Rags 2 Pitches: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (2 page)

Chapter 3

Ryan

I’d had such a shit day, and it got worse when I got home and saw the police standing outside. They’re always on the block. That’s why even the damn ambulances and taxis (not that I’ve ever called one, but I’ve been told) never enter the block. The estate was doomed from the moment they put us all in here. They call it the ‘Fuckers block’, because everyone lives here claims benefits. So, they think that we all have no prospects, and that includes the kids. That’s why I train hard at football.

I’d managed to get a job at McDonald’s when I was sixteen and since then every weekend (the Saturday’s I didn’t play football) and holidays I worked there. I needed the money to pay for my boots, clothes and, more importantly, to stay in the Academy. That was my only hope of a scout seeing me play and signing me up. Mum wouldn’t give me a penny, even if she had it. She spent everything on making the flat look nice for her next boyfriend, or buying make-up to get a new one or keep the existing one.

“What’s up this time?” I asked. I was fucking exhausted. I’d picked the twins up, dropped them home, went training for the big game this weekend and now there were a couple of pigs (slang for police) just standing there talking to Mum.

“And what’s your name?” one of them asked, ignoring my initial question. I knew that I had to answer him, otherwise he would probably take me in for obstructing justice or something.

“Ryan Thompson. Why?”

The tall black pig was going to answer. He didn’t get a chance as the other lanky one who didn’t look like he could run a mile. Let alone tackle anyone on the estate, answered for him, “’Cause there was some trouble with…”

He flicked through his notes and that was when I saw what the trouble was, as clear as day.

“Mrs. Hope,” Mum said as she tried to open her right eye, which had clearly met the fist of her latest boyfriend. It was like the second time this week and it was only Tuesday.

Mum liked to call herself, ‘Mrs’. I’d never understood why when she’d never been married and, by the look of things, would never be married. No man wanted her, my dad and all the others after him, just use her and, as soon as they get bored, they’re out of the door. That’s why she had four different kids by three different men and none of them had put a ring on her finger.

“You live here?”

I wondered how he’d got into the police force. He didn’t seem very sharp. He questioned me as I used my own key to open the door; first my name and now if I lived here. Before I could reply the tall one said, “Answer the question.”

Really?

I nodded, “Yes, I live here with my two brothers, sister and me mum.”

I was waiting for them to ask the next question, where was my sister, as they started looking around the stuffy living room. This place was big, spacious compared to other flats, but there were just too many things in it. The sofa clearly didn’t fit, along with the oversized television, stereo system and everything else that she shouldn’t be able to afford on her benefits.

“This is the second time we’ve been called this week, and the fifth this year.”

At last someone had started to realize that Mum is not a fit mother. Do not get me wrong, if I’d had the dough, I would have taken my brothers and sister to live somewhere with me. And, in fact, what I’d noticed was the older she got, the more desperate she’d become. She seemed to cling on to anyone, not thinking about the welfare of my brothers or sister, only herself.

“We’re going to have to report this to social services. Your neighbours are complaining about the noise. Your daughter; where’s she?”

Mum didn’t hesitate, “With my sister.”

They should go and check her out; she’s no better than Mum. I wanted to say something and, looking back, I really wished I had done. The only reason Mum had a black eye right now and the only reason my sister was not living with us was because this guy is not only violent with mum, but he’s a perv too. There’s no fucking two ways about it.

I’d been the one who’d begged Aunt Dawn to look after sis. Mum was in some fucking la-la land and didn’t want to believe that she’d brought some sex-offender into the house, but it was true. It was so fucking obvious that this new guy, I don’t even know his real name, it changes every time he walks in the door, he must be on the fucking register or something. It ain’t normal for a grown man to ask an eight–year-old to walk around the house naked. It ain’t normal for a grown man to ask an eight–year-old to sit on his lap.

Shit, they’d only been going out two months, but he’d asked sis to do it once and I’d told Mum about it. The second time, I’d begged Aunt Dawn to take her in. Just like Mum she thinks she deserves a lifelong welfare cheque for existing, never working or paying into the system.

