Author's note: Thank you so much for the warm welcome this story has received. For all those nice comments, the favourites and the follows. Please, do keep them coming. Feedback = inspiration, motivation, always good.

I agree. There is not enough Wade Barrett fic around indeed. I loved "Pocket Rocket", but unfortanutely I gobbled it up to quickly... Kudos to the writer, by the way.


"Come on," he told her in the gentlest version of his raucous voice, "some broom closet is hardly the right place for this." His hand still on her shoulder, he let her down the corridor to his room, internally cursing fate for getting him into all kinds of trouble again and again and again.

He bid her to sit down on the sofa and for a second he hovered at the door, from which he took in the sight of her sitting on the sofa crying quietly and hugging herself. It was a pitiful sight and despite his gruff sort of character touched something inside of him.

All that crying must have left her parched, so he got a bottle of water from the mini-bar, opened it and gently held it under her nose. In order to do so he had to squat down next to her. She raised her head ever so slightly to look at him, trying to figure out why he had approached her. Then her eyes settled on the water. She reached for it and nodded gratefully. At least he had done something right.

"I'm sorry about the room," she said eventually after having taken a couple of sips from the cold water. She sniveled her nose and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Do you have any tissues?" she asked sheepishly.

He nodded. One singular nod, then a couple of seconds later a box of tissues was held under her nose. He had quickly gotten it from the bathroom. The hotel's emblem, imprinted on the rectangle metal box, gleamed up briefly under the artificial light from the ceiling.

"Thank you." Natalie pulled one of those tissues out of the box and noisily blew her nose.

For a second she had been distracted from the pain she felt. But now the one sentence that had dominated her thought process was slowly coming back to the forefront of her consciousness. It was like a mantra that repeated itself over and over. My father died. My father died. My father died. "My father died," she eventually choked out, before she started to cry again. At this point she had done so much crying that her eyes hurt and her throat hurt too, but it seemed like she wasn't done with it yet.

"How did he die?" she heard him ask. His matter-of-fact way of absorbing the information surprised her enough to raise her head and feel the need to answer him.

"A stroke," she said in a small kind of voice.

"Unexpected?"

"Yeah," Natalie nodded, thinking back to her last conversation with her dad. Something about how much their respective jobs sucked and how they needed a holiday. Trivial things. If she had known that this would have been their last ever conversation, she would have made sure to talk about more important things than that. She would have made it count.

The sound of displeasure he made and his rough, but not unpleasant voice ripped her out of her reverie. "Crap."

Surprisingly his swearing made her smile briefly and for the briefest of moments the corners of his mouth twitched as if he felt a compulsion to reciprocate that smile. It was only an educated guess. He was a stranger after all, she didn't have a clue about what was going on inside of him. A stranger... It was time to leave. What kind of image did sitting around crying in a guest's room project?

"I'm sorry. It's going to be fine now. I'll go... Thank you...," she faltered.

"Stuart," he held out his hand to her. It was big, the gesture energetic.

Hesitantly she grabbed it and his fingers closed around hers and squeezed immediately. "Natalie."

She felt another wave of sadness hit her. He let go of her hand and sat down in the armchair opposite the door. It only occurred to her now that he was dressed for a work-out. This morning she had been too keen to please him to notice and later, well, later in the face of the news that her father had died, it simply hadn't mattered.

He showed no inclination whatsoever to get up and hold open the door for her, so she guessed she had to do it herself. She stood up. She was trying not to cry this time, so a tiny drop of tear fluid leaked from her nose. In passing she quickly took another tissue from the box, although she was unsure what to do with the used one she was still holding in her other fist.

"Just for future reference, Natalie, us wrestlers, we don't appreciate any cheesy lines about our gimmicks. It's not cute. It's not charming. It certainly won't score you any bonus points with people."

What was he talking about? For a moment she had to wrack her brains because everything prior to that fateful phone call seemed to have been erased from her memory.

"Are you talking about our conversation from this morning?"

