Sammy was in bed when I got home. Maria's daughter, Scarlett, was sat at the kitchen table, her chin resting in her palm, while she flipped through a magazine. "I'm so sorry I'm late." I flung my stuff down on the breakfast bar and turned towards the teenager. 'It was a really bad night." Hell, was it a bad night. First we lost. Then he kissed me. Worse, I’d wanted him to and I’d kissed him back. I was sure that if I thought about it I would hurl over the breakfast bar.
She flashed me a smile that was all her mother’s. "That's okay, we played and then played some more and then eventually he fell asleep."
"You're a darling for babysitting; you know how much I appreciate it." I rifled through my bag until I found my purse and dug out the twenty quid I'd drawn earlier for her. My hands shook and I didn’t think they would ever stop. My lips tingled like I’d applied some of that venom to my mouth to create a pout. Fuck, I didn’t need venom, this bruising was real.
I tried to shake it off and concentrate. Babysitters were like gold dust, and while I didn't often need one, the night time games were a challenge for me to cover. Maria wanted to do them all, but I couldn’t allow her to do that. Lucky for me she had a teenage daughter who needed cash since having her pocket money cut off. She may drive her parents mad, but she was great with Sammy and he was all that mattered to me.
"Did you win or lose?" She pocketed the money and started to gather her stuff.
"Lost, we lost badly." I shuddered at the memory and the arse ripping we'd been dealt by a furious Waller. Then I remembered what had come afterwards and my cheeks flushed.
"Are you okay, Lyssa?" Scarlett asked leaning forward. "You look a bit...uh?" She struggled to think of the word to describe the flushed cheeks and dazed expression I knew I had plastered on my face.
Holding a hand to my hot cheek, I took a deep breath. "Sure I'm fine, just tired. It was a long night."
Scarlett nodded like she understood, but hell, she had no idea. "When are you getting my friends and me tickets? We all want to come and look at Sean Bailey in the flesh." She fanned herself, which was very much what I wanted to do over his older, ruder, more obnoxious team mate.
"He's a nice guy, but way too old for you, so don't ask me to introduce you."
She did that teenage eye roll thing that I was dreading the little guy learning. "He's only four years older than me."
I had nothing to say to this. A man eleven years older than myself had just kissed me in the hallway outside my changing room, and my legs had given way. Nope, there were no words. Instead, I went for. "Can you text when you get home please?"
She did the eye roll again. "Sure thing."
After she left, I locked up the house, checking all the many windows that led out onto the large surrounding garden. The lawn was great during the daytime when I could see the little guy playing from any room of the house, but at night it left me feeling a little exposed.
I didn't bother with yoga. What would be the point? More injuries had been done to people who weren't relaxed when practising yoga than were ever got by being hit by a cricket ball.
I resisted the urge to call Betsy and blab. She would go nuts over this, and I would never hear the end of it. It's all I would hear until the end of my days—I allowed Jase Willis to kiss me.
What I needed was to stare at the ceiling and run over in my mind exactly what had happened.
He had kissed me, right?
And I had allowed it. There had been a thirty second window for me to push him away, apply a clichéd slap to that perfect face of his, but I hadn’t. I’d stood there and opened my mouth waiting for his tongue to invade.
Why? He hated me. And believe me; I was under no illusions that his resentment and hatred towards me was real. So why did he kiss me? Was he just trying to shut me up? Was that how he stopped women from shouting at him? I mean I knew he was a womaniser on a monumental level but to stop a row with your lips just so you didn't have to talk, well that was a new one on me.
Maybe this was a new game? Another way to get me sacked.
I kicked my legs against the mattress, running my toes up and down the cotton sheets.
The worst bit; the very worst bit about the whole thing, was my reaction. Every time I thought of my mouth opening under his I wanted to smack myself.
He was the captain. More to the point he was a dick. My lips shouldn't be anywhere near his. Not ever.
It didn't stop me dreaming about it, though. And it didn't stop me feeling sick with nerves as I got ready for work the next day and absently sorted out Sammy's school belongings.
