Chapter 268: [268] "I WANT OUT"

Juliette turned slowly, surveying the furniture. Her eyes locked onto the massive, black leather sofa dominating the center of the room. It was an incredibly expensive piece of furniture, designed to look imposing rather than comfortable.

She pointed the back of her marker at it.

"That does not come with us," Juliette stated flatly. "I told you on the phone. It is hideous. It looks like it belongs in a nightclub VIP section, not a living room. It stays."

Luc looked at the sofa. Valérie had paid an absurd amount of money for it when he signed his contract. But looking at it now through her perspective, he couldn’t deny she was right. It was the exact opposite of what he wanted the twin house to feel like.

"Fine," Luc conceded easily. "The sofa stays. I’ll text the building manager. He can have it, or he can call a junk removal service. We’ll buy a new one. Something that doesn’t feel like a waiting room."

Juliette smiled, clearly pleased by the lack of resistance. "Good choice. Now, grab the packing tape. We start with the non-essentials. Books, off-season clothing."

They fell into a rhythm that mirrored the seamless chemistry they shared in every other aspect of their lives.

Luc assembled the boxes, folding the cardboard flaps and running the tape across the seams. Juliette categorized the items. She moved with efficiency, evaluating every object based on its utility and sentimental value.

She marched to his closet.

"Luc, you have fourteen identical black t-shirts," Juliette called out from the depths of the wardrobe.

"They fit differently," Luc argued from the living room, currently wrapping something in bubble wrap.

"I am throwing six of them into the donation pile," Juliette announced.

"Do not throw away the ones with the curved hems!" Luc yelled back.

"Curved hems survive. V-necks are gone," she declared.

Luc shook his head, carefully placing the item into a box. He taped it shut and pushed it against the wall.

By noon, the living room was unrecognizable. Tall towers of uniformly packed and labeled boxes dominated the floor space. The walls looked bare without the framed jerseys and artwork. The echo in the apartment had increased significantly as the soft furnishings were packed away into vacuum-sealed bags.

They sat on the floor, leaning against the rejected sofa, eating takeout sushi directly from the plastic containers.

"This is going faster than I anticipated," Juliette noted, picking up a piece of salmon with her chopsticks. "You are surprisingly organized for an athlete."

"I told you, I don’t keep a lot of junk," Luc replied, chewing a piece of tuna. "Everything I need is usually provided by the club. The rest is just clothes and shoes."

"Speaking of clothes," Juliette said, pointing her chopsticks at him. "I need to go to my apartment this afternoon. I have to pack my own stuff. I haven’t even started."

Luc swallowed his food. He looked at her, fully realizing the magnitude of what they were doing. She was dismantling her own independent space to merge it with his. It was a massive commitment, finalized in the span of days.

"Do you want me to come help?" Luc offered. "I can drive over, assemble the boxes. Haul the heavy stuff."

Juliette shook her head. "No. You stay here. Finish the kitchen and the bathroom. I operate faster when I don’t have to explain why I am keeping specific things. I’ll pack my car full tonight, and we can load the rest into the moving truck tomorrow morning when it stops at my place on the way to the woods."

"Are you sure?" Luc asked, ensuring she wasn’t just trying to spare him the labor.

"I’m sure," Juliette smiled warmly. "Besides, you need to stay off work and rest. Henri gave you the day off to rest remember, not to carry heavy furniture up and down my stairs. I will manage."

"Okay," Luc agreed. "But if there’s anything too heavy, leave it. The movers get paid to handle it."

They finished their lunch in comfortable silence.

Luc stood up, collecting the empty plastic containers and tossing them into a trash bag. He walked over to the window, looking out over the city skyline one final time.

The window glass gleamed in the afternoon sun. The traffic crawled along the road below. It was an empire of noise and ambition. He had conquered it. He had arrived in this city as a highly-touted signing, given this apartment, and lived the chaotic life that accompanied it.

But as he stared at the horizon, his mind was already miles away, projecting toward someplace else.

He visualized the quiet, tree-lined driveway. The single-story layout. The shared compound where Hugo would undoubtedly be analyzing match data by the pool. He visualized the total lack of paparazzi, the absence of sirens, the silence that would allow his muscles to repair and his mind to sharpen.

Valérie Laurent had provided the ultimate fortress. Now, he had to provide the return on her investment.

"What are you thinking about?" Juliette asked softly, walking up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. She rested her chin against his shoulder, looking out at the same skyline.

Luc placed his hands over hers, feeling the warmth of her skin.

"I’m thinking about Saturday," Luc answered. The Golden Boot race and the clash against Phocéen never truly left his conscious thought. "I’m thinking about the fact that by the time we wake up on Wednesday in our new house, there will be no more distractions. It’s just football."

"Just football," Juliette repeated, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "You are ready for it, Luc. You and the team are functioning perfectly. You saw how they covered for Pinto. You saw how they transitioned."

"I did," Luc nodded, his eyes hardening as he stared at the distant buildings. "Phocéen plays possession. They try to suffocate you. But we have the tools to break them. We have the space now. We have the peace."

He turned away from the window, breaking the view of the city. He looked at the stacks of cardboard boxes, then looked down at the woman who had anchored him through the darkest days.

"Let’s finish packing," Luc said, his voice carrying the definitive tone of a captain giving an order. "I want to be out of this apartment by tomorrow morning."