Catch me when I fall (Rúben Dias)

Chapter 11

"We have an emergency", says a man I've never seen before when he enters our office.

"What's wrong, Doug?", asks Bella.

"Do any of you like football?"

Then all heads turn to me. "Grace!"

Doug looks at me too. "Grace, could you interview a football player? As a huge massive favour?"

"I guess. Who? When?"

"Rúben Dias and in thirty minutes".

"Thirty minutes? I need more time to get the questions ready. I mean, what kind of interview is it even?", I am almost freaking out. I can't do this.

"This is the brief", he says, placing a piece of paper on my desk. "Please, the person who was interviewing him is sick. And he's so busy it's either now or no interview and we can't have the photo shoot in this issue without the interview".

Taking a look at the list, it seems less complicated than expected. The most important topics are already marked there.

"Ok, I'll do it but leave now so I can Google him and get the info I need so I don't mess up too much".

"I love you! You're my new best friend!"

I just raise my eyebrow at him.

"Who is that guy you're interviewing?", asks Amber, moving her chair closer to my desk to look at my laptop. "Fuck! If you don't want to do it, I will. He's hot. But I guess he has to be if he's doing a photoshoot for Doug's magazine".

I ignore her and keep on writing. I don't have time for gossiping.

"I need to watch more football", she adds before going back to her desk.

I look for basic information about him so I don't call him the wrong name or ask him about the wrong club but it seems I already knew most of it. I do like watching football and listening to sports radio programmes while I'm driving. And he happens to play for a big team, so obviously he's mentioned a lot.

Once I have everything ready, I make my way to the 3rd floor, where Doug has told me the interview will take place. I still have a couple of minutes to spare, so I stop by a mirror to take a quick look at myself. Yes, I look fine. Maybe not great as in "I have to interview a big star today" but I didn't know that was going to happen when I left the apartment this morning.

"Can I help you?", asks the receptionist.

"I'm Grace Wells. I'm here to do an interview. Doug might have told you about me?"

"Oh yes, miss Wells. Please go in", she says, pointing at one of the doors. "They are waiting for you".

"Thank you".

And I don't know what I expected to see when I opened the door, but it wasn't a half-naked Portuguese defender.