Harbinger Of Glory

The aircraft touched down at Manchester Airport with a slight jolt, and almost immediately the cabin filled with life again as the passengers in it, mainly the Wigan players and some of the staff, shifted in their seats, eager to be off and moving.

A week and a half or 11 days to be exact.

That was how long they had spent away, though in truth, it had felt longer.

Germany and Italy had done things to their sense of time, making it seem like they’d been away for decades, but stepping right back into England seemed to have undone it all.

By the time they got out of the arrivals, the team bus was already waiting.

They filed inside once they got all their luggage or travel bags sorted, mainly talking slightly about what was next for them as the bus moved away from the Ringway airport under the lenses of some of the people around.

When the bus pulled into the complex lot, Jake was out of his seat before it had fully stopped.

Nolan, already fed up with Jake’s antics, stood to address him, but Dawson shook his head to stop him as they both watched Jake get off.

Thirty seconds later, he was standing beside the GLE with both arms around it, and not metaphorically.

He had both arms wrapped around the car, or at least, wrapped around the bit he could wrap his arm around.

All while this happened, the rest of the players got down and began moving to their respective cars or modes of transport, while Leo, Ezra and Carlo stood a few feet away watching this happen.

After that, Jake released the car, got in, and immediately wound the window down.

Then, without warning, he inhaled with the commitment of a man trying to draw the entire air in the interior into his lungs at once.

”He missed a car,” Ezra said.

”He missed the car,” Leo confirmed as Carlo shook his head and walked to his Vantage.

Leo followed a second later and got in before waving the other duo goodbye.

Leo and Carlo sat in the quiet of the car without speaking, which, after a week of constant movement and noise, felt exactly right.

Like the rest of the players, Carlo pulled out of the lot, and Leo watched the complex disappear behind them, and it was the most comfortable either of them had been in days.

Carlo pulled up outside Leo’s apartment building twelve minutes later.

”Cheers mate,” Leo said as he reached to open the door.

Carlo nodded once and watched Leo get out, collect his bag from the back, before he went inside, and it was only then that Carlo began to pull away.

For Leo, entering his apartment, it told the story before he had finished opening the door.

A jacket on the floor that was not his jacket.

Shoes near the entrance that were not his shoes.

Something on the kitchen counter that should have been in the fridge, and then a cushion on the floor.

Leo stood in the doorway and looked at it all, and then stepped inside.

He picked up the bag that was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, which he identified as Mia’s by the keyring attached to the zip, and carried it to the side.

”Do I have a Racoon and didn’t know?” he muttered as he went past the living room and turned left toward the master bedroom.

There, Mia was on the floor beside the bed, asleep with her upper half slumped against the mattress and the rest of her on the carpet.

Leo looked at her and stood there for a full ten seconds running through every diabolical option to wake her up available to him, and then, with considerable restraint, turned and walked back out and let her sleep.

He put his bag in the hallway, pulled out what needed to go in the wash and put it in the basket, ordered food from his phone, and then began cleaning, but the vacuum was what did it.

Mia appeared in the living room doorway a quarter of an hour later with the expression of someone surfacing from significant sleep depth, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

”When did you get back?” she said as she moved groggily forward.

”When you were hanging off the side of the bed like a monkey,” Leo said, not stopping.

Mia processed this before yawning.

”What time is it?”

”It’s 11 am!”

”And also, I gave you those keys for when you wanted to visit,” Leo said.

”Not to trash the place.”

”I didn’t trash it.”

Leo looked around the apartment and then back at her.

She looked at the apartment too, then looked away after she felt Leo’s gaze still on her.

”What?” she muttered while Leo sighed.

”Freshen up,” he said. ”I ordered food since I was feeling too tired to cook!”

She nodded and disappeared, and then reappeared thirty seconds later with a toothbrush in her mouth and her hand extended for the second vacuum attachment, and together, they cleaned.

”How’s Sofia?” Leo said as the cleaning began to wind down.

Mia moved a cushion back to where it belonged.

”Better than most, considering her football star nephew sends her a bottle of wine every other week. She’s starting to build a collection now!”

Leo smiled at nothing in particular and kept vacuuming.

”She deserves it,” he muttered, and the two didn’t speak again until everything was done.

When the apartment looked like itself again, Mia went for a proper shower and came back looking considerably more like a person, and sat down just as the food arrived.

Mia got the door, and once more, they ate in silence, filling each other in on the slight changes in their lives, at least, until Mia swallowed and then set her fork down.

”So,” she said as Leo looked up.

”Vittoria,” she said, with both eyebrows raised and the smirk of someone who had been saving this.

The food went somewhere it shouldn’t have internally, and Leo reached for his water, drank and then leaned across and flicked her on the forehead.

”Ow—”

”Don’t be nosey,” he said.

”And remember, I apply the same rules to you when the time comes.”

Mia rubbed her forehead and went back to her food with the expression of someone who had made their point and was satisfied.

They took the bus to the Manchester apartment afterwards, which Mia had opinions about.

”Every footballer I’ve ever seen gets a car, if they don’t have one with their first paycheck,” she said, looking out the window.

”I haven’t gotten my first paycheck yet,” Leo said as Mia turned to look at him.

”You’re joking,” her eyes widened.

”The contract only started this month.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but then turned back to the window.

”That’s actually a good reason,” she said, in the tone of someone conceding a point they had been prepared to argue about for longer.