My fingers rapped on Waller's door, and I swallowed down a bubble that was restricting my throat. "Come in," he called, and I edged the door open poking my head through the gap.
"You haven't knocked on this door the whole season."
"Yes, I have!"
His head swung from side to side. "Nope, normally you just march straight in."
I ignored his jibe and said one of the two things I'd knocked on his door to say. "Thanks for letting the team come to Sammy's school yesterday; that meant the world to me."
He waved his fingers at me, "It was all Willis' idea I can assure you."
I attempted a poker face. I attempted, I may not have succeeded. "Oh, right."
Waller's belly jiggled as he laughed. "Sure why not, I said. I mean it's only four days to the season finale, it's not like we had anything better to do." He grimaced with his sarcasm.
I flashed him a grin and sidled into the visitor chair, deciding to lock away the information about Jonathan being the instigator in yesterday's events. I'd ponder it all later. "So how do you think we are set?"
"How do you think we are set?"
I stared at the ceiling. "Well, they are fitter, more cohesive now, but then what are the Hurricanes like? We haven't played them since the beginning of the league, and they could have been working just as hard."
Waller sighed, and his neck looked like it was going to disappear into his shoulders as it folded into a concertina of excess flesh. "You've done well to get them all fit. Fit enough to handle the game at this level."
There was no mistaking the emphasis on the word all.
I gave the briefest incline of my head I could manage.
Puffing out my cheeks I sat back in the chair and twiddled with the lace of my trainers. This was harder than I was expecting it to be. "Spit it out, Rivers," he said when it was obvious that I wasn't going to be forthcoming about my visit.
I reached down into my tote and pulled out the A4 envelope. His already grey face took on an ashen effect when he saw me slide it across the table. I didn't know how to phrase what I wanted to without getting the captain in trouble. With a nervous cough, I said, "I appreciate the amendments to the contract."
Waller’s eyes explored my face, reading my expression. "But?"
I loved this guy, he knew me so well. "But, I'm not going to sign."
Waller put his head onto the desk and groaned loudly. I thought this was it, the heart attack that had been brewing all season with his purple flushed rages and his increased stress levels had finally done the job. “Coach?" I sat forward ready to jump into some form of CPR if only I could remember it.
"This is shit." He groaned into the wood, his nose flattened against the surface as if he planned to never lift his head back up again.
"There are many fitness coaches out there more suitable." I spoke the truth and he knew it.
"But the guys love you, and they respect you."
"They are good boys, and they will respect anyone." I flushed a little when I thought of the lack of respect Jonathan had initially shown me, and how I'd earned that respect the hard way, through sweat, tears and determination.
"What are you going to do?"
A smile pulled at my lips. "The best of both worlds I hope."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Surrey have asked me to play for the women’s side."
"But you're injured." He glanced at my knee with narrowed eyes.
"Mm, guess it got better."
He picked up a biro and scored at the desk with the lid.
I bumbled along. A stinging embarrassed burn smothered my cheeks as I tried to account for the fact a year ago I'd pretended to be more injured than I was because I'd been too embarrassed to admit that I wanted something other than cricket. And that now I wanted to find a way to balance the two things I loved within the boundaries of my life. "It's not just that, they are setting up a women’s youth academy and they've asked if I'd like to be involved."
"Surrey, right?" His right eye twitched, and I wondered if this was the beginning of a seizure.
"Yes, why?"
The twitch started to lift half his face. "Go figure, hey. And there's nothing I can do to get you to give us another season? Even the amended contract won't convince you?"
My cheeks flushed again, but for a completely different reason. "No."
Waller rocked back in his chair, his head falling back onto the leather as he groaned at the ceiling. "Well isn't this just great."
"Come on, Simon, you'll have applications for another fitness coach in no time."
"It's not just that, Lyssa," His eyes met mine. "I've already lost my captain today."
At first, his words made no sense to me at all. Then a slow dawning reality filtered into the slow churning of my brain. "Willis is leaving?"
Waller waved his fingers at me, like he was over the conversation, or he'd had it more times in one day than he'd wished. "Yep, he's been offered his perfect job back in test cricket."
"Oh." I rubbed my hands along my bare knees. "Oh," I repeated. I had to ask. I couldn't leave that room and not know. "Was his contract amended like mine?" My cheeks flamed.
"Yep, it didn't make any difference."
"Captaincy?" I asked. It shouldn't matter, but it did.
Waller shrugged like he wasn't allowed to say.
And well isn't that a bitch.
