Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The rush of blood to Georgia’s head felt like concussion all over again.
“Oh.”
Her voice came out weak, wobbly, as her stomach dropped to the floor. Her feet were like concrete, and her mind went blank.
She hadn't heard that voice in more than ten years. The sound of it transported her, left her seventeen again, reeling and humiliated. She was going to be sick.
She needed to say something. “Hello.”
Next to her, Tam squealed and flung herself into the other woman’s arms.
“Erin!” she shouted. “You’re here!”
Erin still looked good. She’d always looked good, that had been part of the problem. Then, she’d been a coltish nineteen year-old, self-assured enough to win Georgia’s earnest devotion, but now she was a woman.
Georgia didn’t even realise Erin and Tam were still in contact.
She’d assumed that Tam hadn’t spoken to her in years either, since Erin's last match with Redford, just before she'd left for university.
The same match where it had all gone wrong, where she'd left Georgia alone in the locker room, heart racing and face burning with embarrassment.
“It’s nice of you to come all the way back to Redford for the wedding,” Georgia said, fishing for something relatable to say. Something that would make her feel like a grown up again, instead of a girl. She needed to infuse herself with some of her matchday confidence.
Erin gave a flat, unimpressed look. Georgia squirmed, despite herself.
“She didn’t,” Tam said. “She’s been back in Redford for ages - like two years? Three?”
“Two,” Erin confirmed.
“Oh.” So much for relatable.
“And,” Tam continued, apparently oblivious to Georgia’s floundering, “not only is she back, she’s helping me run the under 18s girls’ team!”
“That’s cool,” Georgia said. “Giving back and all that.”
“Yeah,” Erin gave her a real smile for the first time in the conversation. “It is cool.”
Georgia seized on that smile like a life raft. “How come you ended up back with the Redford girls, then?”
“Against my will, really.” Erin sighed. “Well, I took a marketing job down in Westcliffe, and as it's not far, I thought, why not there again?”
“Home again,” Tam interjected, wagging a correcting finger in Erin’s direction. They’d obviously had this conversation before.
Erin rolled her eyes, but there was no sting in it.
An irrational spike of jealousy made Georgia’s jaw clench. When did they become such a double act? And how come she, Tam’s best friend, hadn’t heard about it?
“So then, you make a life, you know. You bump into some crazy woman, have your arm twisted.” She motioned with her thumb towards Tam. “And then the girls themselves are really sweet, and so I've been here ever since."
Tam grinned. “And now she’s moulding the future of English rugby, just like she moulded us.”
Erin shook her head, shaking off the praise, but was still smiling. It was the softest Georgia ever remembered seeing her. Back then, Erin was fierce and brave and oh-so-inspiring - anything but soft.
“Hardly,” she said. “I'm just trying to get them to keep a shape - and stopping them from injuring themselves ten minutes into training.”
Georgia laughed. They were on solid ground at last. She could do rugby chat.
“That sounds about right! There was barely a week when Tam and I were both fully fit back then.”
“Exactly.” Erin took a sip from her beer, and Georgia was sucked in to watching the movement of Erin's throat as she swallowed. Georgia raised her own beer to her mouth, tearing her eyes away with an effort.
Tam, mischievous as ever, gave Georgia a sly look from the corner of her eyes. “You should come down one week, Hotdog. Show the kids what a real hand-off to the face looks like.”
“That was…” Georgia stumbled over her words, feeling her face flush.
Someone on Tiktok had made a semi-viral video that was just clips of Georgia fending off opponents, one after the other, hand to cheek in every clip.
It had been the talk of the locker room all week, and at least six different people had sent it to her, including her dad.
“None of them were as bad as they looked in that video.”
“You could practice on coach here,” Tam said, cocking her head in Erin’s direction. “Bet the kids would die for you if you did that!”
Erin smiled again, more tightly this time. “Yeah, they’d love that, for sure.”
Georgia tried for a smirk, her face landing somewhere the other side of a grimace. “Tempting.”
Erin’s gaze flicked away, her cheek twitching. “Anyway, didn’t mean to interrupt. I just came to plug my phone in.”
Georgia fixed her gaze on the dusty-looking curtains as Erin stepped around Tam. The room was suddenly much too small for the three of them.
She waited until Erin and Tam started to head back to the party and trailed them out into the night. Maybe she should pick her phone up and call Fleur back. Whatever she had to say couldn’t be worse than trying to make small talk with Erin.
