"Aunty Lyssi!" Sammy's high pitched call caused me to sit bolt upright and blink at my surroundings. Asleep to awake in a split second. I blinked some more while I gathered my bearings, taking in the walls and the curtains of my own bedroom. My exhausted sleep had been deep and riddled with twisted dreams I didn’t want to contemplate under the glare of the vibrant morning sun.
"Aunty Lyssi!" His voice was louder this time, shriller like it was the time he was facing down the monster spider in the bathroom and was stuck on the toilet too scared to move. I leapt out of bed, my legs tangling in the sheets and propelled myself for the door.
No spider was going to defeat my nephew, not on my watch. "Where are you?" I called.
"Down here."
I slipped down the curved staircase landing with a thud in the hallway where Sammy was stood at the open door. Scarlett, who had stayed overnight when I'd got home late, was there, her mouth wide open and a bowl of cereal balanced in her hand. Well, no spider was going to crawl through an open door. I turned and looked.
What the...?
Too many thoughts went through my head at once.
What the...?
Why?
Is it?
Oh, shit my hair.
My hands landed on my head, trying to cover as much of the untamed mess as I could, as I stared at Jase Willis on my doorstep. "What?"
His pale speckled blues blinked lazily as he glanced from my feet to my hair. That tick he suffered from flicked the very edge of his mouth. "Is this too early?" he asked.
Gah, pyjamas. I forgot my hair and covered my arms across my thin camisole. I couldn't make sense of what he was saying, too early for what? "But?" I was doing my very best cavewoman impersonation. Again, that tick afflicted his lips.
"You agreed to help me, remember?" He pulled a bat from behind his back. "I figured we could play." He cast his eyes over his shoulder at the surrounding garden. "You've got plenty of land here, and it will be private."
"But..." Come on Alyssa you've got to get a grip and put some words together. Go for two words at the minimum. I geared my brain, it was more painful than I would have liked. "But, no."
There you go, two solid words.
"No?" If I'd blinked, I would have missed it, but a faint smile flickered over his lips.
Sammy started jumping on the spot, a strangled, high-pitched noise escaping from his mouth as his cheeks flushed to vivid pink and his freckles looked like they were about to ping right off his face. "Yes, yes, yes," he said, grabbing my pyjama bottoms and pulling on them in a way which made me twist my fingers into the elastic to hold them up.
I frowned at the little guy and then at the bigger guy still looming in the doorway. I wasn't going to be bossed around like this by two of the male species. Shaking my head, I formed the words "No. Sammy, you know we have chores to do, food shopping, washing."
Sammy groaned and looked like he was about to burst a tear duct.
The Lion just watched me through those hooded lids, the brilliant blue flashing. "Okay." And with his words, he stepped into the hall. Scarlett was still speechless, and she backed away, her head whipping between the Lion and me.
"No, no." I grabbed at his arm. "I don't think you understand. I meant I've got things to do. I'm too busy today."
I needed time to mentally prepare for my one on one consultations with the Lion. Going into whatever these training sessions were going to be without being prepared would be like falling into the lion's den at the zoo. He would eat me alive—and then get me sacked for being shit. I knew this. I still didn't even know what the specialist had told him. Last night he'd said he'd visited the doctor, but I knew his idea of a doctor wasn't the local quack at the GP office, it would have been a specialist located in Harley Street.
He took another step into the hallway, his eyes flitting around the surroundings. "I'm in no rush." He shrugged like this should be obvious.
Was this man for real?
The little guy squealed and rushed ahead. "Come through here." He motioned for the Lion to follow him, which he did without a backwards glance in my direction.
"I'll just go and get changed then," I said to no one in particular.
Scarlett looked at me, her eyes bulging. "Is that...?"
I waved my hand. "Let's not talk about it." Glancing at my watch I dithered. "You should have woken me up. Are you going to be okay getting home?"
Nodding, she smiled. "I thought you'd had a late night."
"Hey, I was home early."
She winked. "Sure thing."
My own eyes bulged. "Oh no, no." I motioned to the kitchen door the Lion had walked through with Sammy. "He hates me, I can assure you."
Scarlett nodded. "Yeah, sure he does."
"Are you okay getting home," I asked again, crisply.
"Yeah, Simon is picking me up."
"Oooh, Simon." I batted my eyes before reminding myself that I was supposed to be the grown up participating in the conversation and cleared my throat. "Does your mum know?"
She gave one of her finest eye rolls. "Yessss."
"Good. Okay, I'd better go and get some clothes on."
She grinned. "Or not."
"Ugh. I'm going to forget you said that."