When I pulled into the car park, his silver SUV was absent. Normally, this would make me take a deep breath of relief. Right then I was hyperventilating.
Before I got out of the car, I gave myself a mental bitch slap. This was what he wanted: to tease me, to muddle me so I couldn't do my job properly. This was a game to him and the kiss had been a tactic of his offense. Well screw him; I wasn't going to play the game.
I marched into the building, swanning past security and banged my way into the changing room.
"Whoa-" someone began but I held out my hand. "I've seen it all before." I glared at them all. I wasn't going to play nice anymore, it wasn't worth my time. It wasn't worth my job.
"Three minutes, and then out on the grass. Bring water if you think you're going to be a sissy girl and cry when you get too hot."
There was no tanning, no laughing, just all out sweating. At the two-hour point, the Lion arrived back and slipped into practice. I ignored him, and he ignored me. Normal service was being resumed post-kiss.
We were running heats and time sets when he raised his voice. "Rivers, I think the boys need a break."
I glanced up, my eyes meeting his. He didn't back away or avert his gaze, but then there was no acknowledgement there either that only the previous day he'd suddenly and surprisingly kissed me for no reason at all. He was all business, all the game. A steely resolve bound its way around my chest when I figured he'd taken advantage of the situation to shut me up. Everything I'd heard and read about him over the years was the truth.
I locked my reaction to his touch deep within the pits of my being, determined to never give it light of day again and formed my face into a sneer.
Glancing at my watch, I said, "They've still got forty-five minutes left with me." Waller had split the training session in two, and he was going to personally lead the second half and get them in the nets. I was supposed to watch their form and decide who was dropping the side.
I already knew that.
The Lion looked like he was going to argue, but I blew out a lungful of air, lifting my fringe off my sticky forehead and turned away, giving him the frostiest shoulder I could summon up. And then I went at it with them again.
The afternoon was long and hard in the nets. As were the following six days. All the days were the same—long, hard and sweaty—until the next match, which we won, I think because everyone was too scared not to. And then we won the match after that, until we were top of the leader board again. The relief as the players traipsed off the pitch and clapped the fans was palpable. I would have fallen on the floor and given thanks to the cricket gods, but there were too many cameras trained on the coach’s bench. I gave Bailey a clap and a thumbs up when he was named man of the match for his wickets.
Drooped shoulders slumped their way past me, and Waller gave me a relieved smile. "You've still got some hair left," I assured him.
"Not even funny, Rivers." He ran a hand through what was left of his locks.
I was clutching my stuff and straightening up when a firm nudge ran along my back, pressing between my shoulder blades. I stiffened and glanced over my shoulder only to see the wide back of the Lion walking past, a curve lifting his cheek.
Had he nudged me? Or had he stumbled?
That smile grew wider as he turned and caught me staring open mouthed after him. He’d nudged me. On purpose. It hadn’t felt aggressive, that glide across the stretch of my back had felt like something else...Damn.
The changing room was quieter than I expected. Two players were stretched out on the floor with Bill the physio stretching out their cramp. I could hear a groaning coming from the shower, and a couple of minutes later Anderson walked through like a Neanderthal, clutching onto his towel. "That was probably the best fricking shower I've ever had," he told no one in particular.
The players slunk onto the benches and waited for Waller. They'd given everything just like he'd asked and now they had nothing left; their last reserves had been spent dragging the team back up to the top of the table. It was a far cry from the season before when they'd never strayed from the top spot.
The Lion stooped over, his shoulders curved and his hand rubbing the back of his bronzed neck. I watched his fingers knead the muscles of his neck for just a moment too long. He’d worked hard out on the field, organizing the team, keeping his attention focused and driving the play forward. I watched the fingers knead the flesh and wished I could look away, but I couldn't. I'd never noticed how long his fingers were before. I mean, I knew he had giant hands, perfect for catching a cricket ball, but those long slender fingers looked like they should have been owned by an artist, not a cricket player.
