The crowd, including her father, erupts.
She stands, mud streaked and grinning, middle finger in the air—not to the crowd, but to the doubters. She owns this field. Every blade of fucking grass. She’s light and fire and freedom all at once. Everything she was never allowed to be under him.
Take that, Michael Morrigan.
I don’t take my eyes off her to make notes for my last sports piece with theLarne Chronicle. Next month, I start in the foreign affairs department of the biggest UK-based publication there is. I have no doubt that Rhi-Bird and I will manage the traveling back and forth just fine, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about playing in the big leagues again.
Rhiannon celebrates with her team, and for the first time that I’ve seen, she has pure joy written across every one of her gorgeous features. She lights up the stadium, elation radiating from every pore. She’s trusting her teammates, and for what might be the first time, she seems to be trusting herself. And at the end of the second half, the Ravens win the fucking match.
In the boxes, Grace Smith extends her hand out to Sorcha Mahoney who hands over a thick envelope of what I’d guess to be money. Sorcha applauds our girls in purple, while the two women exchange words. I make a mental note to ask Rhiannon what that was about later. Something tells me thisisn’t the last time Sorcha Mahoney’s going to appear in our orbit.
To my right, Michael Morrigan wears an expression that suggests this is his first time eating humble pie.
Stick it up ye, you bastard you!
I’m like the cat that got the fucking cream. Rhiannon stepped into herself, and by loosening her tight-fisted grip on the reins, letting go of a little control, she helps the Ravens win the game.
Across the field, Patrick Mahoney isn’t clapping. He’s watching Rhiannon like she’s the next big acquisition—and something in my gut says the season’s just getting started.
The woman of the hour comes sprinting over toward us in the players’ family section, launching herself at me with arms wide before pulling me into a chokehold. She might be cutting off the air to my body, but her body is relaxed, filled with elation, and she’s so fucking proud of herself, which counts way more than any pride I could have in her.
I’m gone for this woman. Absolutely, head-over-heels in love with the fly-half I had a fling with, in the bathrooms at The Rusty Anchor. She feels like the first light teasing at the edges of the horizon, the perfectly made cup of coffee, and better than the entire botanical garden crammed into my home.
I didn’t know love could feel like this—steady, not suffocating. It doesn’t pull me under; it anchors me.
She doesn’t just love me when we both win. I can come to her defeated, ashamed, terrified—and she’s more than proven she won’t flinch. She meets me where I am, with a level of acceptance I hadn’t found before, because it’s so fucking special it doesn’t exist outside of her. Rhiannon Morrigan is one of a kind. And getting to love her—watch her light up the world—is the luckiest thing I’ll ever do.
If you’re not ready to leave Rhiannon and Robert, that’s cool with me, I have a little bonus scene for y’all. Sign up to my newsletter here to get it. (https://BookHip.com/LGLVNLR)
CHAPTER 56
Clíodhna
Chapter 1
Clíodhna
Our Rhiannon blowing up her entire life yesterday at the altar wasn’t on my bingo card for the off season, but the ensuing drinking session at The Rusty Anchor probably should have been. One way or another, we were clearing out the bar.
Last night was a symphony of bad choices and a piss-up that’ll undoubtedly go down in Larne town’s history.
I have no idea where I even am right now, a fact that would strike panic into my veins if they weren’t clogged with rum. And I didn’t already know my daughter is safe with her grandparents.
I can’t currently open my eyes to check my location because my head pulses with rhythmic insistence of a drummer on The Twelfth—A direct result of the mango mojitos I used to toast Rhiannon’s newfound freedom.
Repeatedly.
Because I’m nothing if not a girl’s girl. I might not haveagreed with her choices, but I’m not going to say that in front of anyone. We ride together, likeBad Boys, but sisters.
My aching brain drags me back to last night at the bar: cocktails, shots, and a crowd of us stumbling round the corner past the harbor to finish the night at the hotel.
I swallow down the threat of vomit crawling up my throat as an image of dancing on tables flashes into my mind.
Oh God. Did I fall?
I have one job—okay, fine, two, but the main one is being a professional rugby player. My body is my temple, and the season is never too far away. If I get injured, I’m done for.
I wiggle my toes to check limb function as another memory assaults me.