"We haven't had too many conversations to pick from, have we?" He asked leaning back in his armchair looking at her.

For now she wasn't leaving, but she wasn't staying either. She was standing in front of the couch, unsure whether to sit down or not.

"Sit," he said not unkindly. "You're in no condition to go anywhere. Good thing that a crying woman leaving my hotel room in the morning won't damage my image, huh?"

She blinked a couple of times, unsure how to respond to that.

"That was supposed to be some kind of lame joke...," he clarified.

"Ah, okay." The room was completely silent for a couple of minutes.

She made a couple of sluggish steps toward the couch where she had sat before. Apparently not ready to sit down yet, she looked at him.

"Why would you bring up that conversation again? It was such a rude thing to say..."

He stayed silent trying to put together an answer to her question in his head. The truth was he didn't really know. It had just been an impulse. He didn't want her to leave, so he had to say something to stop her from doing so. Why he had wanted her to stay was just as difficult a question as the other ones. Consoling her was a pain in the ass. But he had to do it, unfortunately. He had started thinking of her in a more personal way, so calling her a faceless hotel lackey in his head didn't work anymore. Now he cared for what happened to her. She had a name now, a back-story. She was someone to him now, however cumbersome that was.

"Well, look at yourself," he motioned at her with his hand. "You've got mascara under your eyes," those words made her wipe repeatedly underneath the aforementioned eyes, while he already talked on, "You're barely holding it together, so you won't last a second outside there without turning into a sniveling mess again..."

"So you chose to insult me?"

"Insult you?" He smirked. "Come on. You weren't insulted..."

"Actually... No... I can't say I was," she had stopped rubbing at her mascara and was now staring at the couch as if it was some mystery object, not a simple piece of furniture.

"Maybe there's something wrong with me...," she thought out loud. Her eyes were still on that blasted sofa. He got up, for a moment hovering in one spot indecisively. Then, when he had reached a decision about what to do, he took a few steps towards her. His hand gently touched her shoulder, but she still flinched and sucked in a breath.

"Sit down," he told her again.

"Why? It won't make a difference..." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "This is all such a mess."

His eyes narrowed a bit there. He stepped in front of her. She was stubbornly still staring in the same spot. What a pleasant day this was turning out to be. Why couldn't this have happened to someone with actual social skills, like his mates Stephen and Drew?

"Natalie," her name from his lips sounded unfamiliar. It was the British accent. It sort of altered it and gave it a new ring. Or maybe it was just his exasperation with her shining through. At any rate she finally looked at him.

"You're right, whether you're sitting or standing won't make a difference. Won't bring your dad back from the dead, but neither is you crying or anything else you're going to do for that matter..."

His words made her breath hitch. For a moment there she looked like she was about to smack him or possibly cry again. He didn't care much whether she hit him or not. She didn't look like she packed much of a punch. What he did care about though was whether the waterworks would start again. He had had enough of that.

Quite surprisingly, instead of crying, she stopped being pigheaded and brushed past him to let herself slump down on the couch with a huff.

"Are you always this honest?" she asked craning back her neck to look at him, because he was very tall and still towering over her.

Instead of an answer he turned around and sat back down in his chair from before. "Why? Does it bother you? You wouldn't be the first, sunshine, and certainly not the last," he smirked at her like he was proud of himself because of that.

"It's better than lying at any rate," she said stubbornly, sitting up a bit straighter as she uttered those words. Of course the fact that she was still sniveling was undermining her pathetic attempt at aloofness.

He squinted his eyes together looking her over, because her remark forced him to reassess her. Only now he went through the trouble of actually taking the time to look at her properly. Up until that moment thinking of her in terms of that pretty brown-haired woman from reception had been enough. She had those girl next door looks. Brown eyes, aesthetically pleasing features. Her nose was neither too big nor too small and her lips were a regular pair of lips. Nothing extraordinary, but still pretty to look at.

Having finished his re-evaluation of her, he leaned back in his seat, deciding to speak again. "Better than lying, I see. So you've been lied to a lot in the past?"

