“I’m not familiar with rugby contracts in the UK, but that doesn’t seem like the full story.”
I growl softly to myself.
She shifts closer to me. “I’m on your side here, Fletcher.”
“I got a small tear in my rotator cuff two seasons ago, and I haven’t been—I haven’t been right since.”
“Not a fun recovery.”
“I rehabbed the fuck out of it.”
“I believe you.”
“It’s not my shoulder. It’s my—it’s my brain. It won’t—it can’t get over it.”
“Brains are such bitches sometimes.”
“Rafferty—my coach—I played for him for a long time. My whole career, basically. He started coaching the year I signed on with the Leopards. He taught me how to pour tea. Helped me getthrough some personal shit early on. Believed in me. Treated me like family. His wife did too. She was the aunt I never had. His daughter was like a little sister until she left for university. They had me over for Christmas the years that I couldn’t see my own sister. She’s busy. Orthopedic surgeon in Seattle. Kids. Wife. Life. And four months ago, he benched me.”
“What for?”
“Being too old. Coddling my shoulder. Getting in my own bloody way on the pitch with mental fuckaroni. My game turning to a steaming pile of elk shit.”
“Was your game shit?”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t my best. But it wasn’t shit. I could’ve turned it around. Iwasturning it around. But he didn’t see it. And then I made a stupid fucking mistake, cost us the match, yelled at one of my teammates, and that—that was it. He sat me down, told me I was done, that I could retire on my own and walk off the pitch with my head held high, or I could sit on the bench the rest of the season and wait for the team to trade me somewhere that needed an old fucker like me to inspire the next generation.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m not done playing rugby.”
“I know.”
“I’mnot.”
“It would go a long way with the team here if you trusted your teammates enough to tell them that.”
It would be so easy to flip her off, but that’s what Neanderthal Fletcher wants to do.
Not what team-player Fletcher needs to do. “So I should tell them that they’re right—I’m only here because I couldn’t cut it in a better league anymore.”
“No, you should tell them you still love the sport to the pit of your soul. That your coach was wrong, that he hurt you, and thatyou’re not here to show him he made a massive mistake, but instead, that you’re here because you believe in building something bigger than yourself and that you want to do it with them. With the Pounders.”
I slide a look at her. “Iamhere to show him he’s a fucking ass-wanker who made a mistake. Last thing I told him before I left his office was that the next time I set foot on English soil, it would be as a bigger success in America than I could’ve ever been in Britain.”
She cracks up. “You know what? Tell them that too. Ask them to help you prove to a crusty old British wanker that he fucked up. That you still have it, and more, that you can be the critical part of that team thatyou choseinstead of waiting around for the English league to pick for you.”
I swallow back my retort ofthe Premiere League.
Already a big enough ass. Don’t need to rub that in too.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to hear some Australian fuck-off tell me that when I was younger,” I mutter instead.
“Tell them that too.I’m being a guy I would’ve despised when I was your age, but also, let’s show the entire world what we can do. When’s the next World Cup? Can you imagine a team made of players here triumphing over your old coach and teammates?”
“Yes.”
She laughs again. “Crossed your mind a time or two, hmm?”
