“God damn that Matthew Fletcher! Doesn’t he know that loose lips sink ships?”
“If that’s true, then Matty’s a U-boat.”
“Well, I refuse to confirm or deny these vicious rumors.” I clear my throat. “On a completely unrelated note, what time do you think you’ll be done tonight, and could that time be around six-thirty and could you maybe then be waiting in the first-team dining room with your coat on?”
He laughs. “Sure. But first, Bashie has smuggled in some contraband lagers. Let’s go.” He nods at my door.
We wander through the quiet halls of the training center down to the dining room, where as soon as I walk through the door Bashie sweeps me into a bone-crushing hug.
I flail a bit as he lifts me off the ground, laughing in relief when my feet touch the floor again. “Hiya, Bash. Already on the lash, I see?”
“When the cat’s away, Macca.” He bro-hugs Lachlan. “Happy birthday, brother.”
Sadie, Phil, and several of the team physios are there, too. I take a seat and fish two bottles out of the small cooler.
Lachlan takes the beer I hand him. “How did you know it was my birthday, anyway? I try to keep that very private—if the club find out how old I am, I’ll be put out to pasture in America, doomed to spend my twilight years on what passes for a team over in your homeland.”
“Offense taken,” I say. “But I’m sorry to say you haven’t successfully kept that information off the internet, and it’s my job to monitor the players’ Wiki pages.”
“Oh, so you’re the one who keeps editing my Personal Life section to say I have two dicks and one ball?”
“I believe that would be your fans over at Man United. Though, to be fair, I would never delete something like that until I could independently confirm or deny it. Wikipedia requires citations, you know.”
Sadie raises her hand. “If you need a verifier, I’m available.”
“Like fuck you are,” Bashie says. “If anyone’s getting a good look, it’s me.” He leans over, sticks a thumb in the waistband of Lachlan’s shorts and pulls it away from his stomach, examining what’s down there and sending my pulse skyrocketing imagining the view. “Nope,” Bashie says after a second. “Just the usual for us Scotsmen: one wee, shriveled cock, two mangled, lumpy balls.”
Lachlan’s grin stretches from ear to ear. He clinks the neck of his bottle against Bashie’s. “Slàinte mhath, mate.”
The two of them slip into an absolutely filthy discussion that has the rest of us in stitches—from what we can understand, that is. Left unchecked, Lachlan’s accent is just as strong as Bashie’s, and every other word is unintelligible. But after a minute or two of side-splitting laughter, there’s one thing I hear very clearly: the soft “Oh, shit” from Sadie as she looks up at the door to the cafeteria.
I follow her gaze and see Matty walk into the room. Even though I was grateful for his help in planning Lachlan’s surprise dinner, my reaction to seeing him these past few days has still been one of silent triumph at the fact that he didn’t make the cut for England’s World Cup squad and so has had to stay here rather than jet off to Qatar. But today, my shoulders slump: The RA has come to break up the dorm party. And then I see who’s with him and all the breath is sucked straight out of my body. It’s a stunning woman in a perfectly tailored blazer and trousers, her hair beautiful cascading blond waves. She looks different from the pictures I’ve seen on the internet: She’s thinner and tanner, her cheekbones almost skeletal and her lips plump and covered in glossy red lipstick. But that Girl Next Door aura is still there if you look hard enough. And I do look hard, because I can’t quite believe that she’s here, in the flesh: Mrs. Claire Ramsay.
Lachlan hasn’t turned around yet, but he does at the look on my face, and then he turns a similar shade of white. Ironic that the two of us have become so pale when Claire’s the real ghost in the room. She steps out from behind Matty and does little jazz hands. “Surprise, Lockie! Happy birthday.” If there’s any part of her that’s nervous about the reception she’ll get from her estranged husband, it doesn’t show in her unlined face.
Lachlan stands up as if in a daze. As he crosses the room to his wife’s outstretched arms, he looks over his shoulder at me, his expression stricken, his eyes a haze of confusion. I’ve clenched every muscle in my body and couldn’t tell you what look I’m returning: I hope it’s some combination of “Oh fuck” and “I’m here for you,” but probably I just look constipated.
Next to me, Sadie’s sharp eyes take in the whole scene. Bashie is glowering, picking at the label on his beer bottle, and I now understand why Matty didn’t want to invite him to the Claire surprise dinner. Phil and the physios at the end of the table look up for a moment but quickly go back to analyzing last night’s game, quite uninterested in whatever domestic drama is unfolding.
When Lachlan does a round of introductions, Claire’s eyes narrow as she examines Sadie, taking in her perfect curves and her pouty lips, calculating whether it’s safe to leave her husband alone with this beautiful woman. She barely glances at me, and I’m surprised by the emotion this generates: not embarrassment, but vindication. The fact that she doesn’t consider me a threat tells me everything I need to know about her, including—most crucially—that she doesn’t know a thing about her husband’s life.
Claire turns to Bashie. “All right, Billy?”
He remains firmly planted in his chair and takes a swig of beer, not bothering to look her way. “Claire.”
And my love for Bashie quadruples.
Matty papers over the awkward silence by clapping his hands. “Okay, so, a successful surprise. Evie’s waiting in the car, so we should head to the restaurant. Abby, you don’t mind if Claire takes your spot, right?”
Lachlan’s face falls and he looks like he wants to say something, but I cut him off before he can get us both in trouble. “Of course not. Have fun.”
“Aw, thanks, babe,” Claire says to me in a sickly-sweet voice that turns my stomach. Lachlan flinches as well, which makes my stomach flip in an altogether different way.
“Matty, you guys go ahead,” Lachlan says. “I’ll be right behind.”
As soon as they’re gone, Lachlan turns to me with a pained expression. His voice is low and pleading. “Abby, I am so, so sorry.”
I haven’t yet sorted through all the things I’m feeling, but I know that being petulant and stompy isn’t going to make anything better, so I keep it light. “What did we say about saying sorry in this friendship?”
