Chapter 55
Robert
There’s a crackle in the air that only the first home game of the season can bring—part hope, part hunger, all electricity. The stands smell like damp turf and chips, a mix of adrenaline and nostalgia that always gets under my skin.
As Rhiannon takes to the field, she looks calm, confident, and strong as fuck. She’s been working out more than usual over the past few weeks, and she never misses leg day.
My chest swells with pride as I cheer her onto the pitch.
There are no pregame anthems sung here at the Glynn, but similar to the “Stand up for the Ulstermen” chant they sing in Belfast, the crowd has a “Storm On, Ulster Women” song they blast out before each home game with every ounce of the gusto they give to the men.
Rhiannon somehow wrangled free tickets to tonight’s game for the entirety of her primary school, plus the staff. So, there are a few hundred screaming children wearing matching t-shirts in the family stands.
To my left, the sponsor boxes are filled to the brim, one even taken up by the island-famous, Irish entrepreneur, sponsor to the away team—the Swords Serpents—and rumored mafia boss, Patrick Mahoney with his wife, Sorcha.
Rumor has it, she’s in the market to either buy one of the women’s teams in Ireland, or to create a new one, but that’s nothing more than scuttlebutt in the rugby world at the moment.
Next to Mahoney’s box is the sponsorship box for the Ravens, occupied by Fuse Female Limited founder and young businesswoman of the year, Grace Smith, with her family.
Both women are on Rhiannon’s list to interview for the Morrigan sisters’ upcoming new podcast, Sin Bin Sisters.
When the second half starts, Rhiannon has a determined look on her face as she takes to the field. There’s a fierce set to her jaw and a furrow in her brow that tells me she’s not going to go quietly into a loss.
The ball pops from the back of the scrum, clean and fast.
Rhiannon’s hands are already there—velvet touch, lightning-quick. She scans left, right, reads the defensive line like a damn psychic. She fakes the inside ball to her inside center—sells it so well even her own teammate flinches.
She’s music in motion. My heart speeds up as she steps right, chips the ball over the defensive line. A pinpoint-perfect grubber kick—low, wicked, bouncing like a bastard.
The full-back stutters. Wrong move. My girl’s already sprinting. Chasing her own kick like a wolf after blood. She wins the footrace.
Every single game I’ve seen Rhiannon play, she kicks for touch. When I asked her about it, she said her dad drilled into her that “leaders don’t take risks, they take responsibility.” So when she fakes the kick and runs it, Michael Morrigan, a few seats away mutters “What the fuck is she doing?”
Same old question. Different answer.
But I’m on my feet, holding my breath. If my girl thought there was cause to fake the kick, then she’s got good reason for it.
For half a second, the stadium holds its breath. Then chaos.
She slides in just before the try line, scoops it like it’s her fucking birthright, and Jesus Christ, she dives over. For the first time, she’s not playing her father’s game. She’s playing her own.
The crowd, including her father, erupts.
She stands, mud streaked and grinning, middle finger in the air—not to the crowd, but to the doubters. She owns this field. Every blade of fucking grass. She’s light and fire and freedom all at once. Everything she was never allowed to be under him.
Take that, Michael Morrigan.
I don’t take my eyes off her to make notes for my last sports piece with the Larne Chronicle.
Next month, I start in the foreign affairs department of the biggest UK-based publication there is.
I have no doubt that Rhi-Bird and I will manage the traveling back and forth just fine, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about playing in the big leagues again.
Rhiannon celebrates with her team, and for the first time that I’ve seen, she has pure joy written across every one of her gorgeous features.
She lights up the stadium, elation radiating from every pore.
She’s trusting her teammates, and for what might be the first time, she seems to be trusting herself.
And at the end of the second half, the Ravens win the fucking match.
In the boxes, Grace Smith extends her hand out to Sorcha Mahoney who hands over a thick envelope of what I’d guess to be money.
Sorcha applauds our girls in purple, while the two women exchange words.
I make a mental note to ask Rhiannon what that was about later.
Something tells me this isn’t the last time Sorcha Mahoney’s going to appear in our orbit.
To my right, Michael Morrigan wears an expression that suggests this is his first time eating humble pie.
Stick it up ye, you bastard you!
I’m like the cat that got the fucking cream. Rhiannon stepped into herself, and by loosening her tight-fisted grip on the reins, letting go of a little control, she helps the Ravens win the game.
Across the field, Patrick Mahoney isn’t clapping. He’s watching Rhiannon like she’s the next big acquisition—and something in my gut says the season’s just getting started.
The woman of the hour comes sprinting over toward us in the players’ family section, launching herself at me with arms wide before pulling me into a chokehold.
She might be cutting off the air to my body, but her body is relaxed, filled with elation, and she’s so fucking proud of herself, which counts way more than any pride I could have in her.
I’m gone for this woman. Absolutely, head-over-heels in love with the fly-half I had a fling with, in the bathrooms at The Rusty Anchor.
She feels like the first light teasing at the edges of the horizon, the perfectly made cup of coffee, and better than the entire botanical garden crammed into my home.
I didn’t know love could feel like this—steady, not suffocating. It doesn’t pull me under; it anchors me.
She doesn’t just love me when we both win.
I can come to her defeated, ashamed, terrified—and she’s more than proven she won’t flinch.
She meets me where I am, with a level of acceptance I hadn’t found before, because it’s so fucking special it doesn’t exist outside of her.
Rhiannon Morrigan is one of a kind. And getting to love her—watch her light up the world—is the luckiest thing I’ll ever do.