The following day Mum and Dad took Sammy to visit his Aunty Shelley, and Cole went home to his family. By the time I'd made it out of the changing rooms the previous evening I resembled The Incredible Hulk on a comedown. Sammy and Cole were grinning ear to ear and playing catch with Bailey and Anderson, their slight at the hands of the wanker that was the Lancashire Lion forgotten.
"He's got safe hands, your little one," Bailey had winked, and I'd loved him for it.
I spent Saturday morning on mundane tasks, but the kind of jobs that kept me grounded in my new life. The little guy and I had a brunch of pancakes with Nutella and banana's, and then we went outside while the sun was still shining down. Sam threw balls at the nets I'd put up on the expansive lawn, and I hung out washing that Maria had left folded in the utility room the day before.
I loved Saturdays. They were the best day of the week for us. When Sammy had first come to me, Saturday's had been the worst. Before, they were his ‘mummy’ days. While his dad played cricket, Sammy and Vanessa would go to watch taking a picnic. It was one of the reasons I'd had the nets installed. I'd told him we didn't need to watch other people play when we could do it ourselves.
I loved watching him throw balls. His aim was nearly always accurate, and I knew he could probably bowl out anyone at his school should he try to take them down. "You're holding your shoulder up too high," I called, as I pegged school trousers onto the line.
He stuck his tongue out with concentration and brushed the hair out of his eyes before lining up his shot again. This time he kept his shoulder relaxed and then rotated his arm into a steady swing. "Much better," I called and finished fastening the last trouser leg to the line with a peg. "I'm going to go and make coffee, do you want a glass of juice?"
'Diet Coke," he called back.
"In your dreams, little guy."
I made my way into the kitchen and flicked on the radio, the hum of voices filling the air. It was like last night hadn't happened at all. Sure there was the buzz of the win still lingering in my veins, but the other stuff, the childish drama that I could live without, was beginning to fade away. I breathed in deeply and dropped my shoulders, centring myself in the moment.
Perching on the bar stool, I straightened my knees and glanced at them. I'm almost entirely sure they were glaring back at me. I frowned and rubbed at the freckles that sprinkled along the wrinkly skin. Why was knee and elbow skin so wrinkly? It was like toughened scrotum skin. There was no need for such hideous skin to be on show to the public, yet there it was, an obvious part of the human body.
My mind went to Jase Willis’ knees.
I wonder if they are like his scrotum?
What the hell?! That was a disgusting thought if ever I had one.
Snatching my phone off the kitchen counter, I texted Maria and asked if she could have the little guy for an hour the following day—I needed to run. It was as if this pent-up frustration was coiling in my muscles. I knew I'd been working out with the team, but it wasn't the same as pushing myself. Everyone knew I was injured and that's why I'd stopped playing international and county. What I wanted to do was lose myself down long, winding country lanes as I paced to the sound of birdsong and insects buzzing in the hedgerows.
It was as I put the kettle on for my coffee that I heard voices in the front garden. The house was secluded, and I'd never panicked about people walking off the country lane that joined onto the driveway, but my heart leapt into my throat. I smacked the kettle down onto its stand and sped for the door.
My feet crunched along the gravel pathway as I turned the corner to where I knew I'd left Sammy in the nets. My brain was spinning with alarming thoughts. Was someone trying to abduct him? Worse, had his other grandparents decided to spring a visit and would find him alone in an over large garden, unsupervised by me as I listened to the radio and made coffee.
As I closed into the nets, my feet faltered, and my sprinting slowed to a jog. What the fuck?
Inside the net alongside Sammy's dark hair was a head of golden blonde, which glimmered like the mane of a lion.
Because it was a lion, of the Lancastrian variety.
My chest did this odd thing where it contracted and then didn't quite move again properly with my next breath, causing an iron band of constriction to wrap around my rib cage. I clutched at the tightness hoping to relieve it, but all I did was grab my right tit before realising that wasn't exactly appropriate behaviour in front of my nephew or the Lion.
The team captain was swinging a bat loosely in his grip, and the little guy was grinning as he wound up a shot. Of course, the shot went wide, like a big fat pie, but the Lion leant to the right and hooked it straight back at him so Sammy could catch it and give a squeal that he'd caught his hero out.
I shook my head. Catching him out was never a good idea.
"Good catch," I heard that voice say.
Wiping my hands down my casual shorts, I stepped forward.
"Aunty Lyssi, look who's here." Sammy bound right up toward me and pointed to Jase Willis like I couldn't see the six foot something of hulking broodiness crossing his arms across his chest, his face guarded in shadows.
"Why don't you go and get a coke, little guy," I told him.
I didn’t even have to look to know his face was gawping. "But, I'm not allowed coke," he said.
"Mm." I kept my eyes focused on the Lion as one would watch the approach of a predator. In the weeks that we'd been forced to work alongside one another I'd never seen him in anything outside of tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, so it was almost blindingly distracting to see him in faded jeans, canvas trainers and a plain navy T-shirt. His golden tanned arms bulged as he swung the bat awkwardly at my approach and his eyes lighted with a shine that made me think he was considering hitting me with the wooden weapon.
"What are you doing here?"
There was no point with pleasantries. Only the previous night I'd slapped my hands against his naked chest in a fit of rage. I didn't think there were many ways for me to come back from that.
Placing the bat on the floor, he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I came to give your nephew some gifts." He motioned his head in the direction of his car.
"Why?” I fired my answer like the shot of a gun, and he sighed, grumbling something under his breath about nothing being easy.
