Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Georgia pushed past the long rows of picnic tables outside the front of the Lantern Rooms, through the post-work crowds enjoying their last outdoors pints of the year in the light sea breeze and autumn sunshine.
Only a road separated the pub from the seafront, as the building itself had been an eighteenth century shipping warehouse, the walls pock-marked red brick and the windows leaded and uneven.
Inside, it looked, as always, like it had been pulled straight out of a lifestyle magazine. The old wooden beams holding up the first floor were wrapped in trails of greenery, and the yellow bricks made beautiful backdrops for the jungle of plants.
She texted Tam.
Guess where I am. And who I’m meeting.
She screwed up her face as her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside and took a moment to look for Matt at the bar. There were lots of men that might have been him - dark, slim-fit jeans and checked shirts stretched over muscled frames, freshly cut fades and neat stubble.
“Can I help?”
Georgia startled, unaware of the waitress who’d appeared beside her.
“I have a dinner reservation,” she said. “7 pm, Georgia Hotchkiss.”
“Ah, yes.” The girl pointed up the spiral staircase to the first floor. “He’s waiting for you upstairs.”
Georgia flashed her a smile in thanks and headed for the twisting iron staircase.
Tam
Shut up.
Tam’s reply was quick, and she was still typing.
Are you actually out with who I think you are?
Georgia grinned down at the phone, replying only with an emoji of a monkey with its hands over its mouth. She’d let Tam sweat it out for the evening, keep her guessing.
There were other messages too. Rach had sent an indecipherable string of emojis that Georgia knew were supposed to mean something obscene.
The Westcliffe group chat had filled up with silly memes, drowning out the official messages of selection and timings.
There was another chat thread, now a long way down the list but still bolded and still with its little white unread icon staring at her.
Georgia shoved the phone back in her purse. The Redford girls, Erin had said in the message, trained on a Saturday morning. Ten o’clock, in the same place they’d always trained.
Her heel caught in the wrought iron of the steps, and she wrenched it free, stumbling up on the first-floor dining space. As she straightened, she caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye.
There. Matt, already at a table for two next to the large, arching warehouse windows, waved a pint in her direction. She’d seen him do the same move twenty times, thirty, after her teenage matches in the clubhouse, as he waved the boys’ team over. Now, he was waving to her.
“Georgia!” he called, turning heads, as though she might not have seen him. As though her eyes could focus on anyone else.
She made her way over to him, squeezing past the other diners, boots clicking on the wooden floorboards.
The boots made her even taller, but they made her feel confident, too.
She'd chosen a black sleeveless top that showed off her arms and shoulders, and then softened the silhouette with wide-legged trousers and a cropped cream blazer that she'd stolen from Rachel's wardrobe.
“You look incredible,” he said, grinning as he stood to press a kiss to her cheek. He smelled like aftershave and soap. “Lucky me, hey? Remind me how I pulled this off again?"
He sat back down, running a hand through his hair. He had actually had a haircut. “I have to tell you, I was half worried I’d be stood up.”
He was nervous. A little flicker of warm hope coursed through her at the realisation.
“It was tempting,” Georgia said, aiming for a teasing tone, as she pulled out the chair opposite his and sat down. “But I just couldn’t resist a white wine spritzer and one of their special pies.”
Matt laughed, easy and loud, and signalled to the waiter with the sort of confidence that suggested he owned the place. “You keen on starters?”
Georgia nodded, opening the menu in front of her. She’d been training extra hard all week, aware of the eyes on her and of the need to lead. It had left her famished, hungrier than any amount of boiled eggs and balanced protein could help.
“Large white wine spritzer for the lady,” Matt said. He lifted his own still half-full glass, dissipating foam circling the edge. “And another one of these.”
Georgia flashed a quick, tight smile up at the waiter, her stomach unexpectedly knitting into a ball of nerves. She hadn’t been here since Fleur’s birthday, when they’d all eaten and drunk far too much. Matt was in his element chatting away to the waiter, flicking through the menu.