Her face that had been pale before flushed a little at his words. She pressed her lips together. Obviously he had hit a nerve. "I don't want to talk about that now... This is already hard enough."

"Cause you're busy feeling sorry for yourself...," he supplied.

"What? Why would you say something like that?" Fresh tears were glistening in her eyes now. He was bolloxing things up badly by the looks of it, but he couldn't and wouldn't act any differently than he did. This was him trying to console her. If she wasn't satisfied with what he tried here, she could leave just as well.

"In my experience... when people die, you don't just cry because they're dead. You cry because you feel sorry that you can't talk to them anymore. You're crying because you're aware of your own mortality for once. You're crying because you're thinking about what's missing from your life... This is not actually about your dad."

"Wow!" she actually laughed a little there despite her tears. "Wow!" she repeated, genuinely taken aback and scandalized. "Is that how you see things? Have you never lost somebody close to you?"

He regarded her for a couple of seconds. In order to do so, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his outstretched arms and his folded hands pointing at her. The artificial light from above cast dark shadows on his face and accentuated his crooked nose. "I have. Everyone has. Death and suffering and pain, that's what this life is about sometimes. The importance is just not to let it get you down..."

"Right, looks like you really live by that credo. You're so cheerful," she shot back unthinkingly. His rudeness and brutal honesty had made her forget that in the real world thoughts needed to be run through a filter before they could become actual opinions expressed in sentences.

He didn't rebuke her for her behavior, he just sat there as if her words didn't have any impact on him, but she was still embarrassed for herself. "I...," she looked down, twisting the remains of one of her handkerchiefs in her hands. "That was uncalled for. After all you tried your best..."

"Yeah, I tried my best to stop you from crying."

"I'm still crying," she pointed out.

"Never said I was any good at it," he observed as he rubbed his hands together and regarded his palms.

His remark made her smile, despite... well, despite everything. It was only a brief and fleeting success, because her smile fell just as quickly and on top of that he never saw it because he was still busy staring at his hands. Although she'd rather not admit it, her mood was changing. The conversation with him had indeed distracted her from being sad, at least for a while there.

"So what's your fondest memory of your old man? What kind of bloke was he?" he eventually asked. Those questions seemed forced, like he felt they were expected of him. Perhaps he was trying again to cheer her up. For both of their sakes she decided to play along.

"Funny story," she actually smiled briefly when she said that. "My dad was a sports fanatic. He used to watch soccer matches all the time. After mum died, I tried everything to get his attention, find some common ground. We didn't have that much to talk about, so I figured if I liked soccer like him, we'd finally have something to bond over..." Her words were spoken softly, but it was clear that they were important despite of that.

"So my fondest memory of him would probably have to be me and him playing soccer in the backyard when I was ten," she answered and her brown eyes transfixed him across the room. For some reason it made him feel uncomfortable. This was way too personal. He got up, started walking. That didn't deter her from continuing to speak.

"It was just him and me and that was fun. I think," she smiled, "he let me win most of the time. Then later, when things got busier with his job, he didn't have the time or the energy for that any more. So we started watching games together..."

"You mentioned that your mum died... What happened?" Like a bloody masochist he felt the need to learn more about her. Now that he had stopped feeling uncomfortable about the amount of information she dispensed he had become curious. It was bad. Bad and disgusting like reading gossipy articles in The Sun or OK! Magazine, still he couldn't stop himself.

"Died when I was little. Car accident."

That was that. She fell silent again.

How was he supposed to bridge that gaping silence? Not that he was opposed to silence of any kind, actually he was a huge fan of silence. It had the pleasant side effect of masking ignorance at times. But right now silence wasn't really constructive. If he left her with enough time on her hands, she would inevitably start feeling sorry for herself again. Not that talking about one's dead parents was a particularly uplifting alternative, mind you.

"So football...," he attempted to get the conversation back on track. She looked at him abruptly and with wonder in her eyes, as he had just brought it to her attention again that he too was inside this very room with her.

