Page 3 of Hit For Six
As soon as the match was over, Lola was going home and she was job hunting. She’d stay up all night putting her CV out there so the universe could help her escape this misery. She wasn’t going to be fussy about the results. Anything that almostmatched her salary would do. Even in her penny-pinching situation, there had to be somewhere safer; where predators couldn’t wiggle as much as a toe at the door, where she wasn’t reprimanded as if she was a young child, and where the concept of equality wasn’t just a wishful fairytale. She reached for her bag and found a bundle of unused tissues, swivelling to the right once more out of Julian and his filthy hands’ reach, before dabbing at her ruined dress.
But her hand was back in a fist before she knew it, wrapped around the sodden tissues. Julian’s soft but poisonous laughter snaked its way around her personal space until Lola felt so stifled she could barely breathe. Truly, she’d never been so angry.
Fixating on the match was the only way through this. At least she had Monty B-C’s bowling and fielding skills to look forward to, and there might be another dreamy close-up of him shaking his hair when he removed his helmet after a long and victorious set of overs. He’d been playing most of them well below average so far, according to Harry, who was disappointed that the Bath captain had not yet fired any explosive shots.
The new over started just as a cluster of fat white clouds covered the stadium, bringing with them a welcome break from all the squinting and an even better view of the main attraction. Monty struggled to connect his bat with the ball for the first few attempts. The York bowler, fancying his chances, went for ‘a bouncer’– this, again, according to the running commentary of Harry– nearly knocking Monty’s head off in the process. The crowd laughed, expecting him to finally lose his wicket. How rude! Lola felt strangely protective of the blue number six. Despite the fact he probably had a gorgeous girlfriend sitting in one of those posh boxes, where she would be knocking back the champagne, well-versed in her duties as a cricket WAG, pretending she had no idea that the cameras were rolling.
Now the bowler pounded in and Lola’s attention returned to the present as he rushed another short-pitched ball in the direction of Monty’s head… but SMASH! The ball disappeared over the boundary rope for six runs in a beautiful connection. The crowd was momentarily silenced, followed by the tinkle of polite applause.
‘Now that’s what I call asix!’
But Harry’s uncharacteristically high-pitched words hung in the air. In fact, everything decelerated to a strange slo-mo bullet scene that could have been plucked straight out ofThe Matrix.
Only this one involved a ball. A very hard ball whose trajectory was heading straight for Lola. Her life began to flash before her bugged out eyes. Reflexes triggered, she dropped her drink and tissues to the ground and stood with cupped hands to attempt to catch it. The alternative was a broken nose… if she got off lightly.
Apparently, Julian thought he was doing the same thing; his sticky body and stale fumes gatecrashing her actions as he tried to line up with the shot. But a) Lola couldn’t trust him not to let the ball hit her and b) even if he could be trusted when it came to this critical moment in time, no way was she letting him take the glory.
Lola wobbled this way and that like a skittle, except she was trying to align herself with a much smaller ball. Amazingly, as the white object came closer, muscle memory engaged. All those rounders matches at school had somehow paid off. Sure, the force of the cricket ball tipped her backwards as her hands made purchase with the leather and she gripped it tightly, but she miraculously managed to regain her balance. Despite Julian’s pushing and shoving, despite Julian’s hat flying out into the ether, and despite the fact there were thousands of pairs of eyes on her. She’d saved herself. Perhaps even the people sitting in the row behind!
Lola was about to let out a giant, shaky sigh of relief, feeling quite the heroine of the hour, when she felt a disturbing tug at her side. As the crowd thundered in awe at her impressive work and she took in the unexpected sight of herself on the big screen, for some strange reason she also felt like a table whose cloth was about to be ripped from beneath its cups and bowls.
Except she wasn’t wearing a bra or anything else of cylindrical proportions under her dress. Which meant her breasts were currently on view to not only the stadium and its audience, but those watching at home as well.
Instinctively, Lola dropped the ball to her feet where her dress was sitting in an inelegant pool, having slid down the length of her body. Then she did the only thing she could; covering her pert flesh with her long hair. This was like one of those out of body experiences she’d read about. Or a very unfunny Hallmark romcom, where she was watching the female MC squirm with discomfort as she willed the ground to swallow her whole.
The noise coming from the crowd now was a confused mix of laughter, whoops and expletives. All of which meant that Lola Smith’s life as she knew it was over. As she shimmied herself to the ground to somehow wriggle her way back into her clothes, Lola caught the bewildered gaze of Monty B-C, before the broadcast was cut and the players were directed to the sidelines for a much-needed break. She would never forget those haunted blue eyes as long as she lived.
‘I did ask nicely to play with you,’ Julian whispered, shirking off his culpability in cricket’s biggest shit show. ‘That’s what you get for looking like a Barbie doll. Never mind, the dress needed washing anyway.’