I trailed up the stairs listening to the little guy blabber from down below. I couldn't hear any responses, but occasionally Sammy paused, so I guessed he was getting some return on his conversation. Either that or Jason Willis was getting an absolute earful from a six-year-old who had no concept of verbal diarrhoea.
I grinned. Maybe I would make my shower slightly more leisurely.
I walked back down the stairs, adjusting the low waistband of my cut offs and trying to get my pulse to slow to a reasonable pace and not like I’d just finished a marathon. The shower hadn't helped. Every time I calmed down I remembered that the Lancashire Lion was in my house and I started to sweat all over again. Sweating while standing underwater is never a good sign.
He was stood at the breakfast bar flicking through my team folder. I grabbed it out of his hand. "Hey, that's private." I shut it with a snap.
Those eyes flickered onto me. "I made you a coffee."
Nope. Blank brain. He did what?
Leaning forward he peered at me, his eyes glancing over my face. "Are you always this lost for words first thing in the morning?"
I fought the blush that wanted to form on my face. "No."
He raised a fair eyebrow. "That's a shame, it's much better when you're quiet."
"Hmm." I took a sip from the mug but the hot liquid had no taste as my brain failed to compute anything other than the fact it had been made by the Lion. It could have been hot poison for all I knew.
"In fact, it's much better when you don't speak."
I pulled a face, taking another sip of coffee which scorched my tongue, and his lip was attacked by that tick again.
"So what's the plan?" He asked, fiddling with a biro that I'd left on the side.
"Where's Sammy?" He was strangely silent and absent.
"Oh, he's finding his match cards."
"Oh." I could only feel sorry for the Lion. The little guy had an impressive collection of cricket cards, all of them sorted into a binder. I grinned. "Oh, that's nice."
The Lion's eyes narrowed. "So, the plan?"
I pursed my lips. "Well, my plan is Sainsbury's followed by lunch, some washing and then chilling out. It's Saturday after all."
He nodded. "Excellent."
Was he for real? I searched his face for any trace of sarcasm, but he just stared right back at me, the blues blinking and making my blood warm. In my head I re-ran the shared kiss on slow-mo with some Puccini blaring in the background. Get a grip Lyssa. "So you are going to come to Sainsbury's while I do my weekly shop?” I asked.
I was sure he had people to do his shopping for him. He probably hadn't done a shop in over a decade. Not since his career hit the stratosphere and he became the number one player in the world. I shrugged. Whatever game this was he was playing, I could play it too. "Excellent, more the merrier," I told him with a wide smile.
"Excellent," he repeated, his eyes holding mine.
It wasn’t excellent at all. This was inviting a lion for breakfast and then serving yourself up instead of eggs.
The little guy barrelled back in. Jasper was barking insanely as he chased his buddy through the house. He sniffed the Lion's crotch which I thought was hilarious. Jasper must have thought he looked odd in jeans too.
"I'm going to get the recycle bags."
"Recycle bags?" he asked, as if he was testing the pronunciation of an exotic dish on an unusual menu.
"Yes, you know, those bags you put your shopping in."
He looked at me blankly, and I sighed. It was as I thought. He hadn't been to a shop in a decade.
"Are you really going to come shopping with us?" the little guy asked him.
"Sure. Looks like it," was the reply.
"Aunty Lyssa lets me eat chocolate as we walk around before she's paid for it," Sammy told him.
"Does she indeed?"
This was how I found myself walking up and down the aisles of Sainsbury's with the greatest British cricket player of all time. Both he and my nephew munched on contraband chocolate. The Lion had a faded cap pulled down low covering his golden hair and eyes but we were garnering a lot of puzzled looks. I could see why he didn’t go to the supermarket that often. You couldn’t tell it was him, not really, but he was huge, this towering brute that exuded a magnetic pull; so regardless of him being one of the most famous sportsmen in history, he was just mesmerizing all on his own and eyes were dragged towards him. Mine were. Mine refused to stay focused on the shopping list, instead watching his shoulders curve as he ambled along pushing the trolley.
There'd been a moment when we'd been cramming into my little family sedan when Sammy had called shotgun, and the Lion had obligingly tried to climb into the back until it became evident his legs weren't going to fit. Sammy clambered into the back and Jase Willis, former England captain had squeezed into the front. There still wasn't enough room for his legs and his knees had knocked against the gear stick.
"What are you doing?" I asked as we wheeled our way down the aisle of the supermarket. I was struggling to read the list, I was so distracted, when I saw him popping something into the trolley. Leaning over I looked at what it was. "Oven chips?" I asked. My head twisting between the item in the depths of the trolley and the Lancashire Lion with his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans.
