Chapter Sixteen
The promenade park was packed with people, bundled up against the cold with coats, hats and scarves.
They were all piled into the thin strip of formal gardens between the sea and the rows of terraces, streaming between food stalls and rows of display pumpkins, scarecrows and rapidly thrown-up witches' cottages.
The Westcliffe Halloween Festival was a one-night extravaganza, and it felt like the whole town had turned out for it.
Georgia tugged her coat tighter around her and trailed after Tam and Ollie through the throng.
“Tell me again why I’m out here freezing my tits off?” Georgia grumbled.
“Because,” Tam told her, turning to look back, arm still threaded through Ollie’s, “its Halloween and as the team captain you’re a fun-loving, community-spirited local legend now.”
Georgia sniffed. The air was thick with the smells of woodsmoke, fried onions, and the late October chill. "Halloween is gay Christmas, I suppose. I owe it to my people to participate."
Tam dropped back and lowered her voice as though Georgia hadn't spoken. “And because, you didn’t want to stay in the warm, wrapped up in Matt.”
“He’s away this weekend,” Georgia explained defensively.
“And he’s away,” Tam shot back, “because you didn’t invite him.”
Georgia shook her head, glad that the darkness covered her expression.
It wasn’t quite true that she hadn’t invited Matt.
Georgia hadn’t had the chance to see him, nor found the right moment to invite him out for a double date with her best friend and his teammate.
Matt had texted sparsely through the week, apparently suffering through a three-day hangover, and by the time he’d recovered enough to call her, her invitation was too late.
“Maybe,” Ollie said, “she didn’t want to spend the weekend pretending she likes fireworks and cheap cider and small talk with strangers.”
“I do like fireworks,” Georgia protested, though it sounded like a lie.
They made their way past the food trucks and into the press of people clustering around the giant bonfire.
It was made of pallets and huge logs, stacked at least twenty feet high, and the flames reached almost double that.
The flickering light cast long, strange shadows on the white terraces surrounding the park.
Some of the houses had decorated, and plastic skeletons looked down on the massed crowds from more than one window.
Georgia took the cider Ollie handed her and watched the fire spit into the night.
It was beautiful. In a destructive, dangerous way.
“Swear I saw Erin at this last year,” Tam said casually. Too casually, as though she wasn’t fishing for gossip.
Georgia snorted. “Makes sense, she likes fire.”
Tam raised her brows. “How’d you two get on at the training session for the girls?”
“Fine,” Georgia said, shrugging.
But the way her stomach flipped said otherwise. She took another sip of her cider and fixed her eyes on the fire.
They lingered, chatting about nothing. Ollie offered unsolicited analysis of the bonfire’s structural integrity, as though he knew anything about it.
Tam kept nudging Georgia every time another couple walked by holding hands.
Georgia was just about to escape for a refill when she caught a glimpse of dark hair and an unmistakeable jawline in the crowd.
No. Surely not.
Then the woman turned and caught Georgia staring.
It was definitely her.
She stood with a group of women, her coat unzipped, hair slightly wind-tangled, hands shoved deep into her pockets.
“Speak of the devil,” Georgia muttered. Before she could think better of it, she started walking, elbowing her way past the fire-gazing groups, dodging the feral children dressed as vampires and zombies sprinting in random zigzags across the paths.
Tam’s voice floated after her. “Hotch? Where are you going?”
Erin clocked her approaching and cocked her head slightly, lips quirking in a way that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Georgia,” she said. “Anonymous among the crowds for once, instead of the focus of their attention.”
Georgia blinked. “Strong opening. Not hello, not hi. Not ‘funny to see you here’.”
Erin shrugged. “Is it funny to see you here? You do live in Westcliffe, after all.”
“I suppose,” Georgia agreed. “It’s just – in all those years, I’ve never bumped into you before. And now, at the wedding, at the match, here.”
“Maybe you’re looking for me now.” Erin shrugged, stepping closer, making way for a man carrying a whole tray of steaming ciders. “You here with someone?”
Georgia took a step back, trying to keep a reasonable distance between them. The implication was that Georgia was looking for her? That she wanted to see her, bump into her?
Ridiculous.
Impossible.
“I came with Tam and Ollie,” Georgia said, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb. “They’re intensely debating whether to share a marshmallow stick or just have their own like normal people.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Very them. Joined at the hip.”
They stood in silence for a second. Erin shifted her weight, swaying forward to make space for people behind her, her shoulder brushing Georgia’s for a moment before pulling away.
Behind her, the women she’d been standing with were watching them closely, talking behind their hands, all their attention focused on Erin and Georgia.
“And who are you here with?” Georgia’s voice was too bright. “Anyone special?”
Why had she added that last bit?
