39. Noah
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
NOAH
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘MAGIC’ BY COLDPLAY
I finish practice a few hours later. I am in a rhythm now, with most of the drills I run, the shots I practice and perfect till I can nail them in my sleep. We play matches almost constantly, so practice is what I can eke out when I’m not at a match or practicing with the team.
The weird thing is, given the high stakes pressure of the situation and how the end of summer will decide if I ever get to play professional cricket, I still feel more settled. More at peace, more at ease in my skin, now.
Maybe because I am not high strung and wired inside out. Maybe because I don’t take wins and losses personally (I don’t punch walls anymore!). Maybe it is time, and the perspective afforded me from being sober.
Or maybe it’s because I have something, some one more fascinating to occupy my mind with, so I play my natural game the best I can.
I turn the thought over in my head.
Is Queenie the catalyst to bring about this change in me? Making me a better cricket player, a good captain? Is it even possible or fair to me and my years of hard work and sacrifice to credit her so arbitrarily?
To be sure, when I am thinking about her or trying to not think about her or thinking about what she’s thinking about, it’s easy to just be in the flow, in the moment. I don’t think about my game. I don’t have room to think. I just play. Automatically. Letting my instincts take over and guide my body and brain.
But it’s so much more. It’s this town. We play to nearly empty stadiums, but I’m forced to play my best game every time, every day because it’s the right thing to do. Not because I’m a wannabe superstar with pleasing crowds. It’s not even to impress the coaches.
It’s because I love the game. I want to do right by it. That means playing it to the best of my ability.
Queenie helps to bring about that focus in me, because I want to play my best for her too. My real fake girlfriend.
I wonder what Miss Neuroscientist will say if I present this theory of distraction and focus to her.
Which brings me to my next thought, as I slip into civilian clothes in the empty locker room.
She wants to switch streams and careers. A huge, massive decision. One she probably hasn’t made lightly and without much forethought. I mean, this was a woman who wrote a twenty-point roommate agreement before moving in with me and my mates. She’s thorough, practical and logical.
I’m fucked because I find all of her hopelessly fascinating.
I am also, selfishly, thrilled with her new career. Neuroscience is a demanding, specialized career. But it doesn’t need a license to be practiced. She doesn’t need to be in America and have a medical license to be a neuroscientist. She can do so anywhere else too and be equally fucking brilliant at it.
Like, in Australia. With me. The thought sneaks up on me. Unbidden. Insidious. A small wish.
Hold your horses, boy-o , I caution myself.
We just became an official real couple a few days ago. And we haven’t talked about anything concrete. Like the future. Like what happens after summer ends.
I haven’t because until the last ball is played and the call to the selector is made, I don’t even have a future. Not a real one. And it is unfair to put that kind of weight on Queenie when my own future is so uncertain. Besides, she is so prickly and vulnerable, I know any discussion of this nature will freak her out more than anything.
I am freaked out too and I am actually okay with it. Kind of. Maybe.
We haven’t even taken the fake off the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Mostly because whenever Queenie comes within touching distance, all I want is to snatch her up and devour her. All the rest can wait.
And because she’s not indicated she wants anything to change either. Except in the bedroom department.
I haven’t allowed a woman, a person, to really affect me since mum died because having people and losing them is hard but with Queenie, I don’t know…it seems almost inevitable. For some reason.
I give my reflection a sheepish smile in the locker room mirror.
After a whole lifetime of only obsessing over cricket, I’ve finally found a new object of obsession. Except, she turns out to be even more elusive than the sport I want to shine in.
Go figure, Dumaine.
I walk out of the locker room and jog into the tunnels. I want to know more about this neuroscience thing and see how I can help Queenie out with it. Before I take her clothes off and she helps me with my problem of needing her too fucking much.
I am surprised to see the waiter kid, Simon Archer, waiting for me there. With him is another kid, dark-haired and blue-eyed. He has the same arrogant tilt to his chin. Must be Archer’s brother.
“G’day, mates,” I say easily. Although I know something is up. These two wouldn’t show up, just like that. A fist pounds in my chest when a horrifying thought strikes me. “Is Queenie okay?” I ask quickly. “Is she alright?”
Simon looks at the other kid who frowns. “I told you, Jace, he was going to worry about her if he sees us.” He holds out a hand and Jace slides a fiver in there. “Hi, Noah.” Simon smiles cheekily at me and pockets the money. “Meet my brother, Jace. He just lost five dollars to me because of you.”