I concentrated on the sun streaking through the window as I mulled this over. Eventually, I stretched up from the chair. "Cool, I'll go and round up the boys for training."
He nodded. "Sure." As I closed the door softly behind me, my heart beating with a heavy ache in my chest, I saw his shoulders slump as he threw the biro minus its lid across the room.
The boys worked hard, and even Jase Willis didn't have any complaints to make as I pushed them probably further than I had done in months. The following day we concentrated on R&R, saunas, massages and flexibility.
I didn't speak to the captain about his new captaincy in test cricket, and he didn't speak to me about my role. In fact we didn’t speak, not unless we had to and it was directly to do with the game or the team. Kill me now and bury me six feet under. In the evenings, Mum, Dad and Maria provided me with some adult entertainment that was most welcome, well until mum started to irritate Maria to such an extent that kitchen cupboard doors were being slammed on a regular basis.
The night before the big game, I left the team doing some late-night run throughs with Waller and went home.
"I'm home," I called, and the little guy ran out of the patio doors like a tornado, intent on landing in my arms.
"How was it? Are they going to win?" He jumped into my arms, and I squeezed him tight and breathed in the scent of outdoors that clung to the skin of his neck. I wondered how long I would get these giant cuddles, would there be a point in the future when he would be too old or too cool to hug his old Aunt, and what would happen to me then?
I walked with giant steps towards the lawn, and he hung around my neck squealing giggles that made my heart soar. "Game of catch?" I released my hold, and he slid down to the grass. "Before the adults realise I'm home, and I'm made to do jobs." I winked with my words. Sammy had also been made to do tidying 'jobs' by my mother, and it was fair to say he was as keen on them as I.
"You didn't answer," he threw the ball into the air and caught it with ease. "Are we going to win?"
I cocked my head to the side, blinking into the late afternoon sun. "Sure, do you know what, little guy, I think we will." He pumped his fist into the air. "You know I'm leaving the team, though? Yes, Sammy?" I leant down so we were nose to nose and our eyes watched one another's without blinking. "I mean you will still be able to watch games and stuff, but it will be white cricket." We'd always called test cricket white cricket since he was a baby. From the age of about two, he knew that if the players were wearing white, then there was going to be no winner that day, and not even the next.
"I can't believe you are going to play the boring cricket again." His bottom lip dropped.
"Hey, it's not boring." I laughed a little. Sometimes it could be, especially if the game stopped for play and the sandwiches ran out.
"But, Bailey won't be there."
I shook my head. "No, he won't."
"And Jase won't."
"No, he won't either."
"Will he still come at the weekend do you think?"
I scrunched my face. I didn't want to lie, but then I didn't want to upset the little guy either. "You know, I've heard he's going to be playing cricket in white too, so I think he's going to be busy leading a new team."
Sammy's eyes sparked with interest, "Can we go watch?"
Chewing my bottom lip I tried to think of an answer, but in the end, I settled on that classic adult-like "We'll see."
I grabbed the tennis ball and lobbed it over the lawn. "What’re you standing still for, little guy?" He screeched and ran for the ball just as Jasper came tearing out realising he was about to miss a round of his favourite game, closely followed by my dad who was desperate to escape the housecleaning war Maria and Mum were embroiled in.
When we went back in it was dark. I was covered in grass stains, but I was laughing. My stomach ached where I'd laughed so much.
I knew I could face the following day and the goodbye I had to say to the team because I had all the things I needed right there around me.
The stands were insane. The stadium rising and falling as if it were a living organism. Waller and I were shouting at each other despite the fact we were stood only a few inches apart. Every so often one of us would accidentally spit and need to wipe each other down. It was clammy; the heat that had been boiling for weeks with no relief, was coiling itself into dark clouds above the stadium floodlights. The rain was the last thing we needed. Winning was paramount, and rain would stop play, and then who knew what would happen.
In the changing room, the team held hands. Co-incidental or not, the captain’s hand landed on mine and squeezed my fingers hard. I couldn’t make myself look up. I'd had days to think about Waller's little nugget of information he’d let slip. Part of me was pleased, pleased that the Lancashire Lion was going to get to do what he truly loved, at least one last time. The other half of me was a little sad that the man who had confessed to being my friend only a few short weeks ago, hadn't told me himself.
It was the game.
It meant more to him than anything.
Which reminded me...As we filtered back out into the stadium to rapturous applause, I squeezed Waller's arm and went in search of the things that meant more to me than anything else. And there they were in the stands. The little guy's face was painted a vibrant pink, and even Dad had gone so far as to have the black cat emblem stencilled onto his cheek. Colin and Blythe waved to me, and Scarlett gave me a thumbs up and a wink, pointing at the team as her Mum and Dad looked between us trying to work out what we were talking about.
