25. Robbie
ROBBIE
Before today, I’d only been on one ‘beach trip’ with my family.
I spent the whole time with a fleece zipped up to my nose and a baseball hat pulled over my forehead.
I’d just been cleared to regular movement, but not football, and it was my Mum’s birthday so I had no excuse not to join them.
Plus, Ffion loves playing on the beach even when it’s fucking freezing.
She’s going to love visiting me in California where the water is actually warm instead of just above glacial.
Back then, I’d spent all my time slumped in my mother’s deck chair with trainers and socks on, eating a soggy ham sandwich and occasionally rolling the ball to Sammy with my good foot.
This time, I’ve already batted back the ribbing from Iwan, let Sammy hitch a ride on my back down the endless stairs to the beach, and have helped Gwen coordinate setting up a bright blue windbreaker.
“She seems like she’s having fun,” Mum tells me, nudging my shoulder with her knee and gesturing to where Iwan is diving into the waves with Ffion clutching her neon pink boogie board. As soon as we unpacked and set up, Ffion was off like a shot to the waves, her boogie board dragging behind her.
We watch her from our spot as she keeps struggling to keep the board steady and jump on it.
“She reminds me of someone,” Cassie drawls from beside me, her long arms resting behind her on the towel.
When I first went to her house and saw her curated interiors and expensive furnishings, I’d never expected to see her lounging on a faded cartoon towel wearing a beach store bikini.
I can see it peaking out from the straps of her dress and I’m desperate for a look. What color is it? Green? Black? Gold?
This woman could wear a paper bag and still be the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s redone her hair into a thick braid hanging down her back, and my old Wales hat rests on her head. Faint freckles are dotted across her shoulder blades, and all I want to do is count them with my lips.
“She seems to know how to balance a bit better than you though.” The shade from the brim of Cassie’s hat doesn’t stop the sun catching the sparkle in her green eyes, and I have to look away.
My niece is now spluttering in the face of her father as he tries to help right her. The water only goes up to his knees, but she’s soaked head to toe in sea water.
“You going to give her a lesson?” I ask, mirroring her position and leaning back on my hands, my finger accidentally grazing her pinky. There’s a cool breeze in the air, sending a shiver across my spine.
She leans in conspiratorially. “A nine year old will probably be a better student.”
Before I can lean any closer, whisper that I’ll happily take her orders, a ball hits me right in the gut, nearly causing me to break in half as agony shoots through my groin.
“Sammy, be careful.” Gwen chastises as the boy follows the ball.
He’s cute, but he’s also a cockblock. And a ball breaker.
“He’s got great aim,” Cassie says, gently patting my shoulder. I almost want to roll around a bit more like I sometimes do on the pitch after a harsh challenge for a penalty, anything to get her to keep touching me.
“The best,” I grunt.
When I can finally catch my breath and tell Sammy I’ll be there in five, Cassie is still staring at Ffion and Iwan. “I think you could go and help.”
Cassie turns to me, shy for once.
I hold up a hand. “You’re the pro.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a pro.”
“A pro boogie boarder, sure.”
She bites her lip.
“Come on, why else did you buy that bikini if you didn’t want to wear it?”
Her head spins to me so fast, her braid almost hits her face. I feel heat in my cheeks so I clear my throat. “Go and help my niece.”
I don’t look at her until she stands and all I can see is her long tanned legs and the green nail polish on each of her perfect toes. I’m so focussed on her legs that I barely notice the dress when it drops onto my towel next to me.
She’s standing above me, her neon bikini clinging to her trim hips, the strings on either side so close to my mouth that I could open them with my teeth.
My eyes follow up her torso, to the faint abs from all her time on her board, and up to the perfect breasts hidden behind a scrap of fabric.
Her nipples are pebbled and hard, and all I want to do is pull the neckline down and bare her to me.
By the time I reach her face, she’s already staring down at me.
Fuck.
“Are you going in, flower?” my mother asks, bursting the moment like a bucket of cold sea water.
Cassie rips her gaze from me, and I quickly grab the material of her dress, yanking it over my groin and my steadily growing erection. Fuck my life. I can not get a boner on the family beach day.
“I’m bracing for the cold,” Cassie tells my mum with a smile, the moment forgotten.
Cassie pulls her hat further down her head and turns to the water without a backwards glance. I keep my eyes firmly on my own towel to avoid watching her walk away. I only saw the front of her, heaven help me if I see her from behind and the ass I already know is perfect.
I cannot let this happen. I’m just here to help her get away from her life for a few days.
She does not need me pouncing on her. She doesn’t want it anyway.
She hasn’t even mentioned wanting me in that way since the surfing lesson.
She’s just my friend who’s a global superstar and the only child of the owner of my team.
There is absolutely no way that anything remotely sexual could happen.
