The cold reached Alejandro’s toes before his alarm went off.
He blinked at the water-stained ceiling tiles of Annex B.
Gray morning light crept through the gap in the curtains, revealing the damp smell of fresh lawn treatments mixed with industrial disinfectant.
He sat up, swung his legs over the frame, and picked up the phone.
The screen stayed dark.
He plugged the frayed cord in, jammed a folded scrap of receipt paper under the jack, and held his breath.
A faint white LED flickered once near the top bezel, pulsed three times, and expired.
Six minutes past seven.
Alejandro pulled on his damp socks from yesterday.
His right shoe had a split seam near the lace eyelet, letting in the cool floor air.
He crammed the phone into his pocket and left the room, the heavy fire door slamming shut behind him with a dull, hydraulic hiss.
In the hallway, Miss Vance was wiping down the laminate reception counter with a blue sponge.
A plastic mug of instant coffee steamed beside her laminated roster sheet.
“Morning,” Alejandro said, his throat scratchy.
“Do you have an iPhone charger?
The old pin type?”
Miss Vance didn’t stop wiping.
She dragged the sponge around a ring of spilled dried milk.
“Lost property box gets emptied on Fridays, love.
Whatever’s in the basket by the door is all we’ve got.”
Alejandro checked the wire basket under the key hooks.
Two bent wire hangers, a single muddy shin guard, and a crushed box of earplugs.
“Can I use the desk phone?” he asked.
“Just a thirty-second call to London.”
“Line’s outbound-locked for staff,” she said, wringing out the sponge into a red bucket.
“Security policy since the U18s called adult chat lines three seasons back.
Try the main office after eight.”
He stood by the glass door for a moment, shifting his weight.
Eight o’clock was ninety minutes before the ten o’clock hospital deadline.
The corridor outside the U21 coaching suite smelled of floor wax and damp leather.
Sean Davies sat behind a glass-topped desk, an empty cardboard tumbler of dark tea sitting on an unread copy of the BIRMINGHAM MAIL.
He didn’t look up when Alejandro knocked on the open door frame.
He was thumbing through a stack of blue manila folders, his thick thumb leaving faint grease smudges on the margins.
“Sit,” Davies said, gesturing to a folding metal chair opposite him.
Alejandro sat.
His damp trousers stuck slightly to the vinyl seat.
“Corrigan’s plane landed in Lisbon forty minutes ago,” Davies said, sliding a four-page stapled document across the glass.
The top page bore the official Villa crest, but the body text was typescript, dense and unformatted.
“His secretary called while I was on the M6.
He wants the physical paperwork signed before he meets the Sporting Lisbon board at eleven.”
Alejandro looked down at the header.
STANDARD ACADEMY RELEASE & NON-CONTRACTED SCHOLAR WAIVER.
His heart gave a singular, heavy thud against his ribs.
Don’t let them make you sign a non-contracted scholar waiver without a—
His father’s voice echoed in his ear, flat and rasping, cut off by the dead battery chime.
Without a what?
A representative?
A signing fee?
A legal review?
“Read the red ink on page three,” Davies said, opening his desk drawer to retrieve a ballpoint pen.
He clicked it twice.
The spring inside squeaked loudly.
Alejandro turned to page three.
Section 4B: The player surrenders all provisional appearance rights and tribunal compensation claims under Article 12 in exchange for immediate trial placement and temporary residential support.
“What does ‘surrenders tribunal compensation’ mean?” Alejandro asked, his finger hovering an inch above the crisp paper.
Davies leaned back, the springs of his office chair groaning under his weight.
He didn’t offer a smooth explanation.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small silver key, and tossed it onto the desk.
“It means if Lisbon doesn’t take you after thirty days, Villa doesn’t owe Solihull or your old Sunday club a developmental fee,” Davies said flatly.
“And it means Corrigan handles your registration directly.
Without this, you aren’t on the charter flight to Portugal tomorrow morning.”
“My dad told me yesterday—”
“Your dad played semi-pro twenty years ago, Alejandro,” Davies interrupted, his tone devoid of malice, just dry and efficient.
“The market doesn’t work on Southern League rules anymore.
