Football Short Stories

Papa Knows Best - David Luiz

[This one shot is set in the near future, when David will have spent a few years in France playing for PSG.]

"David, are you shaking?"

"No I'm not."

"Oh my God, you're totally shaking!"

"Laura, I'm not shaking!" He paused "Ok you know what, maybe I am, but you can't blame me." David turned to face his fiancé who had an amused smirk on her lips.

"I'm sorry this is too funny." She giggled "You weren't even that nervous when you proposed to me!"

"That's because you never threatened to shoot me with a rifle!" He said, squinting his eyes which made Laura laugh even harder.

"Come on David that was one time! You know he was just being protective, he wasn't actually going to do it!"

"Laura," David said slowly, separating each word "Your dad threatened to shoot me with his hunting rifle! And you still wonder why I'm terrified to have dinner at your parents' house?"

David Luiz and Laura Archer had been dating for about a year when David first met Laura's parents. Her mother, Lydia, was a very pleasant woman but her father, not so much.

Robert Archer was a short, moon-faced, middle aged man who treated his mustache like his most precious possession. Overprotective, was an understatement to describe his attitude toward his only daughter.

So you could only imagine how colorful the first meeting with his daughter's boyfriend turned out to be.

In fact, it started with Robert taking out a hunting rifle hanging on the wall and pointing it at David, asking him 'what his intentions were' with his daughter.

Obviously Laura's dad meant well. He cared immensely about his daughter even though his ways were sometimes, well... uncalled for, to say the least. He just wanted to make sure that anyone who came close to his daughter wasn't just fooling around and wouldn't hurt her.

For David, it wasn't even a question; he was utterly and madly in love with Laura. In fact they were both crazy about each other. It has been this way ever since they met, back in October 2014, when David had just moved to France after signing with Paris Saint-Germain. Laura, herself, lived in the capital were she was studying journalism.

They were introduced by a member of the club's management who happened to be a family friend of Laura's. They dated soon after that, and it didn't take too long for them to fall in love.

A few months later, David and Laura took a three hours train journey from Paris to Nantes so David could meet Laura's parents for the first time.

After that slightly traumatizing first meeting, Laura had tried to get her boyfriend to go to Nantes for a second time but David always begged and pleaded so she agreed to let it go.

But it was different after he had popped the question back in November. She still hadn't announced the big news to her parents and she wanted David to ask her father for permission.

At first David laughed thinking she was joking but soon realized she was dead serious.

"I'm sorry David." she had told him "I know it's silly but you know how my father is, he wouldn't have it any other way."

So there they were, two weeks later, both standing in front of the entrance door of the Archer household.

"So, are you ready?" Laura asked facing her fiancé.

"I hope so," he sighed "hopefully your dad won't harass me too much this time."

She giggled "I'm sorry to make you go through this baby." She got on her tiptoes to give him a gentle kiss on the lips, but seeing as he was quite tall, and her, quite short, he still had to lean down to close the distance between them.