I wondered where else those fingers would be useful.
What? I told myself I hadn’t thought that. I hadn’t. I hadn’t.
Waller clapped his hands, for once actually clapping with genuine enthusiasm, not sarcasm. "Okay, boys," he glanced at me, "and girl. The drinks are on me." A stunned silence filled the room. The team had been banned from the recreational areas while we pulled them up to standard. Another reason everyone had been so pissed off.
I glanced at the wall. "I've got to get home, but you guys all have fun, you deserve it."
Pale blue eyes flickered up from the floor.
Waller turned to me. "No way, Lyssa, it's you that's got us this far, isn't that right boys?" To my sheer horror, they all started to clap, and I flushed a vibrant red before ignoring the heat and standing up to take a bow. "Come on, love, you've got to come out."
I shook my head. "I can't. I haven't got a babysitter."
Waller switched on the biggest smile I’d seen from him in weeks and sidled alongside me giving me a cheesy hug, and then Bailey joined in with the pleading. Can I just say, Bailey is much more appealing in begging mode than Waller. I flashed him a warm grin which he returned. "Okay, I'll see what I can do."
This got me a cheer and I grabbed my phone and headed away from the loud chatter that began to fill the room.
A few moments later I'd promised Scarlett extra cash, tickets to a game, an introduction to Bailey and an overnight stay with full use of the Sky box.
That girl could bargain like no other.
I hadn't not gone home for the little guy before, and I was torn. But I told myself I wouldn't be long. And I knew I wouldn't be, my priority was no longer to cricket, it was to my family.
I poked my head back into the changing room and told them I'd meet them at the bar, and received more cheers. I was shutting the door when Fredericks called me back. "Ask Gemma if she can get the girls to tag along."
"I'll see." I rolled my eyes with a skill that Scarlett would have been proud of and headed to my own room to get showered and changed.
The girls were still in there, and I threw the invitation into the room. "I should warn you that they are as frisky as rabbits," I added as fair warning. Well, it wasn't a lie.
Gemma shook her head. "No chance. It’s in all our contracts. “No fraternising with the players."
My mouth popped open as I pulled my T-shirt over my head. It was a disgusting, damp scrap of material when it dropped onto the floor. These muggy late nights were doing nothing for my personal hygiene. "It's what? Really?" Gosh. "Is that normal?" I shimmied out of my shorts as I thought about it.
Gemma nodded. "Isn't it in yours?"
I scrunched my face as I thought long and hard. I couldn't remember. I guess I just figured that I would never be interested anyway, which I wasn't. Not at all, even in the slightest. "I don't know," I said eventually, before adding. "I don't think it was ever a thing in women’s cricket."
Gemma laughed and motioned around the room. "And did you have many cheerleaders at your women’s test cricket games?"
I laughed. "No, fair point, although my friend Betsy would have loved it."
Gemma laughed, her laugh was bigger than her waist, much bigger.
"Okay, I'm going in the shower. Hope to see you at the bar. I can't be the only girl with all that testosterone."
I stood under the jets for a long time, switching the tap to cool and trying to settle myself down. This week had been the most intense I'd had since I'd gone through the trauma of leaving my own cricket playing behind me. It was amazing how quickly the brain could forget.
Dried off, with my hair twisted up into a knot, I dressed in jeans, flip flops and a casual, loose-fitting blouse. The clothes were all restrictive after living in shorts and vests for weeks on end. I had to wiggle my legs about to get them used to the denim.
The bar was packed. Some VIP supporters and guests were standing with glasses in their hands, special badges on lanyards around their necks. There was also press mingling with the players. I spotted a few I knew and gave them a wide berth on my way to the bar. "What will it be?" Bailey ducked in front of me and bent down to my eye-level. I gave him a smile, it was hard not to, there was something endearingly nice about him.
"Diet coke please, Man of the Match."
He grinned and his cheeks flushed a flare of pale pink. "Diet coke? That's rubbish, have a glass of something to celebrate."
