Chapter Twenty-Six
Georgia finally dragged herself away from Erin’s flat close to midnight. They’d stayed on the sofa, tangled together under a blanket, their half-empty wine glasses forgotten on the table.
The late-night radio was playing some throwback playlist as she flew down the dual carriageway back to Westcliffe.
The Undertones, Teenage Kicks.
The Jam, Going Underground.
Billy Idol and some youthful glam-tinged pop punk she didn’t know the name of.
Georgia sang along to them all, belting out the choruses and mumbling her way through the verses. There was no traffic, no road closures or diversions. The lights turned green as she approached. Even the sticky front door opened first time as she floated in and up the stairs to her flat.
She chucked her clothes off and collapsed into bed, her phone already lit up with a message.
Erin (Redford RFC)
Hope you’re home safe. Crumpet says she misses you.
Georgia grinned up at the screen, blue light soaking into her pillows.
Crumpet is a liar. She’d much rather keep you all to herself.
The response came a second later.
Luckily for you, Crumpet doesn’t make the rules round here.
Georgia shuffled down into her pillows. She was still somewhere up on cloud nine, buoyed by the promise of something new, something real.
I’ll have to bribe her with sardines next time.
She’ll hold you to that!
Goodnight, Georgia.
In the morning, Georgia woke to another message, a picture of Crumpet on the kitchen counter, asleep on top of a discarded tea towel. Dreaming of sardines, Erin had captioned it.
The high lasted all week, through days of easy back-and-forth chats. Erin sent her more pictures of Crumpet, selfies at the office water cooler, stealthy snaps of her meetings. Georgia sent her the stadium at sunset, the beach, her morning coffees, her pink trainers as she ran along the promenade.
It wasn’t as outright flirty as the messages with Matt had been. Less innuendo, fewer sex references and winky faces. Erin was still caring, still intense, full of solid advice and inspirational quotes.
Erin remembered things about her, things Georgia had only mentioned in passing.
She sent her pictures of Crumpet mid-yawn with badly drawn speech bubbles popping out of her mouth.
Crumpet, apparently, had a lot of opinions on music, movies, what kind of coffee Georgia should get today.
It made Georgia’s stomach flip. Not with the immediate rush of desire, but something steadier.
It felt warm. The kind of messages that made Georgia grin at her phone like an idiot in the locker room. Riley had filmed her, posting the video to social media with the caption “lovestruck?”. It had generated hundreds of comments and anonymous speculation on the identity of her new lover.
Combined with the press release and public apology Caroline had drafted for her, Georgia’s phone was still burning up with notifications.
She’d received requests for podcast appearances, to be an ambassador for feminist collectives, and a proposed BBC interview about the first BBC interview.
She turned them all down, focusing on rugby, on showing up on the pitch, for her team, and being blandly beige enough off the pitch for the club’s comfort levels.
***
Rachel disappeared to her RFU-mandated disciplinary course, in an attempt to convince the Welsh set up to let her train for the Six Nations despite her ongoing ban.
The flat was quiet without her, but it meant Georgia could lounge on the sofa undisturbed.
She’d video called Erin for the last three evenings, alternating between chatting absolute rubbish and drifting into deeper topics.
They’d discussed ambition, queerness, the very precarious state of the league’s finances, and Erin’s ongoing plans for corporate world domination.
Georgia couldn’t wait for the two-week Christmas break, and the promise of more time with Erin. Georgia was desperate for more. More long looks. More sharp, funny remarks. More of the slight shyness that crept over her as they talked, of the blush Erin could coax out of her.
They only had one more day of training, and Georgia hadn’t been able to concentrate all day, refreshing their message thread like a teenager.
So, when Erin had texted to suggest they both try out the Westcliffe leisure centre’s disco swim, full of colourful lights and pop bangers that helped swimmers keep a steady rhythm in their strokes, Georgia had jumped at it.
She didn't even pretend to be chill about it.
Erin wasn’t in the changing room when Georgia arrived, and her phone went straight to voicemail, the busy tone beeping in Georgia’s ear. No doubt she’d be along soon enough. Georgia changed into her black one-piece costume, before splashing through the foot wash at the entrance to the pool.
She'd just have to start her swims. No doubt Erin would be there. She wouldn't leave Georgia hanging.
