Page 31 of The Game

It wasn’t excellent at all. This was inviting a lion for breakfast and then serving yourself up instead of eggs.

The little guy barrelled back in. Jasper was barking insanely as he chased his buddy through the house. He sniffed the Lion's crotch which I thought was hilarious. Jasper must have thought he looked odd in jeans too.

"I'm going to get the recycle bags."

"Recycle bags?" he asked, as if he was testing the pronunciation of an exotic dish on an unusual menu.

"Yes, you know, those bags you put your shopping in."

He looked at me blankly, and I sighed. It was as I thought. He hadn't been to a shop in a decade.

"Are you really going to come shopping with us?" the little guy asked him.

"Sure. Looks like it," was the reply.

"Aunty Lyssa lets me eat chocolate as we walk around before she's paid for it," Sammy told him.

"Does she indeed?"

This was how I found myself walking up and down the aisles of Sainsbury's with the greatest British cricket player of all time. Both he and my nephew munched on contraband chocolate. The Lion had a faded cap pulled down low covering his golden hair and eyes but we were garnering a lot of puzzled looks. I could see why he didn’t go to the supermarket that often. You couldn’t tell it was him, not really, but he was huge, this towering brute that exuded a magnetic pull; so regardless of him being one of the most famous sportsmen in history, he was just mesmerizing all on his own and eyes were dragged towards him. Mine were. Mine refused to stay focused on the shopping list, instead watching his shoulders curve as he ambled along pushing the trolley.

There'd been a moment when we'd been cramming into my little family sedan when Sammy had called shotgun, and the Lion had obligingly tried to climb into the back until it became evident his legs weren't going to fit. Sammy clambered into the back and Jase Willis, former England captain had squeezed into the front. There still wasn't enough room for his legs and his knees had knocked against the gear stick.

"What are you doing?" I asked as we wheeled our way down the aisle of the supermarket. I was struggling to read the list, I was so distracted, when I saw him popping something into the trolley. Leaning over I looked at what it was. "Oven chips?" I asked. My head twisting between the item in the depths of the trolley and the Lancashire Lion with his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans.

"Sure, why not?"

I hated to think of the face I was pulling. "Oven chips?" I repeated, shaking my head. This man was more than an enigma; he was a Japanese puzzle box with no instructions.

"Fine. You can pay for them though."

He looked at everything on the shelves, turning labels and every so often tutting as he went along.

"What?" I asked him, eventually throwing my hands up in the air when he'd stopped again.

"This is full of shit. Who eats this stuff?"

It was a jar of pasta sauce. "Sure it is. It's a value brand." I walked back up and took the offending jar out of his long fingers. "Do you not do your own cooking?"

He shook his head. "No, I have a nutritionist who delivers."

"Nice." I nodded. "And the oven chips?"

Those damn icy blues landed on my face again, on my mouth. "I just fancied them."

"And are you used to getting everything that you fancy?"

Was I flirting with the Lion in Sainsbury's? Was this the most surreal day I'd ever lived through? Yes, it was.

"Sometimes." He shrugged and walked up the aisle, and I shook my head at his retreating form.

By one in the afternoon, I'd made up enough jobs that it didn't look like I'd been talking out of my arse when I said I had plans. We'd eaten oven chips for lunch which had made him give the first true smile I'd seen. Not the little lip twitches he usually allowed. This was wide with white sparkling teeth—the full shebang. "Can we play now?" he'd asked as he helped pack the dishwasher and we moved around each other within the confines of the kitchen space.

"Sure."

The little guy who'd been watching telly in the corner of the family room gave a yelp and dashed for the stairs returning a couple of moments later with his Willis shirt pulled over his head. "I've got one just like that," the Lion said.

After Sammy had run outside with Jasper, I turned to the tall man towering in my kitchen. "Are you going to tell me what your specialist said?"