Page 7 of Worth the Try
She snorts a laugh. “Oh, you sweet, innocent woman. You clearly haven’t met a rugby player.” She swipes her card another time, leading us into a lush VIP lounge that stretches almost the entire length of the building and overlooks the field below. Wait: pitch. Not field. The term ispitch. I’ve really got to get better at learning the right words. After pulling out my phone, I make a note in my to-do app.Learn rugby.There. Done.
“Miss Kari!” a high-pitched voice exclaims from the row of tables set up against the windows.
I look up in time to see a little girl barreling toward us with a smile nearly as big as her face. She practically tackles Kari, who takes two steps back and pretends she’s almost been knocked down.
“Nowthat’sa hit your dad would be proud of!” Kari says with a laugh. Then she kneels for a hug before standing back up and introducing us. “Rosalie, this is my friend, Elodie. Elle, this is Rosalie.”
“Hi! Our names rhyme. I just turned five. Everyone asks, so I’m telling you so you don’t have to.”
I grin. “Hi, Rosalie. Our namesdorhyme, like a melody.”
Her face lights up even more, her braided ponytails bouncing with the movement. “You’re fun. Wanna color?”
Okay, honestly? Yes. Seems better than asking a bunch of enormous strangers for help. I beam. “That sounds amazing. Lead the way.”
I follow Rosalie back to her table. The biggest box of Crayola crayons that I’ve ever seen sits open, surrounded by stacks of coloring books. Girlfriend has nailed this coloring thing. “Wow. So many choices!”
She shrugs. “I had to promise my daddy that I’d stay put. Figured I could use the opportunity to get more coloring books.”
I snort out a laugh. “Smart girl.” Big words, too, but I’m not pointing that out.
Kari looks out onto the pitch while Rosalie and I settle in at the table. I follow her gaze, and almost immediately have to fight to keep breathing.
Holy fluffing airballs.
There are easily two-dozen men below us, all in close-fitting shorts and shirts, skin of all shades glistening with sweat in the mid-morning heat. Admittedly, their legs are, erm, really nice to look at. Thick as tree trunks with muscles so defined I can see them from up here. As I watch, a bunch of them seem to get in two lines where they’re facing each other and crouching down. It’s almost like they’re preparing to tackle. Then, on a command I can’t hear, they surge against each other, each row tightly bound up and trying to push the other row back.
“That’s a scrum,” Rosalie explains, noticing my focus. “They practice that all the time. Daddy says it’s so they can get stronger. They have to scrum a lot in games.”
“Where’s the ball?” I look around, but don’t see it.
“On the pitch between them. The hooker’s gotta get it with his foot and kick it out. Then another player takes it and runs, and all the guys in the scrum explode across the pitch and start playing.” She pauses. “Once the ball comes out of there, the whole game moves really fast. You’ve gotta focus or you won’t keep up.”
I grin at her. “You know, that’s the first time anyone’s made sense describing rugby to me. You’re officially my new rugby teacher.”
A cute blush stains her cheeks as she dips her chin.
“Are you up here by yourself?” Kari asks.
Rosalie plucks a crayon out of the box and studies the half-finished page in front of her. It’s a scene from Beauty and the Beast. “Yep. I was supposed to go next door, but Miss Sharon is helping another friend today. And Daddy says it’s not a good idea for me to be down on the pitch when they’re practicing. Lotsof swear words.” She sighs dramatically. “As if I don’t know them already.”
I laugh again, but I don’t miss the concern that passes over Kari’s face. Something tells me she’s not a fan of Rosalie being left alone up here, and I tend to agree. But I don’t know this little girl or her circumstances, and am not about to judge.
Kari looks at her watch. “They should be finished any time now.”
I nod absently, opening up a coloring book, grabbing a green crayon, and going to town on a certain Scottish princess’s dress. I’ve always liked her best. Probably because she has hair problems like me.
A while later, the boisterous sound of laughter drifts into my consciousness, and I blink back into reality. I’d lost all sense of time while coloring, but now, some of the men are coming into the lounge. Kari looks over at me. “Ready to meet some rugby players?”
Chapter 4
Elodie
THE FIRST MAN to enter the room isn’t even human. He can’t be. He’s tall, easily over six feet, and I’m not a tiny woman by any stretch of the imagination. His muscles have muscles, straining the teal and black Atlanta Granite T-shirt he wears. His shorts are longer than the ones they wore on the pitch, but not by much. His wavy brown hair is wet from the shower, and I’m hit with a fantasy of himinthat shower, water sluicing down his face and neck, gathering in the small divots of his shoulders before traveling south.
I swallow and shake myself out of it, but there is nothing in this world that can keep me from staring. He sports a closely trimmed beard that does little to cover a square jaw. If anyone’s looking for a new superhero, I found him. There are no words to do him justice. He’s both beautiful and rugged, carrying himself with the precision and confidence of someone who’s used to commanding a room. The floor shakes as he leads a handful of men into the room, his dark eyes instantly catching on mine and flaring.
But it’s not a flare of anything other than pure suspicion.
