The Saint Maddox Odyssey

”Ooh... cousin, this is gorgeous!” A gift was always expected, naturally.

What does Saint actually bring back from Italy, trip after trip? Designer clothes, mostly, and the odd bottle of something expensive, not quite his own taste, but exactly the sort of thing Grace was happy to help pick out whenever he asked, along with a few bits of skincare she swore by.

”These weren’t cheap, surely.” Linda eyed the clothes and the neatly boxed skincare with visible concern.

”Right, well, your nephew finally shows his face, and this is what he brings, not even asking if we need anything.” Despite the protest, Chloe had already slipped the dress on, admiring herself in the mirror.

”Honestly, it’s nothing, I’ve been working a proper job for years now,” Saint said, and in his own head, it genuinely wasn’t much. Since his last contract renewal, his salary had climbed well into seven figures, comfortably among the highest earners in the sport, let alone anywhere else.

”Saint, love, earning well doesn’t mean spending carelessly. You’ll need every penny saved up for when you settle down properly. No more presents, understood?” Linda said it with real sincerity.

”Auntie, I’m thirty-one, not sixteen,” Saint said, a little helplessly.

”Plenty of people your age are already married with kids,” Linda shot back, entirely unmoved.

”Right, and how long are you actually staying this time? I’ll get your aunt to line up a few girls to meet while you’re here,” Derek chimed in, even more eager than his wife.

”No, absolutely not. I genuinely can’t stay long this trip,” Saint said immediately, panic flickering across his face.

”How long, exactly?” Derek gave him a long, unimpressed look.

”A week,” Saint admitted, with real guilt in his voice.

It was late June. Pre-season training was already booked in for early July, Premier League fixtures started earlier than Championship ones, and with Villa newly promoted, there was considerably more to prepare before the season kicked off properly.

”A week? You disappear for years at a time, and when you finally show up, it’s for a week?” Derek’s temper flared.

”Uncle, don’t be angry, I promise, this won’t be the pattern going forward. I’ll come back every year from now on,” Saint said quickly, trying to smooth it over.

”There’s genuinely no getting around it this time, the club’s just gone up a division, there’s a mountain of work waiting, and I need to get back early to prepare properly.” He laid out the explanation as best he could.

”What job is so important it can’t wait a few extra days for family?” Derek wasn’t fully placated. Saint was his sister’s only child, and the bond between them had never been anything less than close.

”Derek, love, it’s his work, leave the boy be,” Linda stepped in before Saint had to defend himself any further.

”Bloody job,” Derek muttered, though the fight visibly drained out of him the moment Linda weighed in.

”Right, I’m shattered, genuinely. Night, Uncle, Auntie...” Saint made his escape without waiting for a response.

”Cheeky little sod.” Derek watched him go, muttering under his breath, with nothing left to actually say about it. Chloe disappeared off to her room with her new dress not long after, and Linda and Derek followed shortly after that.

”No, I don’t care, this blind date’s happening. I refuse to believe he can’t find a single decent girl while he’s here,” Derek grumbled, apparently not done with the subject even once they were alone.

”Fine, I’ll ring a few friends tomorrow, see who might suit,” Linda said, not remotely opposed to the idea.

Both of them, if anything, wanted Saint to move home properly far more than Saint himself ever considered it, a graduate of a genuinely prestigious university, and here he was chasing a coaching career abroad instead. From where they sat, that always carried the quiet worry that it might all come to nothing.

The night passed without further incident, and Saint genuinely slept, properly slept, the kind of rest that had been eluding him most of the season. Whatever tension he’d carried in on the flight had already dissolved; if anything, he found himself enjoying this stretch more than he’d expected.

Good mood, deep sleep, and before long he’d drifted off completely, the kind of heavy, dreamless night he hadn’t managed in weeks.

Saint’s internal clock still woke him early regardless. By the time he made it out of his room, Linda had already left for the restaurant, and Chloe’s room looked empty too.

As it turned out, Chloe had beaten him up by some margin, barely two minutes after Saint emerged, she came bounding down the stairs already dressed in the outfit he’d brought back the night before.

”Right, cousin, what d’you fancy doing today?” Her parents had given her explicit instructions the night before: show her cousin a proper time while he was here.

”Breakfast first,” Saint said. Food, as ever, took priority over sightseeing in his book.

”Honestly, cousin, this whole area’s barely recognisable from four years ago,” Chloe said as they walked. Four years is plenty of time for a place to transform, especially somewhere that had been quietly growing the whole while nobody was watching closely.

Saint understood that better than most, in fact, he’d watched, in another life, exactly how dramatically this kind of regional town could reshape itself inside a decade, once the right investment finally arrived.

”Fancy coming down to the studio lot, see how they actually film this stuff?” Saint had never once watched a production in progress, and the curiosity was genuine.

”Ha! Can’t promise much, but that particular thing, I can absolutely deliver,” Chloe said, already pulling a laminated pass out of her bag.

”Through your friend?” Saint had half-guessed as much the evening before. He recognised the name the moment Chloe mentioned it, Eve was currently filming some big period fantasy series, the kind of show that gets remade every few years and still pulls an audience every time.

The production crew had apparently taken to ordering regularly from Derek’s restaurant during filming, and a mobile phone forgotten behind one day, belonging to Eve herself, had become the accidental bridge between the two young women.

Similar ages, easy rapport, and before long the restaurant had become something close to the cast’s unofficial canteen, with Chloe handling deliveries personally. She’d even picked up a bit of background extra work along the way, after catching the director’s eye on set.

Chloe carried her mother’s looks fairly plainly, though with a sharper, livelier energy layered over the top, easy to see why she’d made friends on set so quickly.

Breakfast done, the two of them set off together. Where they were staying sat close enough to the restaurant that the walk barely took ten minutes.

Compared to Saint’s memory of the place, the changes were obvious everywhere he looked, considerably more foot traffic, and plenty of what were clearly visitors rather than locals, drawn in by the same production work Chloe had been describing.

”Mum, we’re here!” Breakfast service had already wound down, which meant the restaurant was relatively quiet when they arrived.

”What brings you two round?” Linda asked, looking up.

”Saint wants to see how they actually film things, so we came by to wait, I’ll head over with the lunch delivery around midday,” Chloe explained.

”If he wants to see it properly, just take him along now, don’t bother waiting for the delivery run,” Linda said.

”Auntie, am I really that much of a guest here?” Saint asked, mock-wounded.

”Course not, you’re exactly as much mine as Chloe is,” Linda said, and she meant every word of it. However many years had passed, the bond between her and Saint’s own mother had never faded, and in a quiet, roundabout way, it was Saint’s mother who’d first brought Linda and Derek together in the first place.

”Well, if that’s the case, don’t go treating me any different, then.” Over the following few days, Saint found himself, somewhat unexpectedly, doing a proper stint as the restaurant’s own delivery boy.