Page 3 of Pitch Prince

I really had to bite my tongue before I responded. Once I’d caused myself enough pain thinking of a considered reply, I finally spoke. “You know Olivia painted his nails under your watch, and there’s nothing wrong with a boy wearing pink. The Scottish rugby team’s away kit is pink.Iwear pink.”

“Oh I know, that’s what I’m worried about.” Elizabeth looked at me over narrow glasses. I didn’t know what she was insinuating about my masculinity, all six-foot-five of hairy Scottish rugby player — but it raised my hackles, like she’d treaded on something we just didn’t talk about. God, I wished my wife would cut her out altogether. But I’d lost a lot of rights in deciding what went on under this roof recently.

“Would you like a cup of tea or were you planning on going straight home?” I asked as diplomatically as possible.

“When is Sarah going to be home? I’d like to see her before I go.”

“No idea, I could have her call you when she gets home?”

“Fine.” Elizabeth packed her phone into her little handbag. “I’ll call Sarah later.”

“Lovely as ever to see you,” I said to her back as she departed the kitchen. I could hear her saying goodbye to and fussing over the kids, and then she was gone with a click of the front door. I sighed, running my fingers through constantly messy hair before heading to the living room myself to see my kids.

“Dad, Olivia wants to play football but I want to play on the Sims!” Logan whined.

“Well you’ve got an hour. So you can waste that whole hour arguing or you can play half an hour on football and half an hour on the Sims, “ I said. They both immediately turned to the console to play.

I did worry for Logan sometimes, much as Elizabeth’s attitude had made me bristly. At eight years old, with his long messy strawberry blonde hair and love for having his nails painted, I worried he was becoming an easy target for bullies in future. But I wasn’t going to have Elizabeth bring that attitude into the house. This was his safe place.

Olivia always gave me less worry. She was a typical tomboy, never seen in a skirt or dress and much more likely to be painting her brother’s nails with artistic flair than her own. Her teachers liked to say that she might follow in my footsteps. They said she could play for Scotland women’s rugby team some day.

I sat on the sofa and watched as they played together on the Xbox. It was much easier than having them run around and trash the house, so I let them have a bit of extra time. Much as Elizabeth’s attitude made me want to strangle her sometimes, she had made sure they were washed, fed and had their homework done today so I could have the best bits of being a dad. Just watching my kids be happy.

After Xbox time, I offered to play Monopoly with them to give them some cool down time off the games console before bed. We were halfway through Olivia cleaning Logan and I’s bank accounts when the front door opened. A couple of seconds, Sarah stepped into the kitchen.

She was as beautiful as the woman I had married when we were both just twenty-one. Thirteen years later she seemed to have hardly aged a day. Still peroxide blonde with beautiful wide eyes and a figure most women — and men — would kill for. And yet…she gave me a tight smile when she first saw me and then turned all her attention to the kids, who abandoned their Monopoly game to tell her all about their school days.

Automatically, I got up to pour her a glass of wine from the fridge. The smile she gave me as she took it from me was much more genuine. “Thanks,” she mouthed over Logan’s head.

I heated up her dinner in the microwave and let her decompress from her day. “Good day?” I asked as I put the chilli con carne her mother had made down on the counter.

“Alright thank you, very few emergencies. Does feel like we’re stretched to our limit now though, we’re running out of beds…” she bit her lip worriedly. “Anyway. Not like me to bring the hospital home with me.”

“I bring rugby home with me all the time,” I smiled.

“Yes, and that’s why I’d rather not bring my work home with me too.” We both smiled at each other and for just a second I could forget…everything. All the arguments, all the stupid words we couldn’t take back, and the one truth that had shattered our marriage open like an egg.

“Are you working tomorrow? Coming to watch the match?” I asked.

“I’m off. Thought I’d take the kids to the park, though. Rather than ask my mother to have them again. Seems a long way to cart the kids all the way down to Cardiff on a Saturday.”

“Aye. Of course.” I did my best to hide my disappointment that the kids wouldn’t be coming to watch. But Sarah hadn’t been coming for a while. So it was unfair to ask it of her now, and unfair to ask her to travel.

I looked at the clock. It was only 8pm, but I had to be up early the next day for the short flight down to Cardiff.

“I’m heading to bed, do you want me to take the…” I gestured over to the kids, who had decided that now was the time to empty out Lego onto the kitchen floor.

“No, no worries. They can have a late one,” said Sarah. I nodded, headed over to kiss my little ones on the head and wish them goodnight. Then I stretched, poured myself a glass of water from the fancy fridge and headed up the stairs.

The house was big, modern, and paid for mostly by me — though I made sure never to undercut Sarah’s work as a nurse. As far as I was concerned, I was massively overpaid for throwing a ball around the field and she was massively underpaid for saving lives as a nurse. This house was my thanks to her and the kids for putting up with me training for weeks at a time, for playing rugby professionally when I should have been playing it in the local park with the kids.

I headed past the kids’ bedrooms, past the master bedroom Sarah and I had shared for most of our marriage, and to the spare bedroom at the end of the hallway. It was still bigger than most people’s box rooms but sleeping on a small double bed wasn’t exactly luxury on my massive frame. Sometimes when I stretched, my toes peeked out from the end of the covers and I yearned for the king-size Sarah and I had shared.

I stripped down to my boxers, climbed into bed and turned on my phone. It had blown up with well-wishes from family and friends after I’d been named in the starting line-up for Edinburgh Thistle, like it wasn’t something that happened every week. But it hadn’t always been the case so I appreciated the support. I sent back a few thanks and checked Cardiff Old Navy’s Instagram to see who was in their starting line up.

Rhys Princeimmediately jumped out at me. The young man had injured himself back in October. Now, four months on, it seemed he was already back their line-up.

Something like a pit of dread settled in my stomach even as I hovered over his name, clicking the little tag that would lead me to his own personal account.

---