Page 8 of Brat on the Ball

“That’s it, come for me…” he coaxed, pulling my head down onto his shoulder as I shook. It felt like I was coming down from a high as everything we’d done seemed so suddenly clear to me. I pulled away from him, getting up on shaky legs. “I need to go. I have to…”

I pulled up my jeans and tucked myself away, leaving him kneeling on the floor. It wasn’t until I was out in the night that I realised I’d never once asked his name.

Maybe that was for the best.

Chapter Five - George

I had spent all of Sunday in a haze. I felt like Cinderella, or maybe the Prince. A perfect bubble had been formed and then burst in the middle of the night, and I was trying to pick up the pieces. Like Cinderella, I didn’t even know his name. Unlike Cinderella, neither of us had left a shoe. I wanted to know he was OK, to know that he wasn’t regretting things. I prided myself on my aftercare, but he’d disappeared into the night before I could hold him close.

The feeling of that mouth…I couldn’t. It was just a one night hookup. And it didn’t matter if I wanted more. I scrolled Grindr all day to see if I could find him again. But someone so closeted he was afraid to be seen out in public with a man wouldn’t have his face on a hookup app. I didn’t, after all. So unless I could recognise the planes of those abs or that smooth, gorgeous chest I would have no chance. And I knew the feel of them much more than I knew the look of them, anyway.

Rather annoyingly, as I trained in the Millennium Stadium on Monday morning, Finn Roberts was the first to notice I looked so morose. “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” He thumped my back hard, which would have been less annoying if it didn’t make me drop the weight I was holding. It crashed to the floor with a clang.

“You fucking bastard,” I rounded on him. “I could have dropped that on my foot!”

Finn held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry,butt. Didn’t know you’d lost your pet rabbit/dog/grandmother. I won’t bother you any more. Except…”

“Exceptwhat?” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. Despite everything, and all that had gone wrong in his life, he could be an absolute clown. And sensitivity wasn’t his strong point.

“The boss wants to see you. Pronto.” Finn gave a slightly weaker smile.

“If I’m being dropped this Saturday, the least he can do is tell me.”

“Well, I dunno, maybe that’s what he’s trying to fucking do,” Finn slapped the back of my head with one hand. “Come on. Get moving.”

I saw red, but just about tamped down the anger before I hit Finn. If he was just a player, I’d have no qualms about teaching him a lesson in how to talk to me. But as a coach, he had a power over me that he once hadn’t. We weren’t equals anymore, even though I’d spent years on the field, and that rankled me.

I made my way down the hallway to Steve’s office, not caring that I was still sweating. If he wanted to see me now, he could cope with me plonking my sweaty arse down in his fancy office chair.

I walked in without knocking. Steve was still on the phone, and held up one finger to tell me to wait, so I perched on the edge of the chair. I knew I was annoying him, and I didn’t care. Finn had popped the bubble I’d been in and I was feelingabrasive.

Steve put the phone down and gestured for me to sit. I sat down in the chair properly then, and he looked me up and down, just for a second. Just enough to let me know he was still the boss, even if I wasn’t going to be as pliant as he’d like.

“Someone pissed in your cornflakes?” asked Steve.

“Something like that,” I replied.

Steve seemed to be waiting for me to elaborate, but when I didn’t, he pushed a small paper cup of coffee across the table toward me. It was black and unsweetened, just the way I liked it.

“Let’s talk about your future,” he said.

“Is this the part where you fire me?” I asked. “I’ve been doing uni work, but you know I put in more graft than half of this team put together.”

Steve sighed. “When I was your age, my coach at the time sat me down and asked me for my plans for the future. Not because I was getting too old for the game, or because he wanted to fire me, but because he said he was tired of good rugby players only realising they needed a plan for the future when it was way too late. We’re not footballers. Most of us will never be millionaires.”

“I got that sponsorship for that oil company!” I protested.

“You are the most grumpy man I have ever seen in my life. There’s no wonder they never called you back after that one advert. Would it kill you to smile?”

“And I’m guessing you’re not about to offer me captaincy of the team and a little pay rise?” I half-joked. Everyone secretly wanted to captain, I was sure of it.

“I will refer you to my earlier point. You may be one of the best players on the field and there’s a reason I paid to have you back from La Rochelle. But you do not have the temperament or optimism to captain this team.” Steve gave me a grim smile and took a sip of his own coffee. “So I see a couple of avenues forward. We could work on your coaching skills…”

“No thanks,” I muttered. “I’m studying sports journalism for a reason.”

“I know. But unless you’re making the necessary connections now you’ll never make a living out of it. You might be as ruggedly handsome as Callum Anderson, but he’s already got a monopoly on theelder statesmancommentary, and he’s a lot more relaxed than you as he does it. People would invite him into their homes. But they’d run from you in a dark alley.”

“OK, I get it, I get it,” I said, my confidence bruised. It wasn’t like I went out of my way to be friendly to people, and I knew I could get a little moody sometimes. But it stung to think my outer shell was so repulsive that it could threaten my future career.

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