"Yes?"

"So you watched football with your old man..."

"I also played. Later in college."

"What position did you play?"

"Midfield."

There was a brief moment of silence. The information of her playing football somehow didn't fit with the rest of what he had learned so far about her. Perhaps it was a lie? He wanted to check to be sure.

"Central? Defensive? Attacking? You haven't given me much to work with here..."

"Mostly defensive," she told him, throwing him an odd look.

"All right then."

Their conversation sort of came to a halt there. After all, they were forced to spend time together and get to know each other because of outside circumstances. Under those conditions there was only so much you could talk about.

"So, do you have someone to talk to about your dad?" he asked eventually.

She looked at him for a moment, trying to understand the context out of which this question had been asked, because it wasn't apparent. It was starting to dawn on her that he obviously wanted to get rid of her now. "Yes," she said eventually.

He scratched his chin for a second. "Well, for your sake I hope they're less rubbish at this than I am..."

"No, don't say that," she protested. "Thank you for putting up with me. I'm sorry you had to see this. Actually," her face briefly settled into a grimace, "I'm kind of embarrassed about how I behaved just there. Maybe I should go now...," she said already getting up. He noticed how she, true to her own words, was visibly embarrassed and awkward all of a sudden. Why she should feel the need for that now of all times was beyond him. In his humble opinion, the perfect time for it would have been when she had been crying and noisily blowing her snotty nose on those hankies. Being embarrassed at this particular point in time did only make sense if she only realized now that she had given away far too much personal information to a practical stranger.

"No one's keeping you," he said non-committally and got up as well to hold the door open for her.

He could tell she didn't know what to make of his comment. It made him smirk discreetly, curious how to see she would handle it. Under pressure most people would revert to their default behavior pattern. Apparently hers was politeness.

"Thank you so much again. I mean it," she told him again and actually stopped to meet his eyes one last time.

Because he couldn't come up with something snide to say now and there was no amusement to be had from verbally dismantling your interlocutor when he or she is at a visible disadvantage, he limited himself to the words: "You're welcome."


Finally home. Natalie turned the keys and quickly stepped inside. The door was barely closed and she was already leaning against it. The left one of her shoes, she was about to kick both off, was hanging onto her foot by her big toe before it eventually landed on the floor with a thud. She looked down on the tanning line on her left ring finger like she did a lot of times during the day. The apartment was silent. Natalie sighed. Tony had moved out a couple of months ago.

If she walked the remaining steps down the corridor that gave into the living room, she would soon see proof of their separation and she wasn't sure she could take that right now. The couch was still there, but she had to buy a new TV, because he had taken the old one along with his half of the DVD collection. He had taken some of her movies too, but she didn't have the energy to argue about that on top of everything else. She had thought she had hit her low point with being a newly divorced woman of barely thirty, but apparently it could get much worse than that. Now she was a parent-less, newly divorced woman of barely thirty.

She let her back slide down the door. Her bag sort of fell from her shoulder in the process and landed on the floor next to her. She didn't have enough energy left to cry. Her forehead touched her knees as she bent forward. What was she going to do now? She was a very practical sort of lady - moping around just wasn't her style, but right now even standing up and slouching to the bedroom seemed like a challenge. Of all the rooms the bedroom was the worst, by the way. That's where she was reminded most of Tony, that and the kitchen. But right now mourning the end of her marriage took the back burner to mourning the death of her father.

What was it her dad had said? One thing at a time. Not the most brilliant advice, however just perfect for the situation at hand. You have to take your time to do things. You can't do everything at once. One step after the other.


The Smackdown taping had gone according to plan. For once there had been no injuries, no glitches, just smooth sailing. He and his mate Steve had pummeled the bleeding hell out of each other, they had a lot of experience doing that because they went way back, and had given the audience a rather decent show, if he might add. To his great satisfaction, actually the thought still made him smirk, there had been "this is awesome" chants. At least people were able to recognize talent when it practically smacked them right in the bloody faces.

