Maeve
TWENTY MINUTES PAST NINE, and I had officially decided that professionalism was a deeply fraudulent concept invented by people who had never been forced to work alongside elite male athletes who believed the world revolved around them.
Because in every role I’d had before this, I’d never been once introduced to this particular problem.
People showed up when they said they would.
Meetings started on time. If someone was running late, there was usually both an apology and at least one mildly frantic message sent in advance instead of whatever this collective social agreement to ignore reality was supposed to be.
Lord’s conference room filled with soft chatter with the players of the England Lion’s as we all waited for their vice captain.
Also otherwise known as one of the spirits of Pseudologoi come alive.
Now, if you were wondering what the fuck Pseudologoi was—don’t worry.
Until roughly ten minutes before that moment, I hadn’t known either.
Calling Rihaan the devil incarnate felt like giving him far too much credit for a man whose primary talent seemed to be wasting everyone’s time, so instead I’d looked up the god of lies.
More out of curiosity, and less to distract myself, but I’d learned about a Pseudologoi, i.e: personified daimones of lies and falsehoods, so I’d truthfully accomplished both goals.
I’d then continued to spend the next ten minutes learning all I could about them.
A task I preferred compared to making small talk with the team doctor, Dr. Blackwood who sat on my left, who’d worn a sour look ever since I stepped inside the conference room.
What I learnt, to my absolute delight was, they weren’t gods, or even a minor deity. Just plain old spirits.
And technically, I wouldn’t have considered Rihaan a pathological liar because of one lie alone, even though it had been significant enough to make me briefly reconsider the decision.
But when Oliver King, the team captain and quite possibly one of the finest men to ever walk God’s green earth, had walked into the conference room just as I’d settled down, my father’s very first question had been, “Where’s Rihaan?
” as though, them showing up together had been their norm.
Oliver’s response had come easily as he settled down in one of the chairs. “He left before me for some media duty. Said he’d be here just in time.”
Only he hadn’t been here just in time.
He hadn’t been here at all.
Ergo, liar.
I checked my watch again.
Twenty four minutes.
He was twenty four minutes late, and my father looked as content as ever.
Which, naturally, made me even more furious because I had arrived twenty minutes early today specifically to compensate for being late to my meeting with him last week, only to discover that sometime within the past seven days, the man had been body snatched and undergone a full spiritual software update and no longer cared.
The fact was, nobody else in the Lord’s conference room appeared remotely bothered by it.
Not the assistant coach, who stirred his coffee with the calm resignation of a man who had accepted this as part of the natural order while my father spoke to him.
Not Oliver either, who according to the deeply unnecessary amount of research I’d conducted over the past week, lived with the man and currently looked entirely untroubled as he chatted with the players nearest him.
The rest of the squad drifted in loose pockets of conversation across the room, catching up after their three-week break between fixtures.
Laughter surfaced now and then, low and easy, bouncing briefly off the walls before dissolving back into the general hum.
A few of the younger players, presumably the rookies who had been called up for their debut tour, looked considerably less relaxed, their expressions tightening each time they glanced up from their phones and remembered where they were.
“These are good,” Faroq’s voice snapped my attention to him. His gaze was fixed on my tablet as he continued reading my notes. “Do you mind if I add a few comments?”
I shook my head. “Go for it.”
“Thanks,” He nodded, clearly still focused on the thought that was building behind his eyes.
“I think it’ll take a while for the guys to warm up to you…
considering everything. They’re a bit overprotective of each other in the team, so I’m gonna add a few things that will help you make your life easier. ”
Gratitude filled me as he immediately tapped at the screen.
The moment I’d sat down, my heart had dipped at the sight of the team doctor, who looked thoroughly displeased by my presence.
But a few minutes later, Faroq, the senior physiotherapist on the team, had taken the seat beside me and greeted me with an easy smile and a warm welcome.
It had been the first thing that made me feel as though this job might not turn into a completely miserable experience.
