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It was Saturday, and Robertson was bored. And he didn’t mean just regular “bored”. Only the absolute pinnacle of boredom could describe what he felt at the moment .
Alexander-Arnold was on vacation. Milner was in Japan. Alisson was still on vacation, Van Dijk was on vacation…okay, a lot of players were on vacation. And those that weren’t happened to be close enough that they didn’t try to follow Robertson around.
It was so hot that day that nobody had the energy to do anything. Robertson had tried to go outside to play five-a-side, but he’d stood there for five minutes before running away from the sun. Now he had to shower before his inevitable sunburn got too bad, and he ended up looking like a tomato again.
He burst into a hotel room and instantly started looking for his suntan lotion. Only when he didn’t find it did he realise the truth. This wasn’t his room— it was Endo’s room.
Robertson gulped, stepping away from the suitcase he’d tore open during his search. Endo had a reputation for being one of the grumpiest members of the squad, and he would riot if he found out Robertson had gone through his things. But before he could escape, Robertson found a shiny, glittery, notebook with Dragon Ball stickers laying on top of the suitcase.
He knew it was a bad idea. But his curiosity couldn’t resist something so shiny, especially after a day that had been the metaphorical representation of ennui.
“MOHAMED!!!”
*
“MO! MomomomomomomomoMOOOOOOOO!”
Salah put down his copy of Laughing Wild , shaking his head at the comical sight of Robertson bouncing up and down in his doorway like a toddler. “I’m right here, Andy.”
“Mo, you’ve got to see this!” Robertson slapped the notebook onto the bed with a satisfied grin. “It’s got Dragon Ball stickers on it!”
“Harvey will love this.” Salah raised an eyebrow at the notebook. “Ibou let you borrow his manga sketchbook? Next thing you know, Spurs might actually start winning things.”
Robertson scoffed. “Oh, that’ll never happen. And it’s not Ibou’s book. I got it from Wataru’s room. I was thinking we could see what’s inside it.”
As soon as Salah heard the word Wataru , his face blanched to a shade of white very similar to Robertson own. “Are you crazy?! Wataru’s going to kill us if he finds out we were in his things!”
“He can’t get you. You’re the Egyptian King, Mo-meister!” Robertson jumped onto the bed, swishing his legs in the air as he laid his head on Salah's lap and opened the book. “Now, let’s see what he’s got in there!”
Damn sheets of paper bound with glue that was probably made from animal skin,
It is July 24th, 2024. Apparently, Ibou thinks it’s a good idea for me to start a “gratitude journal”.
Robertson burst out laughing. “Wataru and a gratitude journal?! No wonder the book actually looks interesting. It’s Ibou’s.”
Salah, despite his hesitance, couldn’t help but chuckle. “As usual, he’s not having it.”
I think it’s stupid. What’s the point of thanking a piece of paper for something unrelated?
I can’t even THINK of anything. What am I supposed to be thankful for? This sweltering heat that’s cooking me alive? The humidity that’s like a bowl of miso soup, ready to swallow me whole? I don’t even LIKE the pool, and yet I’ve floated in it for half an hour trying to beat the heat. Does the United States know what air conditioning is?!
“I swear they’re trying to cook us,” Salah groaned. “I mean, it’s hot sometimes back in Nagreg, but this is something else entirely.”
Robbo is being annoying again, and we just got here.
Robertson gasped in shock, his eyes widening to the size of footballs. “I am not annoying!”
Salah smirked, ruffling Robertson's reddish-brown hair. “Not to me, but I can certainly see why Waru would say that. You are a little loud…”
“OI, I am NOT!”
We should’ve left him home. I TRIED to leave him home by tricking him into going to find oatmeal cookies shortly before it was time to leave for the airport. But then Mr. “Egyptian King” found Robbo just in time, and now he’s here with us. I’m starting to think there’s more going on than they’re telling us…
Signed,
Wataru
Robertson huffed at the recollection of the incident. “That’s not fair! Lord McEnroe wanted cookies!”
Damn “diary” (apparently that’s what I’m supposed to call you),
It is the same day. I’m getting out of the pool and locking myself in the freezer because it’s too hot. The Latino Reds were right when they said that it's boiling in the U.S.
Signed,
Wataru
Robertson groaned, opening another button on his shirt. “Ali told me about how hot California is. I thought he was just being dramatic, but…”
“Thiago told me, too.” Salah pulled the curtain, diminishing the sunlight in the room. “What are you waiting for, Anderson? Keep reading!”
“But I thought you wanted me to stop!”