Now he was about to check-out of the hotel. There was another pretty reception lady sitting behind the desk looking at him with bright eyes and an equally bright smile.

"I hope you had a pleasant stay with us...," she said cheerfully, baring her pearly-whites at him in a smile as she handed him the bill over the counter. The number at the bottom consisted of four digits, not of three like he had expected. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I thought we had taken care of that problem already..."

"What problem, sir?"

"A problem I would like to discuss with the Executive Manager, because I talked to her about it in the first place and you wouldn't know anything about it or be able to help me," he told her with an annoyed look on his face.

That made that smile of hers quickly fall. She even seemed nervous now. "Of course, sir. Right away, sir," she said in a subdued kind of voice before she reached for the telephone into which she muttered a couple of soft spoken words. A minute or so later the lift doors to their right opened and he heard the approaching tac-tac-tac of a pair of heels walking on the polished stone floor.

"Mr Bennett. You're still here?" he heard her address him with a mixture of uneasiness and politeness in her voice. He turned his head to look at her. She was smiling awkwardly and contrary to last time he had seen her when her face had been tear-streaked, she looked impeccable. Not a hair out of place. Still there was that sadness in her eyes that even her artificial smile couldn't make go away.

"Obviously," he answered in a dry, sardonic fashion. It had been a rather dense and superfluous question, considering that he just had had the receptionist call her.

"So... how can I help you?"

"Didn't you promise me you'd only charge me for a regular single room?"

"Yes, I believe I did," she said cautiously, because caution was advisable judging by the look on his face. He seemed more disgruntled than usual.

"Care to explain this then," he handed her his hotel bill and she visibly blanched.

"Oh, dear!" her professional façade slipped for a second there. Her eyes grew huge and she kept looking back and forth between the sheet of paper and his face.

"Exactly."

"Miss Wilson," she addressed the girl behind the counter, slipping back into the role of a confident business woman as she did, "I'll take care of Mr. Bennett's problem."

The girl in question nodded and Natalie quickly disappeared behind the reception desk, muttering further apologies as she started to furiously type something into a keyboard, which was doubtlessly supposed to inspire the printer to spit out the correct hotel bill as quickly as possible.

As Stuart waited, he took the time to observe her more closely. Underneath her polite demeanor she seemed on edge. Her eyes looked tired. Her smile was a little too bright and showed too many teeth when she finally handed him the new and improved version of his bill. He looked at the sheet one last time and signed it. The company would take care of it, so he just needed to put his name on the dotted line.

"Again I am so sorry, Mr. Bennett. On top of everything else this shouldn't have happened. I'll hope you'll consider staying with us regardless the next time you come to New York."

Her artificiality was almost painful to witness now, even more so when her eyes betrayed her. But that was none of his business he told himself. It was time to leave anyway.

"I will consider it," he said non-committally and picked up his duffel bag from the floor.

"Please do," she said and held out her hand to him over the counter. For a second or two he regarded it as if he was surprised by the gesture, then he eventually shook it. The grasp of his hand was firm, his palms felt rough, but warm. For the brief duration of the handshake their eyes met. Again it struck him how sad she looked, despite trying to hide it so well. He let go of her hand and stepped away from the counter.

He turned and walked away. Unbidden, yesterday's conversation with her resurfaced from his memory. He stopped walking right when he had reached the revolving door that presented the exit of the hotel. A string of mumbled curses left his lips. He cared. Damn it!

With a displeased scowl on his face he marched back to the reception desk where Natalie awaited him with an apprehensive expression on her face.

He reached inside the breast pocket of his jacket and produced one of his business cards. With a gesture of almost disdain he placed it on the shiny marble surface of the counter.

"Come on! Take it. It won't bite."

She looked at the glossy black card with the white lettering on it with a tiny bit of suspicion, but eventually reached for it. It had his name, address, email and telephone number on it, she discovered as she gingerly picked it up and turned it over.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're trying to tell me here..."