“I figured we’d share starters,” he said as the waiter left. "Crispy calamari and the pork belly bites." He leant forward on his elbows, a cheeky grin curling his lips that Georgia felt all the way down to her toes. “Or is that too intimate for date number one?”
Georgia lifted her eyebrows. “That makes it sound like you think there’ll be a number two.”
“Oh, come on.” He smirked, running his hands down the crisp front of his white shirt. “I must be doing something right if you’re smiling.”
“Smiling,” she said, fidgeting with the napkin in front of her, shaking it out to cover her lap, “is polite.”
She was smiling, though, the corners of her mouth lifting entirely outside of her conscious control.
Matt was grinning back, holding her gaze.
She shifted in the seat, half-glad when the waiter brought their drinks and she had an excuse to break eye contact.
She let her eyes drift over the restaurant while she composed herself.
Matt followed her gaze, looking around at the other diners and the décor. “This place is great, isn’t it? Fancy, but, like, down to earth.”
“I like it,” Georgia agreed. “I’m a sucker for their pies. The steak and ale is really good, and last time they did this chicken and chorizo one that was was…” She clicked her tongue and kissed her fingers in a bad French chef impression.
“I’ll have that, then,” Matt said, folding the menu with a slap. “Sold, to the lady in the blazer.”
They talked rugby. Of course they did. League positions, tactics, the good old days when she’d been the star player with the hots for the referee, and he’d held her at a suitable, respectable distance.
Georgia didn’t want him to hold her at a suitable distance anymore.
She wanted to get back to the wedding, his leg against hers at the campfire, his measured stride keeping pace beside her, the hot, demanding press of his body against hers as they kissed.
It was almost too much to be sat across from him, making easy conversation as though she didn’t know what his mouth tasted like.
She should have suggested something simpler, lower key.
A pint in a noisy country pub, his hand finding hers under the table, a kiss in the car park on their way home.
By the time the starters came, Matt was re-enacting a story about a player squaring up to him after a controversial call. “He was like, six foot five, built like a freight train. I thought he was going to knock me out right there on the touchline.”
Georgia smiled. The way he talked about the game was infectious.
No pressure, no expectations. Just pure enjoyment, in a way she hadn’t been able to afford since she made her hobby her job.
She leant her head on her chin and gazed at him.
“And you gave him a second yellow, there and then, just because you could?”
“Damn straight.” He grinned, his white teeth set perfectly in his face. She took a large gulp of her spritzer, hiding her face in her glass.
Her phone buzzed on the table with another message from Rach. The message preview flashed up on her lock screen.
Rach new number
Are you on dessert yet?
It buzzed again.
Or better - are you the dessert yet?
Georgia grabbed the phone and pulled it into her lap, out of Matt’s sight.
“Excuse me for a sec,” she said, pushing her chair back, the legs scraping loudly on the wooden floor. “Be right back.”
In the privacy of the toilet cubicle, she hit the phone symbol and waited the three rings until Rachel picked up.
“Rachel,” she hissed. “You can’t be texting me that in the middle of the date! What if he saw?” Georgia could picture the way Rachel was rolling her eyes, simply from the tone of her laugh.
“You want him to,” she said, like she was explaining something simple to a toddler. “You want that man to remember that he promised to fall on you like the first Mr Whippy of the year down on the seafront.”
“Ugh, God, Rach,” Georgia protested over the cackle of Rachel’s self-satisfied laughter. “I do not need to sit opposite him with that image in my head.”
She hung up, cutting off Rachel’s cackle.
For a second, Georgia stared at the silent phone. Despite her protest, she did want him to devour her like a melting ice cream. To get there, they needed to dial up the flirtiness and move on from rugby chat.
Fine.
Georgia would run the conversation, choose the topics, choose her own main course.
And if she was taking charge, there was something else she had to do.
The little unread icon on Erin’s message was still there.
Before she could second guess herself, she opened the chat, typed out a confirmation, and sent it.
Matt was waiting for her, his face lighting up as she squeezed her way past other diners back to the table. Georgia grinned back, fighting a knot of anxiety that Rachel’s comments and her text to Erin had formed.
As she slid back into her seat, Matt leant forwards. “How’s the start of the season been?”