“What Waru doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Dear diary (apparently I can’t even SWEAR at my own diary?!),
It is still July 24th, 2024. White Shadow is getting on my nerves. He keeps playing this cheap plastic trumpet he found somewhere, and it sounds horrendous. Not minorly horrendous. It is a DISASTER. I can’t believe Slot assigned Kostas and I to watch the youth players while he tries to find where the hotel hid all the food. Couldn’t he have chosen anyone else?! Robbo, maybe? What about Mo or Caoimh?
“He wanted to put us through that?” Robertson squawked in his trademark not-quiet-at-all manner. “But White Shadow’s trumpet playing is—”
“Shh!” Salah gestured to the open door. “Waru will hear us!”
Oh, no. Oh, HELL NO. Kostas is “rapping” again. I think I’m going to go deaf. Wait a minute…
I found my earbuds. I’m putting them in now…oh, SWEET SILENCE. Thank goodness I brought them along.
Signed,
Wataru
Dear Diary,
It is July 25th, 2024. Adrian came to the hotel today to visit us, since we play Real Andalusia tomorrow.
“I miss Adrian.”
“I know, Robbo. But we saw him yesterday, didn’t we?”
“We did, and we won, thank goodness! You looked so hot out there, Mo.”
“Thanks, it was thirty-two degrees Celsius yesterday.”
He gave Mo and Kostas signed jerseys, and Kostas joked that he was leaving. I say LET HIM LEAVE! His raps are appalling!
I would be very thankful if Adrian would just take Kostas with him. I don’t think anybody would miss him too much…
Oh wait, there’s Stefan. So Adrian can take Kostas and Stefan, and give us some good players in exchange. But what about Cody? And…
FINE, apparently most of our teammates like Kostas. I don’t mind him, as long as he shuts his trap.
Signed,
Wataru
Salah and Robertson couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Just because Endo was grumpy didn't mean that he wasn't amusing to be around, and his grumpiness usually led to him exaggerating minor issues as first-class problems. Plus, the thought of Tsimikas and Bajcetic being traded away like unwanted items struck them as absurdly funny.
Salah wiped a tear from his eye, muttering, "Wataru always has a flair for the dramatic, doesn’t he? Though he hates to admit it."
Robertson nodded, still chuckling. "Yeah, but that’s what makes his diary so entertaining!"
"MOHAMED! ANDREW! GIVE MY JOURNAL BACK BEFORE I SELL YOU BOTH TO WREXHAM!”
Robertson gulped. "Oh, fork, he knows.”
Salah shot a glare at the Scot. "Well, he wouldn't have known if you weren't laughing so loudly!”
"I wouldn't have laughed so loudly if he wasn't so funny!”
"Oh, never mind." Salah opened the window, gesturing to the fire escape. "After you, Andy.”
Robertson glared at the rickety old staircase. “You want us to go outside , where it’s raging hot?”
Salah gestured towards the foreboding shadow approaching their room. “It’s either the raging heat or the raging Wataru.”
Robertson ran for the fire escape.
*
Judging by the shouting they could hear from three stories up, Salah and Robertson decided they had made the right decision to get the hell out of the hotel before Endo could get them. However, neither of them had thought much about what they would do once they were outside the hotel. So there they were, running down the sidewalk in only their shorts, shirts, and stocking feet, trying to get as far away from the place as possible.
“This is all your fault, you know!” Salah wheezed. They’d run approximately four kilometres. “If you’d just kept your nose out of Waru’s diary, we would’ve been in air conditioning now!”
“Air conditioning where? Certainly not at the hotel,” Robertson grumbled. He sat on the sidewalk and pouted, then screamed when he realised just how hot the pavement was. “My wee pasty Scottish backside!”
“That was also your fault.” Salah looked around, and realised that he didn’t recognize a single one of the buildings around them. “And we’re lost…”
Robertson groaned. “I’m hot.”
“So am I.”
“I’m going to get a sunburn, and I’ll look like a tomato.”
“I know.”
“And these youngsters will never let me forget it. Even Trey won’t let me forget it!”
“Quiet already, please! I’m trying to think!” Salah looked around at the buildings until his gaze landed on a small store at the corner of the street. “Look, see that box on the outside of the window? That’s an AC unit. That store has AC…”
“It’s cold. It’s cold! Momotaro, you are a FLIPPING GENIUS!” Robertson jumped off the sidewalk and grabbed Salah's hand. “Come on, ye beautiful Egyptian! To the bodega!”
*
Before reaching the bodega, Salah and Robertson decided that it would be better if they put on some disguises to avoid the press. That’s how they ended up dressed as two bushes—by putting on two bushes. They entered the store through the ajar back door and shuffled around, trying not to be noticed.
