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“I hope you’re not too disappointed,” Thiago said as he taped another box shut. It was early morning, but he had a flight to catch. “First I left the club, then I retired, and now I’m leaving Kirkby…”
“It’s okay, agapi.” Tsimikas stuffed the box in the trunk, turning around to face Thiago. “I mean, it won’t be okay. I’ll still miss you, but remember that song? Ob-la-di, ob-la-da—”
“Life goes on.” Thiago sighed, taking his fiance’s hand and running his thumb over his knuckles. “The Beatles are right, life does need to go on. I only wish my life didn’t have to go on without you.”
“It won’t. You’ll be nerding off in Barcelona teaching others your brain knowledge, and I’ll be back here looking after Stefan.” Tsimikas smiled as Thiago’s thumb ran over his engagement ring. “And soon, we’ll be together somewhere as husbands.”
“GET A ROOM!”
The two exchanged glances, smiling.
“Seems like Stefan’s awake,” Tsimikas chuckled, pecking Thiago on the lips. “Just in time for your temporary departure.”
*
After Brazil crashed out of the Copa, Alisson stayed behind to cheer on his teammates who were still playing. Endrick and Bento stayed with him, but the others left for their respective vacations. After the Copa final, which resulted in a disgruntling win for Argentina, the trio remained in Miami, Florida for a little longer, hanging out on beaches in the early mornings and late evenings and touring around the city undercover. But on Tuesday morning, Bento got a phone call from Al-Nassr. When he told Alisson, the older keeper looked surprised before shaking his head.
“I wish you could come with me, Bento.”
“I know.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. After the group stage ended, Bento put two and two together and realised Alisson’s loneliness. However, Alisson had kept to himself so much during the entire tournament that he hadn’t expected to be wanted at Liverpool.
Alisson watched Endrick chase seagulls in the distance, kicking sand into the air as he did. “You would’ve been a great keeper for us. I don’t know how Slot would’ve decided to play us both, but it'd be nice to have another Brazilian on the team. Marcinho would love to have you with us. We could go fishing together, watch movies together, and bake together.”
“It would be fun,” Bento admitted. “But they’re offering me playing time, I can’t refuse that. If I join you at Kirkby, I’d be third-choice at best.”
“Look, Benni, I understand. We’re goalkeepers, we all search for playing time. It’s why I left Inter.” Alisson pulled Bento into his arms, ruffling his honey-blond hair. “Have fun, okay? And if you see Bobby or Flaco…say hi to them for me.”
Bento pulled away, his eyes twinkling. “I think we’ll be closer than just saying hi.”
*
“Cream, sugar, flour, eggs…” Clark tossed the ingredients from the refrigerator onto the counter, ignoring the hour-old dirty dishes left over from lunch. “It is time for I, the White Shadow, to create the most stunning, bad-elm Black Forest cake SINCE THE MONGOLS CONQUERED DA WORLD!!!”
Nyoni raised an eyebrow at his bombastic best friend. “I thought the Black Forest cake was invented in 1915—”
“Be quiet, Trey! The White Shadow is busy hunting down ingredients, whilst ye nerd over ancient history!” Clark took out the stand mixer and dumped the bag of flour into it, turning it on. After a sound that could best be described as the child of cat claws scratching on a blackboard and a wrecking ball’s chain, he turned off the mixer, glaring at the flour bag. “Mix! I command you to mix, little flour bag, as I am the White Shadow—”
“You moron. You absolute moron.” Lewis Koumas grabbed the flour bag from the bowl and opened it, measuring the necessary amount of flour. “If we’re going to make Black Forest cake, we need to weigh the ingredients and combine them in order.”
Nyoni raised an eyebrow. “Why are we making a cake, anyway? According to my ordered list of events, we’re not celebrating anything or anyone. There’s no birthday, no anniversary, no new arrivals coming.”
“Order, schmorder!” Clark scoffed, dropping a whole carton of eggs into the mixer. “You members of the Black Light clan are so obsessed with order and procedure, that you don’t realise the benefits of chaos and improvisation.”
“And that’s exactly why I have issues with you.” Koumas fished the egg carton from the bowl, adding sugar and cocoa powder to the flour instead. “The White Shadow clan’s philosophy of chaos is impractical at best.”
