July 12, 2016 - Leicester
10:00 PM (22:00)
.
Barbara was already asleep.
It hadn’t even taken two minutes.
She’d brushed her teeth, changed into one of Tristan’s shirts and barely made it to the bed before her body gave up. Now she was curled on her side, facing away from him, blanket pulled up to her shoulder, her breathing steady and soft.
Tristan lay behind her, one arm draped gently over her waist, his hand resting on her stomach, thumb moving in slow, absent circles.
“Ez az én kis hercegnőm,” he murmured, barely above a whisper. My little princess.
She didn’t stir.
He kissed the back of her neck once, then pressed his forehead to her shoulder and closed his eyes for a second.
Truth was, when she first told him she'd been throwing up during the early days of the Euros, he genuinely thought she might be pregnant. She’d laughed it off at the time, said it was stress or maybe her period just being a pain again. But when it didn’t stop, and she brushed it off again, he couldn’t. Something hadn’t sat right with him.
She always played things down.
If he hadn’t pushed—if they hadn’t come in when they did...
The diagnosis today had hit him harder than he let on. Endometriosis. A word he hadn’t even known eight hours ago, now carved into the center of his mind. The doctor explained the basics, but it was his mum, bless her who broke it down later on the phone in terms he actually understood.
And the main thing?
If they hadn’t caught it this early, there could’ve been real complications years down the line. With pregnancy. With everything.
That part stuck.
He and Barbara hadn’t been trying, not officially, but… they also hadn’t been stopping. He’d half expected something to happen by now. A scare. A surprise.
They’d even talked about it how if it happened, they wouldn’t freak out.
And the truth was, he wouldn’t have.
Neither would she.
Barbara was already pulling away from modeling. Stella was growing faster than either of them expected.
He didn’t want a kid now.
But he wanted it one day.
And the idea that something out of their control might’ve made that harder if they hadn’t caught it in time?
That hit him like a truck. He was more terrified of that than facing Ronaldo in the finals. He pulled the blanket a little higher over her shoulder, fingers brushing her hair back. “You’re okay,” he whispered. “We’re okay.”
Then, finally, he shifted out from under the covers, moving slow so he didn’t wake her, and reached for his phone on the nightstand. The screen lit the room with a dull blue as he lowered the brightness and unlocked it.
10:00 PM.
Right on cue.
@LFC tweeted exactly at 22:00.
With the move inching closer, just a week or two away if Mendes and Sofia finalized the terms: Liverpool was set to begin teasing the announcement.
£120 million.
The highest transfer fee in football history. More than Bale. More than Ronaldo. And with Pogba still undecided about his future, Tristan found himself wondering would he still return to Manchester United now?
Knowing Tristan would be wearing Liverpool red? Knowing he’d have to watch this all over again, another season of getting cooked on the pitch, dragged on social media, and left answering the same questions about why they couldn’t keep up?
Would he still want to face him after what happened at the Euros in his own country?
The pressure at United wasn’t just rising. It was boiling. The fans. The board. The dressing room.
Yes they signed the Special One as their new manager but that wasn’t enough.
Tristan didn’t know if Pogba would still go back. But if he did... well, he’d better be ready.
He opened Twitter, curious to see how Liverpool would start promoting the move. He knew some of the details but not all. He’d asked to be surprised, just a little.
The Liverpool crest was gone.
In its place: a crown similar to his Logo.
Then came the tweet.
@LFC: A new era is upon us.
🔴👑 #YNWA #LFC
Tristan stared at it, letting it him—
He was really about to leave Leicester.
Most days, it crushed him whenever he thought about it.
But not tonight.
Tonight his mind was all on Barbara—her health, her surgery, her health.
So he did what he always did when things got too heavy.
He opened the replies.
Another one. Then another. The feed updated every second, even at this hour.
Notifications stacked like bricks. Reactions pouring in like floodwater.
.
@Julia Freitas: HOLD ON. The tweet dropped exactly at 22:00 and the profile pic is literally Tristan Hale’s crown. Oh my god. This is it. This is the end. Liverpool has officially signed Satan in boots. We’re all finished. Someone unplug the internet.