My gaze retrained back to my father, and truthfully, the lack of emotion from him was more bothersome than Rihaan’s tardiness itself, and a part of me couldn’t help but wonder why in the world I’d considered this to be a step up from my previous role.
Maybe, so, your father can finally notice you.
Before I could do a deep dive into that theory, the conference room door finally opened, and a blanket of silence fell over the room.
Rihaan walked in wearing sunglasses despite the fact we were indoors—never you mind the fact that it had been still pouring on and off outside—carrying an iced coffee and speaking quietly to the person beside him like arriving nearly half an hour late to a mandatory meeting was an entirely normal social activity.
He didn’t even glance at me as he made his way down to where my father sat. The same man who’d given a seven year old me a forty five minute lecture on punctuality looked barely bothered. As a matter of fact, the small frown settled on his brows was more for the woman walking alongside Rihaan.
Forcing my attention on her, I searched through the bundle of information I had gathered in the past week.
The moment I’d signed the contract for this role, I’d spent every spare second researching the squad.
Partly because I was curious. Partly because sulking productively still counted as productivity.
So between the this-job-was-a-terrible-idea thoughts, the I-need-to-give-up-tequila-because-nothing-good-ever-comes-from-it revelations as I wished for a time machine so I could go back and unsent the email to my personal tutor, and the occasional at-least-I’d-get-to-spend-more-time-with-my-father rationalisation, I’d buried myself in stats, interviews, team members, injury histories, press disasters, family backgrounds, team dynamics, former coaches, sponsorships.
If one of had once posted a cryptic social media story in 2021, chances were I’d seen it.
And yet the woman entering this private team meeting beside Rihaan was completely unfamiliar.
She looked around my age, maybe a little older, with a visitor pass hanging around her neck.
My father got up immediately, confusion flashing across his face for the first time all morning as Rihaan said something quietly to him.
His expression shifted, displeasure coursing through his features before he schooled them and gave Rihaan a single nod.
And just like that, I knew whoever it was, she’d be staying in this private meeting.
I frowned slightly, turning toward the one man who’d been kind to me so far.
“Who’s that?” I asked quietly.
Faroq looked over, brow furrowing for a moment before he shrugged. “No idea.”
A part of me wished I could say the knowledge that she, too, had been a stranger to everyone else in the room had comforted me, but a slow, sinking instinct settled heavily in my chest and informed me, with remarkable certainty, that whatever this was, I probably wasn’t going to like it.
And for the next hour, I sat through tactical discussions and player management structures while internally losing my mind every time my attention drifted back towards Rihaan, who still hadn’t spared me a single glance.
I wasn’t entirely sure why it got under my skin so badly.
Maybe because I could tell from the slight tension in his posture that he knew exactly when I looked at him. Every time my focus shifted his way, something in his shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly, like awareness passing silently between us without ever becoming acknowledgement.
And still, he refused to look at me.
Not even when my father finally introduced me to the room.
Every head around the table had turned in my direction except the two I’d spent the entire morning worrying about.
My father and Rihaan.
I wished that it didn’t matter enough to deter me, but by the time individual assessments started, I felt more off-balance than I would’ve liked.
The treatment room smelled sharply of disinfectant and muscle cream, the dark clouds visible through the windows further dampening the mood as Oliver stepped inside.
And suddenly a part of me was thankful we’d started out with him because Oliver King was painfully easy to work with.
He was professional, direct, and smart enough to understand long-term rehabilitation mattered more than short-term ego.
I didn’t need to glance at the notes I’d complied over the last week to remind myself of his motorcycle accident three years ago—the one that had almost destroyed his leg entirely, along with his career.
I’d heard it all first hand from my father as he’d spent an entire dinner discussing how he’d almost lost one of the greats before he even had the chance to work with him properly.
But, after multiple surgeries and months relearning movement patterns, and the endless rehab—he’d come back stronger. I’d learned this all during my own research but, watching him move through strength testing, I’d almost felt impressed despite myself.