Page 21 of The Game

Everyone stared wide-eyed at him, even Waller scratched his head.

Me? Well, I dropped my notebook as I glanced up at him in surprise. He still didn't look at me though, but just for one split second, I wondered if maybe he wasn't quite as dreadful as I had surmised.

Then he ruined it. "Of course, if Rivers asks us to do ballet, we form a mutiny."

A snigger morphed from the group, and I glanced up at him from under my lashes only to be dumbfounded when I caught a smile on his lips. And it was pointed directly at me.

Training changed from that point. Not so much that the Lion talked to me directly or even looked my way, but he did deem we should be in the same room together. Which in my mind was progress. It was progress, right?

It changed everything. The team was harmonious, more cohesive in training, and our practice in the run up to the next game was on a different level than before. The weather climbed up the temperature gauge, every day another degree would inch its way until we were sweltering and sweating on a daily basis. All the guys were enjoying the sunshine, out on the training field with their tops off and their shorts pulled low, factor thirty slathered onto their skin.

It was hard to get my eyes to behave when surrounded by that amount of naked male flesh, I mean come on, I'm only human. But my eyes were drawn to one bronzed torso repeatedly because it was sheer perfection—annoyingly so. Some days I wished I could take a Sharpie to it and just deface it a little.

I still hadn't spoken to anyone about his injury. And by anyone, what I mean is nobody at all. It felt like a dirty little secret simmering inside my skull, building a pressure I couldn't stop focusing on as it rattled around my brain. I was sure the top of my head was going to shoot off at any moment and steam was going to come pouring out like on an old steam train.

On Wednesday, when Waller released the boys early for some downtime and they all headed for the bar, I watched the straight-lined back of the Lion walk in the opposite direction waving off the calls from his team mates. I knew where he was going. And like a stalker I followed those sexy, curved and now tanned back muscles all the way down to the batting room.

And there I watched as he wound up shot after shot but never once released the ball.

"I know you're there," he said eventually, allowing the ball to fall from his fingers and wiping his hands down his pink training T-shirt. I stepped into the room and my knees gave a little quake like the ground had shifted, or I'd stepped over an invisible ley line. "Why?" he snapped, his fierce blue eyes shimmering like an icy lake.

"You know why." It would have sounded better if my voice hadn't wavered and shook like a little girl’s.

He raised a fair eyebrow, and I remembered again how much I hated him for being such an arrogant, womanising, sexist pig. "Do I?"

Did he have to drawl his words in that way? I didn't think it was strictly necessary. My stomach pinched with a peculiar combination of nerves and...what was that? Disgust?

"Your right shoulder, you've got an injury." There I'd said it at last. "And it's going to cost me my job if you bowl like that again."

"Nope." He shook his head and I stared at him in disbelief.

Was he going to say 'Nope' like we were in a school yard? Was he for real?

"Really?" My face creased with puzzlement. "Why don't you get help. I don't know, get some treatment. It can't be that bad."

I took a step forward and the room shrunk as his tall, dominant frame loomed before me, filling my vision. "For what?"

"You can't bowl," I shook my head at him. "Not the way you used to."

His lip ticked at the corner as if he was battling a facial spasm. "Been watching my form closely, Rivers? I feel honoured."

Ooh. As annoying as his jibe was, when he said my name, it made that uncomfortable pinch tug in my stomach.

"Don't Rivers me." I took a raging step towards him, closing the gap, but he didn't back away, he just watched me with those icy blues. "Of course I know how you play; you were the England captain for god's sake." I gasped. "Until you got injured and benched." I clutched my hand over my mouth and whispered the words under my closed fingers. "There was never a row was there? You were injured, but you just didn't want anyone to know."

He grabbed at my arm, twisting it towards him. "Careless talk can end you up in trouble, Rivers."

I pulled my wrist away, and it smarted from his tight grip. "Have I told you I think you’re a dick."

Was it my imagination or did that tick assault his lips again, tugging one corner the merest hitch higher than the other? Good god, was that a smile? "Well I think you have now," he said. He turned his back on me and swept up the ball, concentrating on the practice stumps ahead. In one clean sweep, he propelled the ball towards the sticks, knocking them flying. "Am I still injured?" He turned his head slightly, and the icy depths flashed over his shoulder.

"I hope that goddamn hurt, you freaking moron." And with my words I barrelled through the door, swinging it back with the loudest bang that I could muster.

* * *

"In some ways, I wish we'd never spoken." I was lying on the bed, my yoga gear probably sweatier than I would have liked, clutching my phone to my ear while Betsy put the world to rights.

"How did that guy get such a big ego, he's not even good-looking." Betsy is always on my side, even when she's telling lies to make me feel better.