In this tunnel vision, I don’t have think about what I’m feeling.
“Alejo,” Luciano says as everyone disappears inside. “Come on. Let me take you out for a few beers tonight. You’re not playing tomorrow anyway, so I can get you good and properly drunk. You deserve to let loose, blow off a little steam, and not the punching your manager in the face variety.”
I stare at him blankly. “Can I get so drunk that I don’t feel my legs?”
He gives me a cautious smile. “Sure thing.”
Eight beers later and I think I’ve finally forgotten what my problem was.
Or is.
Is it still a problem?
It’s hard to tell right now.
I’m sitting in the VIP lounge at The Last Resort with Luciano.
He’s had one beer and has been drinking nothing but water and limes all night long. Captain of the team with a game tomorrow and all that.
I, on the other hand, do not have a game tomorrow since I’ve been suspended, so I’m just drinking my face off in hopes of obliterating whatever problem has been afflicting me.
So far, it’s working.
I know there’s something wrong, but it’s off in the distance, behind a wall, and if I don’t look over there, if I don’t open a door and let it out, I won’t think about it.
I won’t think about her.
Shit.
Don’t think about her.
Don’t think about Thalia.
Don’t think about the fact that she’s gone.
I blink and Luciano waves his hand in front of my face.
“I don’t know man, you seem pretty drunk,” he says, as if I was just in a conversation with him about it.
“Thalia,” I whisper.
“Yes, Thalia, I know,” he says. “We’re going around in circles man, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better. You’re supposed to drink to forget, not to remember.”
Okay, I guess I’m a lot more drunk than I thought I was.
“What time is it?” I ask him.
“It’s after midnight,” Luciano says, looking across the bar at a couple of girls who are giggling in the corner, stealing glances at us. I can’t really see what they look like clearly, they’re kind of blurry.
“Who are you looking at?” I ask him, slurring my words a little.
“Those two little hot numbers over there that are trying to work up the courage to approach the security and ask if they can have our autograph.”
“You figured out all that just by looking at them?”
“It’s a gift,” he says, leaning back on the sofa. “If you were up to it, I would entertain the idea. Have them come over. Give us some attention. Fuck, I can’t remember the last time I got laid.”
The idea of having sex has a soothing quality, like pouring liquid anesthesia over a wound.
But as much as having a one-night stand with a stranger would have appealed to me in the past, it has no appeal now.
I want sex, but not with whoever those girls are.
I just want Thalia.
I want that skin on skin contact, the connection, the easy feel of our limbs tangling with each other. I want to push inside her and feel that much closer to heaven, taste the sweetness of her mouth and give myself over to her like a prayer.
I want her.
No one else but her.
And even with her gone, even though she left without saying goodbye, even though she has made it so very fucking clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with me, I would rather sleep with her ghost every night than be with someone else.
Her ghost is all I have.
“You know what? Fuck it,” Luciano says. He gets up and goes over to the girls and starts talking to them. One of them looks over at me, obviously asking about me, obviously intrigued, but Luciano just waves me away. For all I know, he might be planning to bring both of them home with him. Wouldn’t be the first time a football player has been able to do that.
Me, though, I’ve had enough.
With Luciano occupied, I leave the bar and get into an Uber, nearly passing out on the drive.
When I arrive at home, it’s one a.m. and it’s raining.
I take my ball and head out into the pitch in the backyard.
I dribble, kick a few balls, my aim still good even though I’m obliterated.
I play drunk until the sun starts to come up and the rain subsides and Thalia’s ghost has been washed clean of me.
Chapter 29
Thalia
Greece
Three weeks later
“Excuse me, miss?” a woman says in a heavy Greek accent. “You forgot