Page 33 of Brat on the Ball

“It could,” I agreed. And for just a second, I let myself imagine the domesticity of it all. How it would be to wake up with George every day. To argue about shopping and meal prep, and who hadn’t locked the balcony door the night before. And the making love.

“Come and watch me play?” asked George.

“What?” I shook myself out of the vision.

“Sunday. Cardiff Old Navy are playing. I’ll get you a ticket,” said George.

“Why?” I asked. And watched his face crumple. George adjusted himself, put a little bit of distance between us. “No, I mean…” I didn’t know what I’d meant to say at all.

“It’s fine,” said George. “Forget I asked.”

“No. I’ll go. It’s just…you know I’m not ready to be out, right?” I asked.

“I know,” said George. “I’m just asking you to attend as a friend. Not as my…mine.”

“Your Mine?” I teased. “Or My Yours?”

George shushed me and paddled closer again. “You’re playing Saturday, right? I’ll keep up on the Cardiff City app. I would have come, but I’ll be in training most of the day.”

“Busy boy, however will you find time to do anything else?” I asked. “No Wings trip for you that night.”

“Will you be there?” he asked.

“Yup. As soon as the match is done. I’ll get a train back from Sunderland to go to Wings and fuck the brains out of whatever guy looks my way firs-”

George tackled me back into the water, and when I emerged spluttering, he cut me off with another kiss.

“Mine,” he growled at me. “No one else.”

“No one else,” I agreed. And how could there be? George Reynolds was capturing my heart.

Chapter Seventeen - Ollie

I had never watched a rugby game the whole way through on TV, much less in person. But George had got me a ticket for the family and friends box at one end of Cardiff Arms Park. It was a third of the size of Cardiff City Stadium, but it packed a punch. There were old terraced stands where the die-hard fans still stood rather than sat, and both teams mingled in a way I’d never seen at a football match. Weren’t they worried a fight could break out at any time?

The place buzzed with an atmosphere that was hard to describe, even in the little box I was sharing with a few other people I’d never met. The little box had its own bar and snack table, and was walled in by glass on one side to keep the cold out. One man recognised me and asked for a selfie, but didn’t seem all that interested in why I was even there.

“Ollie?” asked a pretty woman I’d never met. She had walked into the room hand in hand with a young girl. “Hi, I’m Elsie. Say hello, Blod.”

The little girl hid her face in her hands straight away and refused to say anything.

“Tough crowd, sorry.” Elsie pried Blod’s hands away from her face and pointed out the buffet table, and the little girl ran over straight away to grab some sweet treats.

“How…how do you know me?” I asked.

“Oh. Sorry. I’m in uni with George. And I help him run his blog.”

Shit. How many people has he told about us?I thought.

My expression must have shown on my face, because Elsie put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “Don’t worry, love. Your secret is safe with me. I’m a journalist at heart, and it didn’t take much deduction to figure out what was going on.”

“How?” I asked, despite myself. We had done our best to be as discreet as possible. This was the closest I’d ever been to George in public, and there were six thousand people between me and him.

“One, his phone buzzes all the time. I’ve seen the occasional text fromOl,” she started. “Then there’s the fact that he suddenly has almost as much interest in blogging about football as he does rugby. And the fact that each of you has a little evidence peeking over your shirt collar. And finally, he invited me to this match. And I think that’s because he subconsciously wants a friend’s approval of everything that’s going on.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to reply. George felt that way about me? Us? I felt trapped in a wave of uncertainty, unable to push our relationship forward but so wishing that he would.

When the players all ran out onto the field to start the match, I was enthralled by the game. George wasn’t a flashy, scoring player like I was. He was a tank, and he used his bulk to dole out hit after hit on the opposition players. I winced every time he stuck his shoulder into someone’s stomach, or took someone down with a well-placed arm. Rugby was brutal, and I wondered why I’d never watched before.

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