Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Georgia had been sitting on the steps in front of her front door for twenty minutes before Rach finally made it down the stairs after her, dumping her kit bag and running up the hill to her parked car.
Their road had been built before cars were invented, and so none of the buildings had parking.
Everyone parked halfway on the pavement, narrowing the wide, tree-lined boulevard to the width of a single car.
There was always intense competition for the best parking places, and their downstairs neighbour always hogged the spot outside the door.
They were going to be late to training. Nothing new there, at least on the days Rachel drove them the twenty minutes through town to the stadium.
The tiredness was new. Normally on a Monday morning Georgia felt fresh, ready for the week. Today, she felt drained before she’d even begun.
She took another sip of coffee from her travel cup.
Matt hadn’t texted again, the conversation limited to those seven messages.
The week ahead to Friday stretched out before her.
Rachel should have said midweek. Georgia had spent the night tossing and turning, her thoughts circling endlessly, replaying the whole weekend.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d embarrassed herself, somehow.
Not by any one thing, but by the sum of everything together.
She hadn’t text Erin, either. Georgia had finally added the unsaved number in her recent calls list to her contacts at 4 am. She’d drafted and deleted a message several times. A list of potential days she could make it down to Redford. Bland, polite.
She wanted to go down to her old team and show them where their rugby could take them.
The grassroots stuff she did with Westcliffe and with England was always rewarding, and she didn’t know why she hadn’t gone back before.
But supporting them would mean dealing with Erin and picking at that old wound.
Rachel’s car pulled out of the kerbside parking further up the street, slotting into a gap in the morning traffic.
Georgia stood up and waited for her on the edge of the pavement.
There was a thought that had been swirling through Georgia’s head ever since Erin’s confession.
A thought that had never occurred to her before.
Erin being a homophobe was one thing. Georgia could cope with that and compartmentalise it, in a twisted kind of way.
She could categorise Erin as a shitty person and call it a day.
However, if Erin wasn’t offended by the idea of two girls together, then the strength of her rejection must have had another motive.
It wasn’t a homophobic thing. It was simply a not-liking-Georgia thing.
Well. If Erin wanted a favour, she could damn well text first.
“Sorry, sorry,” Rach called, bumping up onto the kerb, narrowly missing the bin. She leant across and pushed the passenger door open. “You told me to get up and then I… didn’t.”
Georgia slid in, dumping her bag over her shoulder onto the back seat. “No worries,” she said, clicking the seatbelt into place. “I was up early.”
Rach’s eyes slid across as she crunched the car into gear and swung out into the traffic. “You’re overthinking.”
It was a statement, not a question. Sometimes Georgia forgot how well Rach knew her. She kept her eyes firmly focused out of the window as the car moved forward again, watching people on the High Road as they hustled down the pavement on their way to work.
“Maybe a little.”
“Which part?”
Georgia shrugged. “All of it.”
“Mate.” At the next junction, waiting for the lights to turn green, Rachel shifted in her seat and looked at Georgia properly. “You fancy him, he sure as fuck fancies you. Worst that happens is that you shag him silly and teenage Georgia puts a little tick against that particular fantasy.”
The lights changed, and Rach moved off jerkily, swinging out on the dual carriageway out to the stadium. Cliffe Park rose up from behind the rows of shops and white Edwardian terraces, the curving roof visible above the slate grey rooflines.
“And as for Erin…” Rachel’s voice dropped, turned hard.
Georgia shook her head. “Not yet. I just…”
She stopped, not quite sure how to reduce her whole night’s worrying into one simple sentence.
Rachel pulled into the stadium staff car park, slewing up into their usual space beside the gym entrance.
She was definitely wonky in the space, her back wheels over the painted white line.
She slammed on the handbrake and turned to face Georgia.
“If she as much as blinks at you wrong, I’ll fucking bite her for you, okay? ”
***
By ten, Georgia was breathing heavily, stood in the middle of the pitch, boots wet from the dewy grass. Her calves ached from the loaded sled pushes and if she never did another bronco in her life, it would be too soon.
She hadn’t been joking when she’d told Tam pre-season was brutal. They’d done all the fun stuff the start of every new rugby year brought – kit collections, posing for official headshots, trips to Army HQ for teamwork exercises – and now it was all about fitness.
