Harbinger Of Glory

[The Next day]

Leo had been lying on his bed for about ten minutes, doing absolutely nothing useful other than beating himself up for something he’d missed the previous night that had come to him.

Vittoria’s words from the previous night.

The bit about her leaving unless he was going to offer her his room.

He closed his eyes.

Opened them.

And then closed them again.

”Oh,” he said, to the ceiling.

He rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow for a moment, screamed and then rolled back to stare up at the ceiling again.

And as he did so, his sister, Mia, stood in his door frame, taking in the scene, which was her eighteen-year-old brother lying diagonally across his bed in yesterday’s clothes, staring at nothing with the expression of someone who had just understood a joke three hours after everyone else had stopped laughing.

She looked weirdly at him for a long moment before she left, pulling the door behind her without saying anything, which was somehow worse than if she’d said something.

Leo sat up after that.

”Do better,” he said to himself, firmly, and got up.

Vittoria had texted him the previous night after getting inside her hotel, something about a possible outing today, which he’d just confirmed a while ago after waking up.

After that, he showered, got dressed and went to the window to check the weather.

The sun was doing something it rarely bothered to do in Manchester, which was actually showing up properly, sitting high and sharp and fully committed.

And it was starting to look like a problem.

”Just the one day I decide to go out,” Leo muttered as he reached for a hat.

Outside his room, the doorbell went off, and as it did, a series of tapping on the wooden floors told Leo that Mia was probably going to get it.

As Mia did so, Leo grabbed his things and turned toward the door of his room, only for a knock to come from the other side of it.

He opened it, and the moment he did, Vittoria sidestepped him before he’d fully processed she was there.

”Hi,” she said before walking past him into the room and looking around with the easy curiosity of someone who had started feeling comfortable enough to be nosy.

”How are you this morning?” she said, already moving toward the window.

”I’m okay,” Leo said, watching her from the doorway, not entirely sure whether to go in or stay out.

A second later, he went in and shut the door behind him.

She turned from the window and looked at the room properly, running her eyes across the desk and the small shelf before turning to look at Leo.

”So,” she said. ”You’re eighteen now and a big boy,” she said, gesturing the last string of words with her hands, which made Leo laugh.

”You have three months before the season, and so what are you going to do with yourself?”

Leo leaned against the wall, seemingly in thought, before looking back at her.

”What did you do when you turned eighteen?”

Vittoria thought about it.

”Nothing really.”

Leo pointed after that, and not at her specifically, but at what she’d said.

”Exactly. That’s what I’m doing.”

She smiled. ”Nothing?”

”Nothing,” he said.

”Pre-season starts late July and runs through to early August, so I’ve got June and most of July. I’ll use it to just get myself right for the Premier League. Aside from that,” he said, shrugging, ”Nothing.”

Vittoria nodded slowly and drifted toward the bed before sitting on the edge of it, and as she did, her eyes landed on the bedside table.

She looked at it for a moment and then looked at Leo with a very particular expression before she pointed at the hand gel sitting beside the lamp.

Leo, for once, read her expression and intent immediately.

”I don’t even live here,” he immediately cut off her thoughts.

Vittoria burst out laughing, and Leo pointed at her.

”Dirty-brained,” he said.

She was still laughing when she stood up.

”Are you ready for fun?”

”Yes,” Leo said, and reached for the spare cap on the shelf, crossed the room, and put it on her head without asking before pulling the brim down slightly.

Vittoria went still for a second.

”The sun out there isn’t going to be nice,” he said, and opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

She followed, quiet for a moment, and then they were moving.

Manchester on a genuinely sunny day became a different city.

On the streets, people emerged from wherever they spent the grey months and filled the city, trying to make the most of this sunny day, since most of the time, their weather was never in agreement with them.

Leo and Vittoria though, walked without a fixed plan, which turned out to be the right approach.

Their first stop was a market where Leo had felt the need to run since the energy Vittorai had started giving off was the same Mia and Sofia did whenever they had him escort them so they could shop.

”Look at that,” she said as she hopped from a stall to the next, eyeing every trinket in the vicinity.

After that, they walked for a while, and then it was lunch somewhere small and loud, where they talked for most of the time.

By the time they found themselves outside a cafe with drinks in hand, the afternoon had settled into a dull tone, with the sun’s glare reducing, and Leo was in the middle of saying something when Vittoria flinched.

It wasn’t anything too dramatic, but Leo noticed immediately.

”What?” he said as he stared at her shoulder go down.

”A flash,” she said, not moving her head. ”I think I saw a camera flash from somewhere behind you.”

Leo’s brow went up, and he turned casually, trying to look like he was just looking at the street, but he saw nothing obvious.

”You want to go?” he said, trying his best to make Vittoria feel unthreatened, but she shook her head.

”No. It’s fine.”

He turned back.

”How do you even feel that? Like, how do you know what a camera flash feels like from a distance?”

Vittoria looked at him, then she pointed at her own face.

”I’m beautiful,” she said, completely straight.

Leo laughed, genuinely, and she smiled because she knew it was a ridiculous answer.

”Yes, that you are, but it had nothing to do with the question,” he said, causing her to pause for a bit at his words before she recovered.

”It has everything to do with the question,” she said with a smile as she felt a warm feeling bubbling up in her chest.

”When you spend as much time in front of cameras as I have, you just start to know. You feel it.”

Leo went quiet for a second, looking at her properly.

Then he set his cup down and brought both index fingers up to either side of his head, pressing them lightly against his temples and closing his eyes.

Vittoria watched him.

”What are you doing?”

”Seeing if I can sense a football anywhere nearby,” he said.

”Because of how much time I’ve spent around them.”

Vittoria laughed so suddenly that some of the dalgona coffee came down her chin.

She grabbed Leo’s shoulder next with her free hand, trying to recover while telling him she was being serious.

”Okay, okay,” Leo said as his hands went up in a surrender.

Then he reached into his pocket, found a tissue, and held her chin lightly with two fingers while he wiped away the coffee.

Vittoria went very still, almost like prey afraid that any movement would cause its demise.

She was looking directly at his face, which was closer than it needed to be for what he was doing, but what surprised her was the calmness with which he was doing it.

”Was he always this bold?” she questioned inwardly, but inside Leo’s head, it was considerably less calm.

The do better he’d said to himself that morning had been about last night and had not been a mandate to hold this girl’s face in a cafe in Manchester.

He was aware of the discrepancy, and at the moment, he was dealing with it by not dealing with it and focusing on the tissue.

He had finished wiping, but now it was suddenly hard to pull his hand away.

After smearing the coffee in the tissure on her chin and then cleaning it up for the umpteenth time, he finally got the composure to pull back.

As he did, Vittoria looked away toward the street, and whatever was happening on her face, she aimed at the passing traffic for a few seconds before she also found her composure and brought it back, yet as she did, her heart was doing something she was choosing not to examine too closely.