Page 6 of The Game

"She'll be fine, she's just settling in. You know she's got some big shoes to fill." I laughed a little, but it only made the ache inside of me more intense. It was like a bowling ball had been let loose around my rib cage and was using my bones as skittles. God, I missed it: the girls, the laughter, the outright bitchiness on the pitch. I missed it all. And all so I could be glared at by that knob...

No. I had to remind myself that I had more important reasons for giving up.

"What are you doing now?" she asked when silence extended between us.

"Uh, I'm, I'm."

"You're in bed aren't you?"

"Kiss my arse." I snuggled further under my blanket.

"I would, but you are too far away."

"Ooh, don't be gross." I chuckled. Betsy had never hidden her sexuality, and in all honesty, it scared the shit out of the girls on opposing teams so it'd always been a positive aspect of our friendship. She said she was in her ideal job where she got to look at other women hot and sweaty all day. Once, when a fielder from Sussex Women's First called her a carpet muncher, Betsy had just turned around and fired back right in front of the crowd, "Bring that pussy here and I'll eat it for breakfast."

We'd won that game and Betsy had been fined for inappropriate behaviour, but she honestly didn't give a shit.

A dark head popped up next to the bed causing me to shriek. "Shit, oh I mean, sugar."

Sammy was rubbing his eyes. “I can't sleep," he sleep-slurred. "Can I get in with you?"

"Gotta go," I told Betsy, before hanging up the phone and hiding it under my pillow.

"Come on, little guy." I pulled back the cover, and he slid in. Jasper was ten seconds behind him, and I moved so the great big Golden Retriever could lay next to his favourite. I snuggled Sammy under my arm, smelling the fresh zing of his apple shampoo. "Night, little guy."

'Night, Aunty Lyssi.”

The next few days weren't any easier. The dressing room was silent when I walked in—the vast space which should have been a hub of activity eerily quiet—and then loud when I walked out again. Nice.

I could handle it, though. Cricket was a man's sport and a man I wasn't. Thank bloody god.

Every morning I got called by the tabloids, or heckled on my way into the building. "How was it to work with a sexist?" or "How did I plan to pull eleven men into rank?" And every day I bit my lips tighter together and gave a thin smile that felt cemented onto my face.

As the days slipped by I started to wonder more and more if I could pull eleven men into order, and the sexist in question didn't even acknowledge I was there. It was like Jase Willis, the Lion, wanted to be known as the person the slanderous headlines portrayed him as. I caught him looking on more than one occasion, but his pointed stare was filled with hate and resentment.

Betsy couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hate and fucking were continents apart.

And that was a good thing.

Three weeks from the opening match and the changing room was in a state of disarray, the behaviour on Sammy’s playground was more mature. That's how I found myself in Waller's office.

"Question," was my opening gambit. The air was stuffy again and I waved my arms like a bird trying to stimulate some breeze.

"Fire away." He steepled his fingers together and watched me over the tips. He was looking better than he had when I’d arrived; mainly because I was now looking a mess in his place.

I pulled on the strap to my team tank top. Bright pink, and blazoned with the head of a screaming cat, it was like Thundercats for the Twenty-first century. "Is this the same outfit as the cheerleaders?"

Cheerleaders were a joke. They hadn't arrived yet, but apparently, all the teams had them.

Waller's expression didn't give anything away. "It seemed silly to have another women's uniform designed."

"Silly?" I echoed. "You know I'm here to make sure your men are fit and to make them the best they can be so they'll win, not to wave pom pom's or have my boobs falling out all over the place, right?"

To his credit he managed not to look at my offending mammary glands as I mentioned them which was more than the rest of the team were capable of. "Of course, Lys, we know why we hired you." I noticed the royal ‘we' in his words. If I remembered correctly, it was Waller himself that had reached out to me at the end of last season and asked if I was keen for a new challenge. "How are they doing?" he asked.

I sighed and slumped back into a seat. "Well, apart from the team hating me, it's going just fine."

"They don't hate you, Lyssa. You're just making them work. I don't think they know how to read you." I glared at him open mouthed as he spoke.