Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HUGO
It’s impossible not to chuckle at the sight of Wilcox letting out a giant, completely unselfconscious yawn while pounding away on the running machine.
I usually avert my eyes and keep walking when I’m on my way to the office first thing in the morning. After all, gym time is private time. You have to respect that. I wouldn’t appreciate someone watching me work out any more than she would. But this morning, for some reason, my feet come to a dead halt and refuse to move.
Or maybe it’s my eyes that refuse to move.
This window in the hallway looks right onto the glass wall along the side of the gym.
And just look at her—the way her ponytail swishes as she runs and her firm butt muscles flex back and forth in those orange leggings.
The other day as I was passing, I just happened to catch her high-five herself in the mirror, presumably for surpassing some target she’d set herself. She’s cute .
And there go the corners of my mouth again. Just the sight of her working out in her own world makes this miserable old scrote with a gammy knee smile—as well as want to grab her, throw her on the weight bench, rip off those leggings, and lick her till she screams for mercy.
That right there is a lethal combo I’ve never experienced before—someone who makes me want to shag them and smile.
But she was as clear as clear could be yesterday that she thinks I’m a loudmouth, mansplaining control freak. So obviously she must consider what happened in the pub the other night to have been a spectacularly dramatic lapse in judgment.
The sound of the janitor’s cart rumbling along the tiles around the corner jolts me out of my trance.
I drag my eyes off Wilcox just as she yawns again and shakes her head as if trying to stop herself nodding off mid-run. Maybe she had a rough night. Maybe she was lying in bed tossing and turning. Jesus, how I would like to be the one tossing and turning her.
But maybe she was doing it in a rage, still furious at me for trying to stop Ramon from having a go at her. And thinking of better things she could have said to me, more dramatic ways to tell me to fuck off.
Christ, that lad was bang out of order, though. Have I yelled at coaches in my time? Hell, yes. Have I done it when I was young and thought I knew better even though I didn’t? Hell, yes. But there was no way I was going to let him do that to Wilcox.
Yes, her sharing circles and aroma diffusers will never be my way of doing things, but she did not deserve to be spoken to like that .
I push off the wall right before the janitor rounds the corner.
Yeah, she definitely looks tired. There isn’t quite as much bounce in her stride today.
“Morning.” I nod at Wally, and continue on my way to the office.
Nine hours later, I pass the same window on my way out after a day successfully steering well clear of Wilcox.
It’s farcical, really. I know I’m being totally pathetic. I mean, it’s not like I can avoid her forever. We have to pull together to turn this team into winners, for fuck’s sake.
But it’s sure as hell the weirdest partnership I’ve ever been part of.
I come from the on-the-pitch world where you’re either on the same side or you’re the opposition. But Wilcox is both my teammate and my opponent. And we each have one goal—to beat the other. It’s like playing for a club where half the players want the other half to go away. Or not exist.
I’m just feet from the exit and free of any worry of bumping into her, when Miller calls my name and trots up the hallway behind me.
He excitedly chatters about a possible new sponsor—Under Riggs, currently the coolest men’s underwear on the block.
“Anyway,” he says, after twenty minutes of pondering places we could slap their logo and whether their boxers would work under a suit or if they’re best with jeans, “if the marketing folks are able to close the deal I’ll let you know. ”
“Sure would be great for us,” I tell him. “Having them as sponsors would show we’re being taken seriously.” It would also show that important brands are taking me seriously.
“And not just reputation-wise, my friend.” He pats me on the shoulder. “It would be a nice cash boost for Drew’s academy project.”
The mention of her name makes my stomach do a weird wobble. Is it written all over my face that I was buried balls deep in her just three days ago? And that I’d like to repeat the experience at every available opportunity? Even though the chances of that happening are now even less likely than us winning the cup, since she obviously hates me and I’m avoiding her wherever possible?
“Okay.” He rubs his hands together. “Now I have to go call a concrete company and yell at them for jacking up their prices.”
“Sometimes I forget the Commoners is just your side job,” I tell Boston’s Condo King.
“Oh, this isn’t a job at all. If buying this place was a business decision, it’d be the worst one I’ve ever made. I’m here for the love of soccer. Or footy as you would say.”
