Page 69 of The Game

I cocked my head to the side, blinking into the late afternoon sun. "Sure, do you know what, little guy, I think we will." He pumped his fist into the air. "You know I'm leaving the team, though? Yes, Sammy?" I leant down so we were nose to nose and our eyes watched one another's without blinking. "I mean you will still be able to watch games and stuff, but it will be white cricket." We'd always called test cricket white cricket since he was a baby. From the age of about two, he knew that if the players were wearing white, then there was going to be no winner that day, and not even the next.

"I can't believe you are going to play the boring cricket again." His bottom lip dropped.

"Hey, it's not boring." I laughed a little. Sometimes it could be, especially if the game stopped for play and the sandwiches ran out.

"But, Bailey won't be there."

I shook my head. "No, he won't."

"And Jase won't."

"No, he won't either."

"Will he still come at the weekend do you think?"

I scrunched my face. I didn't want to lie, but then I didn't want to upset the little guy either. "You know, I've heard he's going to be playing cricket in white too, so I think he's going to be busy leading a new team."

Sammy's eyes sparked with interest, "Can we go watch?"

Chewing my bottom lip I tried to think of an answer, but in the end, I settled on that classic adult-like "We'll see."

I grabbed the tennis ball and lobbed it over the lawn. "What’re you standing still for, little guy?" He screeched and ran for the ball just as Jasper came tearing out realising he was about to miss a round of his favourite game, closely followed by my dad who was desperate to escape the housecleaning war Maria and Mum were embroiled in.

When we went back in it was dark. I was covered in grass stains, but I was laughing. My stomach ached where I'd laughed so much.

I knew I could face the following day and the goodbye I had to say to the team because I had all the things I needed right there around me.

The stands were insane. The stadium rising and falling as if it were a living organism. Waller and I were shouting at each other despite the fact we were stood only a few inches apart. Every so often one of us would accidentally spit and need to wipe each other down. It was clammy; the heat that had been boiling for weeks with no relief, was coiling itself into dark clouds above the stadium floodlights. The rain was the last thing we needed. Winning was paramount, and rain would stop play, and then who knew what would happen.

In the changing room, the team held hands. Co-incidental or not, the captain’s hand landed on mine and squeezed my fingers hard. I couldn’t make myself look up. I'd had days to think about Waller's little nugget of information he’d let slip. Part of me was pleased, pleased that the Lancashire Lion was going to get to do what he truly loved, at least one last time. The other half of me was a little sad that the man who had confessed to being my friend only a few short weeks ago, hadn't told me himself.

It was the game.

It meant more to him than anything.

Which reminded me...As we filtered back out into the stadium to rapturous applause, I squeezed Waller's arm and went in search of the things that meant more to me than anything else. And there they were in the stands. The little guy's face was painted a vibrant pink, and even Dad had gone so far as to have the black cat emblem stencilled onto his cheek. Colin and Blythe waved to me, and Scarlett gave me a thumbs up and a wink, pointing at the team as her Mum and Dad looked between us trying to work out what we were talking about.

There they were. My absolute bloody everything.

I turned back to the team and saw the image on the giant screens change as millions of pixels transformed into the face of my brother. Anthony stared at me, his wide, white smile grinning down at me telling me that it was okay he'd been gone a year. I glanced up at Sammy and saw his mouth drop open, and Mum's hands dashed to her face, covering her mouth.

My knees shook as I walked back to the team as the compere told the crowd we would be honouring a minutes silence on the anniversary of Anthony Rivers’ death. Waller laid his arm around me, "You okay, kid?" I nodded. I wasn't okay, though. It had taken me a whole year to get to this point in my life, a point where I thought I might know what I wanted, but that whole year my cricket-mad brother hadn't been with me.

Fingers slid into mine. I didn't need to look to know that Jonathan Willis held my hand for the whole minute, before applying a gentle squeeze and running onto the pitch when the time was up.

We lost the toss, and they chose to bat first. It's not the way I would have wanted it to go. Better to be giving them a number to chase than vice-versa.

Jonathan was first up to bowl, and it was okay. I'd agreed the choice. His fitness was no different than it had been a few seasons before his injury began to develop. It was the sheer dedication to his game that had dragged him back from the point of needing to take early retirement.

But then he started to bowl pies. They weren't wide. They weren't off target; they just weren't anything. Their batsman smashed numerous fours and one six off the balls.

He was furious when he walked back in from his over.

"I'm taking him to the tunnel to look at his shoulder." I bashed Waller on the arm to make sure he heard me, and he gave me an absent nod as his eyes focused on Anderson stepping up and wiping the ball along his trousers.

"Hey," I called for him, but he ignored me. "Jase." I tried again, but he kept his shoulders turned and set. "Jonathan," I shouted making some fans lean over the railing to get a closer look. "I need to see your shoulder."

His face was thunder. "I thought you weren't a physio?" He threw his words at me and the jitter in his hands told me he was coiled and ready to explode. Part of me wanted to root to the spot, fight him, fight for the us that we could have been— for the man I was sure he still was, the man who played in my garden and made me coffee. But that man wasn’t glaring at me like a wounded animal, and we weren’t anything.