Page 33 of The Game

I watched his headlights swoop down the driveway and then returned to the house, calling Jasper as I went.

I was going to have to ring Betsy. There was nothing else for it.

Occasionally, just occasionally, I wished I drank.

On Monday for the first time since I'd started this epic journey into T20 cricket, I entered the building feeling like I wasn't heading to an executioner's wooden block. The team had won, they'd let their hair down, the Lion had talked to me and more than that he'd been at my house, made oven chips and played catch with my nephew and dog. It was looking like things were stepping up.

So the silence of the changing room as I banged my way in, reversing through the door to account for my manuals and folders, hit me like a brick wall.

Stony faces stared up at me from the bench, and I stopped, my hands greasing with sweat and slipping against one lever arch file. "What's going on?" I looked around for Waller, but he wasn't to be seen. Honestly, the first thought I had was that a looming heart attack had taken place, but surely someone would have called over the weekend if that was the case.

Behind me, the door swung open, and the Lion strode through, his movement powerful and full of coiled intensity. Nothing like the man that had chased over my lawn only two nights before. His eyes were a burning black, and the icy depths that glared from under sand coloured lashes made me recoil away.

Ignoring me, he faced the players lining the benches, his hands thrusting into the depths of his pockets, and shook his head. All their faces were telling me that their favourite pet had suffered an unfortunate end over the weekend.

Bailey exploded out of his spot on the bench. "This is shit, are you telling me it's an outright sacking: no warning, no enquiry, no evidence?"

The Lion pointed to a paper that was scrunched in the corner. "I'd say management have all the evidence they need. Seriously, if you can't keep it in your pants then don't play in the limelight." His voice and words were inflamed and belligerent and I stepped back from them, an automatic reaction to the venom in his tone.

Surely if anyone had to learn a lesson about playing in the limelight and keeping it inside his pants it was Jase Willis?

I spluttered with indignation and stalked for the paper, grabbing it off the bench. As no one was going to talk to me, I'd find out for myself.

I had to stare at the picture for a good minute, turning the black and white sheet this way and that as I tried to work out what the tangle of limbs and purposely blurred sections of print were representing. "Is that Fredericks’ ginger hair?" I asked eventually when no one else said a word.

"Yep." It was Bailey that answered. The Lion was heavy breathing like a bull about to be let loose on a Spanish street, his hands on his hips, his eyes firmly averted from my face, as he stood there tall and angry.

I peered at the paper closer. "God, what's he doing?" I peered a little closer still. "Is that Emma, the cheerleader?"

The tangle of limbs was Fredericks and Emma doing something that they really shouldn't have been doing against the wall of the stadium car park.

Shit.

"Where is he?" I asked.

It was the Lion who spoke, but his words came out more like a bark. "Sacked."

"Sacked," I repeated. Across his face was none of the man who'd sat at my breakfast bar and eaten semi-burnt chips.

"Yes."

"Just like that?"

There was a beat of silence between us, a moment of unspoken emotion that tangled into the air that I couldn’t describe or understand.

"Yes." It was a cold response, lashed into the air. And then he turned away from me, causing my breath to burn in my throat.

I walked back out the door, my legs heavy and wobbly, and headed down the corridor to Waller's room.

"What's going on?' I asked when I walked in without knocking.

He shook his head which he was holding in his palms about an inch from his desk. "Not you as well. I've already told Jase, there is nothing I can do. Rules are rules. We must be seen to embody a clean image. This is a family sport; parents have to feel they can bring their children to these games." He sounded exhausted, like the life had been beaten out of him—that all his fight and determination for us to win and succeed was slowly being pulled from every cell in his body.

"A clean image? No one told me this when I started."

Waller looked up, his face lined with deep creases. "We didn't have to. You're as squeaky clean as they come."

"Well that's a bit rude. I could have all sorts of secrets you don't know about."