Page 3 of One Last Try

She doesn’t seem bothered, and folds the envelope, tucking it into her back pocket. “You don’t need to read it any more. All it said was welcome to Mudford, and that I’d be around about now to drop off some shopping and give you the keys. And here I am. Ta-da!”

“That’s all it said?” I ask, sceptical, but no way in hell am I making another move for it.

Daisy simply shrugs, walks into the kitchen, and begins unloading groceries onto the counter.

Yes! Maltesersandcustard creams. Get in.

“My dad runs the pub,” she says, heading straight to the integrated fridge to stash the milk.

“Oh, okay.” That makes so much more sense than whatever jumbled mess was happening in my head. So her father is the pub’s landlord, which means he is also my landlord—i.e., the person who my rent money goes to each month. “He’s going to be so stoked when he finds out it’s you.”

I stay quiet. The weight of her sentence all hangs on the wordyou. She knows who I am.

Though I’m not sure there’s a single soul in Wales or Wiltshire who doesn’t. She might only have been primary-school aged during that fateful Sunday evening, but her father—the guy who’ll be “so stoked” to find out it’s me—would likely have the moment tattooed on his brain for all eternity. Especially if he’s a Cents fan.

Never forget. Never forgive.

Just like everyone else.

“It only said Mr M. Jones on your forms. Not Mathias Jones, former Cardiff fly-half, now plays for Bath—or at least, will play for Bath as of next week—has a cute Welsh accent, but wears inappropriately small shorts.”

I look down at my clothes. “These are my moving shorts.”

She raises a single, highly sculpted eyebrow. “Sure.”

“So, you’re all Centurions fans?” I say, ignoring the sudden urge to find my box of joggers and tug a pair on over the top.

A smile slips over Daisy’s face, and she tilts her head to the side like a puppy dog. “You could say that.” She pushes herself away from the counter. “Everyone round here supports the Cents. Well, ’cept for Roger who lives three fields over. He’s . . .”

Apparently Daisy can’t think of a nice way to phrase whatever Roger is, so her sentence hangs unfinished.

I need to know more. Not about Roger, but about my reception here. “Do you all know about the emergency signing?”

“Oh, yeah,” Daisy said. “It’s all we’ve been talking about since the announcement. Since before then, actually, when Winter retired and we lost our kicker, and because you were unsigned we all thought how hilarious it would be if you filled the spot.”

My stomach churns. Hilarious, sure. “And . . .”

What I want to ask is,“Does everyone still hate me? Have they abandoned the Cents since they found out I’ve been signed to their precious team? Are they going to come after me with pitchforks?”

Instead I ask, “How’s it gone down?”

Eight years ago I may have caused a little upset amongst Bath players and supporters.

One rookie player in his debut Union match, with one extremely aggressive need to prove himself. Seventy-eight minutes on the clock. A six point deficit in our favour. Six points! One rugby vet—correction, a rugby legend—with a too-close-to-the-wire try attempt, thwarted by yours truly, the rookie, with a perfectly timed tackle. A terrible, terrible landing. Five match-day medics, a broken fibula, and a legend’s seventeen-year career down the drain. Thousands—thousands!—of booing fans. And years and years of being forced to relive that moment.

Apologise for it.

Even though technically I did nothing wrong.

The tackle was legal. It’s just the brutal nature of the sport.

These are the things I tell myself over and over, and these are the things every fan of rugby understands at a marrow-deep level.

And yet . . .

“You’ll see,” Daisy says cryptically, nauseatingly. She bounces back through the house towards the porch.

I remember to duck under the kitchen door frame just in time. “Are you still serving food at the pub?”

---