Chapter 102: The Premier League’s Young Wonder, Saint Maddox

"That’s actually you on the telly." This was the second night in a row the reporter’s visit had kept everyone glued to the screen. Now, in the restaurant’s front room, Saint, Derek, Linda, Chloe, and even a couple of the staff who’d stayed late were all crowded round the television.

It wasn’t the first time Chloe had said it, either. Since the broadcast started, her face had barely moved from disbelief. Even now, it still didn’t feel entirely real to her.

According to the presenter on "The Football Debate," Saint Maddox was the first English manager of his generation to be handed a struggling club and turn it around inside a season, a genuine rarity, and by most measures, a success story.

Saint himself wasn’t so sure. In his own head, all he’d really done was earn himself a foothold at Villa, nothing more dramatic than that. But to most people watching, simply getting handed the reins of a proper English club counted as success on its own, and Saint hadn’t just been handed the reins. He’d worked miracles with them.

A matter of months, that was the gap by which he’d shattered the previous record for youngest manager to lead a club to instant promotion, a record that had stood for years before he came along, and he’d done it off the back of a staggering run, twelve wins, one draw, two defeats across his first fifteen games in charge, a run that had single-handedly dragged Villa up from the relegation zone to an automatic promotion spot.

Confident, composed, even a little showy at times, proud of what he’d built. On the touchline, in front of cameras, Saint carried himself like an entirely different person than the one currently sitting on a stool in his uncle’s restaurant.

It was little wonder Derek couldn’t quite square the two in his head, and he wasn’t the only one at that table struggling with it either. One look at the sharp suit and polished shoes Saint wore barking instructions from the technical area, then back at the lad currently in one of Derek’s old t-shirts, carrying plates and running takeaway orders between tables, and the disconnect was almost comic.

Try explaining that this was a man pulling down a salary that could buy the whole restaurant outright, filling a stadium with tens of thousands of people every single week, treated like a hero across an entire city.

Right now, the segment had cut to interviews filmed back in the Midlands. Ordinary supporters, die-hard fans, club staff, local reporters, and finally the players themselves, every single one of them full of praise for Saint.

"How long does it take to win over a whole city? In football, Saint Maddox needed just three months," the host, Gary Pemberton, said as the segment wound down.

Saint sat there watching his own highlight reel play out, half-wondering how many people back home were tuning in to this right now. Coverage of lower-division English football rarely made it onto the wider national radar with much detail, so most of this would genuinely be new information to half the viewers.

But after tonight’s broadcast, that was about to change. Villa were a top-flight club next season, and Saint’s name was only going to show up more and more in the national conversation from here on.

Over the following weeks, Saint’s face started turning up on front pages everywhere. Online, in pubs, in group chats, nobody seemed able to talk football without his name coming up somewhere in the conversation.

Even the restaurant felt the ripple effect, business doubled almost overnight, and the fact that the Premier League’s newest wonder-manager had personally been seen running takeaway orders through that same restaurant only days earlier didn’t exactly hurt trade.

That, though, was a problem for later. Right now, in the immediate aftermath of the broadcast, Saint was being properly interrogated by his own family. Cross-examined, really, might be the more accurate word.

"Why didn’t you say something from the start?" Derek demanded, equal parts proud and genuinely wounded that he’d had to learn all this from a television screen.

"Mm, if I’d told you on day one that I’d be earning millions a year within twelve months, would you actually have believed me?" Saint said, a little helplessly.

"Believe it or not isn’t the point, you still should’ve said something," Derek said, not entirely willing to let the logic win.

"Oh, leave him be, he just didn’t want people making a fuss," Linda cut in.

"Fuss? I raised the lad myself, and he’s worried about people making a fuss over him?" Derek said, though there was unmistakable pride hiding behind the complaint.

"Dad, if Villa fans ever find out you reacted like this when you found out, you’ll never hear the end of it," Chloe said. Ever since she’d first clocked her cousin on the screen, her hero-worship had quietly shifted away from her own father and landed squarely on Saint instead.

"Hmph," was all Derek had for that, not bothering to dignify mother and daughter ganging up on him with a proper response.

"We head back tomorrow," Saint said. After the exposure of the last two days, he couldn’t keep moving around as freely as before, and the crowds filling the restaurant tonight made that painfully obvious.

"Right. I’ve got interviews lined up with the domestic press over the next couple of days, promised them that much before I ever left England," Saint said, nodding.

Even though it had been barely a week, Saint had properly enjoyed this little stretch of normal life. Out here, he’d found something resembling family again, somewhere he didn’t have to think about anything beyond what to order for dinner.

"Just promise me you’ll keep your word, lad, whatever else happens," Derek said, a little lost for anything else to say.

As proud as Derek was of him, he understood better than most that nothing worth having came free. Success like this always carried a price somewhere.

He’d know. A chef didn’t start as a chef, he started scrubbing pans and grinding through years of grunt work before he ever earned the title properly.

And judging by the reporters camping outside two nights running, and the sudden flood of customers today, it was obvious Saint wasn’t just another ordinary face anymore.

The face of English football? That felt like a stretch, still, especially with England’s own senior side having crashed out of the last World Cup in such painfully forgettable fashion. But give it time.

"Don’t worry, old man, I’ll keep coming back every year from now on. Besides, haven’t you already got an apprentice in the kitchen? Once he’s ready to carry real weight, you can bring Linda and Chloe out to visit me properly," Saint offered.

"By the time he’s ready to carry real weight, who knows how long that’ll take," Derek grumbled.

"Well, if you can’t wait that long, just shut the place down. I’m making more than enough now, I’ll look after you and Linda myself going forward," Saint said, and he meant every word of it.

"Shut this restaurant down?" The very suggestion, after everything Derek had poured into the place, was unthinkable.

"You’re being unfair, cousin," Chloe interrupted, apparently waiting for her moment.

"How am I being unfair?" Saint looked over at her, genuinely puzzled.

"You never said you’d look after me too," Chloe said, pouting.

"You’ll have a husband to look after you eventually," Saint said, laughing.

"Hmph, who says I even want to get married?" Chloe said, deflating slightly.

"That’s exactly it, who says my girl’s getting married off to anyone," Derek said, instantly switching sides to stand behind his daughter.

It was, after all, the one thing every father eventually had to face. Twenty-odd years raising a daughter right, only to imagine handing her off to some undeserving lad down the line, enough to put any father in a mood.

"Oh, Derek, don’t start," Linda said, standing up properly this time.

Linda, unlike Derek, wanted one thing above all else for her daughter, a good match, someone steady.

With Chloe’s little detour, the conversation veered off somewhere else entirely, and honestly, Saint was grateful for it. Better that than sitting through another round of goodbyes.