There they were. My absolute bloody everything.
I turned back to the team and saw the image on the giant screens change as millions of pixels transformed into the face of my brother. Anthony stared at me, his wide, white smile grinning down at me telling me that it was okay he'd been gone a year. I glanced up at Sammy and saw his mouth drop open, and Mum's hands dashed to her face, covering her mouth.
My knees shook as I walked back to the team as the compere told the crowd we would be honouring a minutes silence on the anniversary of Anthony Rivers’ death. Waller laid his arm around me, "You okay, kid?" I nodded. I wasn't okay, though. It had taken me a whole year to get to this point in my life, a point where I thought I might know what I wanted, but that whole year my cricket-mad brother hadn't been with me.
Fingers slid into mine. I didn't need to look to know that Jonathan Willis held my hand for the whole minute, before applying a gentle squeeze and running onto the pitch when the time was up.
We lost the toss, and they chose to bat first. It's not the way I would have wanted it to go. Better to be giving them a number to chase than vice-versa.
Jonathan was first up to bowl, and it was okay. I'd agreed the choice. His fitness was no different than it had been a few seasons before his injury began to develop. It was the sheer dedication to his game that had dragged him back from the point of needing to take early retirement.
But then he started to bowl pies. They weren't wide. They weren't off target; they just weren't anything. Their batsman smashed numerous fours and one six off the balls.
He was furious when he walked back in from his over.
"I'm taking him to the tunnel to look at his shoulder." I bashed Waller on the arm to make sure he heard me, and he gave me an absent nod as his eyes focused on Anderson stepping up and wiping the ball along his trousers.
"Hey," I called for him, but he ignored me. "Jase." I tried again, but he kept his shoulders turned and set. "Jonathan," I shouted making some fans lean over the railing to get a closer look. "I need to see your shoulder."
His face was thunder. "I thought you weren't a physio?" He threw his words at me and the jitter in his hands told me he was coiled and ready to explode. Part of me wanted to root to the spot, fight him, fight for the us that we could have been— for the man I was sure he still was, the man who played in my garden and made me coffee. But that man wasn’t glaring at me like a wounded animal, and we weren’t anything.
"Do you want me to call the physio?" My heart wrenched and I turned to make my way to the bench where the staff were sat with their eyes on the game.
Fingers caught mine and held me back before pushing me into the tunnel out of the sight of fans, staff, and well, everyone. "It's not my shoulder."
His face leant in close to mine and warmth rushed off his skin. It made my legs feel a little weak but I tried to ignore it. I still had a job to do here, if only for one more night. "What is it then?" My voice came out sounding nothing like my own.
His head dipped, and for one agonised moment I thought he might kiss me. He didn't. "It’s you. You’re killing the game in me. I can't concentrate."
"Sure you can." I prodded a finger into his belly. It didn't get far as it met a wall of rock hard muscle. "You can do this easy. Every game is worth winning, you know this more than anything. Leave on a high, Jonathan."
His speckled blues flashed to my face. "You know I'm going? Do you know why?” The deep recesses of his eyes flickered and I wished more than anything I could read inside that proud head of his.
"Sure." I kept my voice stable and sounded nothing like it felt to me on the inside. "You are going to be captain of a test team, which is where you deserve to be. It's what you are, Jonathan."
He studied me, his eyes landing on every speck of skin on my face and a sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I like it when you call me Jonathan."
I gave him a small smile and patted him on the shoulder, such a ridiculously awkward thing to do - if it had been anyone else I would have giggled. "So is the captain of the Red Cats going to win?"
His mouth moved towards mine. "Maybe." In one smooth movement that I was half anticipating, half dreading, his lips found mine. It was electric, as every kiss between us had been. This kiss, was pure and sweet and delicious. Tender. "Thank you, Alyssa Rivers." He spoke against my mouth and ripples of pleasure spread across my skin. I imprinted them on my memory so I would always be able to recall them when I needed to feel something like it again.
"Thank you, Jonathan Willis." I pushed him away. He turned and ran back to the field and as he left I whispered him a goodbye because I knew that when it came to saying goodbye to the team, I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to him.
We won.
By a landslide.
And then I left. Hugs all around. I think the team were hopeful their next fitness coach wouldn't be so sadistic.
The Lancashire Lion, Jonathan Willis, was nowhere to be seen.