Page 155 of The Alternate Captain
But then Vicky showed up and applied some hard love and I realised I can’t keep hiding.
I understand how Vicky feels about Liam finally—or perhaps the other way around.
I need to tell Bettsy. And I need to tell him tonight.
It’s the last leg of the Challenge Cup and we’re on the cusp of bringing home the silverware.
The room is full of chatter as we ready up, and Bettsy sits in his cubby next to mine, winding tape around the blade of his stick.
“My sister’s here tonight,” he says.
And my ears perk up for a moment, wondering if he’s talking about Stacey, but then he drops her name into the air and my stomach somersaults into my chest.
Kelly.
“Bettsy—”
“Yeah, she just called me out of the blue and asked me to put a ticket aside for her, but—”
“Bettsy—”
“—I didn’t think—”
“Bettsy!”
He halts, mid-wrap of his blade, and looks at me, his eyebrows pinching together.
“What?”
I glance around the room again, and I figure if I’m going to tell him, then I may as well do it here with backup. Witnesses, maybe?
But then he glances down to my hands, where I’m clutching my notebook, and his face changes briefly, then he chuckles, and his smile drops.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing at the paper in my hands.
I look down at the page and my pulse thunders in my ears, and for a moment I think I’m about to pass out.
‘Remember, I belong to you, Johnny—love Kelly xx (or Jelly since I’m feeling silly)’
I stare at it, and I honestly don’t even know when she would have written it, but it sends both a red alert and a fucking flutter right to my heart.
“What is it?” he asks again, then he reaches for my notebook. “Jelly?”
“Bettsy—I need to talk with you.”
But he grabs it from me, pulling it clean from my fingers, and dashes towards the showers, notebook clutched in his hands as he avoids the walls of bodies.
Fuck.
Kelly’s writing, that’s for sure. And let’s face it—there’ve been plenty of opportunities for her to write inside it. The countless hours of studying together, or when she’s been looking for a stat for me when we’ve been watching playbacks. She’s the only person I’ve let touch it—except for now, but Bettsy has commandeered it of his own accord.
I follow him, finding him standing there in the entrance to the shower. I’m shaking and trying to remain stoic as I rack my brain for what to say next.
“Remember—I belong—”
“Don’t,” I say, trying to deter him from reading it aloud. And to be fair to him, he stops and glares at me.
“Jelly?”
