Post by Cross Recoba on Mar 7, 2019 7:43:09 GMT -5
NOTE: JOINT CD WITH DAKOTA JENNINGS
9th February 2019 - Ernakulam, India
For a country he’d spent the last two weeks running into the ground in interviews and on Twitter he had to admit - the service in India wasn’t bad at all. He’d abandoned relaxing in the suite to instead take in a soccer game in the hotel bar. He’d abandoned any hope of watching Palermo’s match against Perugia on the big screen when he entered the bar and saw a sea of red Manchester United shirts. Instead, he’d made peace with the fact that he’d have to watch his team on a stream on his iPad whilst keeping an eye on the one-sided affair that was United vs Fulham.
The bottle of Kingfisher Premium in front of him was helping, he’d decided before the trip to stick to bottled drinks only, having heard nightmare stories about people drinking from the local water supplies. The only thing breaking the peace for Recoba on the eve of his Chimera Tag Tournament match with Alexis Terry against The Zombie Clan was the incessant chant that spread from the TV and into the hotel bar.
"Ole’s at the wheel,
Tell me how good, does it feel
We’ve got Sanchez, Paul Pogba and Fred
Marcus Rashford is Manc born and bred"
Like most things that happen in life, it stemmed from something he couldn’t control but that he needed to change. He sent a tweet out to try and distract himself.
His phone soon lit up with a reply he didn’t expect
Thumbing at the red foil on her third bottle of Budweiser, Dakota lamented the incessant noise from the Indian fans, watching some game of football that she couldn’t care less about if she tried. Her other thumb alternating between the bowl of complimentary crisps, if you could call them that, and her pricey cellphone.
Ever since she’d got into India, she’d found herself getting more and more irate at everything and the crap that was flooding her Twitter timeline was making her feel every inch the bear with a sore head, that and the few beers she’d had the night before. The first three had tasted pretty good so she figured why not have three, or six more.
Necking the rest of the bottle, she ordered one more as she thumbed down her phone, seeing a tweet that she couldn’t resist.
She replied with a friendly tweet and it had seemingly snowballed from there, all the way back to their usual flirting, which she attempted to shoot down with her usual charm, or lack thereof.
When that had received no replies, she had gotten a little worried, in spite of Cross’ request that she give him five minutes so she quickly necked the new bottle, shouting “Another!” to the bemused barman.
As he walked in, she looked over to the barman, requesting that he make that another two. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if Cross even liked Budweiser, but, he was her guest and that was final.
“Take a pew, handsome. Tell me all about it.” She said with a smile.
Cross walked over, sitting next to her at the bar, deliberately sitting as close to her as possible. A subconscious thing more than anything, but he was still glad that she didn’t shift away. Passing over the beer, she smiled, clinking the bottle with him.
“So, you saw what happened at Equinox? I tried to warn them. Cross. You know me, I don’t do friendly…..anymore. I seriously thought that us splitting up was gonna help both of us, but, here we are, sitting in some bar, listening to whatever the fuck that game is. Turns out maybe I was just being stupid.”
“Manchester VS Fulham, ‘Kota.” He said, sarcastically, not broaching the subject of their former relationship. He was relieved to see her smile as he looked over.
“Shut it!,” She said with a smile, “I’m trying to lament here and you with that goofy grin isn’t helping any.”
Taking a sip of his own beer he gently placed his hand over hers, a friendly gesture, but he had ulterior motives, altruistic as they were.
“Listen, I have been watching you and you know we’ve both come so close to that reconciliation, although Andrew is still on the scene, right?”
Dakota nearly spat her drink out, surprised, she turned toward him, her eyes prickling with tears.
“Of course NOT! Jeez, Cross. He left me weeks ago, he couldn’t get over the fact that I was still speaking to you, even if it was just over Twitter. The truth is, he wanted me for the fame, I wanted him because he wasn’t you.” She lied, running a hand over her eyes to hide her emotions.
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“It’s not, I was still so angry at you, probably for all the wrong reasons too. Then all this crap arose between myself, Vannah and Neo Tokyo. I am so bitter, all the time. I know you don’t like Vannah and probably never will, but she is my friend, although I seem to even be alienating her as well. Seriously, what is wrong with me?”
Cross took the pause to take a sip from his beer. He chose his next words carefully.
“Look, Red, you’re making waves in Valor, I’d call that a good thing. The question you need to ask yourself is - are you in a better position professionally now than you were when you thought all people saw in you was being my eye candy?,” Cross studied her face to see if he could read her thoughts but found nothing, “You’re right about Vannah but it’s your career - only you can take it further…”
Recoba looked at his watch, wrestling with a hangover was something that Alexis Terry might have felt comfortable doing but that was her burden, not his.
“Of course I’m happier professionally, but at what cost, Cross? I’m not the same person you knew - when that bell rings something just goes off inside my head…”
Cross squeezed her hand harder in reassurance.
“You don’t need to beat yourself up over it if you’ve developed a killer instinct. It’s a good sign…” Cross tried to stress the importance of his words.
“Maybe, I’ve just been second-guessing myself since I took that leg to her head.”
“In which case, get some rest…”
Cross stood and reached out a hand to help Dakota to her feet.
“Do you want me to see you to your door? India isn’t known for being particularly safe…”
Dakota smiled at the offer.
“My hotel is only across the street, thanks for the offer but I’ll head back to my room and try and put my head down.”
She leant over to him and kissed him on the cheek discreetly sliding a piece of paper with her room number on it into his trouser pocket.
*****