Chapter Thirty-Five
The ice bath stung. Georgia forced herself down anyway, breath coming in sharp pants between her teeth. She wasn’t shivering. She was bracing.
The last few days had been endless. She was tired. She’d pushed herself harder than she had to, than she ought to. Tam's phone call had pushed her over the edge and she needed a break. She'd left her team in the cafeteria and headed down to the baths.
The ice bath was recovery, that was all. Not continued self-punishment.
The door creaked.
Caroline swept her hand across the on the bench next to the tub, sweeping away imaginary specks of dirt, tiny splashes of water, and lowered herself carefully onto the bench next to the tub.
She was still in her usual armour, a tight pencil skirt and snug silk shirt.
She looked totally out of place among the chipped metro tiles and lines of communal baths.
“Little birdie told me I’d find you here. ”
Georgia stiffened. “Well, here I am. Captive audience.”
“Captive and clean, what a combination.” Caroline tapped her fingers on her knees. “I’ve got a potential new sponsor coming in the morning for a tour, a conversation. Breakline, maybe you’ve heard of them?”
Georgia glanced up. “The fashion lot?”
“That’s the one. A streetwear sportswear crossover thing. I don’t understand it myself, but I see they’re very successful with the youth. Owned by Korin.”
Georgia knew that name too. Everyone did.
Korin was a sprawling luxury conglomerate who owned champagne labels and couture houses and expensive suitcases and – apparently – a streetwear company with enough clout to make Riley Carter lose her mind over every limited shoe drop.
Riley had even camped out for twelve hours outside their East London store last summer, live streaming the whole thing, only to miss out on the drop when she got distracted flirting with followers in the queue.
“They’ve specifically asked to meet you when they come tomorrow.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Caroline gave her a level look. “Because you’re the captain. Because you’re visible. Which is why I need you to…”
“You need me to what?” Georgia crossed her arms over her chest, warding off the cold and Caroline’s next set of demands. “Be captive? Clean? Completely opinionless?”
“To behave,” Caroline said. She cocked her head to the side and leant forward, elbows on her knees.
“You’re so robotic, these days. Even this weekend – right after a rather thrilling match, where you were right in the thick of it, you gave the flattest, least inspirational interview I think I've ever seen.”
Georgia felt a twinge of guilt. She had been quiet. Withdrawn. Further from Fleur’s, or even Riley’s, levels of natural charm than she’d ever been. She’d done her job, and that was it. Hardly the marketable figurehead she’d been asked to be. Hardly the inspirational captain the team deserved.
Caroline shrugged. “Look, this season has been a lot of pressure on you, I know. You’re still young, your life is still –” She waved a hand in the air vaguely, as though acting out steam floating through the air.
Georgia didn’t answer. Ice sloshed as she shifted her weight. She was shivering, her arms shaking on the porcelain sides of the tub. She grit her teeth.
Caroline ran a hand through her dark hair, pushing it back from her face.
“Trust me, we’ve all been there. Gosh, my twenties were…
” She cut herself off with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“But you’re doing the classic captain retreat thing.
Shutting down, closing off, clamping up so tight you’ll need a crowbar to open up again. ”
Georgia gave a humourless laugh. “Do you practice these speeches in the mirror?”
Caroline shot her a reprimanding look from the corner of her eye.
“Georgia, I haven’t ever asked you to be opinionless.
Or angry. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, you might not be poised and graceful, like – ” She waved her hands downwards, indicating herself.
“And you might not have Fleur’s charming French je-ne-sais-quois, but you’ve never been a robot either.
And I think you’ll do yourself – and the team – a disservice if you become one. ”
“I’m not a robot.”
“You’re frozen,” Caroline said, and stood. “And not because of that frankly awful looking bath.”
“I’m not frozen,” Georgia called out after her, words cut off by the slam of the door.
She leaned her head back against the tiled wall. She breathed in, out.
The trouble was, she kinda was.
She heaved herself out of the bath, wrapping one of the large, Westcliffe-branded bath sheets around herself.
Her muscles were locked stiff, harder to control now she was out of the bath.
Her pulse throbbed in her fingers, feeling and coordination yet to return.
Her phone was hiding at the bottom of her bag, stuck underneath her lanyard and sunglasses.
Georgia waited until she could feel her hands again, then dug it out and scrolled back, swiping through the pictures she and Erin had sent each other.
A photo of Crumpet in a laundry basket. One of their coffees at the seaside café.
A blurry selfie from the sofa, Erin laughing, Georgia tucked under her arm.
She tapped the New Message box, the text cursor blinking at her.
