Chapter Twenty-Two
Georgia slept terribly. Fitfully, with dreams that chased each other in circles. In one, all her teeth fell out and she could feel them, sharp-edged and crunching against her tongue. In another, she was alone on the pitch. Late for kickoff, and in the wrong stadium.
More than once, she was back in the Redford locker room. She was turning, running, flooded again with shame and embarrassment, face flushed, heart pounding. Except it was Matt on the bench in front of her, looking down on her with contempt.
“Georgia,” he said. “Georgia.”
He reached forward and shook her.
“Georgia,” he said, more insistently.
He was really shaking her.
“For God’s sake, Georgia,” he said, his voice taking on a strangely Welsh lilt. “You were supposed to be at the stadium like ten minutes ago.”
Georgia blinked. That made sense, but not if she was sixteen. She blinked again, and her bedroom came into view, Rachel standing over her.
“Fucks sake, Hotch,” Rachel said. She took her hand off Georgia's shoulder and pushed the thick, black frames of her glasses back up her nose. “I’m in enough shit with Maggie as it is, without her ringing me to have a go about your mistakes too.”
Georgia groaned and flopped back into the pillow, flinging an arm over her eyes like she might reverse time by sheer force of will. Her brain felt sticky, slow, still half-stuck in the dream.
“I’m awake,” she mumbled.
“Yeah? Well done. Gold star.” Rachel yanked the duvet back in one swift move, swearing as she revealed Georgia’s very naked body under the covers.
Georgia blinked blearily.
Erin’s name hung in her brain like a hangover. The memory of the touch of her hand, fingers brushing Georgia’s jaw.
Rachel looked away pointedly. “Hotch, you really need to move. Maggie’s already rung me twice.”
That registered.
“Shit!” Georgia sat bolt upright, swinging her legs out of the bed.
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “Shit.”
Georgia scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to get her eyes to work properly.
Her phone was on the floor, face down and very dead.
Her smart, carefully prepared interview outfit was still hanging on the back of the door of Tam’s spare room, pressed and ready.
Waiting for someone who wasn’t such a liability.
So was her car.
Rachel crossed her arms. “If you move right now, I can still get you there before Maggie adds your name to her Death Note.”
Georgia stood up too fast, stepping on a discarded shoe and almost toppling backwards again.
She would just have to wear her Westcliffe-branded trackies and a clean polo shirt.
Not exactly the high-powered, glamourous look Fleur had always brought to her captain’s assignments, but perhaps she could pull off the dedicated player instead.
Perhaps she’d simply prove Erin’s blind faith in her interview ability was misplaced.
The thought of Erin, of her steady presence in the car, of her pressed up against Georgia in the porch, sent a sick jolt through her stomach.
There wasn’t any time to stop and ruminate, no time for self-reflection.
The only thing she needed to think about was getting in front of the cameras and not making a complete hash of it.
“Can you tell Maggie I’m on my way?”
“She already knows.” Rachel rifled through Georgia’s chest of drawers and threw a clean pair of socks at her head. “I texted her while dragging you out of bed.”
“You’re a good friend.”
Rachel chucked a hairbrush over her shoulder. It bounced once on the duvet cover and skidded to a halt halfway under Georgia's pillow. “I’m a tired friend. And you owe me one.”
***
The stadium looked deceptively serene in the morning light.
The empty stands glowed gold under a rare shaft of sunlight, the pitch glistening from last night’s dew.
The ground crew were just starting to move, and none of the other players were in yet.
A handful of BBC production vans were parked in front of the main entrance, cables snaking out of them like vines, trailing into the media suite.
Rachel slewed up in front of the doors, stopping sideways across three different parking spaces. Unlike last night with Erin, this morning there was no lingering: Georgia was out of the door, hurrying towards the studio, pushing the short strands of her hair behind her ears as she went.
Georgia was met at the door by a production assistant with a clipboard, a headset that jabbered away in her ear, and an apparently permanent expression of polite panic.
“Georgia,” she said. “There you are. You’re with Vix, Tommy, and Dottie today.”
She moved off down the corridor, tapping the earpiece on her headset.
“Live segment, as you know. Five to seven minutes. Then some pre-records. Just smile, be charming, don’t swear. We’ll mic you up in three.”