Georgia was slower than the grannies in their pastel swim caps, her splashy front crawl barely keeping up with their neatly efficient breaststroke.
At the end of her lengths, she was breathing heavily, slipping under the floating lane divider into the rest of the pool.
She turned onto her back and let herself float, eyes closed, arms drifting wide.
She bobbed with the waves made by passing swimmers watching the lights swirl overhead. They were distorted and green behind her goggles, and the water in her ears made picking out the music impossible. She hadn’t seen Erin get in.
Georgia sat up, scanning the lanes for her.
She wasn’t in the water. She hadn't come. Georgia swallowed against a sharp swell of disappointment.
Georgia waded to the edge of the pool. Maybe there would be a message waiting for her, an excellent explanation for Erin's absence.
Out of the corner of her eye, Georgia caught sight of a familiar silhouette. Erin was on the bleachers, one leg stuck out in front, phone in hand. She frowned down at the screen, typing a message with both thumbs. The lanyard around her neck glinted in the swirling lights.
Georgia pulled herself up onto the side in one easy jump.
The air was cold compared to the warmth of the pool, and Georgia felt the skin of her arms pucker into goosebumps.
Erin looked up, her face breaking out into a grin.
She threw Georgia a folded-up towel from the seats in front of her, watching with open interest as Georgia wrapped it around herself.
“Hey!” Georgia crossed the tiled floor, slipping on a patch of water and barely keeping her balance. “Funny seeing you here. Are you stalking me?”
“Nah, just here for the floor show.” Erin gave her a blatant once over and winked. Then she indicated her phone, the bashed Redford kit bag at her feet. “I’m so sorry, I got caught at work. I really tried to escape, but Simon from procurement would just not shut up.”
“Not much of a pool date if only one of you swims," Georgia complained, indicating Erin’s smart grey trousers and plain white shirt with a corner of the towel.
“Ah, I had every intention of joining you.” Erin held up her phone. “But by the time I got here, you were already just floating around, and I figured I’d enjoy the view instead.”
Georgia raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re not swimming, just loitering by the pool in business attire.”
“Multi-tasking, you know? Climbing the corporate ladder, casual ogling. It’s been a very productive Wednesday. I’ve certainly earned a drink.”
“Alcohol is famously good for ogling,” Georgia agreed mock-seriously.
“Doesn’t have to be alcohol,” Erin countered. “The café here’s pretty good at coffee, and then I can tell the physio I was at the pool for hours.”
“I see. Very devious. Almost evil.”
One of the grannies heaved herself out of the water next to Georgia, giving them both a sideways, judgemental look. The wave of pool water washed over Georgia’s feet, and she shivered. “Let me go and get changed, and I’ll meet you up there?”
Georgia pulled her clothes on, did her best to make her damp hair look anything other than scraped back, hoping the heat and humidity in the viewing gallery above the pool would help it curl behind her ears.
It was one thing to be damp together, and quite another to be the only one smelling of chlorine.
By the time Georgia made it upstairs to the café, Erin had already found a table, their drinks set in front of her. As Georgia approached, Erin shifted in her seat, pulling her leg out from under her and stretching it straight, hand going unconsciously to massage the joint.
Georgia had seen other ex-players move like that.
ACL tears were common in women’s sport, and in women’s rugby particularly.
Something, the Westcliffe doctor had explained to the team, about the width of the pelvis and the angle between hip and knee.
Combined with generally smaller ligaments and narrower bones than men, the way hormones fucked with your strength and elasticity, and other biomechanical things that had gone right over Georgia’s head.
It was a timebomb waiting under any player’s career.
There but for the grace of God. It could be any of them, any time. It could be her next.
“Is your knee bad?”
Erin shook her head. “Not so much. Physio’s just to keep it that way.”
“Yeah.”
“Sucked at the time though,” Erin said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Clean snap. Surgery, rehab. The whole deal.”
Georgia couldn’t imagine. She’d been lucky with injuries. A knock here, a niggle there. Nothing that hadn’t gone away with a few days’ rest, some anti-inflammatories, and revised training schedules.
“I really struggled, you know,” Erin continued, watching the swimmers through the glass, the revolving lights broken up by the movement of the water around them. “With what it meant: my career, the future, the way people looked at me, spoke to me.”