I shook my head. "I can't. I'm driving." I didn't add that I preferred not to drink alcohol.
Across the bar, an icy glare lingered in my direction as Bailey ordered me a coke. There was no exchange of money, so I guessed management were running a tab.
A blonde cheerleader whose name I hadn't managed to learn, sidled up and stood alongside the Lion. I pretended not to notice, but out of the corner of my eye, I watched as much as I could without being obvious. He didn't look at her, didn't even acknowledge she was there, which was a feat considering she was five foot ten of stunning. He just carried on sipping his pint of beer.
I smirked. Okay, I know it was childish, but I smirked all the same.
Bailey got pulled away to talk to some super fans, and I toyed with my drink. Social gatherings weren't in my comfort zone; I'd rather walk over hot coals than stand in a bar. I should have just gone home.
"You know he fancies you?"
I didn't need to turn. I knew the voice with more recognition than I wanted to acknowledge. It did something uncomfortable to my stomach, pulling it down low and setting my jangled nerves on edge like a set of castanets.
"Bailey?" I tried to keep my voice level, but it wavered a note. "I don't think so." I wanted to say 'don't be daft’, but that would have come across as too overfamiliar, and the truth was the Lion and I weren't in a position to be having a passing chitchat. He'd put a stop to that by being a total arse.
"No, and why not?" God, was he turning and resting an arm on the bar to look at me?
My eyes slid in his direction. Yes, he was. The Lion had an arm on the bar, his hip resting against the glossy wood as he watched me through hooded lids.
"Uh, because I'm too old for him, and because I'm his fitness coach and it would be inappropriate." My excuses sounded crap.
The Lion's eyes skimmed over my face, resting on my mouth. I knew how it felt to be a gazelle chased down by a lion. I was rooted to the spot. "And do you worry about age and rules?"
His knee was about a millimetre from pressing into my thigh. My leg twitched as if it was trying to propel itself forward without my agreement and my eyes drank up the sight of his wide mouth. The mouth that looked soft, but I knew wasn’t.
Why was he doing this? Why was he talking to me at all?
What was going on?
I met his eyes, I had to. I refused to let him intimidate me. "It depends."
He watched me in silence, his lips pressing into a firm line. I could see the icy blue of his eyes closer than I ever would have thought possible. Where the posters on Sammy's walls had them looking like glaciers, up close the vibrant pale blue was shot through with flashes of a darker tone, like the sky at twilight. They stood out, framed by the fair lashes and tanned skin.
He leant in towards me, his fair hair brushing against my cheek as he whispered close to my ear. Warm breath rushed over my cheek, and a tingle ran down my spine. "I went to the doctors about my shoulder."
Surprised by his admission, I glanced back up into those eyes only to find them watching me intently. "And?" Why did I sound so breathless? It was because I couldn’t breathe because the smell of him was filtering into my consciousness filling every spare remnant of space inside my head, absorbing the air I needed to survive. Damn if he didn’t smell good.
"I think I could do with your help." His voice lowered further, and I thought for a prolonged moment his lips were going to brush my ear. They didn't. "If you are still willing."
The Lion was asking for my help. The greatest English cricketer of all time was asking for my help. His eyes blinked slowly, fluttering behind golden lashes as he watched and waited for my response.
I didn't have any words, none that were any use, so I nodded instead.
Desperate to break the spell he was casting over me, causing me to lose any sense of self-preservation, I stepped away and began to find someone else to talk too. His fingers caught my elbow through the thin material of my cotton shirt, coaxing me back toward him. "Rivers, I can't have any one else knowing. Do you understand?"
Looking directly into his eyes, I tried to read him, tried to get a grasp on this man who was more contradictions than I ever would have thought possible. I couldn't. The Lion was an enigma. An enigma holding my elbow in his gentle fingers in a packed bar. I shifted, someone would see soon. "I understand," I said eventually, and then I slipped into the crowd desperate to try to breathe.