Page 9 of The Fly-Half

“I’m not growling.”

“Yeah, you are. Did you suddenly become a werewolf when I wasn’t looking? Mate, if you turn and shred the new cushions on the sofa, Ryan is gonna be pissed.”

“I’m not a fucking werewolf, dickhead!”

“Then why are you growling?” Mason asked, poking me in the chest. “West, come here.”

“What?” West strolled over with a bottle in hand, looking between the pair of us with confusion.

“Jonny growled at me!”

“I didn’t growl at you!”

“Yeah, you did. But he won’t tell me why,” Mason said petulantly. God, sometimes I wondered why I was friends with this man, let alone lived with him. He never knew when to leave things alone.

“What did you do?” West asked Mason with a flat stare as he took a swig of water and adjusted his shirt. We were all practically steaming in the freezing air, and I knew the coaches would make us get moving again in a minute so we didn’t get cold.

“Me? Nothing! Why do assume it’s me?” Mason asked, his outrage so loud I was sure everyone heard us.

“Because it’s always you,” West said.

“That’s not true. Out of the three of us, I might not be the most sensible but I’m not stupid. And I don’t start fights. I just finish them when people are being prats.” He raised an eyebrow at West like he was trying to remind him of something. I had no idea what they were on about, probably something to do with the time West had nearly beaten up our old housemate for being a cunt, but hopefully their bickering would give me a moment to escape.

I turned, aiming to slide away amongst the rest of the team… and nearly walked straight into Devon.

“Shit, sorry,” I said, holding up my hands and chuckling softly, my eyes immediately drawn to the beaming smile on his face. Devon always looked good when he smiled. There was something about the emotion that suited him. It radiated out in a way that was infectious and even if I was pissed, if Devon smiled, I found myself smiling too.

“You’re fine,” he said. “Are there any bottles of water left?”

“Yeah, should be. If not, you can have mine.”

“Thanks.”

“Your kicks looked good,” I said as I steered Devon over to the wire holders on the grass that had the bottles in, using my body to easily push us through the crowd. “Aiming for a perfect season?”

“I wish,” he said, grabbing a bottle and pulling the top open. “It would be nice, but even last season I still missed a few. And Matty was muttering something about storms coming in at the weekend. If anything is going to ruin my streak, it’ll be the weather.”

“Gotta love British winters. Wet, wet, and more wet.”

“Don’t forget grey. Just endless grey.” He sighed sadly. “I miss the sunshine, Jonny. Why do we live in such a miserable fucking country?”

“You moved back here! You could’ve stayed in France.”

“Yeah but…” He trailed off and took a long swig of his water. He tilted his chin up, nodding at something over my shoulder. “Mason’s waving at you.”

“Just ignore him,” I said. “He’s being a dickhead.”

Devon chuckled, the sound wrapping itself around my chest. “Why? What’s he doing?”

“Accused me of being a werewolf for one.”

“What the fuck? Why?”

“Dunno. Apparently, I growled at him?”

Devon laughed and shook his head in disbelief. “What? That’s ridiculous. I’ve never heard you growl! Apart from that one time when you got really fucking mad when we were, like, fourteen and took Courtney trick-or-treating and some assholes tried to steal our stuff. And that wasn’t really a growl… more like… you know when Simba tries to roar inThe Lion King? Yeah, it was like that.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended or take that as a compliment,” I muttered as I heard Mason’s heavy footsteps behind me. I knew it was him without even looking, because who else was going to make a beeline for me? “What do you want?”

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