“Yeah. Me, too, actually.” There was no mending what had been broken between them, but something about this conversation felt like closure. Maybe this time, once and for all, Lia would be able to slam shut the door to her and Hannah’s relationship and feel like it wouldn’t crack open and spill out, messy and bloody, on the carpet again. “Look after yourself, Hannah.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
* * *
“Have you really not got anything else to talk about this afternoon?” Erin snapped at Adrianna as she queued behind her in the canteen at lunchtime.
She thought she’d done well to hold her tongue for as long as she had, sick to death of hearing Lia’s name spoken by everyone around her as they digested the bombshell that Erin had already worked out months ago.
Lia herself was nowhere to be seen, and that made Erin itchy. Though she’d been dreading the thought of their paths crossing for the first time since Erin had left Spain, she also wanted to set her eyes on Lia, to make sure she was okay after the article had dropped that morning.
But even after purposefully delaying her lunch to join the rest of the team, she’d been left disappointed, finding Lia suspiciously absent.
Was it any wonder she was in a bad enough mood to engage Adrianna?
“I didn’t realise you were in charge of what topics of conversation we could cover in the canteen,” Adrianna said, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder for good measure as she shot Erin a poisonous glance.
“I’m not, but she kinda is.” Erin jerked her thumb toward where Shanice stood behind her in the queue. “And I’m pretty sure she agrees with me.”
Shanice’s cheeks puffed out as she sighed. “I do, yeah. Leave Lia alone, Adrianna. Do you not think she’s been through enough?”
Too much, in Erin’s opinion. Too much to be on her own, away from her support network. Cerys sat at a table with a handful of others, seemingly unconcerned about Lia’s absence.
A few weeks ago, Erin having a desire to check on Lia would have been laughable. But she’d seen her in that rage room, seen her nearly break down before facing Hannah on the pitch. And as much as Erin might be trying to forget the night they’d spent together, she couldn’t deny that Lia had gotten underneath her skin.
Erin wouldn’t have slept with her if she didn’t care about her at all. Which was what led to her abandoning her place in the queue and retreating into the hall to see if Lia was nearby.
She didn’t have to look for long before she heard Lia’s voice. When Erin turned the corner, Lia was leaning against the wall, one hand twisting a strand of hair around her finger.
She had her back to Erin, giving her a rare opportunity to drink her in without risking being caught staring. Lia’s Albion hoodie was baggy, the sleeves rolled up to reveal her delicate wrists.
Looking at her, Erin was bombarded with memories of their night together, filled with an aching desire to do it all over again. Lia had awoken something in her that had long lain dormant, and Erin had no idea how to deal with the intensity of the desire that flooded through her with Lia back in touching distance.
Lia had asked for space, and Erin was trying to grant that, but the temptation to reach out and brush a hand across the small of Lia’s back, to ask if she was okay, was dizzying.
And then Lia’s mouth opened, and Erin recoiled when she realised who she was speaking to.
“Is this your way of punishing yourself? Because if you think that’s what I want, then it’s not, Hannah. All I wanted was to move on.”
The reason Lia wasn’t in there with the rest of the team was because she was talking to the ex-girlfriend that had broken her heart. Erin froze a few steps away, unsure what to do. The last thing she wanted was to overhear a reconciliation.
Perhaps she should go over there and physically shake some sense into Lia? Had she forgotten all the awful things that Hannah had done? Surely, one interview and moving teams wasn’t enough for Lia to forgive her. That was the least Hannah should have done, and she should have done it weeks ago, when this first happened.
Not six months later when the guilt got to be too much.
Erin wished she could give Hannah Edgerton a piece of her mind.
“I think I’ve learned my lesson about that,” Lia said, voice quiet, her back still to Erin. “Getting involved with someone on the same team never seems to end well.”
Was Erin imagining the regret in Lia’s words? And if she wasn’t—was it regret for how things had worked out with Hannah, or was she thinking of Erin? Was she realising that Erin had been right all along to try and keep their work and personal lives separate?
And there Erin was, hovering behind her, listening to a conversation she had no right to be a part of, when all Lia had asked of her was space. What was she doing? Erin wouldn’t be out there if it was Adrianna or Cerys or one of the others—anyone other than Alex, and Alex had been more family than teammate for years.
Quietly, Erin backed down the hallway before Lia could notice her. With her appetite gone, she instead made her way to the gym to start on her next round of rehab exercises. Maybe if she pushed herself hard enough, she’d stop wondering why she cared if Hannah and Lia got back together.
Chapter 15
Erin crouched on the grass, fighting to catch her breath after thirty minutes of running drills.