Erin turned back towards her group. “Just my friends.” She pointed them out one by one. “That’s Nikki, Kirst, Fitzy, Ali, Ruth, and Tommy Tomatoes.”
Georgia would never be able to identify any of them by name again. They were just vague people-shaped blurs in the darkness, all in practical puffer coats, beanies pulled down over their hair. "Tomatoes?”
“She’s a blusher,” Erin explained with a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s not inventive, but at first we thought it was funny, and now it’s stuck.”
Georgia waved awkwardly.
“Just mates,” Erin added unnecessarily. “My local gang, you know?”
The bonfire popped loudly, painting Erin’s cheekbones gold. Why did she have to look so stupidly good in the orange light, the coppery lowlights in her hair glinting in the firelight.
“I hated seeing you at the wedding,” Georgia said suddenly, the words transmitted from her brain to her mouth before she could consciously call them back. “Not because of you, of anything you did. I just…” She shrugged, looked away out into the darkness. “I wasn’t ready.”
Erin shrugged. “I suppose I wasn’t either. I’d got myself all hyped up to see you at the hen party, and then you weren’t there. And then, at the wedding…”
Georgia drained her cider. Her heart gave an erratic thump. She tilted her head away from the tape separating the public area from the firework setup, from the area with the blazing bonfire. “Want another drink?”
Erin didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, alright.”
They fell into step, boots soft on damp grass, the noise of the crowd cocooning them inside it. Georgia ordered two mulled ciders, and they waited side by side as the man ladled it out for them, passing both down to Erin.
“I know the girls have been messaging you, by the way. You know you don’t have to come to their game,” Erin said, handing the hot paper cup over to Georgia. “They’d love it, but they can be pushy, and I know how busy you must be with the season in full swing and the captain’s armband on top.”
“No,” Georgia said quickly. She reached out, touched Erin’s arm for emphasis, her fingers sinking into the soft material of her coat before she thought better of it and pulled her hand away. “I want to. Tam’s sent me the fixture list. I’ve just got to double check with my own.”
Erin smiled faintly, eyes dipping to where Georgia’s hand had been. “Well, if you’re coming, I’ll make sure the clubhouse snacks are up to scratch.”
Georgia huffed into her cider, the hot steam warming her cheeks. They idled in the quiet a moment, wind tugging at the strands of hair that had escaped from Georgia’s beanie. She tucked one behind her ear and glanced over. “How’s the coaching going, anyway?”
“Muddy.” Erin shrugged, a touch of pride curling in her voice. “They’re good. I mean, they’re a total mess. But good.”
Georgia smiled. “Sounds familiar.”
She found herself watching the curve of Erin’s jaw, the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot like she couldn’t ever quite stand still. No, she thought, shaking herself. Absolutely not. There would be no jawline watching, no fantasising, no unrequited crushing.
Georgia didn’t need the headache.
“So,” Erin, said at last. “How’s Matt?”
“Matt?”
“Yeah.” Erin gestured vaguely with her cup, expression unreadable in the darkness. “You know. Tall, charming, had his face suctioned to yours at Tam’s wedding.”
“Oh.” Georgia looked down at the tan toes of her boots. “It’s good. I think. He’s… He’s kind.”
Erin gave a slow nod. “Kind’s important.”
“Yeah.”
A long breath, and then Erin said, almost too lightly, “I always did have shocking timing.”
Georgia jerked her head round to face Erin. “What?”
Overhead, the first firework cracked open the sky, white and pink and loud enough to rattle Georgia’s ribs.
She looked up, tilting her head to watch the bloom of the colours against the starry sky.
Beside her, Erin looked up too. For a moment, neither of them moved.
Just two silhouettes side by side, faces turned to the light, the tensions between them bright and hot and impossible to name.
Georgia was searching for a response, for an appropriate way to answer Erin. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder, and Georgia turned to find Tam there, holding out a toffee apple.
“Here,” she said, shoving it into Georgia’s hand. “I know how you love these.”
“Thanks.” Georgia bit into it, the crisp apple sharp and juicy in comparison to the brittle toffee coating.
Next to her, there was an empty space where Erin had been just seconds before.
She hadn’t said goodbye, just turned and disappeared into the crowds.
If Georgia craned her head, tall enough to look over the top of the crowd, she could see her.
She was back with her friends, embedded in the group, watching the next set of fireworks explode out over the sea.
Georgia watched them for long seconds, the way they were illuminated by the greens and electric whites of the fireworks, but Erin didn’t turn around.
“You okay?” Tam asked.
Georgia nodded, hiding her face in the apple. She knew Tam wanted to push and get the gossip. She must have seen Erin shoulder to shoulder with her, close enough they could have been holding hands. Georgia kept her face turned upwards. That was not a conversation she needed to have.