"Sure, why not?"
I hated to think of the face I was pulling. "Oven chips?" I repeated, shaking my head. This man was more than an enigma; he was a Japanese puzzle box with no instructions.
"Fine. You can pay for them though."
He looked at everything on the shelves, turning labels and every so often tutting as he went along.
"What?" I asked him, eventually throwing my hands up in the air when he'd stopped again.
"This is full of shit. Who eats this stuff?"
It was a jar of pasta sauce. "Sure it is. It's a value brand." I walked back up and took the offending jar out of his long fingers. "Do you not do your own cooking?"
He shook his head. "No, I have a nutritionist who delivers."
"Nice." I nodded. "And the oven chips?"
Those damn icy blues landed on my face again, on my mouth. "I just fancied them."
"And are you used to getting everything that you fancy?"
Was I flirting with the Lion in Sainsbury's? Was this the most surreal day I'd ever lived through? Yes, it was.
"Sometimes." He shrugged and walked up the aisle, and I shook my head at his retreating form.
By one in the afternoon, I'd made up enough jobs that it didn't look like I'd been talking out of my arse when I said I had plans. We'd eaten oven chips for lunch which had made him give the first true smile I'd seen. Not the little lip twitches he usually allowed. This was wide with white sparkling teeth—the full shebang. "Can we play now?" he'd asked as he helped pack the dishwasher and we moved around each other within the confines of the kitchen space.
"Sure."
The little guy who'd been watching telly in the corner of the family room gave a yelp and dashed for the stairs returning a couple of moments later with his Willis shirt pulled over his head. "I've got one just like that," the Lion said.
After Sammy had run outside with Jasper, I turned to the tall man towering in my kitchen. "Are you going to tell me what your specialist said?"
"I didn't say I went to a specialist."
"You didn't need to."
He frowned like he hated me being able to guess him right. I could see why his two marriages had ended in divorce. Living with a man who was never wrong must be unbearable.
"Did you see a specialist about your knees?" His words were softer, his northern drawl blurring the syllables until they lilted like a lullaby.
"Yes," I returned but my response was too quick and my blush too bright. "How do you know about my injuries?
"I'm captain of the team, it's my business to know everything about everyone." He searched my face for a long moment before saying, "Rotator cuff damage."
I sighed, breathing out and finding myself ducking away from the scrutiny of his intense gaze by popping the tomato sauce back in the cupboard. "Well, that's not too bad. With physio, it can be worked on, and the stiffness lessened."
There was a deafening pause.
"It started two years ago."
My face froze into a frown. "But it should have been treated."
He shrugged in response.
"You didn't tell anyone, did you?"
Another shrug.
"Have you torn them?"
Another shrug.
I sighed. "Listen, Willis, I don't know how much I can help. I can work with your general fitness, and build stamina and flexibility, but I'm not a physio, and I'm definitely not a doctor."
He shook his head slowly. "I just need to practice, somewhere that I won't be seen while I work on the damage that's all." His face creased and his hands fell loosely to his sides. "There are just people watching everywhere, all the time."
I knew this. Jase Willis' personal life had filled more print space than any other player in the cricketing profession. There was something about him that screamed celebrity, not just sports star, and the papers were always trailing a story. Hence when he got caught out with a hooker, it made it onto the front pages: broadsheets not just the dailies.
"Come on, let’s go and play catch with Sammy."
"Catch?" he asked but I pulled on his arm and yanked him out of the back door, my hand sparking as it landed on the warm skin of his arm.
"Wait, don't I need to get changed?"
"How sweaty do you think playing catch is going to be?" I grinned at him as I jogged backwards over the grass.
He glanced at Sammy over my shoulder. "I don't know, he looks like a Duracell Bunny."
I laughed, taken aback by how natural the sound came out in response to his words. "Oh, that he is."
We played a simple game of catch, the Lion taking his throws easy and rotating his arm before and after each attempt. I tried my hardest to make him miss a ball, but I never succeeded. Sammy was in seventh heaven and just ran around grinning, throwing a whole heap of pie shots. Jasper got the catch of the night when he landed in the pond, tennis ball in mouth.
When the light was fading, and the Lion mentioned that I needed to have flood lights installed, I called it a night and sent Sammy in for a bath.
I walked the Lion to his parked SUV.
"Thank you," he said with a curt nod of the head.
"No problem, Willis."
His eyes flashed. "See you at work, Rivers."
I watched his headlights swoop down the driveway and then returned to the house, calling Jasper as I went.
I was going to have to ring Betsy. There was nothing else for it.
Occasionally, just occasionally, I wished I drank.