Chapter 1
Aiden
It’s been forty hours, and I’m still hungover.
My low-slung baseball cap and Ray-Bans are doing very little to convince anyone otherwise.
The good news is that I haven’t spewed since last night.
The bad news, however, is that I have to start my day in a windowless, airless, fart vacuum we call the classroom.
Mathias Jones, or Gadget to his teammates, is the only other person here when my best buddy Harry, a.k.a. Abs, and I arrive.
Unfortunately for Gadget, he unwittingly holds space for one of the largest grudge matches since Worf and the House of Duras—that’s a Star Trek reference—though in fairness, Gadget has done nothing to deserve Abs’s animosity, other than being everything my best friend wants to be himself.
It’s jealousy, pure and simple, but it’s also . . . entertaining, so I allow it.
Harry glowers at the back of Mathias’s head and punches me in the hip, a reminder that under no circumstances should I attempt to sit near his arch-rival.
Instead, we grab a couple of chairs and arrange them into a little cluster in the opposite corner where Abs will continue to scowl at the Welsh fly-half for the next hour.
I have nothing against Gadget myself. In fact, I respect him a great deal.
Probably more than anyone else on this team.
He possesses talent beyond natural human-talent capacity.
He’s efficient, he gets the job done, he’s reliable, dependable, wicked smart, and doesn’t waste any steam on the am drams and politics the younger guys, like my good friend Abs here, seem to embroil themselves in.
All of this is why, in approximately ten to fifteen minutes once everyone else has arrived and seated themselves with their protein shakes and energy drinks, they’ll announce Gadget as the new captain for the Bath Centurions.
I’ll have to console Abs—who perhaps foolishly believed he was in with a shot—for an indeterminable time, but I can’t deny that Jones is the best decision for the team.
“Look at his stupid hair,” Abs whispers, arms folded, teeth grinding. “Thinks he looks so fucking suave.”
I say nothing because with his dark hair, Spanish complexion, smouldering good looks, and his six-five frame, Gadget does look so fucking suave.
A thought I’ve had often, and undoubtedly will be keeping to myself for a plethora of reasons.
It’s also a thought that the rest of the world tends to share, especially since Gadget became the face of not only the Bath Cents but the international Welsh rugby team, and countless sponsorship brands too.
Harry and I started with the Cents on the same day.
He’d moved up from the academy squad and I’d transferred from Stratford, London, because I’d wanted to experience more of the UK than just its capital city.
But in standard Aiden Campbell form, I had arrived at the training grounds on the first morning and was already overthinking my decision.
Why had I left London, one of the most diverse, historical, and interesting cities in the world, to live out in woop woop?
Okay, technically Bath isn’t woop woop, but I only have to venture ten minutes in any direction to come face-to-face with the very real and terrifying prospect of being trampled to death by the UK’s deadliest animal: the dairy cow.
Twenty twenty-two Aiden was panicking.
“Do you reckon you could win in a fight against The Rock?” Those had been Harry Ellis’s first words to me during induction training.
“Can I have a weapon? And the element of total surprise?” I’d replied.
“No weapons, and it’s in the MMA ring, so you both know exactly why you’re there.”
“Then literally no chance.”
“Shame,” he’d said. “I’m looking to recruit a new best friend who’ll take on The Rock with me. Tag-team style.”
“Why do you want to fight The Rock?”
Harry had shrugged. “I have my reasons. Okay, fine. I just watched the latest Jumanji film, and I have beef with my little brother. He has no faith in me.”
“You’re Abs, right? Harry Ellis? I’m Aiden.”
“I know. Why do they call you Pie? Like steak and kidney pie or something?”
“It’s Pi. Pee-eye. Like the number, because my birthday is on the fourteenth of March.”
Harry scratched his head. “I’m still going to call you Pie with an E, but the E’s silent so nobody will ever know.”
At the time, I had thought Captain Misery to be endearing. “We could always train . . . get better at fighting so we’re not instantly flattened by The Rock,” I’d suggested.
Harry’s face had split into the biggest grin, and I’d regretted my decision to move here a lot less. His distaste for Mathias Jones began the day after the then serving Cents’ fly-half announced his retirement—MCL tear—and free agent Jones’s name was bandied around as a potential replacement.
“If they pick him,” Abs had said. “I might as well quit rugby forever. I’ll never get any fucking game time.”
