for the money. Get the paperwork signed before somebody in Madrid sobers up."
"Alright, Boss," Dougie sighed, the sound of keyboard clacking already starting in the background. "I will get it done."
I hung up the phone. It was an expensive outlay, but football management was about trusting your eyes just as much as trusting the potential numbers on a screen. The reality was, we had just signed a future world-class right-back.
Before I could dive into the afternoon video analysis, my phone buzzed again. Bzzzt. It was Jessica Finch, my agent.
"Listen, do not speak," Jessica commanded the second I answered.
"Whoa. Hello to you too, Jessica."
"Eight o’clock tonight. Chez Bruce, Wandsworth Common. A table in the corner, very discreet. It is booked under my name because your face is currently plastered across three different tabloid back pages."
"I have a tactical review session tonight."
"You have a tactical review session every night, Danny. And it is going to cost you your relationship if you do not wake up. Emma sent me a message yesterday asking for an hour of your time. She has to go through your agent to see her own fiancé. I fixed it. I booked the table. I sent a man to valet the Aston Martin. You will go home, you will put on a suit, and you will take that beautiful woman to dinner."
"Jessica, why are you organizing my love life?"
"Because you are an idiot who only thinks in tactical formations," she replied sharply. "Do not be late. Emma bought a new dress. Goodbye."
Click. The line went dead. I stared at the phone for a long moment, then smiled. She was right. I was an idiot.
I packed up my laptop, told Sarah she had control of the afternoon recovery sessions, and left the training ground.
When I got back to the house in Dulwich, the driveway had a different occupant. The Mercedes was parked on the street. Sitting proudly on the gravel was my Aston Martin DB11. Black on black. V12 engine.
I had bought it the week the board made my contract permanent. It was entirely impractical, aggressively loud, and the greatest piece of engineering I had ever owned. Jessica’s guy had done a spectacular job. The paint caught the late afternoon sun, gleaming like dark glass.
I went inside, showered the scent of the training ground off my skin, and put on a charcoal suit with a crisp white shirt, no tie. I poured myself a small glass of whiskey and waited at the bottom of the staircase.
At twenty past seven, a door upstairs clicked open. Click. The sound of heels echoed clack, clack, clack on the hardwood.
Emma appeared at the top of the stairs, and my brain completely stopped working.
She wore a dark green silk dress that clung to the curve of her hips and cinched at her waist, the fabric sliding fluidly against her body with every step. Her red hair fell over her bare shoulders in thick, fiery waves, freed from the tight bun she wore all week.
She stopped three steps from the bottom and rested a hand on the banister. A slow, knowing smirk played on her lips as her green eyes locked onto mine, tracking my reaction.
"Well?" she asked, her voice quiet.
"Wow," I swallowed hard. "Give me a minute. I need to remember how to speak English."
Her smirk widened into a bright, genuine smile.
She stepped down to the floor, closed the distance between us, and slid her arms up my chest to drape around my neck.
Her fingers tangled into the hair at the nape of my neck, gently pulling me down. Her perfume was intoxicating, something dark and floral that filled my senses as she pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my jaw.
"You clean up well," she murmured against my skin.
"You are going to cause a traffic accident looking like that," I told her. My hands found her waist, my thumbs tracing the smooth silk over her hips as I pulled her flush against me. "Jessica was right. I am an idiot for not doing this more often."
"Jessica is always right," Emma agreed. She gave my chest a gentle, lingering stroke before stepping back to grab her small clutch bag. "Now, take me to dinner before I decide to keep you here all night."
We walked out to the Aston Martin. I opened the passenger door for her, watching the silk dress gather and slide high over her thighs as she settled low into the leather seat.
Her movements were smooth, deliberate, and entirely captivating. I walked around to the driver’s side and dropped into the seat, hitting the ignition. Vroooom. The V12 engine roared to life, a deep rumble that vibrated through the chassis.
We pulled out onto East Dulwich Grove. The sky was turning a bruised purple as the sun set over London. I kept the speed smooth, letting the car purr through the city traffic.
Emma reached across the center console and let her hand rest on my thigh. The warmth of her palm seeped through the fabric of my trousers. Her fingers began tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against my leg, a silent, comforting language that instantly grounded me. The stress of the past week completely evaporated under her touch.
She shifted in her seat to face me, sliding her hand further up my leg to rest near my hip. She traced small, lazy circles with her thumb. "You have been a million miles away lately," she said softly, watching the streetlights illuminate the dark cabin.
"I have," I admitted. I reached down to cover her hand with mine, lacing our fingers together. "But I am right here now."
She lifted our joined hands, her lips brushing softly against my knuckles. "Good. Because you belong to me for the next three hours. No distractions. Just us."
"What are we talking about then?" I asked, glancing over at her.
The interior ambient lighting cast a soft glow over her face. She leaned closer, her free hand reaching up to trace the line of my collarbone, her nails lightly dragging against my skin in a way that made my breath catch.
"We are going to talk about us," she whispered, her voice dropping a fraction as her fingers moved up to gently caress my neck. "Starting with where exactly you plan to take me for a honeymoon that involves a massive bed and absolutely nothing else."
I laughed, my grip tightening on her hand as I pressed my foot down on the accelerator. The Aston Martin surged forward into the London night. The city blurred past the windows, and with her thumb now resting steadily over my pulse, my mind was perfectly, entirely clear.
***
Thank you for reading.