I wasn't surprised on Monday morning when he failed to make eye contact with me. In fact, it made me laugh, and I began to make a point of getting myself in his way as much as possible. That tick at the corner his lips was getting out of control.
"How was your weekend?" Gemma asked as I changed into my training kit. I hated to admit it, but I was back in the vest top. The heat wave washing over the country was unrelenting, and sleeves were just not a consideration at that point. Extra water butts were carried out onto the field so we could all stay hydrated and the factor thirty had increased to fifty. Hamlin, the youngest player on the side who’d only just turned nineteen was getting the piss ripped out of him for wearing sun block that stained his cheeks blue.
"It was different," I replied as I attempted to pull my sweaty arms through the arm holes of my top. I got stuck around my elbows and had to battle my way in.
"Different how?" She raised an eyebrow. "Did you have a date?"
Chuckling I shook my head. "Very far from it. Very far indeed."
I could barely admit to myself that I'd dreamt of the Lion the previous night. In my head, I was having a hard time reconciling the person I knew he was—with his drive for cricket, his headlines and all the off-pitch drama that followed him around—with the guy that played in my garden. I knew which one I preferred, but I had no idea which was the real version of him.
"You know, the girls and I are going out Friday after the game. You should come, get away from here and all these guys."
I tilted my head to the side. "Where are you going?" I wasn't keen on going out to bars, a lifetime of healthy living and early nights had killed any hopes of a social life way back in my teens.
"Jesus, Lyssa, you don't have to pull that face! Don't you get bored of hanging around these boys all the time, talking cricket?"
My nose wrinkled. "Not really, cricket is my life."
"Yeah, I get that was the case when you used to play, but now your life has changed." Her eyes flickered, and I knew she knew about my brother and the accident that had changed everything. "You need to start living the life you have now. Get a babysitter and come out. Find a guy to snog and shag, I don't know. Have fun."
"Fun?" The word sounded more alien than it should.
Scrunching her hair into a messy bun that gave me major hair envy she walked over and clapped me on the shoulder. "Yes, fun. It's that thing where we laugh, be a bit silly and act our ages and not like we are fifty-year-old women." She gave me a wave as she went out to join the troupe for their practice. We weren't the only ones who had to practice hard. The other team’s cheerleading was almost on the verge of stealing the Red Cats thunder. To the point that it was under much discussion if the girls should just wear nipple tassels and hot pants to create attention. That idea had been shot down after the Fredericks incident. I blocked the thought of Fredericks from my mind, unprofessionalism wasn't something I took lightly.
As I walked out in my minimised training kit, I brushed past the Lion's back, and his shoulders stiffened with my touch. His eyes widened as he took in my cleavage and bare shoulders. "That's not your training kit," he leant in and whispered.
"It's too hot for the polo shirt," I whispered back.
"Sweat then. I got you that so you wouldn't be a distraction for the players."
I turned on my heel and threw my hands up at my side. "Bite me, Willis."
I was sure a low growl emitted from his throat, and I allowed my smile to widen until it was a taunting grin. "Ready to play some ball?"
I didn't quite catch it, but I was sure I heard him curse under his breath as he turned away.
It was Friday when the Lancashire Lion revealed his true colours.
I wiped at the sweat on my forehead as I sat next to Waller watching the game. The Sussex Stallions had won the toss and chosen to bat first. They'd then hit more sixes that I would have thought possible. Six ...yep there it goes...six...there goes another one. It was an onslaught, and out on the field our boys wilted. The Lion’s bowling was looser, tighter, and the improvement after his games at mine, and the match on Sunday, along with the extra Pilates I'd made him do despite the flurry of swear words that had landed on my ears during the practice, had helped.
But even he couldn't reign in their number six. The guy was on fire. Waller leant towards me. "Why the hell isn't this guy on our team?" he muttered under his breath.
I shrugged. "I don't even know who he is. Anyway, don't look at me, you're the hirer and firer around here."
"I want that guy." Waller stabbed his finger into the air.
"Buy him then next season if that's what you need," I said.
Waller turned to me, removing his eyes from the fearless batting of the number six. "Everything okay with you?"
"Sure?" A frown flickered across my face. "Why wouldn't it be?"
He shook his head like it was no big deal. "I just know you are under some pressure, personally..." He trailed off.
Patting my hand on his knee, I smiled. "It's okay. I haven't heard anything yet, I've got a stable job, and thanks to my squeaky clean image, I'm considered an upstanding member of the community."
Waller nodded. "Keep it that way. You've done well to avoid the journalists so far, but remember as the season progresses, so will the interest." He groaned as another six flew over the boundary line. "And if we keep playing this shit!" he shouted the word loud enough that the two nearest fielders could hear. "If we keep playing this shit, then the press will be descending like locusts looking for a story to run alongside our paltry season."
I knew this from old. If the game was off, then it was considered there was a reason, and the garbage divers came out in full force.