He does that weird high-pitched voice thing that Americans tend to do when attempting an English accent. What’s led them to believe that all Brits squeak at each other like Alvin and the fucking Chipmunks?
I take my buzzing phone from my pocket. It’s the front desk. Christ, am I ever going to get out of here today? “Hi, Lin.”
“Hi, it’s Lin from the front desk.”
We have this conversation every time she calls me. I say, “Hi, Lin.” Then she says, “Hi, it’s Lin from the front desk.” She doesn’t even do it as a joke—that’s not possible since she has zero sense of humor.
“There’s a visitor here for you,” she says.
Oh Jesus, what’s this, some fan who thinks their input on team tactics would guarantee us a place in the playoffs?
“Tell them I’m in meetings till the end of time.”
“Says he’s a friend of yours. Tom. Tom Dashwood.”
A mixture of bafflement and happiness rushes through me. “ What ? Really? Why didn’t he call me himself?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.” Her tone would suggest I’d just asked her to explain a particularly complex subtheorem of quantum mechanics. “But he’s here. Should I send him in?”
“Nope. I’m just leaving. Be right there.”
I hang up and turn to Miller. “My mate Tom’s shown up out of the blue from LA, so I gotta run.”
“That’s Tom Dashwood, right?” he asks.
“Yeah, have you met?”
“No. But everyone’s heard of Garage Records, right? And Chase knows his brother, Walker, really well. He invests in their brewery resort on Hornby Island.”
“Oh, I’ve heard Chase talk about that place. Maybe we should schedule a team retreat out there one day.”
“Fine plan.” I pat Miller on the shoulder as he turns toward the stairs to the owners’ office. “Let me know how things go with the Under Riggs sponsorship.”
As I make my way along the corridor to the front desk, I get the sense of how the presence of an old friend who I’m completely at ease with, who I don’t have to put on a show for, who will always call me on my shit and laugh with me, can lift my spirits and turn the day around. Like I feel more myself than I have since I came to Boston.
But that thought is immediately knocked out of my head by the thud of realization that it’s not true. The last time I felt totally at ease was actually the other night in the pub when I was trying to get Wilcox to tell me what happened in Paris. In that moment, I might have been more myself than I’ve ever been.
“Man, why didn’t you call? Or even tell me you were coming?” I release Tom from a back-slapping man-hug.
“Wasn’t sure I’d be able to fit you in. I got here just in time for a meeting today and was going to have to jump straight back on a plane home to get an early night before a breakfast meeting in West Hollywood tomorrow. But that one’s now been knocked back to the day after, so here I am with a night to spare. Thought I’d show up and surprise you.”
“Great surprise. I was just knocking off for the day. Let’s go get a drink.”
“Don’t I get a tour, first?” Tom asks. “I’d like to see your new empire.”
“You need a security pass for that,” Lin pipes up.
“Do you have a spare he could borrow if I sign him in?”
She rolls her eyes and rummages in a drawer.
“Sure you want to see it?” I ask Tom. “It’s not exactly Wembley standards around here.” I point to the chipped Formica along the edge of the front desk counter.
“I don’t care. Show me. I want to see where your whole new career in coaching has started.”
And, if Wilcox has anything to do with it, where it might end.
“So that side looks out over the stadium and the other over the training field,” Miller says, proudly walking Tom from one side of the owners’ office to the other.
This is the final stop on my grand tour, during which I judiciously left the locker room and the coach’s office until I was as confident as I could be that Wilcox would have left for the day.
It was a relief when the coast was clear.
“Thanks for letting us stop by,” I tell Miller. “Now it’s time for us to retire to a bar for the rest of the evening.”
“Oh, I can do better than that,” he says, striding over to the rattly old fridge behind the desk.
“How about you take these.” He pulls out a six-pack of Toasted Tomato pilsner and plonks it on the desk. “Go enjoy the best beer in town with the best view in town.”
“And what view would that be?” Tom asks.
“The one from the owners’ box of course,” Miller says with a smile like a kid who’s showing his favorite toy to a new friend. “I find beer always tastes best with a view of the glorious green Commoners’ turf.”
Tom looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “Would you prefer a bar? Somewhere with stuff going on? Louder? And with, you know, people?”
