Page 16 of The Fly-Half

“All right, thank you, Mr Russell,” I said as I tried to clap my hand across his mouth. But West just licked my palm and stuck his tongue between my fingers, making me yelp, and I suddenly had flashbacks of doing this to my brother, Aiden. Only he used to bite. “What the fuck? Are you twelve?”

“Are you?”

“Knock it off, the pair of you,” Matty said and smacked both of us on the arm. “And get your asses outside. All of you.” The rest of the changing room suddenly jumped to attention and I snorted as I watched Bailey realise he hadn’t actually put his boots on. Beside him, Hunter was still in his underwear, which was bright blue and patterned with bananas.

I turned to leave and Matty threw his hand across my stomach. “Not you.”

“But I—”

“Save it,” Matty said as Hunter scurried past pulling on his shirt, his laces still undone and trailing across the floor. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on between you and Devon, butyou can’t bring your personal shit in here. And I’ll say the same to him. You two are close, I get that, but what happens outside, stays there.”

“I know,” I said. He was right. I had to keep my head straight and not let Devon’s private life get in the way of doing my job, whatever my personal feelings were.

“Good.” Matty dropped his hand. “But Jonny… don’t push him. I get that he’s your friend, but you can’t run his life for him. If you do, you’ll end up pushing him away. Then one day you’ll look back and realise you’re strangers and wonder how the hell you got there. And it’ll be too late to change it.”

“Another parenting lesson?”

“No,” Matty said quietly. “Just personal experience.”

I nodded and hummed politely as I walked towards the dressing room door.

I’d been right in my assessment that Gavin would be a sadist.

Since we had a match on Saturday afternoon, we were supposed to be taking things slightly easier to avoid any sort of strain or injury. So Gavin had decided that instead of doing drills, we were going to play games. And I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Currently, we’d split into four teams of eight or nine players each, since there were thirty-four of us on the Knights squad in total, with two teams given one-half of the training pitch and the other two at the opposite end. The game was called something like ball tag—which was a terrible name—and the rules seemed fairly simple but if I was honest, I hadn’t been listening when they’d been explained.

Instead I’d been trying not to stare at Devon, who was on the opposite team with a yellow bib thrown over his hoodie. I knew he was angry even if he was doing everything he could to disguise it. It was clear in the way he rolled his head and the tightness of his lips, the way he put his hands on his hips and occasionally rocked onto his toes. Anyone else who looked at him might think he wanted to get going, but I knew better.

Devon only fidgeted like that when he was pissed.

He hadn’t believed my apology, which was probably good since I hadn’t meant it. But I almost wished he had because then we could pretend everything was normal instead of whatever the hell was currently going on.

Anger boiled in my chest, tension flooding my muscles, and as I flexed my hand my knuckles popped. I didn’t even know why I was angry, but I was and nothing seemed to cool it.

“Are you ready?” Tommy, who was refereeing our game, asked. There was a smattering of agreement and excited claps from around the group. “Okay, Devon and Charlie, you’re the first two taggers, so grab a ball each. Everyone else spread out. Last two to get tagged are first up next time.”

I still wasn’t sure of the rules, but I guessed the aim was to avoid being tagged for as long as possible. Fine by me. I was fast and my footwork was solid.

Tommy blew the whistle and we scattered across the pitch as Devon and Charlie broke fast, aiming for those closest to them. Charlie tagged Ollie and then Bailey, who’d mistimed his turn and found himself cornered. Devon had gone straight for George and missed but managed to catch Jaden instead. And now there were five of them against nine of us on half a pitch and suddenly the odds felt a lot more balanced.

I jogged along the edge of the pitch, watching as much as I could. Charlie was quick while Devon was sneaky and the numbers of untagged were dwindling rapidly. Danny was stillholding out on the opposite side, but he was the fastest guy on the team, so that made sense.

Jaden charged towards me and I took off down the pitch, changing direction as much as I could. But Jaden seemed to have gotten the teamwork part of the game down and I could hear him calling to George and Ollie to cut me off. They were going to try and corner me, so I did the only logical thing. I ran straight towards them.

They were only half expecting it and by the time they’d reached out to grab me, I’d just about managed to slip through their fingers.

But in my desperate attempt to avoid them, I’d forgotten about Devon.

And as I glanced over my shoulder at Ollie, I heard another set of boots on the turf beside me. I flicked my head back too late and skidded as Devon appeared in front of me, the ball clutched between his fingers and a joyous smirk on his face, which quickly faded when he realised I wasn’t stopping.

I clattered into him, my arms half-outstretched to break my fall as we hit the deck with a thunderous crash. I landed on my back, the coldness of the earth sinking into my skin and my chest heaving as I stared up at Devon, who was sprawled across me. His weight was heavy on my thighs but not uncomfortable. I didn’t feel trapped. And it didn’t feel like I’d been tackled either.

He sat up and laughed, his knees either side of my thighs as he lowered the ball to tap it against my chest, a victorious grin lighting up his face. “Got you.”

“Yeah, I guess you did.”

A moment of silence stretched out between us, the sounds of the rest of the team fading into the background like someone had turned the volume down on the world. All I could hear was the thundering of my heart and the sound of Devon’s breathing as our eyes locked together.

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