Free Web NovelChapter 40: [40] "Rose Part 4"
She was still slightly out of breath.
Her pink hair was still visible at the edges of the cap but her mask was down now, pulled to her chin, which told Luc she had lowered it before she called his name. She had made the decision before the word left her mouth.
She was pretty. Not the way Juliette was, this was different. A face that made decisions with its full chest and dealt with consequences later.
"Hi," he said back.
She started talking immediately. Not fast, but it felt like she had rehearsed the opening line and was now trusting the rest of her sentences to find itself.
"I play for Paris Royal, the Women’s team. I’m their Left winger." She said it like a medical report. "I know how that sounds. I know you probably have ten reasons to walk right past me and get in that car and I completely understand if you do."
Luc didn’t move toward the car.
She took that as something and kept going.
"I was at Le Clarence two weeks ago. My friend Zara and I, we were at the far booth. You were there with someone." She paused. "I’m not here to cause any trouble. I’m not-- that’s not what this is."
"Then what is it," Luc said.
She looked at him. "I first saw you in person at Le Clarence and then at the sponsors’ night and I just-- I need to say something or it’s going to live with me for a really long time and I’d rather be embarrassed once than carry it." freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
"Okay," Luc said.
"I think I’m in love with you," Rose said.
She said it with the same energy someone would use to admit they had been speeding or something. It was very direct and with a slight wince, indicating she was ready for the result of it.
"I know that’s insane. I know I don’t know you much and you definitely don’t know me. I know the only rational explanation is that I’ve been watching too many highlights and I’m projecting something onto a public persona that probably doesn’t exist in real life." She looked at him. "When I was at the sponsors’ night and you walked past me... I nearly stopped breathing. And I’ve been making excuses not to think about it ever since, and tonight I thought, either I wait in this car park and say it or I spend the next three months regretting that I didn’t." She stopped. "So. There it is."
The car park was quiet around them.
Luc studied her face thoroughly. The possibility that she might also just be a stalker wasn’t zero.
"You’re from Paris Royal," he said.
"Yes."
"So your club is paying Fontaine’s wages."
"Yes." She almost smiled. "I’m aware of the irony."
"What’s your name?"
"Uhm--Rose--Rose Montgomery."
"Luc Beaumont."
"I know," she said. "I really... really know." She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear in a bashful manner.
He looked at her some more then he looked at the sky.
"It has really gotten late," he said.
"Yes."
"How did you get here."
She blinked. "A cab."
He turned and walked to the Porsche. He opened the passenger door.
"I’m not going to let you take a cab back home this late in the night, atleast not now I know you play for Paris Royal," Luc said. "Get in."
Rose stood still, processing the instruction. Processing the fact that this was happening.
But she got in.
The engine turned on and the car pulled out of the parking lot.
Rose sat upright with her hands in her lap, her pink hair around her shoulders now that the cap was off. She had pulled the mask fully down and it hung around her neck.
"I should tell you," she said, "I don’t normally do that."
"Wait in car parks?"
"Tell strangers I’m in love with them."
Luc pulled onto the main road. "You actually said you think you’re in love."
She looked at the side of his face while he drove. He didn’t look back at her.
"Zara said it was a bad idea," Rose said. "She’s my best friend. She said it from the moment she saw me staring at you in Le Clarence. She’s been saying it consistently since."
"She was right, that was pretty dangerous. Just waiting there all by yourself," Luc said.
"I know." Rose turned forward. "But I guess I did it anyway, huh."
The city moved past the windows. It was beautiful. So was she.
Rose had given him an address and he had put it into the navigation without comment. Fourteenth arrondissement. Twenty minutes from here.
"How long have you been at Paris Royal," he said.
"Three seasons. I signed at twenty-one." She adjusted the cap in her lap. "We don’t have the same media attention as the men’s side. I mean, people know we exist, but... I guess you know how it is."
"I do."
"Zara is never going to let me live this down," Rose said.
"Does she know you what you’re doing?"
"Nothing yet. But she’ll know everything within eleven minutes of me getting home." Rose was smiling now, proper and open, no performance in it. "She does this thing where she calls before I can call her, like she has a timer. That’s if she isn’t already at home. She has a spare key, and drops in unannounced sometimes."
"She sounds interesting."
"She’s the only reason I haven’t made worse decisions than this one. She really really thinks I should stay away from you."
"She’s still right," Luc said.
"You keep agreeing with her."
"She’s making good points."
Rose looked at him. "And yet you didn’t let me take a cab back home."
"That’s not about you," Luc said. "I just don’t like leaving people in empty car parks or letting them take cabs home this late in the night."
"Very chivalrous for a man who just lost 2-0 to Normandie."
There was a certain silence that followed.
"Sorry," Rose said. "That was unnecessary and completely uncalled for. I didn’t mean it as a dig."
"I know."
"Then, can I ask you something."
"Sure, what"
"The wager. You’re two behind now. Does that feel different to being one behind?"
Luc took a turn without slowing. "You’ve been following it."
"I started following everything about you." She said it without flinching now, the embarrassment had already been spent. "That’s the thing I told you in the car park. I meant it literally."
"Two behind feels the same as one behind," Luc said. "It means I need two goals now."
"Do you think you’ll get them?"
He looked at her once. "Yes."
Rose smiled a bit.
The car turned onto her street.
It was a quiet road in the fourteenth. Older buildings, small balconies with dead plants still in their pots. The street felt residential and slightly forgotten but it looked comfortable.
He pulled up outside the address she’d given him.
The engine was still running.
Rose was sitting with her hands in her lap and her cap on her knee and her pink hair catching the orange of the street lamp, making it glow a slightly different colour.
"Thank you for the lift."
She reached for the car door handle and opened it a few inches.
She didn’t get out immediately.
"I know this is complicated," Rose said. "I know you have someone. I know I play for the club that is basically the enemy of everything you’re doing this season." She didn’t turn around. "I’m not asking for anything. I just thought you deserved to know that there’s a person who watches every match and who thinks you’re the most interesting man she’s ever seen."
Luc looked at the road ahead. He didn’t expect any of this. Atleast not today.
Rose looked down, gathering whatever courage she had left.
"You can-- come up, if you’d like."
It wasn’t a desperate ploy. It definitely wasn’t rehearsed.
She got out of the car and walked to the building entrance without looking back.
Luc watched the entrance. Juliette was going to be off for a few weeks for a conference or meeting, and he had already said he wasn’t returning to her apartment because of Alexi. The next round of fixtures was another set of domestic cup games.
His alternative was going home to sulk after a 2-0 defeat to a club thirteenth in the table.
He killed the engine.
