CHAPTER NINE
Bailey
The crowd roaredas we jogged out onto the pitch, the sound making a wave of calm roll through me and settling the buzzing itch under my skin that had been bugging me since I woke up.
There was something about the start of a new Premiership season that always made me nervous, in a way the cup matches we’d already played didn’t. Maybe it was because there was more resting on the Premiership than the Compass Cup, at least to me.
Doing well in the Premiership meant being noticed, getting international call-ups, sponsorships, brand deals, and the chance for us to play in European competitions. It meant proving myself across a season and showing the world that I was good at what I did. There was a hunger for more inside me, a desire to push myself to the limit and see where I could go. The Knights were a great team, and we were getting better with every season.
But we still didn’t have a trophy to show for it.
And that was starting to really fucking bother me.
We’d come so close last season but we’d never managed to get it over the line, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I didn’t know if everyone was as pissed as me, but I hoped so. We needed that fire to drive us. Otherwise, we’d forever be runners-up. And I was not going to waste the rest of my career always coming second.
I bounced on the spot as I took my position, eyes roaming across the rest of the pitch and our opposition. Brighton were newly promoted and undoubtedly looking to make a mark in their first real test of the season.
That wouldn’t happen if I had something to say about it.
Mason might joke that I did fuck all, but I was the one who cleaned up the mess when everyone else fucked up.
The match kicked off with Brighton drop-kicking the ball towards us, but if they’d been aiming to get underneath it or kick it into touch before we got hold of it, they were mistaken. They might be fast, but Danny was faster and as the ball curled towards the wing, it went straight into his hands.
Oh, he was not going to shut up about that for days.
Especially not with his new boyfriend, the Knights social media manager, Ezra, watching.
The front row pushed forward, moving the ball down the pitch with a deadly combination of power and speed. I kept a little distance, watching, waiting, knowing one slip, one bad pass, one mistake would give Brighton an opportunity. And then it would be my job to stop them.
Hunter was further down the pitch, putting those long legs of his to good use. I hoped Aiden appreciated all the work he’d been putting in at the gym since we started training again in July. He’d been careful, though, balancing the needs of the job with his mental health, and that was what mattered most to me.
Neither of us had mentioned his history to Aiden. It hadn’t seemed relevant.
Not yet anyway.
“Oi, Young, are you going to join us?” Danny asked, waving his hand at me as I jogged further down the pitch. “We have got shit to do, you know.”
“Fuck you, Wheeler,” I said, not taking my eyes off the ball. Play had slowed for a second as people extracted themselves from a pile on the floor.
“Nah, thanks, I’m taken.”
I chuckled, giving him the barest of glances. “God, could your shorts get any smaller?”
“They’re practical. And—” Anything else he was going to say was instantly cut short as the ball came flying towards us. Danny snapped into action, grabbing it out of the air and tearing off down the pitch before anyone could reach him.
He might be an annoying little shit sometimes, but he was fast as fuck and slippery as an eel. When they finally did catch him, it took several attempts for anyone to get hold of him and even then he managed to pass the ball and slide out of their grasp.
Brighton were really trying to push us, but at the rate they were going, they’d run out of energy in the second half, even with subs.
I just had to stay focused and not let my mind drift when things were going our way and there was less for me to do. Because I’d never hear the end of it otherwise.
When the ball eventually came my way, near the end of the first half, it was dropping out of the air. One of the Brighton guys had kicked it down the pitch in the hope of putting it into touch and getting them some ground, even if the throw-in would be in our favour. It would get us off their try line at least.
If they succeeded… which they didn’t.
I grinned as I leapt into the air and grabbed the ball, landing on the turf with a soft thud and setting off down the pitch atspeed. A couple of Brighton players tried to come for me, but I had fresher legs and it wasn’t hard to step around them and power forward.
Oh, this was too easy. They’d left a huge fucking hole right in the middle of their defence.