↳@JassyP: As a United fan, I was happily delusional thinking he’d end up in Madrid, sipping espresso and modeling suits. But no. He’s coming here. To bully us again. This man gave us a 7–1 ass-whooping at eighteen. Now he’s 21, Euro champion, four goals in a final, probably evolved like a Pokémon. I swear to god I’m throwing my TV out the window. I can’t do this again.
↳ @DominicPerkins: FUCK FUCK FUCK. EVERTON FOR SO LONG WAS GRANTED MERCY FROM DIRECT DESTRUCTION. Bro, we lose to Tristan like everyone else but it’s nothing compared to what he does to United, Newcastle, and for some reason Arsenal. He doesn’t beat his rivals. He ruins their lives. Tristan, if you’re lurking on Twitter right now, I am begging you: please show mercy. We Evertonians are simple people. We don’t ask for trophies. We just ask not to be publicly executed on live television.
Dominic Perkins’ comment caught him off guard.
Publicly executed on live television.
Tristan bit down a laugh, shoulders shaking once in silence. He glanced toward Barbara, still fast asleep, her leg shifting just enough to brush against his.
He looked at her for a second, made sure she was still tucked in, then turned back to the screen and scrolled.
@ROB: So let me get this straight. Madrid wanted him. Barça would've sold Camp Nou for him. PSG offered Qatar. And Liverpool—LIVERPOOL—actually pulled it off??
↳ @Sinbad_12: Why are people acting brand new? We’ve known Tristan was going to Liverpool for months. I still don’t know why he chose us... but I’m not complaining.Fuck United. Fuck City. Fuck Chelsea. We’re about to be a dynasty again.
↳ @ROB: YES BRO. DYNASTY. It just sounds right. Tristan, if you're reading this, I love you more than I loved that Euro final. No joke. I might love you more than my girl, lmao.
↳ @JdotW: Let’s be real. The way him and Klopp talk about each other? This was fate.Madrid had delusion. We had emotional intimacy.
Tristan paused.
Emotional intimacy.
He blinked once.
Yeah… the fan might’ve had a point. Klopp was the major point for him going to Liverpool besides the obvious future sight.
He scrolled again.
@Kartik Dogra: Still can’t believe he picked Liverpool over Madrid. Imagine saying no to playing in the Bernabéu. This man’s brain is fried.
↳ @Flannery: Nah, your mind’s lost. You really thought Tristan Hale was going to go play sidekick to Ronaldo in someone else’s empire? This guy doesn’t do supporting roles. He doesn’t kneel for crests. And yeah — the confidence, the ego? That’s what happens when you’re actually the best player on the planet.Thinking he’d go to Spain just to be “one of many” was always the real delusion.
↳ @Britanna: Y’all don’t get it. Madrid fans were busy photoshopping him in white thinking he would automatically go to Madrid, lmao. This is Tristan Hale, we are talking about baby. They need him more than Tristan needs Madrid.
↳ @Jaden: You guys talk about him like he’s Jesus.
↳ @Cybersage: No. Better. esus didn’t drop four goals in France in a final for his country.
Tristan blinked hard, caught between snorting and sighing before he continued his doomscrolling.
Another dozen tweets stacked up.
Some were begging him to choose a different number at Liverpool.
Some were crying about what it meant for the league.
Some were already mocking United fans with grainy edits of Tristan in red, arms crossed, golden crown glinting.
He kept scrolling.
His name was trending. So was the crown emoji. So was “22:00.”
Tomorrow, it would be everywhere.
Sky Sports. BBC. Marca. ESPN.
Panel shows dissecting it like a forensic case study.
Articles titled Hale Era Incoming or Liverpool’s Empire Begins.
And once again, the circus would begin.
He sighed, let the phone drop gently onto the nightstand.
Then rolled over.
Barbara shifted instinctively into him, her arms curling into his chest, as if her body already knew.
His hand found her back again. That steady rhythm calmed his own breath.
He closed his eyes.
The world could start screaming in the morning.
The crown. The money. The headlines.
Liverpool. Leicester.
All of it drifted somewhere far away.
Tomorrow he would be the most expensive footballer in history.
Tomorrow he would be the center of every argument on the planet.
But tonight—
He was just a man holding the woman he loved, making sure she was okay.