"Because, as you so eloquently put it last night, I was a twatface." His lips twitched just a little, the closest he'd ever got to a smile around me. "You know, I was cross with myself, my bowling was dire." His eyes held mine like a tractor beam. "You know it, and I know it. I didn't mean to be rude."
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my linen shorts. "But you were. There are people with feelings, I'm not sure you get that." I sighed and released a hand from where it was clenching the lining of my pocket and scrubbed it through my hair. "I mean, for God's sake, he's six."
The Lion's face dropped. "I know."
He still hadn't said sorry, and I wondered if the word was even in his vocabulary.
We were distracted from saying anything more by Sammy running back out with two glasses of coke. "Here, Mr Willis, I brought you a drink."
Honest to God my heart could have burst right there and then.
"That's very kind—Sammy, isn't it?" I wondered how he'd found out the little guy's name but the Lion's eyes didn't meet mine.
"Yes, Sir." He replied and again my heart gave that little ache. "You wanna play cricket with me and my Aunt Lyssi? She's really good."
The Lion's eyes stayed focused on Sammy, not once flickering to me. "I'm sure she is, but I just came to give you some things. Do you want to come and get them?"
Sammy looked like he was about to combust as he nodded fast enough to make his head drop off his shoulders.
I hung back as they walked to the silver car and I watched as the Lion popped the boot with his key fob and pulled out a bat and some children sized kit. Once it was laden in Sammy's arms he brushed the little guy on the head, leant down and whispered something and then got back into his car—the whole time not giving me a backwards glance, like we didn't know each other at all, let alone worked together.
Fine.
I spent the remainder of the day repositioning the little guy's posters so he could put his signed bat on display in the centre of his room, hanging the signed kit and then going to pick up his friend Cole because he’d also had a goodie bag left for him.
The incident at the close of the match had been forgotten about by everyone, apart from me.
On Monday, I shouldered my bag and made my way through the gaggle of journalists. They weren't here for me. They wanted to speak to the stars of the sport although the odd question regarding working with Jase Willis was still flung in my direction. I just dropped my head and ran for it. I was working my way up to talk with Waller and discuss my hunches about possible injuries within the team, when the man himself beat me to it by knocking on my changing room door. "Are you alone?" He looked like a startled rabbit, and I pulled the door open wider.
"It's okay. I'm by myself there is no mob of naked girls here, yet."
Waller breathed a sigh of relief and stepped in. "Do you mind?" he asked. In his hands, he held a blue-wrapped plastic packet.
"Nope, we need to talk anyway." I needed to get on with this. I needed to do the right thing for the team, regardless of the fact that the moody arse had made my nephew’s year by personally delivering him signed gifts. I had to do the right thing; it was my responsibility to everyone, even the Lion himself.
I grabbed my bag and pulled out my clean uniform I'd washed and thought about ironing over the weekend. "Oh, here." Waller handed me the packet.
"What is it?"
"Open it." He shrugged.
I did, pulling back the layers of plastic that revealed a pink T-shirt, and a pair of decent length shorts inside. 'Why've I got this?"
Waller shrugged. "Captain’s orders." He moved away from the bench. "I'll leave you to get changed. Team chat in five on the pitch."
He walked out, the door swinging shut behind him and I was left clutching the pink shirt. It was a proper T-shirt, it had sleeves and everything. The air in the changing room was stifled, and absorbing it into my lungs ached.
Just like that, my need to tell Waller about the injury to the Lion's right shoulder ebbed just a little. I could always listen to the team talk and then tell him.
Yes, that would be best.
I think.
If the guys were expecting a clap on the back and a big fat day off they were sadly mistaken. Waller gave them the rollicking of their lives for leaving it so close to the call. The Lion stood with his arms folded, glowering, and I was sure that every so often his eyes flashed to mine like he was daring me to say something.
I didn't. Although, it went against every professional bone in my body.
"Rivers," Waller barked when he'd finished, and the vein pulsing in his temple started to slow. "You're up."
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. From the corner of my eye, I sensed the Lion stiffen.
"You're batting was strong, with good solid fluidity, and you had them over a barrel," I said. "The Pilates is paying off with your stamina." I winked at Anderson. He hated Pilates more than anything else in the world, but I knew if he were to watch the game recording back he would see how much his posture had improved in the last few weeks. They'd all improved. Their core muscles had kept them solid in the middle as they powered with their arms to connect the bat to the ball.
There was a general murmur, but I ignored them. "Your fielding was dire." Waller had already told them this, but my job was to tell them why. Why had they struggled with their concentration and let so many fours slip by their hands? "We need more gym, more cross training and more stamina."
I pulled my notebook from the back pocket of my new shorts and began to flip through the sheets of notes I'd scrawled over the weekend. The bits of the weekend when my mind had accidentally started to recall the Lion in faded jeans in just a fraction too much detail.
It was Fredericks that spoke. "No more yoga, you are wasting our time with it."
I shook my head. "No, I’m not. Yoga is about strength, breathing and mental alertness. It's about focus, something you all need."
There was a flurry of dissent from around me, and then something happened I wasn't expecting—the Lion spoke. "Stop bitching like a group of girls." He growled, that northern, slow drawl filling the air. "If we need yoga, then that's what we do."
Everyone stared wide-eyed at him, even Waller scratched his head.
Me? Well, I dropped my notebook as I glanced up at him in surprise. He still didn't look at me though, but just for one split second, I wondered if maybe he wasn't quite as dreadful as I had surmised.
Then he ruined it. "Of course, if Rivers asks us to do ballet, we form a mutiny."
A snigger morphed from the group, and I glanced up at him from under my lashes only to be dumbfounded when I caught a smile on his lips. And it was pointed directly at me.