I gave my aunt my McDonald’s money just so my sis didn’t get raped or something by this guy. Something wasn’t right with him in the head, and Mum either, and the whole fucking situation had to stop.

The next thing I knew there was someone ringing the doorbell, and I opened it and there she was, looking like the red-head from Desperate Housewives. “Ryan, is it?”

I didn’t know why she had asked me that, she had been to the house a dozen times. “It’s me, Carol from Social Services. Is your mum in?” I nodded, thinking that this was going to be one big circus. I just needed a few months to get signed by a big team and then I could look after my siblings. I knew I could. But as they came in and started talking about taking them into care right then, I felt a cold chill run down my spine. It wasn’t going to wait a few more months, the whole thing was going to be sorted out right here and now.

Chapter 4

Nicola

I’d been bunking off school so much lately that I felt that if I didn’t go in, then I would be lucky to pass my A levels, let alone get into uni. I needed to get out of the house. The fights between my parents were driving me mad. Mum had even turned to the bottle. She was just so obsessed with Dad, it made no sense, she just needed to apply for a divorce.

Hayley’s mum had done it and so had Tara’s.

My iPod had been my best friend, I seemed to have it on all the time just so I didn’t have to hear the noise in the house. I hated the British weather sometimes, it was only four thirty and it was pitch black out. School had finished around thirty minutes before, but I had wanted to stay late just so that I could study in peace.

I knew that they would both be at home fighting as usual and, as much as I tried to block out the noise, I always managed to hear them rowing and it upset me.

“Nicola you have to leave, it’s getting to five,” Mrs Campbell said.

“Can I not stay thirty more minutes? I just need to get this section on Haloalkanes and then I’ve nailed it.”

She sighed as she looked at me. She could probably see the desperation in my eyes. It was a topic that I always struggled to comprehend, and going over it again in silence was key. Especially seeing as it was one of the topics on my paper next week.

“Thirty minutes, and that’s all,” her grey eyes were sympathetic as she moved to the other side of the library. I would be out by then. Go home. Shower and then hit the sack, that was my plan. But, as they say, life doesn’t always go according to your plans.

***

I was walking only a few minutes from my house. The street lights were my only guidance as the odd car passed me. I’d stopped because my iPod wasn’t playing any tracks. I was looking at it trying to figure out if it was the ear-piece or something was up with it.

That was when someone snatched my iPod out of my hand. I never even heard him coming. Then another grabbed my bag as I started to chase the guy that had taken my iPod.

A couple just ignored me as I shouted out, “He stole my bag!” They were moving in the opposite direction of my house. But, I was a woman on a mission, until I fell down. That was when he quickly ran past me, the guy from across the road, the one that I saw every morning, staring at me.

The next thing I knew, as I tried to stand up and he kept on chasing them, was he had the guy on the ground, and he was shouting at him, “Give her her fucking bag, you prick!”

The guy who stole my bag was screaming back, “Leave me alone, you fucker!” They were wrestling for my bag. The guy threw a punch at my hero and he missed. I should have been scared for him, or even told him to forget it, but part of me found it so exciting. He must have seen me from across the street. My heart missed a beat as my hero held on to my bag. Most of my belongings were scattered on the ground, and I ran to them to pick them up.

I didn’t care about my purse, there was only a tenner in it.

I certainly didn’t care about the bag; I had a couple at home. I wanted my iPod because I had so many podcasts on it. Even my iPad, I didn’t even worry about that. When it was clear that the robber wasn’t going to win, he quickly jumped on a bike. The guy that had stolen my iPod was on it, telling the other guy to hop on, and then they left.

My hero shouted, “Did you see the plates?”

“What?” I was too busy trying to figure out if my chemistry notes had been left behind.

“Stuff that, did you see the plates on the bike?”

It was then that I realized what he was talking about. I had remembered that everything was on my Mac, so I didn’t need my iPod as much as I’d thought I did, or my iPad which the guy had conveniently picked up before he hopped on the bike.