And as much as I had tried to persuade him otherwise, he’d been right.
Gadget was—is—head and shoulders above not only Abs, but every guy on this team.
It only makes sense they’d choose him for the role of captain, even when factoring in Abs’s half-hearted attempts to win over Dan Chelford, the current skipper, and our coach, Johan Eksteen.
But my best friend is in an especially grumpy mood this morning. All because of a little run-in with his long-standing situationship that happened on Saturday night. I don’t know the full details. He won’t talk to me about it.
In all fairness, the entire weekend was at best messy, and at worst a stain upon my very existence. I got dumped, which led to the world’s biggest drink-to-forget-her binge, the world’s longest hangover, and the world’s heaviest feeling of regret.
Though I’m not sure the regret stems from my breakup, or my bender. There’s something else there. A different feeling of regret, as though something’s been left . . . undone or unsaid.
And it’s making me uneasy and sad and a bit cranky, like a decent—say decade long—nap might fix things.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Georgia, probably still do. We were together for sixteen months, and I hope that we stay in touch, but she is the best friend of my teammate’s current long-term girlfriend, and well . . . from there it gets . . .
Really fucking complicated.
As though I’ve summoned him through thought alone, Eggo—real name Finn Eggington—walks through the door of the classroom and noisily drags an empty chair over to us.
He leans over me to speak to Abs, using my thigh as some kind of bridging device. “Mate, what happened to you on Saturday night? Did you score with the rich kid?”
“No, we didn’t hook up, I just—” Abs begins.
Eggo interrupts him. He’s never had the same patience for Harry as I have. “Mmhmm. Fine, tell me about it later.” He looks at me, hand still braced on my leg. “How are you holding up? You okay?”
My eyes flick down to his lips. He notices.
“No, not really, but I’ve decided not to let myself think about it too much until the end of the season.”
Eggo pats my leg, kind of paternally, then sits back in his chair.
“I’m going back to Perth for the summer,” I announce.
My head is facing Abs, but I’m speaking to Eggo.
They both stiffen beside me. “Well, British summer, not Australian summer. I just need some time to process. Is that okay?” Again, there’s no way for Abs to know I’m not talking to him, so he answers.
“What are you going to do with Trekkie?” he asks. Of course he cares more about my dog than me. Can’t say I blame him, though, or that I mind in any way.
Trekkie is my three year old rescue whippet.
His name’s short for Star Trek: The Next Generation because although I like and will watch all the Star Trek series and movies—and I am probably the world’s biggest Seven of Nine fanboy—the other Star Treks pale in comparison to the USS Enterprise and my beloved Picard.
I explain to Abs that I’ve booked my dog into kennels for five weeks, but he’s not having any of it and persuades me to let him take Trekkie for the off season.
I don’t put up a fight. I’d rather he stay somewhere he’ll get daily cuddles and smooches over a cold, concrete lock-up with drainage holes in the floors.
Plus, even though Trekkie’s been debollocked, he can get a little rambunctious and humpy with the other dogs if he spends too long socialising.
Best to limit his canine interactions to the park near my house.
“Dearly beloved!” Dan yells from the front, jolting the three of us out of our conversation. “I’ve gathered you here today because . . . I have an announcement to make.”
Dan Chelford is the current reigning Cents skipper.
He’s Black with a mullet do that rivals my own, though he recently shaved off his moustache, so we no longer match.
Dan’s been captain since I started with the team, and he’s great at it.
Hilarious, self-deprecating, beloved by all, and quick-witted.
Not that Gadget isn’t all those things, but he has some big shoes to fill.
“But first, a massive congrats to Gadget and his husband . . .” Dan says, but Eggo leans over and whispers to me, so I miss the rest of his speech.
“You’re going to Oz? For the whole summer?” There’s a crease in his brow that’s making my heart ache.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper back. “But . . .”
Mum’s been nagging me to visit. My guilt levels at being a neglectful son are rising. My girlfriend dumped me. Eggo’s going to Cornwall to hang out with his kid for a few weeks.
I feel alone.
And I can’t talk to anyone about it. I guess Abs’ll be around at least. Last year he spent every single second with Orlando, but since the pair aren’t speaking any more, and from what he told me yesterday might never speak again, I imagine he’ll be free to hang out more often.
But as much as I love Abs and his snarky commentary . . . he can be a bit of . . . a bummer.