Chapter 18 - Dominik

4 days before.

Dominik managed to sneak away from his team mates, he had had enough flattery for a day. They won by a difference of 2 goals, adding up to the first 3 points on the tournament

Although they were used to winning, every victory was worth a celebration, the only difference being he kept the champagne for the finals.

He headed for his locker and put his hand in his bag, looking for his phone. He felt an impulse to write to Samanta, to let her know they had won the game. He did not know why, but he felt like he needed to let her know.

He took his phone and slid his finger to unlock it.

He frowned when he noticed.

Samanta's number was gone.

“What the..?” he muttered.

This was very strange. He was looking at that number not an hour ago on his phone screen and now it was gone. It did not disappear by magic…

“Hurry up, Dominik. It's time for the press conference” one of his team mates reminded him.

Dom shut his eyes tight, and let out a sigh in frustration. Al he wanted was to go back to the hotel, take a shower and rest, or maybe, go to the airport to see…

He shook his head when he noticed where this was going. He had to stick to playing his part. He did not understand why they needed to talk to the press before and after a game, why wasn't one press conference enough? Apparently not. Sports networks wanted to know what their mistakes had been during previous games and after, when the game was over, they needed to know how the strategies had worked out for them. However, whenever they won, they only had to give a speech about discipline and team effort paying off, but, if they lost, they had to say different words: We tried hard, we gave it all, unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. Maybe next time.

When the conference was over, the team headed back to the hotel.

Once in the bus, while everybody else was cracking jokes or playing around, Dominik could not stop looking at his phone screen, trying to remember Samanta's number. But, who was he kidding? He did not remember.

“Everything ok, Weigand?” Rodríguez asked, sitting next to him.

Dominik nodded, but his body language said the opposite as his facial expressions. He was very confused.

“Actually, I'm not”  Weigand answered. “The strangest thing happened to me” he put his cell phone up, showing it to his mate. “I lost a contact number. Just like that, out of nothing.”

“It happens all the time” said Rodríguez, “these new cell phones. Let me see” he answered extending his hand out, asking to see the phone. Dominik handed it over and his mate looked at it very closely. After a few seconds. “Yes. Just what I thought, but don't worry. Good thing about technology is they are programmed to back up our data every so often.”

Dom felt so relieved hearing this; he embraced once again the hopes to see Samanta again.

“What should I do?” asked Weigand notably elated.

“Cross your fingers and beg it did back up the number you need.”

“How do I find out?” Dom wondered.

“I have a very useful app in my laptop. Maybe I could help” his mate offered.

“Great!”

“Just one little detail” Rodríguez frowned and Dominik felt anxiety building inside of him. “My laptop is back in Germany, a friend of my sister's was giving it maintenance. Don't worry, though” he cheered Dominik. “My sister will be here for the next game, she'll bring it for me.”

“Do you remember what the app is called? Maybe I could d******d it on my laptop?” commented Dom.

“Yikes! This is important.”

“Sort of” Dominik shrugged before Rodriguez's mocking look.

“Let's do one thing. Let's get to the hotel, take a shower, eat the delicious dinner that will be expecting us and, at about eight o'clock we'll meet in your room. Does that work for you?”

“Excellent idea” agreed Dominik.

After some 15 minutes, the bus stopped right outside the JW Marriott and the sportsmen came out wasting no time, like Rodríguez said, a scrumptious dinner awaited at the hotel's restaurant which, after everyone left for their rooms for a shower, they devoured voraciously.

Tiredness and exhaustion became latent as soon as Dominik entered his room, unable to keep himself awake. Rodríguez knocked the door a couple times, but decided against entering once he heard Dominik snoring inside the room.

*****

Dominik opened his eyes ten minutes before his alarm clock went off. He got out of bed, rinsed his face profusely before doing some push-ups and squats, same as he did every morning.

He heard a knock on his bedroom door and he went to open it. And there stood Friedrich, greeting him with a bright smile.

“Get dressed!” said the publicist.

“But…” Dominik did not understand why he should.

“Ewald asked me to come get you. He wants to make sure you're on time for practice. Come on! Hurry!”

“Practice isn't until two hours from now.”

“Metzler wants to start earlier, given the past results.”

Dominik rose an eyebrow.

“We won” he said.

“Hardly” Treadaway reminded him.

Since, according to the coach, the boys had such a hard time winning the previous game, practice hours were doubled, so was strategy study time. Adding up to the different engagements they each had apart from the National Germany football team. Some were the team's spokesmen for FIFA, some others had photo shoots for their respective sponsors, Dominik being the latter. He had some couple hour sessions before the Adidas cameras, apart from several interviews.

And so three days went by. Days which Dominik had no time to even think. He finished each day in complete exhaustion.

“Did you manage to fix the missing number thing?” Rodríguez asked one morning, on their way back to the hotel, after practice.

“What are you talking about?” Dominik did not understand the question.

“The number that was mysteriously gone from your phone.”

Dom opened his eyes big as plates as he remembered.

«Right. Samanta's number»

Dominik had completely forgotten, as usual. It was normal for him to forget certain things when he focused on something else, in his case, winning the World Cup. That was his priority. However, at that moment he felt an immense need to know from her. Of Samanta.

»I found an easier way to recover lost contacts deleted by mistake” his team mate kept going. “Let me see your phone, I'll show you.”

Dominik groped his pockets, looking for his phone. When he finally found it, he unlocked it and handed it over to his mate.

“Here you go.

Rodríguez held the device and slid his finger across the screen. Dominik observed in silence as the man next to him maneuvered his phone, in and out of the main menu, displaying sub menus and back to the home screen again. This went on for some good five minutes time, until Rodríguez broke a mischievous smile, staring at the screen, without moving another finger.

“Oh! So that's what that is, Weigand. You kept this one very well hidden.

“What? What are you talking about?

“This señorita” this one last word he said in perfect Spanish that Dominik understood very well. “There. All yours” said Rodríguez as he returned the phone.

The blue eyed blond smiled as he saw the screen with Samanta's name and number on it.