“Fuck no.” I scoop up Miller’s beer. “Thanks for this. And the box is the perfect spot. It’s a nice evening. And we’ll be able to hear ourselves think there.”
“Christ,” Tom says to Miller with a grimace. “Did you kidnap the Hugo I know and love and replace him with a man who likes a quiet night in?”
Miller slaps him on the back. “The Commoners is the sort of club that gets under your skin and into your bloodstream. Before you know it, you never want to leave and it’s given you a whole new purpose and outlook on life.”
I’m not sure it’s the team that’s done that. The woman I’ve been avoiding all day, maybe.
“Not that much has changed,” I tell Tom. “For a start, I’m going to order us a curry. So a takeaway and beer in the box it is.”
I move toward the door, swing it open, and stride through with a purpose and energy fueled by the prospect of imminent beer drinking, curry eating, and chatting with my best mate.
And slam right into Wilcox.
Or rather her fist.
Or rather her fist slams into me.
My chest to be precise.
She was clearly about to knock at the exact moment I yanked the door open and was too far into the action to stop.
“Jesus.” I clasp my non-beer-holding hand over my chest where there must now be a dent the precise size and shape of a Wilcox knuckle.
It’s hard to know the exact cause of the giant lurch in my heart and the spike in my pulse—the fact I was just punched in the chest, the shock at seeing Wilcox when I thought she was long gone for the day, or how amazing she looks.
Not that she’s gotten changed into a cocktail dress and heels or had her hair and makeup done. Nope. She’s in a perfectly ordinary pair of leggings and an oversized Commoners shirt that reaches to mid-thigh, her hair’s tied up in a ponytail as it always is at work, and there doesn’t seem to be a scrap of makeup on her face. That flush in her cheeks is entirely natural .
And she’s fucking gorgeous.
“Shit.” She jumps back and rubs the side of her neck right where that cloverleaf birthmark is. Mr. Happy immediately shifts to half mast at the memory of my lips on it.
“Sorry.” Her eyes dart from side to side, then settle in the middle distance over my shoulder. “I got halfway home and remembered I hadn’t dropped off this paperwork for Miller to sign so I came back.” She holds up a bunch of forms.
“Hi,” Tom says to her, appearing beside me.
“Tom, this is Wilcox. My co-coach and rival for the permanent job.”
“Yes, I know,” he says. “We’ve, er, met.”
Enough blood drains from Wilcox’s face to allow her to pass for an anemic ghost.
“Yes. Yes.” She walks backward while looking at the floor and rolling up the forms with both hands, forming a scroll that makes it look like she’s about to have her graduation photo taken. “We have, yes. Met. Yes.”
For some reason she starts tapping the side of her head with the scroll as she continues to babble at Tom, her gaze still somewhere around her feet. “And thank you for. All. That. You know. Before. In Paris. Again. Thank you.”
“Why are you hitting yourself with those forms?” I ask her in an attempt to be normal—I mean, if everything were normal and we hadn’t banged each other to kingdom come, I’d give her a hard time for this particularly comical, and it has to be said, totally adorable behavior.
So I do my best to ignore the yearning in my gut and my groin—and the twinge in my heart at how uncomfortable she is—and take the piss. “Are you hoping that whacking your brain might help it form complete sentences? ”
“Anyway,” Tom says, trying to move things along. “Time for us to go enjoy those.” He nods at the bottles I’m carrying and moves past me through the door.
That makes him two for two in the helping-Wilcox-out-of-an-embarrassing-situation-with-me stakes.
“Nice to see you again,” he tells her.
When he’s out of her field of vision he widens his eyes and jerks his head—a visual expression of get the hell out of the poor woman’s way and end her suffering .
“Yes,” she says, now tapping the forms against the palm of her hand instead. “I’ll just drop these off.”
As I follow Tom, she skirts around me and into the office.
I turn back just in time to glimpse the finest sky-blue arse known to humankind disappear through the door.
I’ve never been in the position before where I’ve wanted to grab someone so fucking badly but they didn’t want me to. Literally no woman I’ve wanted has ever turned me down.
But that’s exactly what Wilcox did yesterday when I tried to stroke her arm, but she kept on walking out of the locker room.
I wish this ache in my chest was just wounded pride. But I’m absolutely bloody certain it’s something way more dangerous.