“Give me one example.”
“You dropped eighteen eggs into a bowl with two hundred and nineteen grams of flour,” Koumas pointed out. “If the whole world followed your worship of chaos and anarchy, we couldn’t have had medical procedures, or scientific experiments, or culinary recipes, or even industrialization, because all of those need order.”
“And if everybody followed the Black Light’s obsession with order, we’d still be stuck in the Stone Age because nobody would’ve thought of any new, chaotic ideas!”
“Well, now I see why you were picked to be the next White Shadow Prime! Both you and your mother are chaotic freelance nomads!”
“And I can see why you were picked to be the next Black Light! You and your father are dull squares only suited for the boring-elm job of financial accounting!” Clark huffed, grabbing the salt. “Trey, hand me the salt. I desireth to throw it in Black Light’s face.”
“Enough arguing about the Mersey Clans! We already have to explain it all to Slot soon.” Danns emerged from the pantry, handing Koumas a jar of maraschino cherries in syrup, then looked around the kitchen. “Wait…weren’t Jarell and Conor supposed to help us?”
Nyoni rolled his eyes, cracking eggs into the bowl. “They were, but somebody thought today was the perfect day to go on a date.”
“They went to the mall together, Trey,” Koumas corrected him. “Although, with those two, that’s almost the same thing.”
“For once we agree on something.” Clark poured the buttermilk into a cup, passing it on to Koumas. “I’m still betting that they’ll get together by fall.”
The other youngsters nodded as they continued to mix the batter.
An hour and a half later, the cakes were baked. Koumas was slicing the cherries, Danns was brushing reduced cherry syrup onto the cooled chocolate cakes, and Nyoni was blending the whipped cream. Clark, meanwhile, was making the chocolate ganache, something that was never going to be simple for the next leader of the White Shadow.
“Aren’t you supposed to add the chocolate last?” Danns wondered aloud as he surveyed Clark’s smoking saucepan. “And shouldn’t it be in a bowl and not on the stove?”
Clark tossed a whole stick of butter into the pan, causing it to smoke even more. “That’s what Black Light wants you to believe! I am the White Shadow! I think OUTSIDE of the square box!”
“Um, Bobby?” Nyoni pointed to the pot, which now looked more like a giant piece of coal than a stainless steel cooking vessel. “I think you’re going to burn the house down.”
Clark took one look at the pot and yanked it off the stove, only to scream immediately after.
“GAHHHHH!!! My arm is blushing!”
Koumas took one look at Clark’s hand and nearly slapped him. “Your arm’s not blushing, it’s burnt! Go run it under cold water, you moron!”
*
“Do you remember when Auntie Chan had Aya? And when Aunt Chelsea had Ellie?”
The “twins” nodded simultaneously.
“Well…” Nemmer hesitated, mentally cursing herself for not preparing a speech earlier. To her credit, she’d been busy helping to make lunch, but taking thirty minutes to pull her two rambunctious children aside and tell them important news was probably not her best idea. Still, it was only fair that Florrie and Kairo were told the news before the rest of the team. “There’ll be another baby here in six months or so.”
Florrie’s eyes widened. “Ellie’s coming back?”
“No.”
“Aunt Kerry’s having a baby?” Kairo guessed.
Nemmer chuckled. “Close.”
Both glanced at each other before shrieking, “Mr. Beard is having a baby?!”
Nemmer tried and failed to stop laughing, all the while thinking about how much she needed to tell Florrie and Kairo where babies really came from. “How on earth did you get that idea?!”
“His gut’s big, just like Auntie Chan and Aunt Chelsea’s guts were before they had their babies,” Florrie explained like it made perfect sense.
Kairo nodded, sagely agreeing with Florrie’s “wisdom”. “Maybe Mr. Beard is having twins!”
“And then we can play with them whenever Missy and the other visit!”
“Do you think Mr. Beard will bring them here for child care when he’s busy coaching?”
As entertaining and wild as the twins’ theories were, Nemmer knew she had to tell them the truth. “That can’t happen. Men can’t have babies the same way your aunts did.”
“Why?” both of them asked at the same time.
