Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mason
The away changing room smelt like sweat, mud, and blood.
It was half-time and we were down by two tries and a penalty, and the mood amongst us was sour and sullen. It didn’t help that we were all covered in mud with bits of grass sticking to our leg hair no matter how much we tried to towel down. A sudden burst of heavy rain overnight had left the pitch with a slick top layer that had churned up as soon as we’d started moving, and another shower within the first five minutes of the match had drenched us through and made everything worse.
We’d all managed to get dried and changed because nobody wanted to play with wet, muddy underwear sticking to their balls, but it didn’t change the fact that our opposition were running circles around us. We needed to get our act together and fast .
“All right,” Clive said, clapping his hands as he walked into the middle of the room. He looked around at us and nodded. “First test of the season. We knew it wasn’t all going to be a walk in the park like the ones we’ve played so far, so you need to get your heads out of your asses, stop sulking, and push.” I bit my lip and tried not to laugh. Clive could be a blunt bastard when he needed to be and clearly he was not here for our shit. “Backs—I need you to stop waiting for the front row to make you space and find it yourselves. You’re not fucking juniors. You’re professionals. Get the ball out wide, create space, make them fucking work for it. They’re all targeting the forwards and leaving a lot of space on the wing. Use it!”
There was a general chorus of grumbled agreement from a few people and Clive nodded before turning to where a few of the others were sitting with Jaden, West, and me. “Front row, I need you to stretch them. You’ve gotta get in there and challenge them. Keep it fucking clean, but you need to get in the mix more.” He looked around at all of us. “You can do it. Don’t let being down put you off and make you think it’s over. We’re gonna face some tough fuckers this season, and we’re not gonna let them push us around.”
“We can do this,” Matty said as he stood. There was mud and grass in his beard and smeared across his cheek. “Move your fucking asses and get it done. Put your backs into it and work. We haven’t flogged ourselves all summer to roll over when some bastards try and push us around.”
More sounds of agreement and nods met Matty’s words and there were a few scattered claps. Neither Clive nor Matty were the most charismatic of speakers, but we didn’t need eloquent speeches. We just needed to be told to get our asses going.
“You with me?” I asked West as we trooped out of the dressing room and back towards the pitch. It looked like it was raining again—a thick grey curtain shimmering in the air.
“Always,” West said, grinning at me. There was a slightly dark edge to it and it reminded me just how good a player West was. There was a reason he’d had an England call-up in the spring.
The pitch squelched slightly under our boots, the rain misting on our skin and immediately soaking through our clean kit. Within two minutes, we were as wet and muddy as we had been before half-time.
Our opponents had the ball and were trying to plough down the pitch, and there was an audible slap and crunch as bodies collided, the ground almost shaking underneath us. I watched as some big fucker on their front row tried to charge down the middle, trampling a couple of people underfoot as he steamrollered them.
I wasn’t having that.
As he tried to push through me, I launched myself at his waist and hung on, using the sheer weight of my body and strength of my will to send him sprawling underneath me. The pair of us hit the deck with the sort of force that would shake mountains, and out of the corner of my eye I watched the ball slip out of his fingers and skid across the wet turf. A satisfied feeling rumbled through my chest as I pulled myself to my feet, watching as Matty scooped it up and turned it over to Danny, who shot off across the slippery pitch like he was walking on fucking water.
The second half continued in a brutal fashion, but slowly we began to claw back points. Firstly from a try from Bailey, who clearly hadn’t been intending to score but had ended up as the man who could get the ball across the line. Then we had a penalty that Devon dispatched with clinical accuracy.
I was just climbing to my feet after another tackle when I heard the whistle and saw the referee motioning for a scrum.
The pitch was churned up under our feet but I dug my studs into the turf as I locked into place with West beside me and Ollie, one of the flankers, and Gabriel, the other second row forward, behind me, their arms locked onto my thighs to push me forward. The scrum was hot and there was an overwhelming smell of mud and something that reminded me of wet dog. My fingers gripped tightly onto West’s sodden shirt, feeling the heat of his body underneath my hand.
Grunting and shouting and the sound of sixteen bodies pushing and shoving against each other filled my ears, along with the squelch of mud. I felt one of the men pushing against me slip and the scrum wobbled, threatening collapse. I pushed harder, West’s hand on my back pulling me up and Gabriel at number five driving me forward.
There was another yell and somewhere the referee’s whistle sounded .
But all I could focus on was the fact that we were all going down, the scrum collapsing in the middle.
And in the dim light, I didn’t notice the knee ready to connect with my head until it was too late. There was a sickening crunch and pain shot through my eye socket, lancing through my skull as I hit the deck, cold mud splattering my skin. Something was running down my face, but I didn’t know if it was water, mud, or blood.
I could smell the latter, though, the metallic tang thick on my tongue.
And when I managed to find my knees, I spat out a glob of phlegm and blood onto the pitch.
“Shit. Mason, you okay?” West asked, putting his hand on the back of my neck.
“Fine,” I said as I spat out some more blood and tried to climb to my feet. For some reason, I felt a little wobbly and the world was spinning slightly, like I’d spun around too many times in a circle.
“Number three, you okay there?” The referee, a shorter man with greying hair and a concerned look in his eyes, appeared at my shoulder.
“Yeah, just took a knock,” I said, glad West’s hand was still on the back of my neck. It was grounding me. “Knee to the head.”
