Chapter 1 #2
She, Tam and the others had made fools of themselves trying to get his attention.
They'd turned up to the pitch with false eyelashes, a face full of makeup.
They'd asked him borderline inappropriate questions about his weekend plans, tried to hang around the clubhouse after matches, hoping for a smile, a conversation, an exchange of numbers.
He'd humoured them, let them bat their eyes, but he never rose to their comments, their questions. He'd remained a man of mystery, which had only spurred them on.
He had a beard now, full and dark, neatly groomed into a sharp line that emphasised the squareness of the jaw underneath. His hair was tight cropped on the side, but longer on top, styled into apparently effortless waves. He was just as good looking as ever. Broad shouldered, slim waisted.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Do you remember how ridiculous we were over him?”
“Women,” Tam said, rolling her eyes fondly, “still are.”
Georgia was grown up now, well beyond harbouring unrequited crushes. Twenty-nine was a proper adult, almost thirty. There wouldn’t be any simpering like a silly girl over Matt Mitchell this weekend.
“Come on,” Tam said, hand tugging at Georgia’s elbow, “let’s grab your bag and I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”
They pushed their way through the crowd in their linen shirts and summer dresses, heading back to the car for Georgia’s things. It was going to be hard to say goodbye to the summer and go back to dark mornings and darker evenings. To training in the rain, to the bruising physicality of the season.
Tam was chatting away, filling Georgia in on the hometown gossip – which mostly revolved around how her receptionist's mother was dating yet another man who owned a narrow boat – while Georgia scanned the crowd for any faces she knew.
Over there, in the corner, she saw a flash of a once familiar silhouette. A ghost she hadn’t expected. Georgia leaned sideways, trying to get a better look. But no, there was no-one she recognised. She shook her head.
They walked to the car and back and out the other side of the courtyard into the evening twilight before Tam paused for breath. Georgia hoisted her bag over her shoulder and asked the question that had been niggling at her.
“You said there’d be two people I’d die to meet again?”
“Yeah.” Tam drank some beer, then nodded. She kept her eyes fixed somewhere on the gravel in front of them. “And I hope you don’t mind…” Her voice broke with sudden nerves. “But given that Becky has the baby now, and Jen’s brought her boyfriend too, it just seemed like a perfect fit, you know.”
Tam pushed open the door to the guesthouse, stopping in the hallway. It must have been an old servants' quarters, out in the grounds of the main house, and had seemingly been decorated by someone who'd watched too much Downton Abbey and not enough Bridgerton.
“Tam.” Georgia interrupted the rambling with a hand on her best friend’s arm. “What are you trying to say?”
“For the rooms. It’s a twin.”
Georgia opened the internal door and looked inside. There were two single beds in the room, separated by individual nightstands. Both were neatly made, and the room clean and tidy. Perfectly fine, even if the décor was a little old lady.
“That’s okay,” Georgia said with a shrug. “I don’t mind a single bed.” She gave Tam a lopsided smile. “One for me, one for the suitcase.”
As she said it, stepping further into the room, she turned her head.
To her left, initially obscured by the door, on top of the closest bed, was a battered Redford RFC kit duffel bag.
There were a pair of tan boots lined up neatly, half pushed under the bed frame, and a chunky watch had been left on the nightstand.
Georgia swallowed. “Ah. You need me to share?”
She ran through the possibilities in her head. It wasn’t Becky or Jen; Tam had already told her that much. Georgia let her own bag fall onto the empty bed and sat down next to it. She bounced on the mattress a little, feeling it give under the solid weight of her thighs.
The bag meant it was a player, maybe a coach.
Someone connected to the club. Given the scuff marks where it had been put down on wet grass and the way the blue fabric was lightening at the seams, it was someone who’d been at the club a while.
Maybe someone who’d been at the club long enough to remember Georgia pre-Westcliffe, pre-England. Someone she’d known back then.
Tam crossed the room and fiddled with the frilly curtains. “And I know you’re used to it, on tour. And it’s just for sleeping - you’ll come to me first thing, won’t you? And we’ll get dressed and ready together? Mum will do us breakfast and everything.”
Tam seemed really stressed, her words tripping over each other in their haste to leave her mouth. Sharing a room wasn’t quite what Georgia had expected, but it wasn’t worth Tam stressing over it like this.
“Yeah, of course, no problems.”
Tam had obviously worried about how to break the news.
It was probably odd to ask your bridesmaid to share a room, but Georgia could handle it.
As Tam said, she did it for every away match with both Westcliffe and England, and for training camps.
It was fine, unless they paired you with a right arsehole.
She could count her bad experiences on one hand.
When she was a junior, her roommate had been sick all night, retching into the bathtub behind the cardboard-thin hotel walls.
That had been rough. The worst was when she’d shared with Riley for a whole Six Nations, and they’d butted heads from the moment the room list was announced.
Most of the time it was fine, and it would be this weekend too.
“Cool,” Georgia echoed and tried to keep her voice light, unconcerned. “Who’s my roomie?”
“That would be me,” said a clipped voice from over her shoulder.
Oh, fuck.