Page 14 of The Hooker

At least it’s business class. Once on a flight home we were in economy since we didn’t have a game for a few days, so would theoretically have time to recover. We lost that game and management decided to shell out more money next time. I’m fine with economy if it’s a shorter flight. But twenty-four hours? I’d rather stay at home.

“Comfy?” an amused voice asks me.

“Very.”

She pokes her head around the divider between our seats and smiles at me. “Good. Don’t want any tight muscles. Or people falling over because of how tired they are.”

I snort and look around the seats to see if I can find Johnny. He had a rough go of it last season and did not take well to the long-distance flights. The kid’s from Christchurch and had only flown to Aussie before, flying to South Africa was a shock to his system.

The only person who locks eyes with me is Suli, who’s noticed Daisy sitting beside me. I look away quickly and ignore the tingling on my neck, letting me know he’s still staring.

I’ll need to deal with him sooner rather than later to make sure he doesn’t cause any issues. He’s not the kind of guy to do that, but he’s also not the kind of guy who glares at me.

The plane takes off and people stand and move around and swap seats or tug their eye masks down and put noise cancelling headphones on. I pop my head around the barrier to ask Daisy if she wants to watch a movie together and pause when I see her.

She’s curled up in her chair, arms slack in her lap, mouth parted slightly, breathing in and out slowly. A strand of hair escaped her plait and is caught in whatever she’s wearing on her lips. Some glossy thing that’s hard to look away from. I lean forward and carefully swipe the strand of hair off her lips and behind her ear so she doesn’t inhale it. She frowns in her sleep and sniffs, turning towards me, but settles. I shove down the urge to rub my thumb over her lips, deep down, and sit back in my seat to watch a movie to pass the time and pretend I don’t want to watch Daisy sleep.

The day after we land is a free day to explore and acclimatise to the new time zone, and I manage to avoid Suli by joining the younger guys’ sightseeing adventure. Which means I spent the day convincing them not to do stupid things that could hurt them before a big game. We’re here to win the Freedom Cup, not jump off rocks.

I’m not so lucky during training.

I’m lying on my back, panting, when he corners me. He lies on the grass beside me and raises an eyebrow. I gulp water. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what. What do you want? I’m dying over here.” I sit up and brush the grass out of my hair.

“I wanna know what’s going on with you and Daisy.”

My heart pounds and sweat prickles on the back of my neck. This time it has nothing to do with training. “Nothing.”

Suli scoffs. “You’ve always been close, but not sitting on the plane close.”

“The seats are selected randomly.” I don’t know why this is stressing me so much. Nothing’s happened between us, so there’s nothing to hide, but his dark eyes burn holes through me, and I feel like when Mum would catch me doodling on my homework instead of doing it. Dread about the incoming lecture.

“Sure, but usually the boys are put together. Can’t say I remember ever seeing a player sitting beside someone else.”

“Maybe they’re trying something new.” Damn it. Why couldn’t I control myself instead of asking them to seat her beside me? I would have survived without her. But it was calming seeing her face beside mine.

“Are you fucking her?”

“No!” I send a paranoid glance around the field, but no one’s paying attention. “And keep your voice down, you fucker.”

He rolls his eyes. “So what are you doing then?”

“Nothing. Unfortunately,” I mutter glumly.

“Ask her on a date. All you need to do is sign those relationship forms with management so they know there’s no abuse of power.” Suli shrugs and sits up beside me, stretching his legs out.

“I don’t know if she wants to date me. And it’s complicated since she’s my physio.” There’s probably a clause about physiotherapists not dating patients. Are they like doctors?

But she lets me kiss her hand. That’s not a platonic thing, is it?

“She drives you home after games.”

“So? We live on the same street. Any friend would do that.”

“I wouldn’t,” he murmurs.

---