Uh, I don’t know, the voice in her head snarked. Biology, maybe? “I’ll tell you when you’re older. Or I’ll have the boys tell you, that should be fun for me.”
On any other day, Florrie and Kairo would complain about having to wait. But today, they didn’t.
“Where’s the baby coming from?” Kairo asked. “Are we adopting one? Is someone new coming with a baby?”
“No, no, no.” Nemmer took a deep breath, picking Florrie and Kairo up and settling them on her lap. They were getting big enough that it was a tight squeeze, and she moved them to sit on the couch, one on each side. “Florrie, you’re going to be a big sister. And Kairo, you’re going to be a big brother.”
“But we’re already a big brother and sister!” Kairo pointed out. “To Moana and Tristan and Ellie, remember?”
“Not in that way, Streifenhörnchen. You’ll be a big brother like how Arwen’s a big sister to Moana.”
Florrie’s jaw dropped as it finally hit her. “You’re having a baby?!”
Nemmer nodded, ruffling her daughter’s hair. “That’s right, Salbei Spross! Soon, you and your brother will have a baby brother or sister.”
“But you’re older than Papi Milly. You’re that big number with the 4 and the 0 next to each other. You have grey hair with your blond hair,” Kairo said. “Weren’t Auntie Chan and Aunt Chelsea young when they had Aya and Ellie?”
Despite the roast on her age, Nemmer couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not that old, Kairo. The only woman on the staff older than me is Winnie and Moana’s mom.”
Kairo pressed his palms against Nemmer’s abdomen as if he were trying to feel for the unborn baby inside. “You can’t be having a baby, Mummy. You still have your six-packs.”
Nemmer roared with laughter, only stopping to breathe. “It’s still early on, Kairo. My gut won’t get bigger for a while. But the baby’s there.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel them inside of me, trust me. That’s why I’ve felt sick and tired for the past weeks.”
“If you say so…” Kairo pressed his face against Nemmer’ abdomen. “Baby, this is an order from Junior Sergeant Kairo! You’re my sibling and I like you, but stop making Mummy tired all the time. It’s annoying because we want her to play tag with us but she can’t.”
Nemmer realised what other parents meant when they said having kids was a one-way ticket to the best stand-up comedy routine in history. “Junior Sergeant Kairo?”
Kairo nodded, crossing his arms. “Milly made Winnie, Florrie, and I into Junior Sergeants when he came for the boss’s goodbye party. He said that someday we’ll fight evil like he’s doing, and a head start never hurt anyone.”
“Fine, but if I see Milly teaching you how to jump off high places and land in epic poses, I’ll tie him to a mast and force-feed him tempeh.” Nemmer turned to Florrie, who’d been oddly quiet since the confirmation. “Are you okay, Florrie? Is there something you want to talk to me about?”
Florrie shook her head, braids flying behind her. “I was just thinking…Aunt Chelsea loved Uncle Robert when Ellie was inside of her, and Auntie Chan loves Auntie Vera. Why are you alone? You said babies are born when two people love each other.”
Nemmer winced at the question. It was innocent, as young children’s questions often were, but it was blunt enough that it stung. She wasn’t ready to tell Florrie and Kairo exactly why she’d left them in the care of the players or the other staff so often during March, or that the reason she’d been so reclusive and stoic for the first week or two of April wasn’t just because of Liverpool’s misfortunes on the pitch.
She pulled Florrie and Kairo into a hug and rested the tips of her fingers on her abdomen, enjoying the feeling of having her three children in her arms. “Sometimes, one person’s love is enough.”
*
“It took you long enough to get back. And you look…well, surprisingly happy. What’s the news?” Stefanie Klopp gently chided as she watched her brother make his way back to the kitchen. “Agatha, get down from there! The chicken’s not for you.”
Agatha, the oldest of the twenty or so cats in the house, jumped off the table with a disgruntled hiss, marching towards the cat dishes lined up on one side of the kitchen.
Jurgen Klopp shook his head, chuckling. “How’d you guess there was news?”
“I’m seven years older than you. I’ve picked your brains millions of times. Now tell me what’s going on! I like good news.”
The ex-Liverpool manager grinned until it lit up his faded blue-grey eyes. “I was right. Mona’s having a baby.”