“I didn’t know he was into her. I thought it was just you know…a summer fling,” the younger kid grumbles. He shoots me an accusing glance anyway.
My fingers twitch with the need to take the twerp by his collar and shake him till he apologizes. But I shrug, indifferently. I am the adult in this situation, after all. “Is that all? Can I go now?” I smile cheekily at both of them. “I have a date with a beautiful woman, and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Jace makes an ewww face and Simon laughs.
“That’s kind of why we are here.”
I stop smiling. “Explain. Now. Fast,” I order them.
“Your date wants you to go someplace else,” Simon says. “She asked us to take you there,” Jace adds. And Simon ends with, “She’s running a little late and forgot to text you.”
“Of course, she did,” I murmur. I am too tired for the games these blokes are playing at my expense. “Alright, then. Let’s get to it, shall we?” I heft my heavy kit bag. It weighs a thousand fucking pounds after an eight-hour day at the nets, trying to perfect the damn cover drive I still cannot get right.
Jace shows some class and manners when he holds out a hand so he can carry the bag for me.
Simon hands me a daisy and a note. “You should tuck that in your jacket pocket,” he suggests. “It’s a boutonniere,” he explains. “A flower for your buttons.” I do as he asks and contemplate reading the note. But I don’t want to give these kids any more ammunition, so I just walk out with them.
“Can I ask you something?” Jace asks, diffidently.
“Yeah?”
“Why cricket?” At my raised brow, he elaborates with, “I know cricket’s huge in Australia, along with Australian Rules Football.” I smile, impressed at the kid for swotting. “But why choose cricket?”
I want to tell him about my mother and her love for the gentleman’s game. About the hours I spent watching matches with her. Her animation, her enthusiasm for it when she was dying by inches. But that story is for Queenie and Queenie alone.
“Do you know how much cricketers make if they play the T20 leagues and international cricket?” I ask instead.
Jace shakes his head. Simon looks intrigued.
I name a figure; it’s in the mid-seven figures. “And this is an average player. Not even the elite players with all their sponsorship and endorsement deals. There’s a crap ton of money in the game, boys.” I grin unabashedly at them. “And who doesn’t like to be rich, right?”
They exchange a look. It’s a peculiar combination of determination and brokenness.
“There are some things beyond money, right?” Simon asks finally. “Some things even money can’t buy.”
I nod. “Yes. Being a good person matters heaps more. A good man. Being excellent at what you do because it’s the right thing to do, a worthwhile way to spend your time on earth. These things matter more, and money cannot buy any of them, for sure.”
Jace hefts the bag to his other shoulder. I reach for it. “Give it here. It’s too heavy for you to carry, kid.”
Jace gives me a long, considering look. “But you’ve been playing for hours now, haven’t you? You must be tired.”
“You can’t carry it alone, and I don’t want you to drop it and mess up the way I arranged my things inside.”
Simon takes one of the handles from his younger brother. “We’ll carry it together.”
I blink. They are not bad kids at all, if they have this much empathy.
Simon shrugs and throws my own words back at me. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
The Archer brothers pepper me with questions about the game, my technique, my mindset when I win matches and lose them, the captaincy aspect, all the way to the ride in town. Simon directs me to the middle of town, driving away from Ma’s Pantry, where I was supposed to meet Queenie, like always.
We end up near the fanciest building. He makes me park the Jeep in an alley behind the most famous business in town, House of Niamh Atelier. It’s a world-famous designer brand known for its stylish and affordable clothes. There are HON stores in every city in Australia, too.
Jace treats me to a small history lesson on the company and the family that runs it. And ends with, “Anyway the younger daughter of the company owners, the Rais, is my best friend. And she’s the reason we’re here.”
“I was the one who called her,” Simon says snidely. Although I catch him watching his brother speculatively.
“Can one of you explain to me what’s going on?”
“We’ll leave it to Queenie to do that. But you should know this,” Simon says solemnly. “We love Queenie with all our hearts. She’s the older sister we never had, because we’re the heads of our family. So please be nice to her. She deserves it.”
I blink again. “I—” I’m taken aback by the threat and entreaty.
“What he means is, a baseball bat does as much damage as a cricket bat when it comes to bodily injuries,” Jace adds with a perfectly pleasant smile.
Well, that is a threat.
I’m saved from answering it because the subject of our little conversation careens up in Lizzie Bonnet and screeches to a stop behind my Jeep. She gets out of the car with a huge wicker basket in one hand.