"If you don't put a cap on that hair you're going to blind someone or poke their eye out." I grinned at Fredericks and his mussed red hair which had more height than a beehive.
It was hard to hear ourselves think, let alone talk, the chanting from the stands was so intense.
"All the girls love a bit of ginger," he told me with a lewd wink shot in my direction.
"No one has said that, ever." I laughed and flipped through the pages of my folder one last time. We were in a great place: training had been tight, the boys were in high spirits, and the slightly easier atmosphere had managed to last all day in the build up to the second game.
The Lion was still standing in the same room as me, but eye contact was a no go, and he looked like he was sucking lemons.
I just couldn't find the energy to be intimidated by him anymore. I'd spent all night tossing and turning, worrying about what the next game would bring. But I knew it was out of my control. It was in his, simply because he was a stubborn arse. Why should I let him beat me?
As everyone gathered around to listen to Waller repeat the game plan, I sidled my way alongside the folded elbow of the Lion. He shifted at my approach as if he was expecting to be infected by some innocuous disease just from standing too close. I gulped a breath and forced my eyes to look at his face. Now, this was something I tried very hard not to do. It was bad enough seeing his face plastered over the walls in Sammy's room, let alone allowing myself to acknowledge the disappointment that his face didn't have the easy smile spread across it in person. But as I lifted my gaze, I couldn't resist absorbing the planes of his cheeks, the smooth curve of his eyebrows and the faint tracing of fine lines that spread from around his eyes—evidence that he must have smiled once in his life. It was no wonder women were known to grovel at his feet, he was like a cricket playing Greek god with his burning bright golden hair and tanned skin.
"All prepared, Willis?" I decided to go with the formal surname he maintained with me on the handful of occasions he'd bothered to waste words on my measly self.
His eyes locked onto my face, unyielding and demanding. I stood firm, despite the fact inside I resembled a blancmange in a blender. "Yes, Rivers. Are you?"
I smiled. I just flashed it out there and threw it in his face. "Yep. I can't wait to see the Lion at play." I didn't mean to say the word Lion, but it slipped out there. If I could have snatched it back and swallowed it again before it reached his ears, I would have.
The left side of his lips twitched like he had a tick. "Enjoy the show, Rivers."
He went to turn away, but I spoke once more. "You know everyone will be watching you this week. There will be no hiding, and I won't take the blame. Not for you."
His eyes flashed, and he turned his back on me and focused on Waller.
I stood there and thought of what the hell I was going to do if the game went south again.
And then the worst thing happened. We lost. And it wasn't even our fielding that let us down. We were out bowled, our runs being kept tight, their fielders snapping at our fours and reigning us in. The crowd were wild with dismay by the time Bailey stepped up and got caught for a duck.
Even the Lion hadn't been able to work his magic with his cricket bat. He came off the field for thirty-five, his face a furious mask of scowling lines and downturned lips. Everyone averted their eyes to the ground, expecting the explosive fireworks of anger that he was so famous for, but nothing happened. He just sat on the edge of the bench after throwing his bat to the ground and bashed his foot into the grass, refusing to acknowledge anyone.
Waller, on the other hand, ripped the team a new one when he had them locked back in the confines of the changing room. We knew outside there were a gathering of reporters, and none of us were keen to get out there, but then I don't think the boys particularly wanted to listen to the bollocking either. But that was part of being a sportsman—you had to take the highs and the lows in equal measure.
This was a low.
"What the fuck was that?" Waller's vein pulsated in his forehead, and I was sure he was heading for an aneurysm. "I've seen girls play better." He'd forgotten I was even there until Fredericks coughed and pointed at me. Waller spun around. "Sorry, Lyssa, but you are one of the boys now; you can take this with them." His anger turned to me, and I squirmed in my spot on the bench. The boys hadn't even got changed yet; Waller hadn't given them a chance. There was an intense smell of stale sweat beginning to fill the room. "What the hell happened out there?" he snapped at me, and eleven pairs of eyes—actually, make that ten—fell onto my face. "Why weren't they able to break through their fielders?"
I straightened my back until I was ramrod straight like I had a cane shoved down the back of my sweaty shirt. "Hey, that's not all fitness; there was a strategic failure as well."
He wasn't wrong, though, we should have been able to power through their tight fielding even if it was just breakouts as opposed to consistent.
Waller scrubbed at his head with his hand. If he wasn't careful, he was going to expand the decaying edge of his hairline into an all-out island. His gaze fell on each player in turn. "We've got too much riding on this to allow lapses in judgement to steal games away from us." His glance landed with precision on the black Swoosh tick sign on the front of the kit. "We are supposed to be the trail blazers. The moment we stop being that we need to compete for commodities and your salaries go down. You have to remember that no one’s contract and salary is guaranteed for more than one season." His eyes flashed. "In fact, maybe I should talk to the board and negotiate a bonus pay system for winning over losing."
