Page 25 of The Fly-Half

“No, unfortunately not.” The referee levelled me with a hard stare. The man barely came up to my chest but in that moment I felt about six inches tall and it only added to my anger and humiliation. “You spiked number eleven and you could have seriously injured him.”

“I grabbed his waist, sir.”

“His waist is down here, not up around his shoulders.” The referee pointed to his own body as I fought back the urge to argue with him. I was already in deep shit and arguing with the ref was only going to make it worse. “You lifted him up and dropped him on his shoulder, and that is unacceptable conduct. I know it’s a hard game and you’re getting frustrated, but that is no excuse.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow card to flash at me, pointing towards the sin bin bench. “Ten minutes, please. And I don’t want to hear any arguments.”

“Oh, come on,” I muttered, throwing my hands into the air as the ref jotted my number down.

“Can it,” Matty said as he glared at me. “Go and sit down. And calm the fuck down while you’re at it.”

“I am calm.”

“Yeah, and I’m the fucking Prime Minister. Get your ass off the pitch.” He turned back to the referee and nodded. “Very sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

I turned away and rolled my eyes as I walked off the pitch, the tacky mud clinging to my boots as I went to take my seat on the naughty step. Ten minutes in the sin bin for a perfectly harmless tackle was ridiculous, and I wasn’t going to pretend I was grateful it wasn’t a red card. It was another totally wrongcall by the referee, and I wished they’d check it because then I wouldn’t be being sent off.

I could practically feel Clive’s eyes boring into my head from his seat in the coach’s box and I knew I was in for a proper bollocking later. I’d add that to the list of things I didn’t deserve.

There was a bottle of water waiting for me as I sat down, the frosty air nipping at my skin. I glanced at the play clock as I pulled mud off the bottom of my boots and realised there were only four minutes left in the first half, which was just the fucking cherry on top. Since I’d be finishing the half in the sin bin, I’d be starting the second half in there too, leaving the team a man down until I was released. And we were already struggling enough as it was.

My emotions compounded in my chest, filling me with a potent mixture of shame, anger, guilt, and frustration.

I still didn’t think the tackle had been that bad. Maybe a little higher than it should have been, but that wasn’t unusual. I’d been grabbed around the shoulders before. And the neck. It didn’t mean anything. The other guy had walked away fine, just a little muddier than before. I definitely hadn’t dropped him.

At least, not deliberately.

I took a long drink of water as I watched play resume, gritting my teeth as I watched the other team’s fullback tackle Devon while my hand balled into a fist in my lap. Getting tackled might have been part of the game, but that didn’t mean I liked watching my best friend getting flattened by men twice his size. And Devon wasn’t exactly small either.

“Come on,” I muttered to myself. “Stop fucking around.”

The current score, seven to twelve, made it look a lot closer than it felt. I hoped that half-time would give us a chance to regroup, get our act together, and come up with a plan. Matty would probably try and say something inspiring, but I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to listen.

The whistle blew as Devon booted the ball into touch, signalling the end of the first half, and I climbed to my feet to make my way back to the changing room with everyone else.

“Jesus Christ, mate,” Mason said as he fell into step alongside me. “What the hell was that?”

“Just made a mistake,” I said, shrugging off his arm as he tried to put it around my shoulders. “We all make them.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like you.”

“Back off,” I said with a growl.

“Hey!” Mason prodded my chest. “Calm down. I was just asking.”

“Yeah, well, I’m telling.”

“What the hell has gotten into you lately?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You’ve been a right mardy arse lately,” he said pointedly as we entered the dressing room. I grabbed a piece of fruit and a drink and made my way to my spot on the benches to sit down. Unfortunately, Mason followed me. And to make things worse, Devon came and sat down on my other side.

I still couldn’t look him in the eye, not after last night. I couldn’t remember all of my dreams but I could remember enough, especially how they’d ended.

The whole thing was a confusing mess I didn’t want to think about. I’d never considered the idea I might be attracted to men, so maybe it would be easier to simply chalk it up to a weird night and move on, especially since I’dneverhad a sex dream like that before.

Fuck, if I was being honest, I’d never really had many sex dreams before.

Unless you counted that really weird one from when I was sixteen involving Kristen Stewart and Daniel Radcliffe.

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