Which I am not scratching.
And not because I don’t want to.
What Iwantto do is go swimming in a vat of baking soda or oatmeal water.
Instead, I’m here, offering to be the drink boy.
“A drink would be fabulous, thank you.” Goldie smiles at me. “A rosé, please. And if you don’t mind, I see someone that I?—”
She cuts herself off as she’s turning away, clearly already on her way to say hi to her friend, but she freezes as she makes eye contact with a woman walking past our table.
The woman freezes too, then smiles the most uncomfortable smile a human being can actually smile. “Oh. Hey, Goldie. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Goldie’s posture has gone stiffer than the fine I got once for fighting a wanker from Yorkham when he shoved my teammate. But just as fast, her shoulders go back to resting position, her hands unclench, and her ass relaxes under that tight dress too. She pastes on a smile as fake as the other woman’s is uncomfortable and nods regally. “Stefanie. So good to see you. How’s your off-season going?”
Number thirty-four.
That’s number thirty-four from Goldie’s college team. Plays for the Scorned now.
And she’s looking a little scorned as she smiles with obvious embarrassment back at Goldie. “Good. It’s good. Lots of training. A little vacation.”
“That sounds lovely. I saw your last game last year. Tough loss, but you were brilliant.”
“I wasn’t, but thank you.”
“Oh! Stefanie, this is Fletcher Huxley, my—my date. He left the UK Premiere Rugby League to add his support to kick-starting the sport here. Fletcher, have you met Stefanie Woolsley?”
I shake the woman’s hand with my right hand while Goldie grabs onto my left hand and squeezes.
Hard.
I squeeze back.
Not hard. JustI got you.
“So you’re teammates with Silas?” Stefanie asks me.
“Unfortunately,” slips out of my mouth before I can stop it.
She laughs. Half winces like this isI’m seeing the dentist when I haven’t flossed in yearslevels of unpleasant. Looks over her shoulder. Looks back at us with a smile so pained that if I passed her on the street, I’d suggest popping into the nearest drugstore for the good stuff.
“Nice to see you. We should catch up and have coffee soon.”
Goldie fake-smiles right back. “I’ll check my calendar.”
Stefanie scurries off on the pretense of saying hi to a teammate, and I glance at Goldie again.
“So, rosé,” she says. “That would be excellent.”
I look back at Stefanie, then at Goldie again. “What happened?” I ask, ignoring every instinct in my body screaming for me to pick a plant—any plant—and hang out behind it for the rest of the evening.
Full truth—Iwantto be in a concrete box without anything that produces pollens or allergens. After swimming in baking soda or oatmeal water.
But I weirdly want to be here as Goldie’s shield more.
She makes a face. “Nothing. It’s fine. It’s old history. We’re two people whose lives went in different directions. Seriously, I see a friend I want to say hi to, and you would absolutely be miserable and they can do nothing for rugby, so if you’ll go grab us drinks, I’ll say hi, and I’ll meet you back here in five minutes.”
I stare at her.
