EPILOGUE 2
casey
Three years later
It’s Brownlow night—Australian Football’s night of nights with all the accompanying glitz and glamour, where all the teams come together for the awarding of the league’s best and fairest player.
I squirm in my midnight-blue tux, adjusting the crisp black bowtie as my gaze lands on Harrison seated across from me in the limousine.
He’s an absolute delicacy in that charcoal grey tux with its dark shawl lapels, matched with that paisley patterned tie. His curls are artfully tamed in a way that looks completely natural and not as though we’ve spent the last hour being primed and preened by our stylist. Positively edible.
He catches my lustful gaze and sends me back a quick, knowing wink.
Honestly, he’s lucky Sonny’s date is sitting beside him, none the wiser of where my thoughts have taken me.
How I wish I could breach this divide, straddle his waist and let him undress me in the back seat of this luxurious vehicle.
I’ll have to add that to our bucket list of places to have sex. We’ve ticked off a few already.
“Alright, Callie?” Sonny asks, bumping me with his elbow. The jolt brings my attention away from the eye candy that is my hot boyfriend, and I glance across at my best friend.
“I’m great. You?” I return.
“I’m not the bookie’s favourite to take out this year’s Brownlow Medal,” Sonny returns, brow artfully peaked. “So I’m fine. I thought you might be battling some nerves is all.”
“Well, I was. But then Harrison set my mind very much at ease earlier in our hotel room, so I am feeling just grand,” I return, pumping my eyebrows suggestively.
“Casey, seriously,” Harrison mutters.
“Dude. I do not need to picture your sex life,” Sonny adds with a grimace.
“Thank god you were permanently moved to sharing hotel rooms with Harrison when we’re on the road,” Izak adds. “I was sick of the lustful gazes and very notable absences.”
“You’re just jealous,” I chuff, eyeing Harrison who is eyeing me back in that way he does.
He might still suffer from all those exhausting boundaries, the ones I have been slowly but surely obliterating, but I see the way he’s looking back at me.
Looks like I might get lucky again later tonight after all.
The limo pulls up at the start of the red carpet for tonight’s Brownlow event.
I honestly was feeling fine, but I feel the nerves start to squeeze my gut as soon as I hear the cheers from the fans lining the red carpet.
Harrison reaches over and squeezes my hand, holding my eye before he lets me lead the way.
I should be familiar with this by now. It’s the third Brownlow Medal night Harrison and I have been to together, ever since Tottenham released him to the Fever and his permanent residency was granted. But that doesn’t mean we’re not still this evening’s spectacle like we’ve come to expect.
The cameras clamour for shots of us as Harrison reaches out a steady hand to hold my suddenly clammy one and we walk on.
“Casey! Casey!” I hear from the fans lining the walkway and I stop to say hello and let them take selfies of us. Harrison is always a good sport about this sort of thing but half the time the fans want him in the shot too. He always obliges.
We stop at the photo call to pose for pictures, aware that Harrison and I continue to be the mostly eagerly photographed couple of the night. What a shame for all those beautiful WAGs who are constantly upstaged by the man on my arm.
“Casey! Harrison!” we hear as we’re gently directed by the broadcaster to the interview spot where Anna Clementine and Rory Cooney await. Anna and Rory have been hosting the red carpet for as long as we’ve been coming to this event so I am familiar with how this will go.
“Casey,” Anna effuses as she looks us over. “You both look amazing. Who dressed you tonight?”
“Well,” I begin, tugging Harrison closer to the limelight, “This gorgeous drink of water is dressed by Burgess Street. And doesn’t he look divine?”
“Absolutely delicious,” Anna grins. “And you?”
“Also Burgess Street. They look after us well down there,” I reply.
“How are the nerves going, Casey?” Rory cuts in. “The bookies have you as equal favourite with the Dragon’s Marco Robson to take out the Brownlow tonight.”
“Well we do know the bookies aren’t always right,” I chuckle. I was the second favourite to win last year too and ended up coming third. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
“You must be feeling a bit of confidence after your incredible season,” Rory replies. “After you helped the Fever to their highest ever result.”
“Look, I know it’s a cliché, but I certainly didn’t win those games on my own,” I return. “And losing last weekend’s preliminary final to the Dragons is still very fresh and has only made us hungry for more. But we’ll be back bigger and better next year.”