“I can see that,” the ref said, turning to the stand and waving. “You’re bleeding. You need to see a doctor now. Then they can decide if you’re allowed back onto the pitch.”
“But—”
“No arguing, please. That’s my decision and that’s final. You can’t play with blood running down your face and there’s a good chance you could have a concussion. Don’t think I can’t see number two here propping you up.”
I frowned and looked at West, my hand coming up to touch my temple. “I’m bleeding? I thought I’d just bitten my tongue.”
West looked at me and his expression made me realise I’d just proved the ref’s point. My fingers came away sticky with blood and I sighed. “Fine, I’m going.” I turned away and began to slope my way across the pitch to where the medical team were jogging towards me. They ushered me towards the edge of the pitch and then back into a small, stark medical room near the away changing room. I didn’t feel that bad, but I didn’t argue because it would be nice to get out of the rain for a few minutes.
Our doctor was a broad older woman named Natalie who’d played rugby a bit in her youth until she’d blown out her knees and then decided to retrain as a doctor. It was impossible to get anything past her because she’d heard all our excuses before and had made them herself.
She examined me carefully as I sat on a padded bench and dripped mud and water onto the floor, asking me a few questions as she cleaned me up and ran a bandage around my head. “Honest answers only,” she said as she ran through a list of symptoms. “Any dizziness? Spots in your vision?”
“Er, I felt a bit dizzy when I stood up,” I said. “No spots, though.”
She hummed. “Headache? ”
“My head hurts a bit. But someone did just knee me in the face, so I think that’s kind of to be expected.”
Natalie chuckled. “Don’t get smart with me. Are you feeling tired? Beyond the usual post-match tiredness. And nausea?”
I thought for a second. “I don’t know.” I was tired but I hadn’t done any kind of cool-down and the game had been a ruthless assault on my muscles. I was a little hungry but I didn’t really feel like eating. I wasn’t sure if that meant anything, but I told Natalie anyway because despite my pride I wasn’t reckless enough to put my health at risk. We all knew the dangers of concussion and how serious it could be. As much as I wanted to pretend it wasn’t something that could affect me, I wasn’t willing to explain to Ryan why I’d ignored medical advice.
I could just imagine his look of disapproval.
Thinking of Ryan made me glad he hadn’t been able to make it today. I wouldn’t have wanted him to worry, because no matter how strong he was, me going off covered in blood was going to worry him. At least when I got home, I’d be clean, dry, and bandaged up.
“Who’s at home with you?” Natalie asked. “Is it just Jonny?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head gently. “There’s my boyfriend too. Ryan.”
Natalie nodded. If she was surprised by my statement, she didn’t show it. I was surprised by my admission, but I wasn’t going to say anything either. “Is he here?”
“No, he was working today. ”
“How’re you getting home when we get back to Lincoln?”
I pursed my lips. I’d driven Jonny to the training ground this morning, and Jonny couldn’t drive my car—which was an oversight on my part because it would’ve been easy to stick him on the insurance, but I’d just never gotten around to it. “Not sure,” I said eventually. “Might have to ring Ryan to come and get me.”
“That would be good,” Natalie said. “And it would be good for him to know concussion protocol in case you feel worse later.”
“How’s everything going?” Clive asked, sticking his head around the door. Rugby coaches didn’t stand on the touchline during matches, so he was dry. I didn’t think the match had finished, but time was always a bit foggy once I was away from the pitch. I wondered what the score was.
“Possible concussion,” Natalie said as she peeled off her medical gloves. “Mason’s partner is going to pick him up when we get back and I’ll ask them to monitor overnight.”
It wasn’t lost on me that Natalie kept things gender neutral as she spoke, which I appreciated since nobody on the team outside of West knew about my recent sexual discovery.
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” Clive said, frowning. Well, there went my attempt to keep things between West, Natalie, and me.
“Er, boyfriend,” I said quietly. Clive wouldn’t care because he was happily married to another man, but it was only the second time I’d said it out loud and I was still getting used to the way the words sounded. It felt good, though, to say them out loud. Although I supposed I should talk to Ryan about the whole boyfriend thing since I hadn’t actually asked him yet. But given the way things had been between us lately, I didn’t think he’d object.
It felt like we were already there but had just skipped the important conversation in the middle.
Clive nodded, a smile playing across his lips. “Anyone else know?”
“West,” I said. “Maybe Jonny.” Because given that both West and Rory had figured it out on their own, I couldn’t totally rule out my housemate being aware and keeping it quiet out of politeness. If that was the case, I wondered if Devon knew too.
“Thanks for telling me,” Clive said. “You should call him soon. Give him a heads-up. We won’t be back until about six but it’s worth him knowing so he doesn’t worry.”
“You can go and get changed now,” Natalie said. “You can shower too. Just try not to get the bandage wet, but if it does I’ll put a clean one on you before we leave.”
I nodded and slid off the table I’d been perched on. “Cheers,” I said. As I went to leave, I turned to Clive and before I could speak, he grinned and opened his mouth.
“Twenty-three–twenty-seven. Matty got a try after you came off and Devon put a drop goal through just before the whistle.”
I grinned and nodded as I walked towards the changing room, a revived spring in my step. Now all I had to do was explain to Ryan the whole head injury thing.
And the boyfriend thing too.
Yeah, I probably needed to mention that.