She scanned the edges of the pitch for the tall, commanding figure of Fleur, their captain. It was one thing for Rach (and Georgia by extension) to rock up fifteen minutes late. It was unheard of for Fleur.
A knot tightened in Georgia’s stomach. She hadn’t called Fleur back.
Amid the chaos of the wedding, Georgia had totally forgotten her captain had even rung her at all.
She knew Fleur was underperforming. They all knew.
And Rachel, in the past, had said the same as Tam’s dad.
How about you, Hotch? You never thought about leading? I’d play for you.
Kiera, the forwards coach, gave no explanation. She’d brushed off the questions with a wave of her hand and a single-minded focus on her clipboard in front of her.
“Alright pack,” she shouted now, clapping her hands together briskly. “We’re hammering lineouts today. No excuses.”
Georgia took her place in the line, settling into the familiar pre-lift stance.
The props, Olivia and Sam, took up their positions in front and behind her, ready to catch her jump and lift her higher, sending her flying into the path of the ball.
Across the short distance to the other lineout, the second-string pack were doing the same.
“Still no Fleur,” Olivia whispered as she settled her hands against Georgia’s thigh. “Reckon she’s off sunning herself in France again?”
“Don’t,” Georgia hissed back, watching Jess as she prepared to throw the ball in. “If Kiera hears you…”
Kiera’s whistle cut through the air. “Focus! Lifters ready. Jess, your call.”
They launched into the drill. Georgia dipped low, legs coiled, then exploded upward, her teammates' hands driving her higher, keeping her in the air longer than her jump would have allowed. She reached sideways, swiping the ball out from Norah’s outstretched hand and passing it down to Jen’s waiting hands in one fluid motion.
She loved this part. The feeling of flying, the competition in the air.
The next jump she took the ball again, but Norah’s hand was there, stopping the easy pass down. Instead, they brought her down ball in hand, formed the maul and rum bled forward, feet tearing at the turf.
“Good!” Kiera barked, though her eyes were sharp with dissatisfaction. “But I want faster set-ups next time. Hotch, you should have had that one easy. We need to up our game this season.”
They reset. Georgia caught snippets of chatter as they jogged back.
“…heard she’s not even in Westcliffe,” Riley was saying, voice pitched low. “Her sister’s wedding, wasn’t it? Or a funeral? Someone said…”
“Hey!” Georgia snapped, more harshly than she intended. “Come on, girls. We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us this year. Let's keep our heads in the game. We'll hear about Fleur when she's ready.”
The group fell silent for half a beat before dissolving into nervous giggles. Georgia’s stomach turned icy, and a cold sweat sprung up down the sides of her neck. She’d overstepped. She wasn’t captain, no matter how much she felt like she had to fill the void.
The next set of lineouts was crisper, smoother.
They drove forward in a tight maul, Georgia’s shoulder pressed into Sam’s back, heart hammering.
Sweat ran in rivulets down her temples, dripping onto the inside of her collar.
The grunt and heave of bodies around her was grounding, more real than any swirling rumours.
Kiera had them run different lineout calls until lunch. The quick ball, the long ball, the shift call, the dummy jumper. They weren’t good. The same confusion and miscommunication that had plagued them all last season was still there, even without the pressure of an opposition team.
As they trudged back across the pitch towards the cafeteria, Sam lagged behind, kicking at a clump of grass with her boot. Georgia fell into step beside the young prop, nudging her shoulder lightly. “You alright, Sammy?”
Sam sighed, shaking her head. “That shift call, and then the dummy. I messed every single one up. Kiera must think I’m useless.”
God, she was young. Only just twenty. At that age, Georgia had still been at uni, playing rugby at the weekend and training in between lectures. Playing professionally hadn’t been an option. Sometimes, she still couldn’t believe that now it was.
“She doesn’t think you’re useless. Those calls are tricky. It’s not you – we’re just misfiring as a unit.”
“You're not misfiring,” Sam said, a faint smile. “You’ve not put a foot wrong all morning.”
“I do,” Georgia said. “Missed a few easy catches, remember?”
“That’s just…” Sam shrugged. “Normal stuff. It’s different when she talks to me.”