Page 23 of The Game

When it became embarrassingly, awkwardly, clear that he wasn't going to do anything or say anything apart from continue to stare at me, I began to back away. "Okay, see ya then." I had laden my tone with as much sarcastic bite as I could summon.

When the door was open, my palm sweating against the metal handle, I heard him speak.

"Thank you."

My eyes glanced up and met his. Flabbergasted, I backed away allowing the door to swing shut between us.

When I got home, the little guy was running on the lawn, Jasper barking in his wake. His body was decked in the pink strip with the signature on the back. "Hey, I thought you were saving that so you could sell it one day and make millions?" I called, when I got out of the car.

Sammy ran for me and flung himself into my chest. There was seriously no better way to come home.

"How was school?" I asked as we walked towards the house.

He shrugged.

Wheeling him around, I put my hands on his shoulders, and stooped to his level, my nose brushing his. He smelt of all things good: sunshine, grass and pencil shavings. "Coach said that I wasn't fast enough to play professional cricket."

My mouth flapped like a fish. "He said what?"

The little guy's dark brows knotted together. "He said I wasn't fast enough and that I would only ever play local cricket."

"You are bloody six." I exploded. Rattling my keys, I shook them in Sammy's face. "I'm going to the school," I announced.

His eyes widened, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip. "But there won't be anyone there. It's bedtime."

"I don't care I'm going anyway." I sounded more of a six-year-old than he did but I didn't care. "Are you coming?"

We jumped in the car and waved at Maria as she stuck her head out of the kitchen door, probably wondering what the hell was going on.

He was right. There was no one there.

My fury didn't lessen on the drive back home but once we drove back up the driveway the gravel crunching under the wheels of the car, I breathed in deeply through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. "Listen," I said, turning to Sammy once I'd cut the engine. "No one can tell you what you can or can't do. No one can tell you how fast you will be. Only you can decide that."

His bottom lip wobbled, and I wanted to take a cricket bat to that coach's head. "How do you know?"

"Because once, a long time ago, someone told me that girls couldn't play cricket."

Sammy's eyes widened until they looked like they were going to pop. "What did you do?"

"I caught him out." The look on Sammy's face filled me with such immense pride that I pulled him into my arms and gave him a tight squeeze before shifting him away so I could make eye contact. "You see, Sammy. Cricket is in our blood. It was in your grandad's blood, it's...was in your dad's blood. It's just who we are."

He nodded. "I know."

We both stared out of the windscreen for a moment, and I thought about getting out so poor Maria could go home, her car was still on the drive. "So, what did you do when the coach said that to you?" I asked eventually.

He grinned at me. "I ran faster."

I snorted and ruffled his hair. "I bet you did. Come on, I'm starving. Let's go and see if Maria has been kind enough to cook for us."

"She has. She said you weren't to be trusted on her clean cooker."

I couldn't even deny she was wrong. Want me to teach you about sit ups, yoga, Pilates, core muscle strengthening then I'm your girl. Ask me to cook and you are just asking for a disaster.

I locked all thoughts of the next day's match from my mind, especially all thoughts of captains that couldn't bowl and unexpected thank you's.

"If you don't put a cap on that hair you're going to blind someone or poke their eye out." I grinned at Fredericks and his mussed red hair which had more height than a beehive.

It was hard to hear ourselves think, let alone talk, the chanting from the stands was so intense.