Then he walks over to me, grin wide across his face, and disrobes me, tossing my “suit” off to the side, revealing glittering hot pants and a beaded crop top.
Abs launches into the chorus, and I play catch-up to smooth it out. Darby rushes the stage in his pink unicorn inflatable costume, and the other Cents boys join us. They take turns doing their special moves, including Dan’s “the lawnmower,” and thensync up to some very basic and repetitive steps because, by this point, we couldn’t get much else out of them.
During the last chorus, Snatch strips his “Mama’s” nightgown off and swirls around the pole in sparkly knickers, horseshoe-shaped nipple pasties, and a grey wig. The guys at the front shower us with Monopoly money, and at the end I substitute the song’s electric guitar piece for a keyboard solo, while ninety-nine per cent of our budget ignites itself and fizzles with its colourful exothermic chemical reactions.
By the time we’ve finished, the crowd is on its feet. Abs is out of breath. He pants into the microphone and giggles. The rest of the guys wipe their sweaty faces on the backs of their hands.
We line up and take a bow. I clutch Eggo’s hand in mine. We bow again. We milk it for all it’s worth, and gradually everyone else in the room comes back into focus.
It’s only when we’re backstage that I realise I hadn’t even bothered to look for Coach Eksteen, to find him amongst the audience and gauge his reaction. I have no idea what he thinks of our whole charade, and . . . part of me doesn’t care.
Eggo sweeps me into a bone-crushing hug. “You were fucking brilliant, pard.”
“Thank you,” I say when he releases me. We can’t embrace for too long, even though I want to. I want to hold him until we’re buried by millions of years of sediment and compressed into fossils then displayed in some future alien museum.
He cradles the back of my head, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same. “No, thank you. For doing that. It . . . means a lot, actually.”
Awesome, I’ve got sequins poking into my sweaty ass crack and now I’m on the verge of emotional overwhelm.
We de-glitter ourselves and get redressed in our fancy suits. Someone, we suspect Snatch, has hidden Eggo’s suit, so he’s forced to sit through the rest of the evening in his glitzy leotard.He insists on wearing the cowboy hat and wig with it, but otherwise has zero fucks to spare that he’s the only person at the black-tie function not in a black tie.
Of course Gadget wins the Player of the Year award. Everyone knew that was going to happen. Even Abs seems over it. He whispers to Orlando as his hand disappears up the back of his boyfriend’s jacket.
I glance over at Eggo. He’s staring right at me, but whips his head upwards and pretends like he’d been looking at the fairy lights above our heads. I lean across to him, and he shifts his weight away from me.
What the hell? What did I do?
Eksteen takes the stage and stands in front of the microphone. I sit up a little straighter in my seat. This is it. The end of season round up, his coach’s speech, and the announcement of the new captains.
I squeeze Eggo’s knee three times. He doesn’t squeeze mine back. Doesn’t even look at me.
The entire room seems to close in. Is he ignoring me? And more importantly, why is he ignoring me?
Eksteen launches into his speech, but I don’t hear any of it. In a few minutes’ time, he’s going to announce both Eggo and me as co-captains.
Or is he? Maybe that’s why my Cornish friend is being weird right now. Does he know something I don’t? Maybe the dance routine wasn’t enough.
“So, as many of you already know, Dan Chelford will be hanging up his skipper’s hat and passing the buck,” Eksteen says. The words are fire in my stomach but mud in my brain. Sluggish and heavy and dirty.
Still, Eggo won’t look at me.
“What the fuck is going on?” I whisper to him.
He finally turns and glances over, but all I see reflected in his eyes is . . . sadness.
“Eggs?” I say.
Distantly, Eksteen keeps talking. “We’re very excited to introduce the next captain of the Bath Centurions men’s team.”
Wait, did he say what I think he just said?
Captain.
Captain?!
No S? Not plural? Only one?
“Eggs!?”
