Chapter 9 - Chapter 9: The Call Bell

"Did you see today's headline?" Sibisi puts his phone right in front of my face.

The back page reads, ZONDI: NEW WEEK, NEW WOMAN. Below that is a giant photo of me walking out of the players' gate at Ellis Park midweek with the woman I'd invited to the match.

"You going to tell them there was an Uber waiting for her at the boom, and she never even got past it? And that instead of taking her upstairs, you came over to our place so you could read your niece a bedtime story?"

"Let them believe what they want to believe."

"You mean, let them believe what Given wants them to believe," Sibisi retorts.

"I just have to play the game until the end of the season. Given reckons the club won't renew me before the thirtieth of June without the bad-guy-doesn't-care-about-anyone-other-than-himself persona, so I've got to keep playing into it."

"Yeah, sure. Because the club won't renew you for being the best centre-back here and one of the best in the Premiership, and they're definitely not going to renew you for being nominated for Defender of the Season three of the last four seasons." Sibisi's voice drips with sarcasm. "Haibo. They're for sure only going to renew you if you carry on pulling an astronomical amount of pussy."

"Eight hundred and fifty a month. Just under a bar. And a renewal worth thirty million over three years. With that much on the line, it's not worth the risk to find out otherwise."

Without thinking or needing absolutely anything, my hand darts up and presses the call bell. The chime radiates through the cabin as the light comes on above my seat.