His eyes sparkled at her in a rather belligerent way and she shut up immediately. In an unexpected display of almost sensitivity he lowered his voice. Almost sensitivity because on the one hand he seemed to be aware that her colleague was listening, but on the other he was thoroughly uncaring of however rude his words were.

"Oh please! Spare me," he managed to sound just as gruff as normally despite his lowered voice. "Look at yourself. You've got that suicidal expression in your eyes again..."

"I... I... Don't. Whatever gave you that idea?" her voice was hushed too, but on edge.

"Everything about you practically screams 'I'm a so bloody sad, please rescue me.'," he scoffed. "So kindly do both of us a favour, take the blasted card, shut up about it and give me a call before you decide to do something drastic like offing yourself."

She gaped at his words. It was unimaginable to her how a single human being could be so spiteful and yet again somewhat caring. Because no matter how enraged she was by his comments, the good intention behind them was also pretty easy to spot. He just chose to mask it behind being immensely hurtful.

"Why, I would never!" she gasped.

"That's reassuring," he shot back dryly. "At any rate, if you want to talk...," he sighed, apparently feeling pained and regretful about making the offer, "give me a call."

"Why would I? You don't seem like you would be happy hearing from me," she replied, despite the fact that she had already slipped his card into the chest pocket of her blazer.

"Perhaps I wouldn't, but there are things like morals. And despite my strong wish to not be bothered with your personal drama, there is such a thing as right or wrong. I feel morally and personally obligated to do this..." He didn't give her a chance to answer there. What would she have said anyway? Surely nothing intelligent judging by the dumbfounded expression on her face. At any rate he had done what he had expected himself to do and that was enough, so he turned and left.


Contrary to what Stuart thought, Natalie didn't have any wish to "off" herself. She did however feel the increasingly strong wish to run away from her life in New York.

She did eventually tell her friend Paul what happened and he gave her the shoulder to cry on, her conversation with Stuart had failed to provide her with. But eventually when she was home alone again, on those quite evenings she spent alone staring at the TV, but not actually following any program she watched, she thought about things. About life and death and the sense of it all.

After everything that had happened she felt numb and tired. She felt like she was running on autopilot at work. What was worst about it was the fact that she was forced to smile at guests and pretend that she was cheerful while she was just tired of it all. She was tired of pretending she was okay. Because she really wasn't.

That had become quite clear to her early on because smiling now required an almost in humane amount of effort, whereas in the past it had come easy to her. Working as a hotel manager was her dream job. She had loved it. Somewhere deep down she supposed she still loved it, just not right now.

What surprised her and shocked her was also the fact that some people close to her could tell immediately that something was up, while she had been convinced she had everybody fooled. Paul just looked at her once, for about half a second and stated that he could tell there was something wrong with her, which had led to her breaking down and crying and him consoling her, being her very much supportive best friend. He provided comfort without no ulterior motive. There was nothing in it for him sexually, because he was gay. All he got out of the deal was a soggy T-shirt and the satisfaction of being there for a friend.

But the comfort he provided wasn't enough. He couldn't be there 24/7. He couldn't be there whenever she felt lonely at night in a flat that was much too big for one person. So at her personal low point she hunted down her work blazer from the laundry basket, reached inside it with jittery fingers and pulled out Stuart's card.

She knew that calling him was a bad idea right as soon as she pressed the call button, but she remembered talking to him and how it had made her feel less numb, despite the shock of her father's death being quite fresh.

"Yes," he answered simply and she could hear the noise of many voices talking in the background. Obviously he was in a place where a lot of people were around.

"This is erm... Natalie," she said insecurely, already regretting her decision.

"Right. Hold on a second," he replied. His voice was muffled when he spoke again. He was probably covering the mouthpiece with his hand, because his words were clearly not directed at her. "I'm dreadfully sorry," What? Fake politeness? He had to be talking to someone important, "but I have to take this. It's important."

The sound of voices in the background decreased significantly. Then he spoke again. "Step away from the ledge, sunshine. I'm here."