Georgia nodded, trying to look capable, confident. As if her mind was on the job and not still stuck behind that pillar in the Tipsy Fox. Not still pressed against the wall of her porch.
Fleur had made this part of the captain’s role – the figurehead part – look easy.
It wasn’t for Georgia. She wasn’t good at being charming on the fly, at thinking up witty retorts.
It had never held her back in the locker room with the girls.
There, she could be quieter, more considered. On TV, it wouldn’t translate.
On TV, a mean little voice in the back of her head told her, all that would come across was a woman who couldn’t even convince her lover she was good at her job.
Georgia ignored the voice. She could hold the chaos of her personal life at bay for now.
The segment wasn’t long. Short enough for her to pretend to be professional, the consummate captain.
Georgia tried to tell herself that kind of confidence would come with time, with practice.
Even if it didn’t come naturally, she had never been afraid of hard work.
She’d put the effort into captaincy, the way she had into her rugby.
Fake it till you make it, Georgia, she told herself.
As they reached the pitchside set-up, Georgia spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of the BBC’s sports presenter Vix Hargrove.
Smart, polished, powerful. She wasn't someone you wanted to meet firing on anything less than full cylinders.
She stood beneath a white awning, hair and camel coat spotless, voice calm as she spoke to Maggie and the producer.
“Ah, here she is,” Vix said as Georgia approached. The words were warm, but Georgia knew they carried as undercurrent of reproach. “Our captain.”
“Here she is,” Maggie agreed.
“Sorry,” Georgia said, channelling fake confidence, as another assistant moved to mic her up, calling for someone to fix her hair. “Bit of a mad morning.”
“Well,” said Vix, her face deliberately neutral. “We were going to talk about composure under pressure. At least now we’ve got a fresh case study.”
Georgia winced.
On the small platform set up in the middle of the pitch, Tommy Harris adjusted his earpiece, wearing a puffer jacket over his tailored suit.
The legs were too tight over his thighs, and his shirt buttons threatened to pop over his pecs at any moment.
He could have bought a bigger size, but Georgia knew it was a deliberate fit.
When he’d been playing professionally, he’d been a fan of topless mirror selfies in the gym.
Two years after his career was cut short by injury, he’d started wearing more clothes in his social media, and his skinny jeans had been replaced with only slightly looser chinos.
He still didn’t wear any socks, his bare feet slipped straight into his suede loafers.
“Hotch,” he said, holding out his hand for a fist bump. “I hear you got a try at the weekend.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you win?”
Tommy wasn’t exactly known for his love of the women’s game.
His podcast focused almost entirely on the men.
When he and his mates did discuss the women, it was often about their legs, the fit of their shorts, or their hairstyles.
Tommy might have done a little research before he’d come to Westcliffe.
Georgia was on the cusp of saying something, when a hand landed on her shoulder. She turned to find Dottie Pritchard, silver-streaked hair as short and spiked as it had been in her playing days, her Welsh accent unsoftened by years of living in London.
“Hi,” Georgia offered, suddenly star-struck and nervous. She’d met Dottie before. Rachel had introduced them, back when they were both still hoping for the same kind of international career Dottie had enjoyed.
“Hello bach,” Dottie said. She leant in to kiss Georgia on the cheek. "And yes, she did."
“Mics hot in five,” one of the producers called.
Vix stepped forward. “Ready?”
Georgia took her position, the stadium yawning wide and empty over her shoulder. Behind the cameras, she could see Maggie and Rach standing on the sidelines. Her parents had promised to watch live, and no doubt the rest of the team would be as well. She blew out a breath.
Fake it till you make it.
***
They were halfway through the segment, the clock behind the camera counting down their seven-minute slot, the wind tugging at her hair again. It was blowing everywhere, and Georgia was conscious of the way she had to keep pushing it back.
No doubt the Westcliffe media officer would have something to say about hairbands in her next press training.
Dottie and Tommy were discussing crowd sizes, the evolution of the women’s game. She was only half listening, still thinking about her hair.
“Take Hotch here,” Tommy said, and Georgia snapped back into focus. “She’s not the biggest player, not the fastest. Even for a second row. And yet she’s made captain. Which just goes to show…”
Georgia froze.