Page 9 of Rookie Recovery

“On a Sunday!” Mum sounded outraged. Like she’d never spent a Sunday stood in the rain while any of my four brothers played rugby in fields that were more peat bog than turf.

“What’re you cooking?” I said, pulling on my socks, and knowing with one hundred percent certainty I wouldn’t want to hear the answer.

“Roast pork belly,” was Mum’s reply. She didn’t bother to move the phone away from her mouth as she then yelled, “Theo! Are you going to lay this bloody table or am I gonna have to do everything myself?”

“With applesauce, and Yorkshires?” I asked, as though she hadn’t just caused a dull ringing in my left ear.

“Of course, Sausage.”

I whimpered.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “Oh, Farrell, get away from there. Go on, shoo.”

Farrell was Mum’s cat. Mild-ish mannered, and oftentimes quite friendly, at least, for a cat. Unless you were a cactus or a glass of half-drunk water. In which case you were dead meat. He would sneak up beside you, wait until everybody had trained their full attention on you, and before people could gather up their wits enough to come to your rescue, he’d unleash the fury of his hind leg. To be fair, it made Sunday dinners pretty exciting.

“Nothing,” I lied. “Just … just a bit hungover.”

“Nothing a chip butty won’t sort out.”

“You can’t … No, they don’t have chip butties here, Mom.”

“Mom!” she yelled, if possible more outraged by this than the Sunday scheduled training. “Back two weeks and already calling me Mom.”

I tried to squeeze out my apology, but Mum cut me off. “Have to go now, Sausage. Dinner’s ready. Call tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, even though we both knew I wouldn’t. She hadn’t even asked me if I was seeing anyone.

No one, as it turned out.

I hung up the phone, sat on the end of the bed in my boxers and socks, and tried to will Archie back into his box. It was Bowie’s turn to take the reins.

If only Bowie could remember anything about last night that didn’t involve bodily fluids.

What kind of shitshow would be waiting for me at practice?

What mortifying thing had I said or done in front of my teammates? To my teammates? Did I insult anyone? Snog anyone?

No, I don’t think I did the latter. In fact, I was sure I hadn’t. It was just the team there. Just five or six guys. One married with kids, two I suspected were together, one who was clearly obsessed with my former teammate, Gus Lövgren, and another … the goalie? I wasn’t sure. I hadn't got off with any of them, though. Probably.

I climbed to my feet.

There had been other people there. I was sure of it. But their faces were hazy. They knew the guys, but they weren’t with us. Them.

I think one of them was a woman … and …

No. I must have imagined it.

Because the other guy was … not real. Not possible.

A mountain of pure American hotness. All smouldering sexy sex eyes, and precise dentistry, and sleek, chestnut brown hair, and stylish five o'clock shadow, and that cologne he was wearing. That cologne.

Ugh! I bit my knuckles.

It was the kind of scent I wanted rubbed all over my sheets. The kind I wanted to smell days after I’d taken him home, just so I’d be triggered back to that moment every time I sniffed it.

Only I couldn’t remember a damn thing.

Couldn’t even remember if he was real, or a figment of my deepest desires.

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