“It’s been an incremental improvement year on year since you’ve been with the Fever,” Rory adds. “Missing the finals series by only a game in your first year, scraping into the top eight last year and just missing out on the grand final this year.”
“Let’s hope that improvement holds for next season,” I grin.
“Now, Harrison, Casey,” Anna cuts in and I turn my attention her way. “Any truth to the rumours that wedding bells might be coming your way sometime soon?”
Harrison clears his throat as his hand tightens in my grip, while I can’t help but wonder where Anna is getting her information.
Surely she doesn’t know about the beautifully simple gold band sitting on my nightstand back home that Harrison presented to me four weeks ago, down on one knee.
Accompanied by a simple question to which I enthusiastically said yes !
Only our closest friends and family know about that, and I know they are all a vault when it comes to us so this must be just mere speculation.
I chuckle and deflect. “I promise you’ll be the first person we call if we have any news, Anna,” I lie.
“I better be,” she winks as though we are great friends, and this is not barely the third time we have ever spoken. They let us go and Harrison and I continue the walk into the awards room.
“You think she knows? Or was that just fishing?” he murmurs in my ear.
“Definitely a fishing expedition,” I assure him, squeezing his hand again.
“We might have to move up the wedding date,” he teases, and I just grin back at him.
This is the one thing we have yet to agree on.
Harrison wants to put a ring on me as soon as he possibly can.
I’m trying to remind him I’m only twenty-four, but he doesn’t care about numbers and I’m slowly coming around to his way of thinking. Not that I’ve told him that yet.
Marriage was never part of my plan but the more time I spend with Harrison, the more I want to tear that life plan up to shreds. Marriage, kids? Yeah, if it’s with him then sign me up, baby.
Henrietta is already wild with ideas for our wedding. She wants to host it at Harrison’s family manor in the Cotswolds and truthfully, I couldn’t think of a more idyllic or perfect place. I mean, Henrietta is frighteningly intense but it’s clear how much she adores Harrison.
As for Mr and Mrs Thornfield, Cami and Archie to me now, they are as adorable and quintessentially English as I pictured.
They’ve visited us twice here in Australia and we’ve been back to visit them three times now, the last time for Christmas with my folks and Luna in tow.
I love seeing Harrison in his home environs where his accent always becomes that bit crisper.
Harrison and I find the Fever’s table, already filled with the eight other invitees and their dates. I shake James’s hand and hug his wife, Katie, as I take the seat beside James.
“Took you long enough,” Sonny eyerolls from beside Harrison.
“Lifestyles of the rich and the famous,” I shrug back as Harrison chuckles beside me.
“I feel like the Fever’s position in the room seems to be improving each year,” James comments as he looks around the room where we are, indeed, front and centre.
The Dragon’s table is right next to ours where Marco Robson is already seated.
I catch his eye, and we share a quick smile and nod with each other.
The bad blood between myself and the Dragons has mostly gone by now but there are still plenty of Elsternwood fans who have never let me forget the betrayal.
But we’re four and four in our head-to-head against each other since I left and I think that’s reasonably fair.
Even still, I’m slightly devastated that the Dragons have made it into this coming weekend’s grand final against the Adelaide Firetails.
I know who I’ll be going for this weekend as we watch on from our poolside hotel room in Fiji which Harrison hastily booked after our season abruptly ended last Saturday. Hopefully naked.
“They obviously need to keep Casey’s diva ego stroked,” Sonny chuffs, sending me a wink.
“That they do,” I agree. “It’s a full-time job, keeping my ego stroked. Just ask Harrison.”
“Bloody hell, Casey,” he mutters beside me as the boys in earshot laugh. I just grin and peck a kiss on his cheek.
“Lucky you love me so much,” I whisper in his ear.
“You mean lucky for you I caught Casey Calloway fever,” he returns.
“Luckier still there’s no known cure,” I grin. “But just so you know, I’m just as addicted to you, H,” I add, voice muffled in his ear as he shares a smile with me.
I remember watching Brownlow Medal counts back home as a kid, listening avidly as each vote was announced and watching the ladder leader change each round.
What I didn’t know then was how bloody long these counts actually are as we all sit around the table as the night starts.
Beer and wine flow freely but I am on self-imposed rations, sipping tiny sips from the two glasses I have permitted myself.
Just in case I do actually win this thing and am required to give the speech I have half prepared in my pocket.