Page 4 of A Game of Ruck
In Consequence, North Carolina.
Because apparently, when your best friend lands a big-deal marketing job for a new professional rugby team, you’re contractually obligated to fly across the country and sit in a room full of screaming women ready to throw down their rent money for a date with a guy who thinks deodorant is optional and ball-handling is a lifestyle.
All this for Daniela.
Who I met in CCD class—like Sunday school for Catholics—before we made our first holy communion back at St.Christopher’s Church in Chester, New Jersey.
Who I love and remain close to, even though she moved to NC later that same year.
Who I would absolutely take a bullet for.
But,dear God, what am I doing here?
I glance down at my auction paddle—number 69.
Because of course it is.
As if I needed another reminder that the universe works in mysterious ways and with the humor of a prepubescent boy.
No.No.
This is fine.
I’m fine.
I am a confident, capable, size-18 woman with a net worth that includes quite a few zeroes and a private jet.
I do not need to have a panic attack because a room full of fitness influencers and human Barbies are looking at me like I wandered into the wrong party.
Spoiler alert: I did.
I’m not the kind of woman athletes tend to go for.
I know this.
I accepted it a long time ago.
I’m short.
I’m curvy in that “needs custom tailoring” kind of way.
And while I could buy a runway model ten times over, money has never made me thin—or interesting to guys like this.
Plus, I don’t know sports.And I mean that to the depths of my marrow.
No matter how I try, I simply don’t understand them.
Especially not rugby.
Like what even is it?
Football with fewer rules and more blood?
I should’ve Googled it.
Or watched a YouTube tutorial.
Or something.
