Monday morning and life was back to usual—at least for the first two hours.
As I'd pulled into the car park of work I'd heard my phone beep in my glove box. I pulled it out as I grabbed my stuff. It was a text from Betsy.
You and I need to talk.
Nothing else, that was it. Okay, that's a bit strange.
I felt well rested. The game had been rained off the day before, much to the little guy's disappointment. The other players were going to go for a drink in the pub, and in normal circumstances, I would have joined them for a coke. But normal circumstances didn't involve having the Lancashire Lion looming next to me wearing a faded baseball cap.
I'd waved my apologies, and we'd headed back to the car. "That Davies fancies you." The Lion had grumbled on the way back home.
I chortled and gripped the steering wheel. "Bailey? Davies? You think everyone does."
He glared out of the windscreen and muttered something illegible under his breath.
When I walked into the building and past security, flashing them my badge— although why I needed too after all this time, I didn't understand—the guy took me by surprise by saying "Miss Rivers, Mr Waller would like to see you in his office."
"Oka-a-a-y." I'd never been called to his office before, so this was odd. Mondays were always my session first for a warm up before he joined the team to discuss the game on Friday night and to implement any changes he wanted to make. Although, Friday night hadn't been an average game. We'd got a pounding, and our captain had accidentally hit a woman with a cricket bat. The Lion and I had talked about it on Saturday as we sipped at the wine and sat together on the sofa. It had been awkward to start with, him one end and I the other but as the evening had progressed the more we'd relaxed. Willis was always so fiercely defiant under scrutiny it was like he was a wounded animal snapping because he was in pain. I wished I knew from where that deep level of protective nature came. He loved the game, sure, but there was loving it and then being a twat because of it. And sadly, Jase Willis' behaviour often fell into the latter rule.
As I knocked on Waller's door, I told myself that he just wanted to discuss the disastrously dire game, before we faced the team together, a united front and all that.
He snapped a welcome, and I walked in. The Lion was in the corner studying the material of his tracksuit pants.
"Yes?"
Waller's glare was like something from a horror movie. His veins were multiplying at a rapid rate across his forehead, and I was genuinely worried for his health. His index finger stabbed at a newspaper on the table. "Care to explain?" the words flew with spittle that projected from his mouth and landed on the paper in question.
"What are you talking about?" I leant over the desk and stared at the paper. It was back page, a florid headline: ‘A Slice of Action for Red Cat's Cap’. Below it was a picture of the Lion holding a pizza box and waving at someone, a smile across his face. The someone was me. Following this was an image of the Lion helping Sammy to carry the boxes down the road to the car. The caption under this one was: ‘Jase Willis reveals his tender side, with Red Cat's fitness coach and possible girlfriend's, adopted son’.
My legs creased from under my weight and I fell into a chair. The Lion sat up straighter but still didn't speak. "This is awful. Terrible. Oh god." I clutched my hands to my hair. "They are going to see this! They are going to see it, and it's going to set everything off."
The Lion reached forward and placed a hand on my shoulder, his fingers squeezed and Waller’s eyes zeroed in on the action. He shook his head. "That's the least of your worries. You could get fired for this."
I looked up at him in shock. "Fired? But, why?"
Waller's eyes flitted between the two of us. "You know the rules, and the board must be fair to everyone. We can't lay some people off for indiscretions and then turn a blind eye to others.
I shook my head, my mouth flapping open as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. "What indiscretions? We haven't done anything wrong."
Waller's eyebrows looked on the verge of meeting his disappearing hairline as he nodded at the Lion’s hand still on my shoulder still, squeezing, still helping me not freak out. I breathed and tried to focus on his firm touch through my T-shirt.
"Oh, oh, no." I shook my head fast. "No, it's just..." And then I ran out of things to say. What could I say without giving away the injury I was secretly trying to help improve?
The Lion's fingers slid to my hand and gave a squeeze, and Wallers's gaze watched them like a hawk. "It's okay, Ly-" he cut off the rest of my name. "Rivers, it's okay." His voice had that gentle burr that I only got to hear at the weekend, and it made my heart beat a little faster as it melted into my bones. He shifted his attention from me to Waller, and it felt like being released from a blinding spotlight. "Rivers has been helping me with my fitness."
Waller snorted, which stung me more than I would like to admit, and rubbed at his chin. "Really?"
The Lion nodded. "I've had some issues with my shoulders, and I didn't want it to affect my game, so I asked her to give me some extra coaching."
"We have physio for that," he snapped.
The Lion's expression sharpened. "Yes. Thank you. I didn't want physio. I wanted her to help." Something about the way he said, her, made my belly tighten.
Waller threw his pen down on the desk. "Well, it stops now. The team has to be united."
The Lion's back straightened to that of a ramrod. "No. I will not have my friends dictated to me by management." A small gasp escaped my lips, and the Lion's eyes flashed to me as if they were searching my soul, seeking out the secrets that I kept. "That's right isn't it, Rivers?" His fingers squeezed mine again, and I wanted to collapse into a million pieces.