She turned her phone back on, waiting an interminably long time as it flashed through the loading screens. There was a voicemail notification from Fleur that Georgia swiped away. She needed moral support, not a technical discussion with her captain.
The phone rang three times before Rachel, Georgia’s housemate and teammate, answered mid-yawn, face lit up only by the glow of her phone screen. “This better be an emergency, Hotch. I was just about to get acquainted with the cool side of my pillow.”
“It is,” Georgia hissed, trying to keep her voice low enough that Tam and Erin wouldn’t hear. “Erin is here.”
Rachel stared blankly at the screen for a moment, before reaching up and rubbing her eyes under the frame of her glasses. “Erin Erin? Like, fuck-you-very-much-but-I’m-straight-and-you’re-disgusting Erin?”
“That Erin,” Georgia agreed. “That’s not even the worst part. So, Tam’s done the room assignments, right, and…”
“You’re kidding me.”
Georgia shook her head. “No.”
“Did she say anything to you? Like… I’m sorry?”
Georgia shook her head again, stuck in an endless loop. “It was like nothing ever happened. Bland, polite. I felt like a complete moron; I had no idea she was going to be here, and she was just so… prepared.”
“Shit, mate, you okay?”
Georgia hung back another half a step. “No, obviously not. I totally clammed up. Could barely string a sentence together.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling.” Rachel sighed, quirking her eyebrows. “Look, it’s just a night, right?”
“Two nights.”
Rachel sat up straighter, turning on the bedside lamp and partially blinding Georgia as her phone screen flared. “Tam’s put you with that bitch for two nights?”
“Tam doesn’t know everything, remember?”
Rachel’s outrage faded slightly. “No, of course. It’s Georgia’s dirty little secret.”
Georgia was almost back to the courtyard, to the party and Tam’s assembled family and friends. Georgia couldn’t make a scene, couldn’t demand alternative accommodation. Not when she’d missed the hen party. Not when she’d kept the truth from Tam for all these years.
“I’ve gotta go,” Georgia whispered. “But wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Rachel whispered back seriously, the hard 'k' cut off as Georgia hung up.
Back in the courtyard, Georgia peeled away and headed for the beer buckets. She didn't need another drink, she just needed a moment to gather her thoughts.
No doubt Tam thought it was funny, throwing her in front of Matt, rooming her with Erin.
There she’d been, teasing her about the two people she’d want to see again.
Georgia had assumed it was an old coach or someone’s mum.
Not the two people she’d spent the better part of her teenage years crushing on.
Georgia sucked down half the beer before she knew it. On her empty stomach, she felt it start to go to her head. Steady, she told herself, letting the bottle swing from her fingers. It might be the off-season, but she still had to be sensible.
Georgia’s phone buzzed again.
Rach new number
If she so much as looks at you wrong, I’m driving over there with a chainsaw.
She peered through the crowd for Tam’s parents. She’d go and talk to them, exchange easy pleasantries, safe from awkwardness. On the way to their table, she decided to grab a slice of pizza to soak up the beer.
Pizza and parents were the answer.
After all, she couldn’t put her foot in her mouth if it was full of pizza.
She joined the short queue by the catering van, trying to decipher the toppings on the handwritten chalkboard instead of focusing on the nerves in her chest. Her plan was simple: grab a plate, find Tam’s parents, and keep her back turned firmly on the corner of the courtyard Tam and Erin had headed for.
But, as she edged past a cluster of chairs, balancing her slice, Tam appeared out of nowhere and caught her by the arm.
“Oi, you’re not sneaking off that easily,” she said with a grin, steering Georgia toward the heaters. She definitely thought it was funny.
Georgia’s stomach dropped. Standing right there was Erin, one hand wrapped around a beer, the other shoved into her pocket. Her expression was unreadable.
A wave of shame washed over Georgia. She hadn't felt that particular overwhelming self-loathing in years; she'd thought she was past it. She had been over it. At least until she was back in Erin's company.
Tam didn’t seem to notice. She pulled Georgia closer, launching into some story, leaving Georgia no choice but to stand there, pizza growing cold in her hand, painfully aware of Erin’s every quiet breath.
As they stood there, the humiliation started to recede.
Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the easy comfort of Tam’s endless chatter, but the nerves that had taken up residence at the first sight of Erin began to settle.
She and Erin were talking, actually talking, with an easy back and forth rhythm that didn’t feel quite so offbeat.
Before she could ask something else, a familiar male voice cut through the hum of the conversations around them.