Even if it’s the only thing I can think about when she’s near. Even if my body is aching for her from the second I wake up until the second I fall asleep, and then she lingers in my dreams too.
Sammy runs up beside me, and I let him haul me to my feet with a dramatic huff that he returns with a smile full of teeth. After hours of technical drills, repeating the same thing over and over, Sammy is finally able to keep the ball balanced on his foot too.
By the time the sun is starting to lower in the sky, Cassie and Ffion finally emerge from the sea.
Ffion’s hair is plastered to her pink wetsuit and her cheeks are rosy, her boogie board thrown to the sand at her parents feet, and her stories of how she managed to ride a wave burst from her mouth in an excited babble.
“Did you see me? Did you see? I went so fast!”
I keep my attention on my niece, but I can’t help my eyes from wandering to Cassie.
Water glistens off her tanned skin and the end of her braid is dark from the water. I grab her dress from where she left it draped across the towel and cross to her. I want her to wear it, to cover up so I can stop my eyes from drinking her in, like I’ve been desperate to all day.
“Thanks,” she says softly as she takes it from my hands, glancing down.
She slips it over her head, and I don’t move.
The material traps her braid and without thinking, I reach underneath the neckline and scoop it out, gently resting it across her chest. The backs of my fingers graze her breast, damp from the wet bikini underneath.
I gently let her hair go when all I want to do is curl it around my fist and tug her towards me, capture the lip that she’s biting with her teeth until her green eyes flutter shut.
“Have you been in the water today?” she blurts out, her fingers playing with her braid.
“No,” I say, my voice hoarse.
“You should dip your feet in at least,” Cassie tells me, turning back to the sea.
“Okay,” I say. “Come on.”
She glances up at me, surprise flickering across her face.
“Okay.”
We drift back to the shoreline. The beach is slowly deserting, the other families packing up and heading back up the cliff to their cars before the temperature drops and the tide crawls closer to the cliff.
“It’s beautiful here,” Cassie says, eyes on the sea sparkling under the sun.
She’s so beautiful, it’s hard to look at her. Like a painting brought to life. Her nose ends with the tiniest slope and I want to press a kiss to the tip. Her cheeks have the slightest smattering of freckles across them and her lips…I would die for another taste. “It is.”
She wades into the surf, and I follow. She could walk straight through into the sea and never return, and I’d follow her like a siren. Even if the water is almost freezing.
“Thank you,” Cassie breathes. “For this.” She gestures to the beach and my family who are finally starting to pack up.
“I think they’d rather you were here than I am.”
“That’s not true.”
“Maybe not. But I haven’t always been.” I rub my hand along my neck and squint into the horizon, into the sun. “I’ve not really done the whole family thing.”
“But you’re so good with them.”
“I make an effort now.” I shrug. “After my injury, the team and my teammates all…left. I had spent so much of my life on one track. I didn’t have time for the people in my past. I didn’t have time for girlfriends or friends outside of the team.
I played sixty games every year for ten years, and training every day.
I wasn’t making it home for these day trips.
But when I was lying around at home with no one checking in, I realized I was all alone.
” I squint out to the horizon. “So when Mum begged me to come home, I couldn’t say no. ”
“And now?” Cassie asks.
“Now I’m in the group chat.” I glance at her slyly. “And I even reply sometimes.”
She laughs gently. “I mean, when are you slowing down now? You’re always going at full speed, practice, training, working out. What happens when you stop?”
“I don’t have anything to stop for.” Though maybe I would for you.
“Maybe you don’t need to stop right now,” Cassie muses. “Maybe you just need to enjoy the ride for what it is, but know you’ve got something waiting for you when you do.” She kicks her feet through the water, letting the waves swish around her feet.
“What about you?”
“I’ve stopped right now,” she says with a grin, halting in place and letting the water gather around our ankles.
I roll my eyes slightly, before nudging her elbow until we’re moving again, following the path of the tide as it tries to drag us back out. “Turned that phone back on yet?”
She glances away to the horizon. “I don’t need to. I know exactly what they’ll all say. Cassie, go to this interview, Cassie, go to this game, Cassie, go to this restaurant, Cassie, go to this event. Cassie, go, go, go.” She turns to me. “I just want to walk along the beach, y’know.”
“We can do that.”
Rhossili beach is one of the prettiest beaches in Wales. It’s been featured in countless photography exhibitions around the world. The sun starts to set over the Worms Head peak and the towering green cliff cocoons the sand, but I’ve still never seen anything as beautiful as this girl.
From behind I hear a patter of footsteps on the damp sand.
“We’re going home now!” Ffion yells as she races to catch up with us.
We’ve only walked a couple hundred meters away from the group and she’s run the whole way.
“Grandad told me to come get you. Cassie, when we get home can you teach me the ‘Try Me’ dance?”
“Of course I can,” Cassie tells her. “The Kidz Bop version.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, and I have to smother a laugh.