Harbinger Of Glory

”I should have had us grab some food,” Leo muttered in discomfort as he made his way up the stairs to Sophia’s apartment.

”Seriously, though,” he muttered with a sigh as he glanced at the odd-looking and out-of-place rock by the side of the door.

”It’s like they want people to rob them,” he muttered before bending over to grab the fake rock, which held the apartment keys as its contents.

When he opened the door, he was appalled to say the least.

Mia’s revision cards were scattered across the coffee table like she’d been studying and then remembered she had somewhere to be.

Sofia’s reading glasses were sitting on top of a book left face down on the counter.

It was the one thing she always said she’d never do to a book, and yet.

Looking over to the sink, there were dishes and dirty mugs that had been left untouched.

Leo stood in the doorway for a second with a look of annoyance drawn over his face.

He sighed a moment later before closing the door behind him.

And as he did, he hung his jacket up and went under the sink for the bin bags.

”Just this once,” he muttered as he thought about a tired Sophie returning from work to come and clean the mess since Mia was definitely not going to do it.

He started with the obvious things and worked outward from there.

First, surfaces and floors before grabbing the vacuum by the side of the bathroom.

By the time he was done, the place looked like people had finally chosen to live in it.

With a tired grunt, he dropped into the couch, but then he realised he hadn’t showered that morning.

Jake hadn’t really given him the time to do so when he grabbed him out of his unit at the accommodation complex.

It was only enough to brush his teeth and not enough to form other thoughts about his hygiene.

Not really excited with the thought of him staying in the stench, he rose to his feet and made his room, or the new storage room for Mia’s things.

The shower helped more than he expected, and after he was done, he changed into clothes he’d left at the apartment for moments like these.

And now, as he settled back into the living room, he had only one thought.

Food next.

He picked up his phone and opened the delivery app before leaning against the kitchen counter while he scrolled through options, not because of indecision but because everything was looking delicious now, but that was all it did, and he didn’t want to buy for appearance’s sake.

He settled eventually and confirmed the order, which the app told him would take 20 minutes.

After that, he set the phone down and picked up one of Mia’s revision cards from the table and looked at it without reading it.

A second later, he opened the fridge, stood in front of it and closed it again without taking anything.

Then he went to the window and looked at the street for a while before he came back and sat back on the couch.

It was almost like sitting still would kill him, and so over the course of the next quarter hour, he lingered until the buzzer outside the door rang.

”Finally,” he muttered as he lunged over the couch and made his way towards the door.

He brought the food in, set it on the coffee table, but had barely opened the bag when his phone went off.

It was Vittoria.

He answered and put her on speaker while he sorted the containers out in front of him.

”Well, well, well,” she said with a tinge of happiness in her voice.

”Well, well, what?” Leo questioned with a chuckle.

”I watched the game.”

”Yeah?”

”The goal,” she said, and then paused.

”I don’t really have words for it.”

”That makes two of us,” Leo said before pulling the lid off one of the containers.

”So, how is it like being a Premier League player?” she kept on, trying to tease Leo, but the latter ignored her.

”Enough about me, alright. How are you?”

”Tired. We had a shoot the night before and this morning.”

”I wanted to call you last night so you could keep me company during my late-night shoot, but it looked like you had enough going on. And I didn’t want to disturb my emotional support football player.”

”Wooow,” Leo sounded while Vittoria laughed on the other side.

”So that is how it is.”

”That is exactly how it is,” she came back through the call.

They talked for a while as Leo ate, drifting through topics that involved the two of them, while Vittoria asked Leo what he was going to do with the break he had.

He was most of the way through the food when he heard a key in the lock.

Mia came in, school bag on one shoulder, and stopped when she saw the apartment.

She looked at the living room.

Then the kitchen.

Then at Leo on the sofa.

”Did you clean?” she said.

”Why would I do that. I came to meet your plush toys going around with vacuums while some stood at the sink with the dishes,” Leo said, prompting a laugh from Vittoria on the other side.

Mia’s expression changed entirely, not missing the sarcasm in Leo’s voice.

After that, she dropped her bag and came directly to the sofa.

”Vittoria, hi,” she said, loud enough to be heard through the phone.

”I hope he treats you better than he does me.”

Hearing Mia’s words, Vittoria paused and then laughed on the other end while Leo shoved her sister before pointing towards one of the containers with food inside.

”You love me,” Mia said and then ran away with the container before Leo could take it back.

.....

The season was over, but that didn’t mean things would work themselves out.

The everyday staff at the Wigan training complex were minimal, but the same couldn’t be said for the other half, who mostly dealt with paperwork.

The meeting room on the third floor of Wigan’s administrative building had six people in it, most of them with laptops open or notepads in front of them, and Xavier at the head of the table was addressing them currently.

Jonas Xavier had been director of youth for four years before the promotion had shifted his responsibilities upward and outward.

He’d been the one almost a year back, who had nodded when Malachi had brought him the name of a kid at Manchester United’s academy who one of their then assistant coaches, Dawson, thought was worth a closer look.

He didn’t think about that often back then, but with all that had happened, he did.

”The scouting system needs rebuilding from scratch,” he said, looking around the table.

”What we had was built for the Championship. The remit, the targets, the regions we were covering. None of it translates to where we are going to be now. We need to be looking at a different level of players entirely.”