"Yes." My voice was a small echo.
Waller broke the magic. "Rivers, go and do your job." He jabbed a finger through the air at the Lion, "You and I will talk now."
Hesitating, I lingered on my seat until it became clear that Waller and the Lion were becoming embroiled in a war of hard glares and quivering eyebrows.
I slipped out of the room to the sound of explosive voices.
Shit.
There were too many facets of this nightmare to factor in, but I had to keep one paramount in my mind at the cost of everything else. Sammy.
The changing room was hushed when I entered. I told myself that it didn't matter what anyone else thought. Hadn't the Lion just announced that I was his friend, of all things? But it did matter, deep down it did. I needed the respect of the team to do my job properly.
"Okay, stop gossiping like old women."
They all stared at me, and I knew I had to go in hard. "Hands up if you think I'm fucking Willis?"
No one was brave enough to put their hands up, and I shot them all a withering glance. Bloody pussies. "It's written all over your faces, you morons."
Bailey shifted uncomfortably. "It's not that. It's just we like you; we don't want you to get sacked."
I laughed. "I'm not going to get sacked. Nothing is going on. It's not a big deal. I've been helping Willis with strengthening his shoulders. We ate pizza." I gave a light shrug as I ended on this. Of all the things I could say, the team would probably believe we’d accidentally bumped uglies rather than Willis and I had sat down and enjoyed a civilized lunch together. I had to laugh; it was a burst of uncontrollable giggles I couldn’t repress. My hands shook and I tried to hide them under my armpits.
The room relaxed a notch, and I sat on the bench, my elbows resting on my knees. "Listen, guys. I won't ever let you down, not ever. Friday was a nightmare game, but we need to move on from it together." There were a few nods, so I carried on with my theme. "I know we can win this season, but we aren't going to do it if we are suspicious of each other and not united." I let out a laugh. "Anyway isn't it better that Willis and I get along instead of him walking out of the room every time I walk in?"
There were a few sniggers, and I relaxed, knowing I'd won over the crowd. Then the Lion slammed through the door, bouncing it off the wall with such an intensity that a shower of plaster landed on the floor. He didn't look at me, didn't even acknowledge that I was on the bench. He just growled at the team. "What the fuck are you guys doing sitting around, get the fuck outside and start working."
It was as he filtered out with the team that I realised he included me in that statement and I knew something had gone down in that office that had changed everything.
A shudder immobilised my legs.
Something else I knew: the Lion loved the game, more than he loved anything else—apparently, even more than his friends.
Practice went back to usual, and by usual, I meant the Lion didn't talk to me, and he often walked out when he thought my practice drills were a waste of time. In better news, the papers didn't run the story for long. Once the journalists hawking outside the building realised I wasn’t going to stop and answer their questions they soon gave up. It was what I wanted; the last thing Sammy and I needed was pictures of us circulating in newspapers, nothing would bring about a custody challenge quicker than that I was sure. Thankfully, within a couple of days, nearly everyone had forgotten about it. Everyone, apart from me.
Friendship wasn't something that I did often. Not because I was unsociable but rather because my commitment to the game had eaten into most of my personal time. My whole family knew that when it came down to the line my dedication was way beyond that of my brother’s. I mean he'd fallen in love and got married. Love had never even crossed my mind.
And now the one person who I'd trusted with my personal life, with my home, had proved himself to be a dick. A dick of the highest order. I was so bloody mad. I wanted to tell him, I wanted to shout and smack him in that handsomely smug face of his. More than anything, more than the sharp stab of pain I felt at his disregard, was the fact I hated myself more for falling for it.
The Lion had been given a choice.
And he’d chosen the game.
I was naive to think he’d do anything different.
By Friday, I was dreading the game. The press were out in full force waiting to see if he would injure anyone else this week, and the fighting talk from the other team made it clear that the rest of the premiership believed us to be on the skids. Down to the soles of my feet I dreaded our captain being goaded into a brawl out on the field. I knew if he did, his time would be up and it wouldn’t matter how much the Red Cats had paid for him they wouldn’t allow him to continue.
It sucked.
As the team got ready for the game, I noticed the Lion was missing. I'd been trying very hard not to react to him all week, which was silly because it was a bit like asking myself not to notice that the sun was shining or that it was raining. I was so aware of him, it hurt. More aware than I had let myself believe.
I ducked out of the changing room and looked down the hallways. He was on the phone, which I'd never seen before, not ever. "It's not good enough," he was growling as he pulled at clumps of golden hair making it stand on end. "I need to know soon."
I'm not sure if he sensed me behind him, but he turned his head and the icy gaze he sent in my direction sent a shiver down my spine. He didn't smile. He didn't do anything. In fact, he did nothing at all.