Page 19 of The Game

Perching on the bar stool, I straightened my knees and glanced at them. I'm almost entirely sure they were glaring back at me. I frowned and rubbed at the freckles that sprinkled along the wrinkly skin. Why was knee and elbow skin so wrinkly? It was like toughened scrotum skin. There was no need for such hideous skin to be on show to the public, yet there it was, an obvious part of the human body.

My mind went to Jase Willis’ knees.

I wonder if they are like his scrotum?

What the hell?! That was a disgusting thought if ever I had one.

Snatching my phone off the kitchen counter, I texted Maria and asked if she could have the little guy for an hour the following day—I needed to run. It was as if this pent-up frustration was coiling in my muscles. I knew I'd been working out with the team, but it wasn't the same as pushing myself. Everyone knew I was injured and that's why I'd stopped playing international and county. What I wanted to do was lose myself down long, winding country lanes as I paced to the sound of birdsong and insects buzzing in the hedgerows.

It was as I put the kettle on for my coffee that I heard voices in the front garden. The house was secluded, and I'd never panicked about people walking off the country lane that joined onto the driveway, but my heart leapt into my throat. I smacked the kettle down onto its stand and sped for the door.

My feet crunched along the gravel pathway as I turned the corner to where I knew I'd left Sammy in the nets. My brain was spinning with alarming thoughts. Was someone trying to abduct him? Worse, had his other grandparents decided to spring a visit and would find him alone in an over large garden, unsupervised by me as I listened to the radio and made coffee.

As I closed into the nets, my feet faltered, and my sprinting slowed to a jog. What the fuck?

Inside the net alongside Sammy's dark hair was a head of golden blonde, which glimmered like the mane of a lion.

Because it was a lion, of the Lancastrian variety.

My chest did this odd thing where it contracted and then didn't quite move again properly with my next breath, causing an iron band of constriction to wrap around my rib cage. I clutched at the tightness hoping to relieve it, but all I did was grab my right tit before realising that wasn't exactly appropriate behaviour in front of my nephew or the Lion.

The team captain was swinging a bat loosely in his grip, and the little guy was grinning as he wound up a shot. Of course, the shot went wide, like a big fat pie, but the Lion leant to the right and hooked it straight back at him so Sammy could catch it and give a squeal that he'd caught his hero out.

I shook my head. Catching him out was never a good idea.

"Good catch," I heard that voice say.

Wiping my hands down my casual shorts, I stepped forward.

"Aunty Lyssi, look who's here." Sammy bound right up toward me and pointed to Jase Willis like I couldn't see the six foot something of hulking broodiness crossing his arms across his chest, his face guarded in shadows.

"Why don't you go and get a coke, little guy," I told him.

I didn’t even have to look to know his face was gawping. "But, I'm not allowed coke," he said.

"Mm." I kept my eyes focused on the Lion as one would watch the approach of a predator. In the weeks that we'd been forced to work alongside one another I'd never seen him in anything outside of tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, so it was almost blindingly distracting to see him in faded jeans, canvas trainers and a plain navy T-shirt. His golden tanned arms bulged as he swung the bat awkwardly at my approach and his eyes lighted with a shine that made me think he was considering hitting me with the wooden weapon.

"What are you doing here?"

There was no point with pleasantries. Only the previous night I'd slapped my hands against his naked chest in a fit of rage. I didn't think there were many ways for me to come back from that.

Placing the bat on the floor, he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I came to give your nephew some gifts." He motioned his head in the direction of his car.

"Why?” I fired my answer like the shot of a gun, and he sighed, grumbling something under his breath about nothing being easy.

"Because, as you so eloquently put it last night, I was a twatface." His lips twitched just a little, the closest he'd ever got to a smile around me. "You know, I was cross with myself, my bowling was dire." His eyes held mine like a tractor beam. "You know it, and I know it. I didn't mean to be rude."

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my linen shorts. "But you were. There are people with feelings, I'm not sure you get that." I sighed and released a hand from where it was clenching the lining of my pocket and scrubbed it through my hair. "I mean, for God's sake, he's six."

The Lion's face dropped. "I know."

He still hadn't said sorry, and I wondered if the word was even in his vocabulary.

We were distracted from saying anything more by Sammy running back out with two glasses of coke. "Here, Mr Willis, I brought you a drink."

Honest to God my heart could have burst right there and then.

"That's very kind—Sammy, isn't it?" I wondered how he'd found out the little guy's name but the Lion's eyes didn't meet mine.