“This is ridiculous,” Robertson grumbled through a mouthful of leaves. “I can’t even feel the AC through all these leaves, and I can’t get an Irn Bru because this is Pennsylvania, and I can’t even get a break because somebody thought the goddamn USA was a GREAT place to have preseason in!”
“Shh!” Salah gestured to the cashier, a young, raven-haired teenage boy wearing a Liverpool jersey, who was selling popsicles to a pair of school-aged children. “You’re going to have us found out, and then we’ll be mobbed!”
Robertson, of course, didn’t listen. Instead, his gaze locked onto the strawberry popsicle the girl was licking. “Ooh, I want one…”
Salah could see the incoming disaster from ten miles away. “Robbo, no!”
But the influence of the heat and the ensuing dehydration was too much for Robertson to resist. He jumped out of his bush and grabbed a box of strawberry popsicles from the freezer, then ran to the checkout desk and dramatically flopped onto it.
“I’m dying from thirst! How much for these?!”
Salah screamed at the top of his lungs, because of course, of course he was so unlucky. He was born and raised in Egypt, whose national team hadn’t won an international trophy since he was a teenager. His national team’s defence was about as useful as a plate of brine shrimp. After winning the Golden Boot in his first season at Liverpool, in his first Champions’ League final, he got his arm pulled out of his socket by a Spanish psychopath. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he befriended and grew to love this mouthy, hyperactive Scottish idiot.
The cashier took a long look at Robertson before taking three steps back. “You’re the Scottish fullback from Liverpool!”
“Please. I’m roasting.” Robertson gestured towards Salah's bush, which was hiding next to a display of sunglasses and tourist maps. “So’s my friend. He won’t admit it, but he’s dying of thirst, too. Come out, Peach Boy!”
The poor cashier choked on his drink. “WHAT?!”
“Here I am. Please, I don’t care how much this costs, kid. Just pretend we were never here, we’ll do whatever you want.” Salah emerged from the bush and dragged himself to the counter. He reached into his shorts pocket, only to be met with the bare cloth. “Well, Andrew will pay whatever this costs. I didn’t bring my wallet.”
Robertson dug his sunburned hand into both of his pockets. He, too, came out with nothing. “Um…I didn’t, either.”
Ya Allah, I am truly cursed. “You didn’t bring your wallet?!”
“We escaped out a window! I’m sorry if the first thing I thought about wasn’t money!” Robertson argued. “And you didn’t bring yours either!”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you were so forgetful that you didn’t bother to put on sunscreen before leaving! Now you look like a bowl of stirred koshari!”
“Wataru threatened to sell us to Wrexham!”
“That was your fault!”
“Whoa, settle down! My name’s not kid , I’m Lucas.” Lucas pointed to Robertson with a barely stifled chuckle. “And I also know a sunburn when I see it. Sit down, and drink this water. I’ve got a first-aid kit in the back.”
Salah sat on the cooler, barely resisting the urge to drink the whole bottle in one gulp. Robertson gulped down almost the entire bottle before pouring the rest over his head.
“Do you mind ?” Salah hissed under his breath. “You’re loud, you’re sunburned, and now your hair looks like the orange parts of Moneta’s fur when we get her in the bath. I hope Lucas doesn’t kill us…or worse, interview us.”
A loud, exaggerated gasp distracted Salah from his woes. He turned around to see the two kids, mouths agape and popsicles dripping onto the linoleum floor.
“You’re Mo! Actual Mo!” The boy near- screeched , jumping onto Salah. “I’ve got three of your jerseys at home! I have all your goals listed from when you came to your most recent one!”
Salah grimaced at how the boy’s knee landed in a very painful area between his legs. He was going to kill Robertson when they got back to the hotel. “And you are…”
“Rogelio. Lucas is my cousin.” The boy pointed to the girl, who stood as still as Kyle Walker had during every game of the Euros. “That’s my sister Brenda. She likes you, too, but for some reason she thinks Bobby Firmino was our best striker. Like, the heck?!”
Brenda glared at her brother, but her face broke into a smile when she saw Robertson. “Could you sign my baseball hat?”
Salah turned around to glare at Robertson for what felt like the millionth time that day. “Congratulations, Henry. Not only have you invaded Wataru’s privacy, given us both heat exhaustion, and blown our cover, but you’ve single-handedly yeeted us back into the dark ages of 2014.”
For the first time that day, Robertson actually looked guilty. “Please, kids, just don’t tell anyone we were here. Sometimes we footballers like our privacy, too.”
“Oh, none of us were going to tell anyone.” Like magic, Lucas appeared from the back of the store, holding a blue box. He took a tube of aloe vera lotion out of the box and handed it to Robertson, who sheepishly began to rub it on his skin. “Look, I know you don’t have any money on you. But my parents are coming back in half an hour, maximum, and I'm not about to explain why I let some customers get stuff for free. So you don’t have time to go get your money."