You sign the waiver, Corrigan submits the clearance to the FA by nine-thirty, and Villa covers your transport and lodging.”
Davies pointed the pen toward the bottom line.
“You don’t sign it, you pack your kit bag from Annex B, take the 9:15 train from New Street back to London, and wait for your local club to clear your registration whenever they get around to it.”
Alejandro stared at the blank line above the printed letters: A.
JESSE (PLAYER).
The clock on the wall read 8:22 AM.
If he refused to sign, he had no contract, no trial, and no leverage.
But if he signed, he might be throwing away whatever legal protection his father was desperately trying to tell him about before the phone died.
“Can I use your mobile to make one call?” Alejandro asked.
“To my dad.
Just two minutes.”
Davies looked at his wristwatch, then back at Alejandro.
His face remained unreadable.
“I don’t let players use personal devices in my office,” Davies said.
“Policy.
You have five minutes to decide, Jesse.
I have a tactical meeting with the U18 staff at eight-thirty.”
Alejandro’s thumb rubbed against the seam of his trousers.
The paper felt heavy, almost stiff, in his hands.
His mother was sitting in a cold room by a laundry drop.
£300 stood between her and a heated bed in the private wing.
Signing this didn’t give him £300 in cash right now, but it put him on the plane to Lisbon.
It meant Corrigan’s agency would assume his immediate expenses.
Or did it?
He tapped the pen tip against the edge of the desk.
“If I sign Section 4B,” Alejandro said, his voice quiet, “does the agency pay the advance residential allowance today?”
Davies squinted slightly, as if noticing a small scratch on a new table.
“Allowance is processed on the first Friday of the calendar month.
That’s two weeks away.”
“Not today?”
“No.”
Alejandro swallowed hard.
The room felt suddenly too warm, the smell of Davies’s stale tea sharp in his nostrils.
He pressed the pen tip to the paper.
He signed his name on the line.
Fast, jagged letters, the ‘J’ looping lower than usual.
Davies took the document back immediately, checked the signature without a word, tapped the pages neat against the glass desk, and dropped them into a manila envelope.
“Kit store’s open at nine,” Davies said, pulling a yellow slip from his drawer and scribbling his initials on it.
“Get your travel tracksuits.
Be at the minibus by two o’clock.”
By 10:14 AM, Alejandro was standing outside the canteen near the payphone booth.
The heavy chrome coin slot was jammed with a flattened copper penny.
A handwritten cardboard sign taped over the receiver read: OUT OF ORDER — USE MAIN RECEPTION.
He ran across the wet asphalt toward the administration building, his damp shoes squeaking on the linoleum as he pushed through the double doors.
Miss Vance was on the phone, nodding slowly while writing numbers on a sticky note.
She waved a hand at him to wait.
“Miss Vance,” Alejandro panted, his chest heaving from the sprint across Pitch 2.
“Please.
Is there a charger for an old model?
Or a phone I can use?
It’s past ten.”
She set the receiver down on its cradle with a soft click.
She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a black plastic brick attached to a thick black wire—an ancient universal charging block with adjustable sliding pins.
“Groundsman found it in the tractor shed,” she said, handing it over.
“Plug it into the wall by the vending machine.
Give it ten minutes before you try turning it on.”
Alejandro didn’t thank her.
He snatched the brick, dropped to his knees beside the metallic soda machine, and shoved the pins into his phone’s charging port.
A small red battery icon appeared on the black screen.
1%.
He sat on the cold floorboards, his back pressed against the vibrating side of the vending machine, watching the tiny green bar slowly creep upward.
10:22 AM.
The deadline had passed twenty-two minutes ago.
He held the power button down.
The phone vibrated twice, the brand logo flashing briefly on the glass before the home screen loaded.
A single notification popped up at the top of the display.
1 Missed Call: Dad (09:48 AM) 1 Voicemail (09:49 AM)
Alejandro pressed his thumb against the glass to play the message, lifting the speaker close to his ear.
The line hissed with wind and static.
Then his father’s voice came through, strained, hollow, and utterly exhausted.
“Alejandro…
don’t call the hospital.
They cleared out Ward 4C at nine.
Your mother…”
The audio cut into a long, screeching burst of digital interference.