‘You just did. I’m Ava. MacKinney.’
‘Nice to meet you properly, Ava.’ A smirk slid up one half of his face. ‘Though I’ll probably still call you Marzipan.’
‘Fair enough.’ My cheeks burn from grinning.
His eyes cut to the cinema for a half-second, then return to me. ‘Look, I’ve got Digestives in the car. Proper ones. You still hungry?’
Biscuits in a car park with a man built like a wardrobe. Why am I so tempted?
‘Are you trying to lure me into your van with sweeties?’
‘It’s not a van. It’s an Audi. And if I were luring you anywhere, which I’m not, I’d use something a lot more enticing than a McVitie’s.’
My stomach growls audibly. That traitor. ‘I?—’
Then my mobile’s ringtone slices through the moment. Nevin’s face blazes across the screen, face-up on the passenger seat where I tossed it.
Scottie’s gaze drops to the phone. There’s a flicker behind those loch-green eyes, quick as a fish darting under the surface, gone before I can name it.
‘You probably should get that.’
‘I probably should.’ I don’t move as the phone keeps screaming.
‘Bye, Ava.’
‘Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Bye. Thank you, I mean it.’
He steps from the window, giving me space I didn’t ask for but need. ‘See you around.’
I snatch the phone from the seat, jab the green button, and press it to my ear, cranking the window up with my other.
‘Hi, the physio ran late?—’
Nevin’s voice cuts through, but I’m barely listening. I check the mirror again. My eyes are too bright. Too alive. I need to kill that before I get home. So after I hang up, I grind my knuckles into my sockets again, smearing the mascara, dragging the skin down until I appear haggard. Pain is the only currency Nevin accepts without question.
If I seem broken, he’ll be soft. If I seem happy, he’ll be suspicious.
And I look way too happy for someone whose career is hanging on by a silk thread.
In the rear-view mirror, Scottie Kerr stands under that sputtering lamp, hands in his pockets. A solid hill in a hoodie with all this quiet mass the rest of the world has to bend around.
I turn the key. Time to go back on stage.
Chapter 5
Scottie
Duncraig in November is less of a pitch and more of a punishment. The rain slashes the turf. Underfoot, it’s soup. Overhead, the floodlights turn the downpour into static. A thousand silver needles blurring the stands until the only things left in the world are the mud, the cold, and the man I’m about to put into the dirt.
I hit the ruck low, square to the gate, and drive through with my shoulder. The impact shudders up my spine. Two bodies fold around me. I clear them both, create the space, and the ball spills back to Brodie. He takes two strides; sidesteps like he’s made of smoke.
Coach Wallace’s whistle cuts through the rain. ‘Good! Reset. Forwards, tighter on the bind. Kerr, solid work.’
Two words. Solid work. The participation trophy of compliments.
I straighten up with mud caked to my thighs. It’s cold enough that my lungs burn when I breathe deep. A standard Scottish November. The weather that separates the lads who want it from the lads who don’t.
The heated hybrid turf at the city stadium feels like a fever dream. I spent three years in the Academy dreaming of that pitch, then one breakout season playing on it. Now I’m back to mud and spite in Duncraig, playing for a franchise that didn’t even exist a year ago.