What had she expected honestly? At this point she was discouraged enough to consider hanging up right away. "Sorry, to bother you..."

"Actually surprisingly you're not bothering me at all, you just provided me with a very good excuse to escape the most boring and tedious conversation I've ever had the pleasure of participating in..." His voice actually had a pleased note to it. She identified it as such, because she had never heard anything comparable in his dulcet tones other than annoyance and boredom.

"Who were you talking to?"

"The boss's daughter. She thought I was interested in kiddy birthday parties for some reason... Must be my face that clearly screams I'm dying to talk about renting bouncy castles," he drawled sarcastically.

"You certainly don't give off that impression..."

"What a relief," Stu's response was about as dry as the Mojave Desert. So very, very dry indeed. "So since you're not standing on the ledge what is the point and purpose of this call?"

"I don't know," she replied truthfully.

"Okay, this is would have to be the point where I would actually hang up if the prospect of going back in there instead wasn't so overwhelmingly lacking in appeal..."

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can. Whether I'll answer is a different matter though."

"Right," she licked her lips, considering the alternatives to the sentence that was on the tip of her tongue. She found none, even though it was a rather tactless thing to say. Perhaps being prone to his rudeness had actually dulled her own awareness of what was socially acceptable. "Why are you always like that?"

He laughed, genuinely amused by her question. "And here I thought that you'd say something deep for a change... I'm sorry but you won't get a tale of woe and sorrow out of me. That's just the way I am."

For a while there she remained quiet.

"Depressing, innit? When something can't be romanticized."

"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to understand you better."

"Understand this: if you're looking to be mollycoddled, go look somewhere else. If you want to talk about nonsense, don't bother me again. My time is too precious for that."

She chewed her bottom lip. Again as so many times when talking to him, she was wavering between fascination and repulsion. And yet again fascination paired with a little desperation thrown in the mix eventually won out and compelled her to ask the following question: "What would be a valuable use of your precious time then?"

"Was that a hint of sarcasm just there? Heavens, didn't know you had it in you. Easy! Don't strain yourself now."

"I just prefer irony to sarcasm. It's less hurtful."

"And yet you consciously seek out conversations with me. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that's plain masochism."

"You haven't answered my question yet..."

"What question?"

"The question as to what constitutes a valuable use of your time?"

"Football... Literature... Wrestling," she could almost see him counting of those things on his fingers before her mind's eye.

"Football would be an option."

"Good. Before this goes any further, let me check if she's gone. If so, this conversation would of course inevitably be over...," a brief pause followed. She should have used it to let him know that he was conceited, insensitive and a pompous ass, but she didn't for some reason. It was probably because right now she was rather low on self-esteem.

"Talk, she's still blocking the way to the free food."

For the next half an hour they had a surprisingly entertaining and lively discussion about football. At some points in the conversation she thought she could even detect amusement in his voice. His gruffness and his abrasiveness were starting to bother her less and less now, as she became more and more focused on what he was saying instead of how he was saying it.

Their conversation over the phone was fun while it lasted, but eventually one of them had to hang up. In the end it was her that ended the phone call. He had just told her about his favorite team, Preston North End, and she had been barely able to suppress a yawn. It wasn't that she wasn't interested, she was, but it was getting late and she needed to go to work tomorrow. She knew that he would rip her to shreds for yawning when he talked about something he loved, so she didn't want to risk anything.

After carefully working her way towards a smooth exit, she eventually thanked him for listening. A grave mistake as it turned out. Contrary to other Brits she had met, he didn't do polite self-effacement.

"You do well to thank me. After all I spent all this time out on the terrace, in spite of being at the reception, like I was supposed to."

"Where are you anyway?"

"Florida."

She smiled. "I'm sure the temperatures should be no danger to your weather-proof, sturdy British physiology."

"Charming. Do give irony a try more often. It makes you less boring."

"I think this constitutes about the 100th barely veiled insult you've thrown at me tonight," she told him.

"Always happy to oblige."