Never Really Over

Chapter 42

Misrepresented yourself. Questions around your integrity. Conflict of interests. Position may be untenable.

Shame isn't an emotion Beth is familiar with, because whilst she may push the boundaries from time to time, she is also good at knowing when to stop. But as she sits across the desk from the very same woman who interviewed her just a few months ago, Beth feels shame like never before. The mood is very different from the last time they met, where everything was all smiles and conversation flowed easily as Beth's natural charm and charisma wowed yet another person. Now it is tense and stern with Beth squirming uncomfortably in her seat under the steely gaze of the woman in front of her. In the end, the ring on her finger that caused all this bother in the first place turns out to be her saving grace. Her upcoming wedding convinces her new employer that there is no relationship to speak of with John Stones, at least not anymore, and once again, she manages to wiggle herself out of trouble. Her job is safe, as long as he maintains her professionalism from now on in. It pisses her off a bit that she is the one having to take the heat when it was John who kicked off, but she supposes this is payback for the countless times she has got him into trouble in the past. As she leaves the meeting room, she doesn't feel the sense of triumph she usually does when she gets away with something, instead she feels sick. Her stomach churning with a mix of the embarrassment she feels over everyone knowing her business and the guilt of the pain she had caused John.

Beth had known her news would hurt John, there was no way around it, but she had hoped that eventually he would calm down and they could go back to being friends, just like they had vowed they would always be. She knew now that that was just wishful thinking, a naivety more typical of John than her. She would not be getting the one last perfect summer she had hoped for with him. Instead, she was stuck in the very same situation she had left Everton to escape; stuck working with an ex that didn't want to be around her.

*

He didn't cry in front of her. He's proud of himself for that. The fact he doesn't shocks even himself, he supposes he is probably still in shock. But as he takes a seat in Gareth's office he uses his fingers to brush away hot fresh tears as the numbness wears off and reality starts to hit. For a while, being pulled into the boss' office had become unfamiliar territory to John. At Everton, he often found himself in front of Roberto thanks to Beth and her hijinks. To begin with at City, he was a model professional, it was only when his personal life started impacting his performances on the field did he find himself sitting in Pep's office assuring him the boss that everything was fine, even when it wasn't. At England, he has only found himself in Gareth's office once before, in the wake of the Nation League match where John's performance was so poor that it had raised questions around what was going on with him. It had been Beth. Of course, it had. It was when she was with Gomes and he could think of nothing else. John always saw Beth as his strength, his superpower, he believed she made good things happen for him. He realises now that she has been the catalyst for the bad too, the self-doubt he had when he first moved to City had come from her planting the seed that he wasn't good enough, then when she was with Gomes his form deteriorated to the point where he wondered if he could ever recover it, and now Gigi. It's Beth's fault she took James away from him.

Now John has found himself alone with the gaffer once again. He doesn't like it, it makes him feel like he is in trouble and he also knows that inevitably questions he won't want to answer will shortly be coming his way.

Gareth doesn't spend enough time with the players to know the ins and outs of their personal lives, sometimes he thinks this isn't a good thing, it means he doesn't get to know them as much as he would necessarily like. Other times, like now he thinks he would really rather not know about off-field dramas akin to what you would have seen on Footballers' Wives. He never likes playing relationship counsellor, he isn't very good at it, having been happily married for years.