Chapter 44
Rhiannon
“You’re looking strong today.” Charlie, my strength coach, doesn’t give compliments easily, so when she says I’m looking strong, I pocket it for the next time she calls my arms wet pasta. Everything aches. My liver’s still on fire from last night.
And I’m pretty sure this warm-up is what hell feels like.
We’ve done our foam rolling and band activation, and by we, I mean me. She’s sat watching everything I’m doing with pursed lips and judgmental eyes.
She called the opener a dynamic warm-up, but what she meant was the quick path to death. Warm-ups are supposed to wake up your muscles and get you ready for the workout, but today, it feels like the warm-up is the fucking workout.
“You’re hungover, aren’t you?”
I roll my eyes. “Charlie, you were at my birthday party last night. You know I’m hungover.”
She tosses me a massive, weighted medicine ball to throw against the wall. “Three sets of ten.”
I hate her. My muscles hate her. And there’s a small part of me that feels like I might end up throwing up if I keep pushing.
But it’s what we do. Pausing, I cram the ball against my side while I crouch to grab my water bottle.
Charlie takes the opportunity to swing her foot at my arse. “You seem happier this season, Rhi.”
The season hasn’t even started, but I know that’s not what she’s angling at.
I’ve known her since I was ten years old.
There’s rarely a facet of my life that Charlie isn’t familiar with.
It feels dangerous, being this happy. Like I’m tempting the universe to take a swing.
But I sure as hell am not going to say that out loud.
“I was sure you’d fall apart after that arsehole did what he did.” She pauses. Maybe she’s done, or maybe she’s searching for what to say next. “I’m proud of how you’ve handled yourself this summer, girl. You’ve done yourself and your team proud.”
I throw the ball at the wall and shake my head. “Don’t, Char. I’ll cry. And I’m already on course to hurl.”
She laughs. “I mean it, though. You’ve handled it all so well.”
We move on to sets of Bulgarian split squats and single arm dumbbell push presses. It’s like she’s determined to make every single part of my body burn today.
I’m pretty sure there’s no one on the face of the earth who enjoys Bulgarian split squats, but trainers sure do enjoy handing them out during PT.
“I don’t feel like I’ve handled it at all.” Confessing that to her feels strange, like I’m letting her in somewhere I usually keep people away from. “I keep saying I’m going to start with a therapist, but I haven’t pulled the trigger and done it yet.”
Charlie hums. “Why not?”
“Because then I’d have to say it out loud,” I mutter. “And it’s easier to just keep running.” I wipe some sweat off my face before starting in on my last set. “Why do you hate me so?”
“It’s a gift.” She hands me my water bottle. “Keep going.”
After I finish the set, she moves me to another superset duo of exercises. Cable face pulls and side planks with reach through. It’s like she thought, “What would be the most brutal workout for Rhiannon the morning after her thirtieth birthday party?” and went with everything she came up with.
After we’re done with the strength block, she grins. “Conditioning time.”
I bend over, hands on my thighs as I suck in some deep breaths. “Just let me die.”
“Nope.” She pops the P. “And I think a therapist might help. I can’t send you to mine, but I can ask around to get you a name if you’d like? Someone on the outside if you don’t want to use the team’s therapist.”
I definitely do not. I know that there’s a patient-therapist confidentiality thing. But I’d still like to keep it on the down-low. “I’d love it if they weren’t a rugby fan.”
She laughs. “No desire to sign autographs while getting your mental health help. Got it.” She pretends to tick off something on her notepad. “Anything else?”
“I think I’d prefer a man, but I’m not sure.”
“Trial and error,” she says. “Not everyone gels with the first therapist they meet. I wish someone had told me about that before I started going. Think of it like trying a pair of gym shoes, or a car before you buy.”
Makes sense.
“Every Minute On The Minute for ten minutes. Odd minutes burpees, even minutes kettle bell swings.”
“Aren’t you supposed to do one of those while I do the other?”
She shrugs. “You can handle it. High output with thinking under fatigue.”
She’s wrong; I can’t handle it. And explaining the purpose of the specific exercises to me doesn’t make them suck any less. But I get a few sets in, even if they aren’t EMOM.
By the time she lets me start my cooldown and stretch, my body has shut down, but I’ve only puked twice. My brain has wandered to Robert and what he’s doing while I’m here. On holiday, he did Pilates with me in the morning. If we lived together, would he keep me company on my morning stretches?
The two of us getting sweaty on the floor of his home gym, after enjoying a nice cuppa and breakfast together.
“Rhiannon?” Charlie’s voice is sharp, like she’s had to say my name a couple of times to make me pay attention.
“Hmm?”
“Where’d you go? You stopped paying attention and haven’t moved from pigeon pose for a couple of minutes.”
“I love pigeon pose.”
“No one loves pigeon pose that much.”
I move to stretch my aching shoulders.
“Where’d you go?”
I shake my head. “Just got distracted.”
“If I had that hunk of a man waiting for me at home, I’d be distracted too. Leave the boy out of the brain at training.” She manipulates my body to deepen the stretch. “And off the field. Last thing you need is a concussion because you’ve got dreamy love hearts popping out of your brain.”
When I change my stretch again, she pats my shoulder. “I’m happy for you though, love. You seem more settled than I’ve ever seen you.” She drops her voice. “And it’s good to see you making a decision for yourself for once.”
Wow. My face flushes even warmer than it already is, but I can’t find any words to reply.
“Just don’t let it impact your work on the field.
You can’t control every hit that comes your way, but you can decide whether you get back up.
One bad or distracted moment can cost your team the match.
You need to maintain that sense of resilience.
There will always be times within matches where things just get away from you, that’s normal.
But we don’t need to make it any more of a problem by adding a penis to the situation. ”
I give her a salute. “Sir, yes, sir. You never warned me about penises when I was with my ex.”
She gestures at me. “Your ex never made you look like that, Rhiannon. Just keep your feet on the ground and your head in the game.”
On my way out to the car, I drop Robert a text. There are about fifteen messages on my phone, but I only want to talk to him. My whole body hums with the thought of him. How he’d grin when I stumble in sweaty and wrecked. How soft his voice would go when he says: “You’re beautiful like this.”
Rhiannon: Just out. On my way. Get the bath running, I smell so fucking bad.
I wipe off the sweat from my brow, climb into the car, and open all the windows because I can’t even stand my own stench.
When Dad’s name lights up my phone screen, my stomach drops. What the fuck is going on? He knows I’m at the gym, so I ignore his call until I know why he’s calling and go to the group chat with the sisters.
There’s a link to an article on the Stormont Tribune, the biggest publication in Belfast, not even the local paper where Robert works. No.
No. No. No. No.
“Sleeping With the Story: How I Fell for Rugby’s Golden Girl.”
The headline hits like a punch to the throat. My vision tunnels. The phone slides in my sweaty hand.
His name stares up at me in bold, black letters. Robert McAllister. My Robert.
The air goes out of the car. Out of me.
Well, it’s not “Getting my Wooden Spoon in Rhiannon Morrigan’s Lucky Knickers,” but it’s also not far off.
I double check, and his name is definitely on the byline, right there next to Pete’s. They really went and fucking did it.
My stomach dips, my mouth dries, and my heart fucking breaks into a million pieces.
I really thought he was different.