Finn
Monday 3rd May 2027
“We need to meet up and sort this co-captaincy shit out,” I say to Pi in the locker room post training. I keep my voice quiet, neutral.
Most of the other guys are in the ice baths or showers, but there are still a few lurkers . . . lurking nearby. One such loiterer, who takes the moody, ginger form of Pi’s best mate, Harry Ellis, is stripping his dirt-smeared kit from his freckly body at a sloth’s pace. It’s an ill-veiled attempt to eavesdrop, but I really don’t want him listening in.
Abs has just come back from his HIA—head injury assessment. All was fine, yet he still seems magnificently pissed off, even for Abs. I’m convinced, however, that his sour mood was triggered by a certain black-haired rich boy whose house we visited on the weekend. But Pi knows the kid better than I do. Abs doesn’t confide in me the same way he does with Pi, and I don’t have the same sufferance for his constant bitching and grumbling.
There are much fatter and juicier fish for me to fry right now. Like how the hell are we gonna pull this joint-skip gig out of the bag?
The Cents have media day tomorrow, so no real training. It’ll be photos and interviews and marketing bollocks all day. We’re not allowed to tell people outside of the club about the captaincy appointments until it’s officially official, but it’s going to be difficult not to. The topic of Pi and me sharing the helm seems to be all anyone can talk about.
Mostly because, as it turns out, we’re fucking shit at it. Training today was a full-blown disaster.
I have no idea what Dan and Eksteen were playing at giving it to the pair of us.
I’m too spontaneous and too erratic to see eye to eye with Pi’s methodical practicality, and Pi is too . . . god, I feel like an asshole for even thinking it, but he’s too rigid, too set in his ideas of right and wrong. He’s not flexible enough to be captain, and he certainly isn’t flexible enough to deal with my shit regularly, or Abs’s shit, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Eksteen sees it this way too, I just know it. He’s spent today skirting the sidelines of the pitch, shaking his head, muttering, and jotting things down in his super-secret coach’s journal.
The crux of the matter is, I hadn’t realised quite how much I wanted to take the wheel until it had been dangled right in front of my face, and I’d bet the entirety of next week’s scran that Pi feels the same.
“Yeah, we need to sort this out,” Pi says, throwing Abs a covert glance then crowding up to me, swallowing the last two feet of space between us. “Tonight?”
“My house. Bring beer,” I say.
Pi arches one blonde eyebrow and tips his head towards me as though I’ve made a diabolical suggestion. “I’mneverdrinking again.”
“Fair.” I think back to Saturday night and the vomit I had to scrub from my passenger-side seat belt on Sunday morning. “By the way, you owe me thirty-seven pounds for new car mats.”
Pi facepalms.
“How’s things with George?” I ask.
He shrugs, pulls a face. “She won’t answer my calls.”
“She’ll come around, eventually. I’ll get Megan to chat to her.”
My girlfriend, Megan, is best friends with Pi’s girlfriend, Georgia. Ex-girlfriend. Ex. I need to remember that they broke up on Saturday. Apparently, for real this time. I keep forgetting. I also have to keep pretending that every time I remember it doesn’t send a little thrill up my spine.
Pi stares at me, his cheeks puffed out and his lips spread so thinly that they’ve disappeared behind his sandy moustache. “Maybe I don’t . . .” He trails off, changes course. “I don’t know what I want to happen with George. I don’t even know if I . . .”
A now naked Harry Ellis saunters over and grabs his towel from the bench beside Pi and me. He’s as stony as he’s been all day, and he’s obviously been listening to our conversation.
“How’s your head?” Pi asks.
Abs doesn’t smile. He also doesn’t bother to answer his best friend’s question. “You wanna hang out tonight?”
He’s talking to Pi, not me, so I keep my mouth shut whilst I airdrop my thoughts directly into Pi’s brain.
Pi glances at me, his eyes widening before he looks back at his buddy. “Thanks, but I should sort stuff out with Eggs if we have any hopes of actually becoming co-captains. You were there earlier, you understand?”
I let out a tiny breath of relief.
“It’s fine,” Abs mutters. He nods slowly, unblinkingly, and without another word, turns towards the showers.
“He’s such a drama queen,” I whisper as soon as his retreating footsteps die down.