Hey. It’s been a weird few weeks. I didn’t mean to -
Backspace.
I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I just -
Backspace.
Do you miss me like I miss you?
She stared at the blinking cursor. Her thumb hovered, then tapped slowly.
Because I think about you all the time.
She swallowed hard.
The words were huge. Too much. Georgia closed her eyes, listened to the ice water swirl down the drain. Her thumb moved.
Select all, delete.
She turned her phone off, tossing it back into her bag, and pushed her feet into the thin, white towlette slippers. The room was colder, more echoey. Her chest felt tight.
“Fucksake, Hotchkiss,” she muttered to herself. “Grow a pair.”
***
The floodlights clicked off hours ago, leaving the stadium bathed in the twilight blue of early evening. The bright plastic seats in the east stand were slowly losing their colour, turning greyscale as the sun dipped below the stadium roof.
Her teammates had all gone home, peeling off to their private lives, jackets and kit bags slung over their shoulders.
Georgia hung back. Now the quiet settled around her like a second skin.
The smell of churned up turf still lingered.
She sat on the lowest bench of the east stand, elbows on her knees, the edge of the plastic seat digging into the back of her thighs.
The season was almost done.
It had been the worst one yet. Not rugby wise – her over-the-top training, the way they’d trained, pulled together, practiced their set pieces over and over again, had all meant a slow climb up the league rankings. With a little luck, Westcliffe might even end the season in third place.
If they won one more match, she could sign off the season as a personal disaster but a professional triumph. Had someone offered her that trade-off in September, the humiliation of their last season still smarting, the confusion over Fleur’s captaincy still looming, she would have taken it.
And yet.
She reached into her pocket for her phone. No new messages. Not from Erin.
Georgia was tired of herself.
Her phone buzzed.
She ignored it.
It buzzed again.
The first was from Rachel:
Rach new number
That fitness session was intense, Hotch. If I have to suffer through one more training session run by the Chat-GPT version of my friend, I’m getting you exorcised.
She followed it up with a gif from the Exorcist.
Georgia sent one back, of Father Brennan from The Omen being speared by a lightning rod.
The next was from her dad. A bad, old man selfie of him and her mum at her last match, his thumb obscuring half the picture. They’d caught the top half of their flag, the letters of her surname just recognisable.
Dad
So proud of you, sweetheart.
She couldn’t deal with that right now. Instead, she swiped out of the message app and onto social media. She’d been tagged in too many Instagram posts and TikTok videos to keep track of. Fan selfies, rapid-edit highlight reels. She scrolled through the notifications aimlessly until she saw it.
The Redford Girls had posted a team picture in the changing room, glitter and hair bands everywhere. In the corner, under the team sheet for day, someone had scribbled ‘In Hotch we trust’ with three crooked hearts.
Georgia smiled.
Just a little.
She took a breath, swiped through to their other photos. Someone’s parent obviously owned a good camera and had caught action shots of key moments. Tackles, the ball flying out of a ruck, a dot down try.
There it was.
Tam and Erin post-match, clad in identical Redford tracksuits. Tam was grinning unreservedly at the camera as usual.
Erin was rolling her eyes, mouth open. In the middle of saying ‘no photos’, or ‘there’s still a lot of work to do’ or something similarly exaggeratedly serious. She didn’t look happy, dark circles camping under her eyes.
They’d both been tagged in the picture.
Georgia clicked on the tag, and the last photo Erin had posted stared back at her.
Crumpet, the ginger lazy tabby, curled like a cinnamon roll on the blanket they’d both sprawled out under one long evening. Just beyond the cat, out of focus, were both of their feet poking out from under the blanket.
That’s what undid her.
Her thumb hovered over the power button on the side of the phone.
She remembered that evening so clearly. The roar of Erin’s wood burner, Erin’s dry voice in her ear, mocking the stupid storyline of whatever American teenage drama they’d found on Netflix.
The way they’d abandoned it halfway through an episode, caught up in the pull of each other’s bodies.
In the morning, Erin had made Georgia a cup of tea, brought it to her in the one mug in Erin’s cupboard she’d particularly liked. They’d had eggs for breakfast, Crumpet loudly demanding her share. Erin said no and then pretended not to see Georgia slip her broken-off pieces anyway.
Georgia had thought: this is what I want.
Thought, felt, wished, but not said.
And she’d had it. Briefly.
Georgia exhaled slowly, feeling the pinch of the cold through her coat, seeping up through the concrete floor of the stadium.
One more match. One more awkward, stilted corporate sponsor to entertain. Then the season would be over, and she could stop being the captain for a few weeks. Turn her brain off, and hoped her heart got the message too.