I sighed, “No.” I slumped down next to my notes. That was when the couple who were walking by, and others, started to gather on the street. I was annoyed that they’d never bothered to help when those guys were stealing my things, and now they wanted to be concerned.

I hated foul language and rarely used it myself, but I was so damn mad I shouted, “What the fuck you looking at?” They looked at me in disgust and did the same thing that they had done when I was being mugged: they walked on by as if it didn’t matter to them, because it didn’t. It was my loss and my mistake and I knew that I would pay the price one way or another.

Chapter 5

Ryan

“He fucking got on his bike. You should be more careful,” I panted as I ran back to her. She was acting like someone who had just had all their money thrown up in the air and they had to get every last note, before someone stole it.

The only thing that was worth anything was her iPod. Shit, I’d always wanted one of them. I thought they’d stolen her tablet too, or it could have been an iPad. Either way, I knew while helping her pick up her papers that none of them were cheap. They’d cost money that I couldn’t even think about spending.

She had tears in her blue eyes, and sadness washed over her face as she mumbled, “Thanks for helping me. My dad’s going to kill me.”

Thoughts of my mum’s boyfriends and how they’d treated her rushed through my mind as I grabbed her arm and said, “I won’t let him.”

She was prettier than she’d appeared from across the road. Tougher too; I’d laughed at her swearing at the couple who’d been watching her as she’d picked her papers up off the ground. No offer of help or anything, just watching as if they were bloody watching Coronation Street. I hated the way some people acted sometimes. One guy had decided to run with me and he’d said that he’d seen what they did and thought that he could help. He’d given me a piece of paper with the registration number on. He was her second hero of the night.

I was just the guy who’d decided, after two years, to walk across the street and ask her out on a date - not that I had money for that. Then, while I had been talking to myself and trying to figure out what I was going to say, I’d decided that I would just ask her her name. I didn’t know what I was going to say, I just knew that I had to talk to her.

Who knew why after all this time I’d decided to be brave? Maybe it was the crap with Mum and her boyfriend, or the fact that Social Services had said that seeing as my sister wasn’t in the house, they would just take my brothers into care. They wanted to take them, but then Nan came to the rescue to stop them from doing so.

Loneliness crept through my skin from time-to-time, but something had made me feel bold tonight when I’d seen those scumbags steal her bag. I was happy that it made me feel that way, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get her bag back.

“I don’t mean he’ll literally kill me,” she blushed as she said it, and the street lights shone on her as if she were a beautiful damsel in distress.

She wiped away her tears, “Did you get the plates of the bike or something.? I saw you talking to that guy before.”

Ryan to earth, I thought as I blinked a couple of times, trying to get my senses together. I felt stupid, thinking that she would have a pig of a dad, like one of my mum’s boyfriends.

I nodded like a bobbing toy. She sighed, “My dad will be happy at least there’s a lead and maybe we can get my stuff back?”

I agreed, but I knew that wasn’t the case. The police didn’t give a toss about such crimes. Especially when they saw the likes of me. We walked and she didn’t stop talking all the way. The woman l had been crazy in love with for so long was walking by my side and having a conversation with me.

I wasn’t ready.

I felt like a wimp.

I could deal with mum’s boyfriends. I could deal with the football team calling me scum. I couldn’t take it if the woman that I was in love with from afar thought I was an idiot or, even worse, a piece of scum. That was the thing that was bugging me. Every time I wanted to say something, this stupid voice kept telling me that I was an idiot.

She had a posh accent, and a scent that I couldn’t even place. One thing for sure, it wasn’t a discount perfume from the supermarket. Fuck, it smelt so posh. Some of those perfumes are fucking vile, they’re so sharp or so polluted that they just smell like water with a dash of rose or something. There was something extraordinary about her; maybe it was the gleam in her eye when she looked at me. And then when we finally arrived at her house, I said, “Which number is your flat?”

She laughed as she said, “The whole house is ours.”

“What you, your mum and dad live in this house alone?”

She smiled, “Yes.”

I knew once again that my fear was a reality. I was nothing compared to her, my world was completely different. Her world was full of fancy perfumes and posh words. Mine was just full of scum.