The sexual fog in my brain clears at her very specific words. “What are you talking about, Vilma?”
“This,” she says, pointing back and forth between the two of us as her eyes blink rapidly. “It’s too intense. It’s not sensible. I can’t fully believe it. But if we have sex, if we lay with each other…then we’ll know for certain.”
My brows lift. “You think having sex will be telling?”
“Yes!” she exclaims, looking up, her eyes wide and fiery on mine. “You are a footballer, and you speak of passion. No better test for love than sex. I need to see you, Vaughn. All of you. Then I will know my heart completely.”
My pulse races in my veins as it dawns on me what she’s fully saying. “Are you saying you might love me too, Vilma?” I ask, the hopefulness in my voice loud and clear.
“I’m not sure. I just…need you to stay with me tonight. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I narrow my eyes and cross my arms over my chest. “As long as tomorrow includes forever.”
“God, you cocky, arrogant footballer…” She begins what I believe to be a slur of expletives in Swedish, and good Christ, it makes my cock even harder than before. “Are you coming back to my flat or not, footballer?”
I smile victoriously. “Lead the way, future Mrs. Harris.”
• • •
Vaughn Harris – Fifteen Years Later
I knew the night I met my wife that it would mean certain death, but I just assumed it would be the death of life as I knew it. I never once considered it could be the actual death of my wife.
Not my darling Vilma.
I stare into the rundown East London cemetery as the freezing December rain pelts me in the face. I haven’t been here since we buried Vilma. And even though she’s been gone for years, I still think that if I walk into this cemetery, if I look at my wife’s gravestone, if I touch that grass that covers her body…I’ll be dead too.
And I’ve been dead for seven fucking years already.
If Vilma were here, she’d snap me out of this. She was my sunshine and strength, my passion and love. She was everything I ever wanted out of life and more than I ever could have imagined.
The first time she saw me play football in Manchester, I proposed to her. It was after she said yes in the stands of Old Trafford Stadium that she told me she was pregnant from our first night together in London.
I was terrified.
But not Vilma.
She was ready.
She was ready to love me, marry me, and make me a father. Motherhood didn’t scare her a bit. She charged after it as though it was her destiny.
And that was just the beginning.
After that, our life became a carousel of babies and football. She traveled with me with a toddler on her hip and another baby in her belly. Then we had those twins we spoke of the first night we met, and just when we thought we were done creating life together, another surprise baby turned us into a family of seven, with four boys and one girl.
Vilma was happy.
Which was incredible because it was utter chaos in our small Manchester flat. At one point, we had four children under the age of five, and not a night went by when we didn’t have a little one sleeping in our bed.
Bloody hell, we were happy.
Until cancer came into our lives and slowly sucked all the vibrant sunlight from my beautiful wife’s body and all the passion for football out of mine.
Since her death, I’ve been a shell of a human trapped in agony and pain, darkness and destruction. Seven years of being an absent, angry father. I’ve been so horrible to all my children that my young Vi had to become a fill-in mummy at the age of five. She’s so much like her mum that it’s hard to look at her sometimes. Blonde and strong and challenging, she is the epitome of her namesake. She’s not even the oldest of the lot, but the boys all look to her for guidance. And bloody hell, I’m middle-aged and so do I.
The twins, Tanner and Camden, are all right, all things considered. They’re a lot like their mum too. They see life through rose-tinted glasses despite the fact they lost their mum as toddlers. They’re growing up to be joyful little troublemakers, no thanks to me.