Fever Dream ~ Neymar Jr

Chapter 63

2018

When we arrived at the venue, everyone but me, David and Neymar came out first. They walked through the red carpet quickly and then it was our turn. Neymar went out first, offering me his hand to help me out of the limo and David followed. I stayed in the middle of them, as Riberi had instructed us, linking arms with them both.

"Ici! Ici! Sourire!" The photographers yelled at us. I did my best to smile and appear chill but I knew both the guys could tell I was nervous since they kept smiling at me encouragingly. I was kind of proud of myself for pulling it off. I had come a long way from the girl that had panic attacks whenever we had to pass by crowds of people back during the World Cup.

Once the red carpet was done, we finally headed inside. In many other cases, this would have been the hardest part of the evening, but not today. Today the three of us were supposed to network and as Riberi said 'work our charm' with all these investors and execs. And since I was the only one of the three involved with the development side of 3P and the actual CEO, most of that landed on me.

Now, I did not have Neymar's natural charm, not by far. But having him there, rendering people starstruck when they met him and having David, offering jokes to crack the awkwardness, I think we did pretty well.

All our friends and PSG teammates were there too, and I introduced them to our 3P programmers, Morena and Angelique. The girls were looking a little lost at a party like that, and I could sympathize since I until recently, I was in their position. The only damper on an otherwise great evening was that having to invite the whole coaching staff meant that Ian was also there, albeit, at a distance. I only caught him twice looking at me with looks of complete repugnance but thankfully he didn't dare approach me.

Neymar wasn't so lucky though. I saw Ian walk towards him, but Neymar didn't realize until it was too late and had to spend about 5 minutes talking to him until thankfully Riberi rescued him.

About two hours later, after having spoken to everyone in the room at least once, I finally found a second to relax. I went out to the lobby and sat on one of the couches there, feeling exhausted and like I needed two days to recover from such social overstimulation. I was an introvert after all.

"You look like you need this." I heard and saw Saad approach me, with a gin and tonic in hand.

"Thank you." I said taking it. "I do."

"Did I say you look amazing tonight?" He asked me.

"You did. Twice." I laughed.

"And before your invite for today, I had no idea you were involved with the tech world. It seems like when you told me you were busy, you weren't lying." Saad said.

"Not just involved." I heard and saw Neymar, who was holding two old-fashioned cocktails in his hands. "She came up with the idea and also designed and implemented the prototype." He added but didn't take another step forward.

"I have a degree in physics." I explained to Saad, who raised his eyebrows impressed. My mind flashed back to Marina, and how we enjoyed telling people we were physics students and then seeing their reactions. "Is that for me?" I asked Neymar.

He nodded and put down one of the glasses on the table next to me. "Riberi wants to speak to us, when you have a minute." He told me and disappeared back inside.

I got up, putting down the gin and vodka and picking up the old-fashioned.

Saad pointed at the disregarded glass questioningly. "Old fashioned is my favorite." I explained.

"I didn't know that." Saad said. "But Neymar apparently does." He added.

"If I'm not mistaken, you sound jealous." I challenged him.