CHAPTER TWO
Monty
Monty had waitedfor years to lead his team to victory. Twenty20 cricket was his life and this cup final meanteverything. The past couple of seasons had proved tough but there was something magical about this team and their dynamics; the way they’d pulled together through thick and thin, never losing sight of the end result. The discipline and commitment had been on another level, with those who were on part-time contracts making the ultimate sacrifices by using their precious annual leave for training camps and extra practice sessions.
Everyone except for Tim. But Tim was Tim. And Tim’s days would be numbered if he carried on being a jerk.
Sure, Monty enjoyed elements of his day job, but he was a jammy so-and-so whose bank accounts didn’t need the top up. His passion in life was T20. It was an action-packed format of cricket that grounded him in ways that he couldn’t express. He yearned for the day he could play it full-time. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. He didn’t want to think about what his life would look like without bat, ball and wicket.
Thanking his lucky stars that the coin toss had gone in Bath’s favour, Monty watched on from the bench as the Beasts went up first to bat; Seth and Sanjay taking their places at either end of the wicket. The critics could call the result an unfair advantage and shove it where the sun didn’t shine; Monty couldn’t help it if the stats showed that 60% of T20 teams who batted first ended up winning the match. All sports involved chance. Now, if things continued to go their way, Monty might even find himselfgetting scouted to play internationally, fulfilling his childhood dream.
They’d all been under the microscope this season but today they’d reached the crescendo, when the chosen few would be selected, lives forever changed. Especially given the sport’s inclusion at the next Olympics! T20 was finally getting its moment in the sun. All of which would give Monty the opportunity to prove his worth to his purist father. Frederick Beauchamp-Carmichael was a snobby sod, who claimed that fast-paced cricket was ‘killing the traditional game like a Californian Chardonnay trying to compete with a vintage St. Emilion’. Good job his son loved him to bits most of the time.
But Monty couldn’t have predicted the first half of the match if he’d tried. Sure, he was relieved that he hadn’t injured the goddess. He had to hand it to her, she’d made an awesome catch off his equally awesome six, likely preventing serious injury to somebody in the crowd or far worse. Some stadiums installed stop netting and he’d be making a case with the management that Bath followed suit. T20 was played at lightning speed and today’s incident only highlighted the need for stricter safety measures.
Monty’s relief soon turned to irritation, though. How dare she make a mockery of such an important moment in his sporting career? Admittedly, she possessed a glorious pair of tits. His dick still twitched thinking about them. But just because streaking across the pitch in the traditional sense was a criminal offence, it didn’t mean she had to take efficiency to the extreme by finding another way around it.
Thankfully, the jumbotron had cut to the commentators who were desperately trying to change the subject in that typically English way, by talking about the inclement weather forecast for the upcoming West Indies fixtures.
Eventually, security gave the nod to the umpires and the game restarted, Monty picking up from where he’d left off, somehow managing to stay in for five overs, despite the fact that he couldn’t get the beautiful woman– and all right, her beautiful body– out of his head. Talk about a white-knuckle ride of a match. It should have been a lolly after that, but Bath had needed eight runs in the final over, putting Monty under enormous pressure when it was his turn to bowl. The first ball was a Yorker, hitting the batsman’s foot so he had no chance of a stroke. The second delivery was an off-cutter and top edged to square leg. Thank god for Seth who took the catch perfectly. The crowd went wild! Three balls later and a run-out concluded the match. Monty’s blues burst onto the pitch in party mode, turning the tables on York at the very last minute.
He should have been ecstatic with his lot when the hat-trick was in the bag: trophy, inescapable acknowledgement from Pops, and a potential England contract. But the woman in the crowd had infiltrated his thoughts to such an extent that Monty had found himself feeling curiously defensive over the banter she’d generated from his teammates, and he was unable to join in with the pervy handcuffing remarks when they’d debated her likely fate.
He couldn’t seem to stop the flashbacks of her jet-black hair, those deep green eyes, and that smattering of freckles that bridged her nose when he’d turned to take in the footage on the video display. What he’d have given to kiss those crazily kissable lips. Even from afar he’d wanted to taste her. She’d made a hasty exit, though. He guessed she really would be facing police questioning right now. Nobody could make allowances for her luscious looks, not even the stadium’s security guards.
The last thing he wanted to do was return to his apartment to scroll through social media all night so he could screenshot the woman’s face. And yet he knew that’s exactly what wouldhappen. Like a recklessly infatuated fairytale prince (minus the glass slipper), Monty wouldn’t be able to rest until he found a lead for the stunning stranger. Which wasn’t to say that he thought she was some pauper who needed rescuing, or that he could condone her behaviour. So what was it to say, then?
For the first time in his life, Monty Beauchamp-Carmichael– the dude with all the answers, the successful businessman, the heir to a vast estate, (and now he could add fêted T20 cricketer to the list)– was well and truly stumped.
