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When Nile reaches the door of the safe house they’re currently occupying with three bags of groceries looped over her arm and a bottle of wine that she and Andy like in one hand she realizes she can hear the faint sounds of a commotion coming from inside. She pauses on the doorstep, apprehensive and debating the merits of putting the bottle down to save it versus using it as a makeshift weapon, but eventually opens the door and creeps inside.
The sounds get louder as she tiptoes through the hall towards the living room. Her marine training kicks in, and she begins to clear each room as she gets nearer to the source of what sounds like a screaming match. She still nearly jumps out of her skin though when Joe suddenly appears in the threshold of one of the bedrooms and beckons her inside.
“I have to warn you,” he says, pulling the bags off Nile’s arms and inspecting the bounty she bought, “It’s the World Cup final tonight so Nicky won’t be able to make dinner.”
“Dinner? World Cup? What? Joe who’s fighting?” Nile asks, though feeling much more at ease at Joe’s very apparent nonchalance.
“The World Cup,” Joe repeats. “You’re American so you probably don’t watch it, but it’s the final of the biggest tournament for football fans, and Ita—“
Joe is cut off suddenly by loud cursing that Nile has now surprisingly identified as Nicky and what suspiciously sounds like something glass shattering.
Joe rolls his eyes skyward as though asking for divine patience before continuing, “As I was saying, Italy and France are playing so Nicky and Booker are… passionate about the outcome of the game.”
“How passionate?” Nile asks laughing.
“$500 dollars worth of passion plus bragging rights,” Joe answers before guiding her down the hall to face the chaos of the living room.
Joe starts putting the groceries away as Nile takes in the picture of what’s going on in their usually very quiet safe house. The TV is turned on to a soccer game, and Nicky is on his feet screaming in what sounds like Italian at a referee for something or other while Booker crows happily from the recliner. Andy is sprawled contently on one of the coaches, a bottle of something in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, laughing at both of the boys. She pops her head up to look at Nile as she and Joe come over and lifts her feet up to let Nile sit on the other end of the coach before flopping back down.
“Don’t bother picking a team,” she whispers conspiratorially to Nile. “Just enjoy the show.”
Joe comes over then and finally pulls Nicky back down onto the coach and curls up into his side to watch the game. Nicky, still vibrating with anger, doesn’t even take his eyes off of the game to greet the other half of his soul.
Over the course of the next hour Nile learns three things about her new family: 1. Booker bites the inside of his mouth when he’s nervous 2. Nicky for all his good catholic boy posturing swears like a sailor 3. Soccer can actually be fun to watch with a boatload of alcohol, good food, and Andy’s full belly laughter at the antics of the boys.
At half the game is level at 1-1, and they are finally able to coax Nicky and Booker into eating something. Nicky talks shit to Booker at being given an unfair penalty kick while Booker shouts him down with possession statistics.
“Sorry about them,” Andy says jovially as she and Nile search the kitchen for dessert. “Their obsession is usually background noise, because Booker follows Ligue 1 while Nicky watches Serie A, but all bets are off when the World Cup rolls around.”
“I definitely don’t mind,” Nile says, unearthing the double stuffed oreos someone stuffed in the back of the pantry and handing them to Andy. “It feels like Superbowl Sunday when we would get together as a whole family and fight over who would win.”
Truthfully, the bitter nostalgia that Nile sometimes feels creep up the back of her throat when the peace between missions gives her too much time to remember her old life has surfaced a few times tonight. Something about the way Nicky and Booker yell at the screen like their will power alone can change the course of the game reminds her of her dad before he was ripped away from them. The few Superbowl nights they had when he wasn’t deployed are precious memories that burn so acutely. Memories that then bring up the thought of her mother and her little brother at home by themselves thinking they’ve lost her the same way. Nile wonders if they went to her Aunt’s house like usual for the game this year, or if they sat at home drowning in the pain of loss, unable to put the game on like they did the few years right after her dad was killed.
But then Andy nudges her shoulder and stuffs three oreos into Nile’s hand and one in her own mouth and flops back onto the coach with an impressively athletic leap over the back of it. The boys all gesture her back over-- Nicky yelling something about needing her good luck for Italy to win-- and she allows herself to be pulled back into their mayhem. Nile might have lost everything that day her neck was sliced open, but she gained just as much. So she sits on the coach with a woman older than anything Nile has ever known, next to soldiers who were destined to live together instead of die alone, who bicker playfully with a man who died fighting Napoleon, and learns to enjoy soccer.
France, apparently and much to Nicky’s chagrin, dominates the second half of the game. A disallowed Italian goal though has Nicky up and screaming again and promising this is the turning point for Italy’s victory while Joe laughingly pulls at his arm to get him to sit back down and not spill any of his drink.
Joe catches Nile smiling at them and yells over Nicky’s cursing, “we have yet to come to a real brawl over a soccer match, but today might be the day.”
Nicky finally falls back down onto the coach defeated. “If the refs get any worse I might have to fly out Berlin right now and break that non violent streak.”
At the 104th minute Buffon makes an amazing save to keep the score level which has Nicky praising every Roman Catholic saint and Booker cursing them. Five minutes later though something happens off screen that leaves Materazzi rolling on the ground in pain.
“He’s faking it,” Booker grumbles. “You couldn’t win fair Nicky, so you are resorting to flopping.”
But when the cameras replay the incident instead of showing Materazzi being at fault it displays the captured video of Zidane head butting him to the ground leaving Booker in stunned silence and Nicky cheering his head off. Zidane gets sent off. Booker already starts to mourn the loss of his good luck streak.
Italy goes on to win in penalties. Booker still sits aghast at the downfall of France’s national team while Nicky pops the cap off the champagne bottle he had stashed away for his victory lap and dances across the floor with Joe. Andy pats Booker on the shoulder and only seems a little patronizing while doing so.
“It is destiny that Italy was to win tonight,” Nicky cheers, sticky with champagne and glowing with victory.
Nile joins in with the celebration drinking and dancing and lets Joe sweep her up off the floor laughing as he twirls her around. They order in more food, pour more overflowing glasses, and put on music as Italy erupts in elation. As the night wears on Andy even coaxes Booker into joining in with the fun.
‘Yeah,’ Nile thinks watching these ancient beings drunkenly begin to bet on even more inane things to give Booker a chance to win back some pride, ‘I’ll definitely be happy here.’