Don't Ask by Hilary Freeman Read Free Book Online Page B

advertise stuff on TV. They all have incredibly glamorous wives and girlfriends, with fake tans and too
much bling. Put it this way: if
Match of the Day
were looking for a new presenter, this knowledge would probably not have got me the job.
    On several occasions, being a football dunce almost landed me in trouble.
    Did you see that goal?
Alex messaged one evening, after there had been some big cup match on TV.
    Which goal?
I replied, trying to keep my options open.
    Duh. There was only one goal! The one that Ronaldo scored.
    Only kidding. Yes, it was awesome.
    What? Sometimes I wonder who you support! The referee was having a laugh. It was so offside it wasn’t true. Don’t you think?
    Yes,
I agreed. I had no idea what offside meant and guessed it was some new sort of exclamatory term, like phat or sick but for football.
It was totally offside
I
continued
. It was so off its side it was practically horizontal.
    LOL. You have a really strange way of looking at things, Laura.
    I’d got away with it again. Funny how idiocy can sometimes masquerade as charm.
    Whenever Alex brought up football, I longed to change the subject. But I knew I mustn’t. Tedious as it was, football was the deal-clincher, the supposed shared interest
that had made her warm to me in the first place. Aware that my ignorance was going to give me away eventually, I accepted that I had to do something about it: I needed to learn about the
‘beautiful game’, as my dad calls it (no wonder he needs glasses). I tried the web, but I couldn’t understand a word on the fan sites, and the news reports were so dull that
reading them made me suicidal. I knew my best option was to ask Jack, even though I felt a teensy bit bad about doing it.
    ‘Can I ask you something about football?’ I said to him, on the evening of my ‘offside discussion’ with Alex.
    ‘Sure,’ he said, sounding bemused. ‘Fire away.’
    ‘What exactly does offside mean?’
    He laughed at me, which I wasn’t expecting. Clearly, this offside thing was something everybody is supposed to know, like how to boil an egg. ‘Lily, you are such a female
cliché. I can’t believe you’re asking me that. OK, basically, it’s when the . . .’
    I’m afraid I can’t remember a single word he said, until, ‘Since when have you got interested in football?’
    ‘Oh, you know . . . I was talking to my dad and ended up watching a bit of the match with him and I quite enjoyed it.’ For extra impact, I added, ‘That Ronaldo goal was so
offside!’
    ‘It sure was,’ he said, and I could tell he was grinning. ‘I really like that you’re getting into football. Although I have to say, I’m a bit surprised.’
    ‘Oh, I’m full of surprises,’ I said, and for a moment I really hated myself.
    The consequence of telling Jack that I had suddenly developed an interest in football was that he now insisted on talking to me about it at every opportunity. I hadn’t
been aware how much he loved it, in the same way as I’d loved the Spice Girls when I was a little kid. He was a super fan; he couldn’t get enough of it. Talking about it made him sound
excitable and knowledgeable and happy, which was kind of cute, if I could have taken away the football part.
    Even worse than having to talk about football was having to watch it. If I happened to be seeing Jack and there was a football match on TV, he’d suggest that we see it together, and I had
to feign enthusiasm. He found most matches so riveting that he didn’t even want to snog much (and believe me, I tried), except at half time, just in case he missed an important ball.
    Katie didn’t have any sympathy for me: she laughed and said it was my punishment for what I’d done. ‘Sitting through ninety minutes of football is your penance for lying to
Alex and to Jack,’ she said. I think she was half serious too, but then she was brought up a Catholic.
    And, oh, the irony. The result of being forced to watch and talk about football