We settled back and watched the game go from bad to worse. And when I say worse what I mean is that the Lion got caught out on his third ball with only two runs under his belt. A flutter of silence echoed around the shocked stadium, and then he erupted.
Stalking from the field, he threw his bat, launching it like a samurai sword, which bounced off the dry ground and smashed into the stomach of a female security woman. A gasp resounded as the moment was caught on the big screen. Maybe if he'd stopped to apologise, to check she was okay, it might have been different. But, instead he marched off the field, slamming his way into the changing room, his foul language easily heard by the group of schoolchildren in the lower stands on a school trip.
I went to jump up to check the woman was okay, but she was already being attended to by pitch side paramedics. "Stay where you are," Waller hissed under his breath as I fidgeted in my seat. Should I go after him? I should do something, right? "I'm going to have his head after this."
"Let me talk to him," I was almost pleading.
Waller's face was set. "No, he's under a good behaviour contract. He made promises when he signed on the dotted line that he would uphold the team's behavioural image. That's not behaving."
I groaned. "No, but it's only because he wants the team to win." Cricket really was everything to him that much was obvious. "That's a good thing, right?"
Waller looked at me in disbelief, and even I had to wonder at what I was saying. I mean the guy had just thrown a cricket bat at a woman. Could I even defend that? No, of course, I couldn't.
The game disintegrated at a fast rate, and before anyone knew it, we'd been bowled out, achieving our lowest score of the season so far.
Bailey had tried to rouse the game play, his long legs powering down for the bowl, and his actions caught the fire of the crowd who seemed willing to forget the Lion’s indiscretion.
Waller wasn’t going to forget though. His face was a grey mask as he stormed into the changing room. The rest of us hung back, unwilling to witness the ugly scene about to unfold. Bailey threw a hot damp arm around my shoulders and his skin slicked against mine. “This is going to be bad." He murmured, although why he was quiet, I didn't know. We all looked like scared rabbits facing a sharp knife and the defrosting of shortcrust pastry.
We waited five minutes, all of us milling around, the cameras clicking right in our faces and then one by one we went in. I led the way when it was apparent the boys were too chicken.
"Public apology now, and you send flowers, chocolates, hell you give her a goddamn brand new sports car if it's going to make it better."
The Lion faced him down. "No, it was an accident."
Waller's head was going to fall off he shook it so hard. The vein in his head was matched with a twin pulsating lump. "That's not an accident, that's you being a prima donna which this club does not have room for."
The Lion sneered, "What are you going to do, fire me?"
Waller imploded. "Fuck, yes, if you are in breach of your contract."
The Lion's face paled a little, and he put a hand on the hook holding his spare kit. "It was an accident. I didn't mean it." No one else would have heard, but the tremor in his words was all too clear to me.
A strangled gurgle squeaked out of Waller's throat before he turned to me and said, "Talk to him."
"What?" I held a hand to my chest. "Why me?"
He ignored my protest and waved the other team members out of the room. The Lion and I were left in silence.
He glared at me, and I let him. He was a caged animal desperate to lash out, and I stood there, breathing slowly until the fight began to simmer in those speckled eyes. "What are you doing, Willis?" I asked, keeping my voice low. Within my chest my heart hammered an unsteady beat.
"It was an accident," he ground out.
"Sure, but you don't want people to think you are the kind of man that hits women."
"They think that anyway, don't they?" He shrugged like it didn't hurt, but the line of his lips told me more than he was saying.
"Rumours, Willis, it's just rumours, but you don't want to give them evidence. You aren't that kind of guy."
His eyes flashed onto mine. "What sort of guy am I, Rivers? Do you even know?"
"I know you'd give anything for your sport. I know it means more to you than anything else."
He stalked forward until his body was pushing me back against the changing room wall, his knee brushing against my thigh. "Then why the fuck can't I concentrate?"
"W-h-at?"
"Why can't I concentrate on anything, anymore?" He breathed in, a shuddering breath that vibrated in his chest. "Lyssi." The way he sighed my name made my legs sag at the knees.
I pushed my hands against his chest, splaying my fingers wide over the hot skin under the damp T-shirt. I edged him away because having him too close was clouding my judgement. "Apologise, Willis, please. For the sake of the team, for the game, for yourself." I steeled myself, ready for the onslaught in response to my next words. "Apologise, Jase, please, otherwise I won't be able to have you around Sammy anymore. I can't risk anything that will take him away from me."
His eyes held mine for one long moment, and my heart pounded faster against my chest. It bashed against my ribcage so fast I was sure he must be able to hear it. Dragging in a stabilising gasp of air I moved away and pulled on the door handle. He called me back. "Rivers?"
"Yes."
"I'll do it for you."
I nodded and opened the door, not turning around to look at him again. My legs shook as I trudged down the corridor and I wondered what it meant. Because in the eighteen years since he went pro, Jase Willis, had never apologised for anything before.