Eyes bulged.
My mouth fell open as the Lion got up from where he'd been studying his trainers on the furthest edge of the bench. "That won't be necessary, Coach, we won't lose again." The words looked like they pained him on the way out; that they were sharp splinters of glass cutting his tongue, and I took some satisfaction at him having to grovel on behalf of his team.
Waller rested his steely gaze on him for a moment. "Everyone has got to be fit, Jase, everyone." There was no denying the emphasis on the last word, and the Lion's jaw twitched before he inclined a small nod of his head.
Waller turned back to the team. "Get out of here all of you. I don't want to see you again tonight."
There was silence as we all stood up and I gathered my stuff to go to my own dressing room. "Rivers," Waller called me back. "Tomorrow you start high-intensity training until these fuckers are fit enough to win."
I nodded, my throat too tight to answer.
I knew it wouldn't make much difference how much high-intensity training the rest of the team did if the captain wasn't fit enough to play.
When I came out of my room, tucking my folders under my arm as I pulled my wet ponytail out from down the back of my T-shirt, my eyes were drawn to a solitary shape leaning against the opposite wall.
It was him. I quaked a little, but then steeled myself and stood straight. I hadn't done anything wrong. I had to keep reminding myself of this fact.
He had. God, it made me so mad I could have punched him. I wanted to kick him in the balls. That would have been much better.
He peeled himself away from the wall and stepped forward. "Can we talk?"
What? He wanted to talk now? I was so over talking it was joke. "No."
"Rivers." My name was a low growl in his throat. He really was a lion, and I had a feeling I was the prey he could destroy with one simple swoop. I knew this. He could kill my new career in one strike should he wish.
I turned and blinked tired eyes up to his face. I was exhausted. I just wanted to go home, sleep and forget that this day had ever happened.
If he didn't make my day's so exhausting, with his endless animosity I had to fight through, then maybe I wouldn't be so tired. Maybe I wouldn't have let the team down and done such a shit job that we lost our second match.
Anger flourished through me, filling me with much-needed vitality. "No, I don't want to talk to you."
He tried to grab my hand, his grasp aiming for my wrist just like he had the previous day but I dodged its approach. "Please." The word was almost choked out, and I hoped it had burned him to say it.
"No. This is all your fault, you're an arsehole of the highest order, Jase Willis. We lost because of you, because you are a pig ignorant bastard."
His head dipped for a moment as my onslaught landed on his shoulders.
I carried on, unable to stop now that I'd opened the floodgates to my repressed anger; it boiled in my veins begging for release. "You haven't done my training, you won't let me help you and you won't admit that there is anything wrong so the team can compensate for you while we try to help. We are a team, Willis, not a goddamn one man show. And this is all because of your ego. And now, I look bad. It looks like I can't do my job right because you aren't strong enough to lead the team either on the field or off it."
I started to shift away from him, sure that his infamous temper was about to be released onto me. Instead, he was silent.
He still couldn't be bothered to talk to me. Gah, that man.
I threw my hands up in the air. "You are a prize dick." Did that tick lift his lips again? "I know you were great and all that, but if you're past your prime you should admit it." My next words were soft, and I was almost repulsed at myself for saying them, but I couldn’t hold them back. I wanted to hurt him, the need was driven deep within me. "I mean that you are about six years past your prime."
His cheeks flushed a florid pink under his golden stubble, and his eyes narrowed. I stepped back. I had no idea what he was going to do. I mean the guy was shrouded in rumours, which ones were true I didn't want to find out.
His hand snaked out and I thought it was going to grab me, or worse, hit me, but it didn't. It went for my shoulder as he grasped firm fingers into my flesh and yanked me forwards, his mouth landing on mine.
The Lion was kissing me.
I repeat. The Lion was kissing me.
It was short and hard. Raw and explosive. His mouth bruising as it slammed against my lips. Hot breath filtered between my teeth as I gasped and my lips parted. From under the sudden movement, there was softness there in the curve of his smile against me like he’d known I was going to react with the wanton opening of my mouth. I hated him for kissing me, but the moment he’d claimed me, I’d wanted it. A flourish of desire unfurled itself within me and I wanted to drown in the dark abyss it provided. My legs went to jelly instantly, and he wrapped a steel strengthened arm around my back, pinning me momentarily to his chest, his mouth crushing hard. Then he released me and walked away, his shoulders high and his step wide, and I was left with stinging lips, my body quivering like a leaf and wondering what the hell had just happened.