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Jenna looked at her. “You haven’t even got the keys yet.”
“Then you’ve got time to make a poster.”
Jenna laughed, turned away a little too quickly, and texted Jax something that took her a long time to type.
At five to midnight, Jenna herded everyone out of the snug and turned the big screen to the London fireworks. Abi appeared under her arm.
“Ten! Nine!”
Carly leaned close, her mouth at Lauren’s ear. “I need to tell you something before the shouting starts.”
“Eight! Seven!”
“You haven’t called me mate since the training session before Christmas.”
“Six! Five!”
“I noticed,” Lauren said. “I was wondering when you would.”
“Four! Three!”
“It wasn’t an accident, then.”
“Two!”
“The mate was never an accident.” Lauren turned to face her. “That was the problem.”
“One!”
The room erupted. Poppers went off, somebody’s Prosecco cork took out a light fitting, and somewhere behind them Jenna was singing Auld Lang Syne in a key of her own invention.
Carly kissed her.
Not carefully, not checking the exits, not a question with an escape route built in. In the middle of the clubhouse, in front of the team, with both hands and no plan. She tasted of Prosecco, and a party popper went off right beside them, and Lauren didn’t hear it.
When they broke apart, Abi was pretending very hard to watch the fireworks, and Jenna had stopped singing mid-line with her mouth still open.
“Happy New Year,” Carly said.
Jenna recovered first. She pointed her glass at them, then at Abi. “Did you know about this?”
Abi kept her eyes on the fireworks. “I had my suspicions.”
“Who else?” Jenna swung back round. “Paige. Paige always knows. Which means Becky knew.” She found Beth at the end of the table. “Did you know?”
“Weeks,” Beth said, without looking up from her drink.
“I’m the captain,” Jenna told the room in general. “Why am I always the last to know everything?”
“You normally know everything before it’s happened,” Abi said, still watching the fireworks. “It makes a nice change.”
Jenna stared at her, then down at her own hands, as though they’d let her down. “Oh my God. Am I losing my powers?”
“One can only hope,” Beth said.
Lauren made a mental note to thank Becky, who had known for the best part of a fortnight and, against all the odds, kept her word.
Carly took her hand and kept it through the singing, the speeches nobody had asked for, and the slow emptying of the room as the taxis arrived.