He walked over to the door and glanced outside. Satisfied to see nobody was waiting, he turned the sign hanging off the door to CLOSED and shuttered the windows.
"So here's the deal. I'm on lunch break now , so the store will be closed for the next hour. If, within that time, you two can complete a dare, I'll drive you back to the hotel, and you were never here."
"What's the dare?" Robertson asked.
"Dunno..." Lucas turned to Rogelio and Brenda. "What do you think should be the dare, kids?"
Brenda furrowed her brow in thought, then her face slowly lit up. "Ice Ice Baby!"
"Yeah!" Rogelio cheered in agreement.
Well, then. Above all speculation, this day got worse. "We have to do what ?!"
"The Vanilla Ice song! That should be easy!" Robertson chuckled, turning to Salah. "You remember when we did that on tour, right?"
Salah stared at Lucas in disbelief. "Are you sure you don't want actual money?"
Lucas shook his head. "Twelve dollars is nothing compared to this sight."
"No. Oh , no. I'm putting my foot down now." Salah got up from the cooler and tossed the bottle towards the trash bin, storming away. "Forget it."
Robertson watched as Salah stormed away from the counter, and turned to Lucas. The teen seemed just as confused as anybody in this situation would be.
"We'll do it." Robertson placed the tube of lotion on the counter. "I just have to get Momo."
With that, Robertson walked off in search of Salah. He found the Egyptian in an aisle in the back, pretending to browse among the several bottles of NyQuil on the shelves.
"Come on, Mo. Nobody shops for NyQuil and that's that." Robertson pulled Salah away from the bottles of vile cough syrup. "Look, I know this is my fault, but we've got a chance to get out of here in one piece AND unmobbed! How about that?"
Salah scoffed. "How about the fact that everything that I do in the offseason blows up in my face?"
All of a sudden, it hit him. "This is about Cote d'Ivoire , isn't it? The injury?"
"Not everything is about the injury, Andrew."
"But it makes sense. Your confidence has been shot so much that you're trying to avoid failure."
"I don't avoid failure!"
"Then act like it." Robertson took Salah's hand and gripped it tightly. "Come on, Momo, you were never a quitter. Let's do some rapping and get home!"
For the first time since the dare was announced, Salah cracked a small smile. "Hotel, here we come."
Two minutes later, Salah was having fun. That's right. He was actually enjoying this shenanigan that he'd got himself caught up in.
"Ice, ice, baby!" Robertson half-yelled, half-sang, doing some goofy dance on top of the counter. Lucas did the same thing, only on top of a sealed crate of mangoes. "Vanilla ice, ice, baby!"
Salah clapped a hand over Robertson's mouth and began to rap. If regular Scottish was hard to understand, hyperactive Scottish rapping was even worse.
All right stop!
Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with a brand-new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know
Turn off the lights and I'll glow
To the extreme, I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle
Dance
Go rush the speaker that booms
I'm killin' your brain like a poisonous mushroom
Deadly, when I play a dope melody
Anything less than the best is a felony
Love it or leave it, you better gangway
You better hit the bull's eye, the kid don't play
And if there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it!
The others joined in, forming a conga line as they danced through the back door and into the truck. The truck hummed to a start and backed out of the driveway and onto the street.
Ice, ice, baby (too cold, too cold)
Ice, ice, baby (too cold, too cold)
Ice, ice, baby (too cold, too cold)
Ice, ice, baby (too cold, too cold)
Vanilla ice!
Rogelio, Brenda, and Robertson raucously applauded with delight. Salah, who sat in the front with Lucas, rolled his eyes but eventually joined in with the applause.
"That was the coolest thing that's ever happened here!" Rogelio exclaimed. "Well, aside from you all coming here for preseason. Can we sing 'Shake It Off' now?"
Robertson gasped, shaking his head back and forth. "Please, no! Lucho already plays it in the locker room before games and sings along with Darwin and Harvey."
Salah facepalmed. "Robbo, nobody was supposed to know that!"
"So what? We sang the Ice song. Remember the deal. It'll be like we were never here."
Brenda shrugged. "It's fine. Mamá wouldn't believe us, anyways."
They rumbled along the roads, rock music from the radio playing softly in the background. The lull was broken by a shrill ping .
Lucas turned to Salah, still keeping an eye on the road. " ¿Quién te manda mensajes?"
Salah read the text, his face blanching as he did. "It's Wataru."
Robertson abruptly stopped laughing, turning to Salah with a terrified expression. "What does he want?"
"He still wants revenge. That is, if we survive the rollicking Slot is going to give us for disappearing in the middle of a foreign country in his first year of management."