Page 28

Now, Adriana is the perfect level of tipsy, and she feels like the main character in a film, shaking her sparkly sequin dress to catch the flashes of the red lights (and men’s eyes) in the sweaty basement.

She’s happy to be cutting loose after another hard week of training, another win, and with two hard-earned days off from training ahead of her.

Adriana loves being able to be out partying on a Saturday night like her non-athlete friends take for granted.

The DJ puts on a club remix of Chappell Roan, and Adriana screams with delight. She is euphoric, spotting her friends dancing around her in the crowd, like snapshots in a movie montage.

Strobe: Charlie and Elisa cut goofy shapes together, a cowboy lasso and the macarena.

Nat, Milo, and Liv are starting a can-can, which no one else is joining in.

Zuri and Rebecca are grinding up against two topless male twins.

Kira is lifting her toned arms over her head, smiling lazily to herself, like she’s remembering her win from earlier.

And Maeve, looking so different with her hair out of her habitual ponytail, pushes the strands from her wide long-lashed eyes, staring at Kira, maybe to copy her effortlessly rhythmic movements.

For the timeless duration of the song, Adriana dances, feeling everything is right with the world.

Normally, Adriana would be looking round for if there are any hot men.

It is a night out. And she knows that there are men looking at her.

She would be indignant if there weren’t.

But tonight, no one is catching her eye.

It’s not that there aren’t any fine specimens around.

There’s a ginger Scottish man called Scott she hooked up with a few months ago, who winked at her when she arrived, but seems to be respecting her clear one-night policy.

As she eyes the possible strangers up, she finds herself comparing them to some kind of inner metric that she never had before.

They aren’t tall enough, or are too tall, or are somehow not quite the right kind of tall.

They don’t have the right shade of light brown hair, or their light brown hair doesn’t look both neat and like she can run her hands through it.

They aren’t looking at her like they can see right into her soul, like he mysteriously knows deep parts of her, but still wants to know more…

In other words, they just aren’t Jacob Astor.

Adriana closes her eyes on the dancefloor, feeling a rush of heightened emotion as she realises the truth of her feelings.

Oh Christ, she really likes him. So much so that he has ruined other men for her.

She knows it’s completely crazy, especially as he seems to literally hate her, and doesn’t want to see her anymore. But she wishes he were here.

The music is a bittersweet ballad now, and the feeling is a stab in her chest, a rush of emotion constricting her throat. She thinks she might start bawling her heart out.

She feels a firm body next to hers, dancing with her. She closes her eyes, and lets herself imagine he’s Jacob, dancing with her gently and slowly, his hands a breath away from her hips…

But then Adriana sighs, and tosses her hair and faces him, only to see he’s of course not Jacob.

The stranger is gorgeous in a fashionably rugged way – just the right amount of stubble, a double nose ring and glowing bronze skin.

She forces a smile, partly to stop herself from crying and tries to keep her emotions in check.

He smiles back, and the sides of his eyes crinkle, and the thing is, from just this first impression, he seems like a lovely man. He just isn’t Jacob.

He leans towards her, brushing her hair gently away from her ear, and says over the music.

‘I hope my future wife looks like you.’

Adriana laughs, leaning into his shoulder. ‘That’s not a chat-up line I’m used to hearing.’

He smiles and leans in close again. ‘I take Beyonce’s advice! If I like it, I’ll put a ring on it.’

Adriana hesitates, not knowing if he’s a fuckboy who says this to everyone, or if he really is looking for something more serious with someone and is being upfront about that, even in a nightclub. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.

‘I’m just a good-time girl,’ Adriana shouts over the music. ‘I’m not wife material.’

The stranger tilts his handsome face, frowning with disarming sincerity. ‘Who told you that?’

Adriana blinks, taken aback.

‘I– I have to find my friends. Have a good night.’

But she doesn’t go to find her friends immediately.

She goes to the toilet, sitting there quietly in the cold of the bathroom cubicle for a while as the buzz of her drinks starts to wear off.

She puts her head in her hands, mind swimming with Jacob, yearning to text him, but still sober enough, thank God, to know that would be idiotic.

She wants to splash her face but her gorgeous sparkling blue cat-eyeliner took too long to perfect, so she settles for cold water on her wrists.

She takes a deep breath, eyeing herself in the mirror and gives herself a pep talk.

‘You do not need him. He’s just a man. A grumpy, grouchy, sexy man. There will be others.’

‘ Yes sister,’ a stranger next to her, clicks her fingers emphatically. ‘If he wanted to he would! He doesn’t deserve you! Carpe Diem! YOLO! Shots!’

Adriana laughs and kisses the stranger on the cheek, feeling genuinely buoyed. Ah, the rollercoaster emotions of a night out.

Back on the dancefloor, she looks for Kira and Maeve. She feels most responsible for them– one the fresh blood, the other the least used to going out.

She decides she’ll bring the two of them to the bar with her and down a tequila shot followed by a pint of water. It’ll be good for them both, to have a bonding moment together to put the captaincy situation behind them.

The strange friction between the two of them was palpable even at the pre-drinks at Adriana’s earlier after the game.

Kira had been full of bravado even off the pitch, like leading the group in directions to the club, even when she’s lived in the city for the least amount of time – but Adriana felt like it was coming more from a place of assumed independence than anything malicious.

She could sense that Kira’s bossing people around, encouraging drinking games, or having strong opinions about which of their outfit choices was the right choice, was her way of trying to fit in and find her place in a new team.

Plus, she’s really funny, and that comes across so much better when she was in group settings socially outside of the training ground.

Adriana had been delighted when she’d seen Charlie and Elisa creasing up over Kira’s anecdotes about a time she’d had terrible food poisoning but still tried to play competitive football, nearly ending in a Gary Lineker incident.

Maeve, on the other hand, had been distinctly off at the pre-drinks.

It was difficult to put your finger on at first, because Maeve was trying so hard to be the image of a sociable person, laughing just a bit too loudly at everything, and drinking a bit too much, and it all just feeling like Maeve was trying to be someone she isn’t.

Adriana knows she isn’t really used to drinking, or indeed nighttime socialising recently, so she is trying to give her the benefit of the doubt – but the issue was that the more Maeve drank, the more obvious it became that she was trying to ostracize Kira.

At first it was just little things that Adriana had overheard when she was herself being a social butterfly going round and topping up everyone’s drinks – like Maeve rolling her eyes at everything Kira said in a group, or, behind her back, bringing up things Kira had said that she knew the other teammates had found abrasive.

She noticed the two of them never spoke directly to each other, and if one of them moved circles, the other would go to another cluster.

It was like they were repulsing magnets, pushing each other away around the room.

There had only been one moment she’d happened to walk in on the two of them alone in her kitchen, whispering something heatedly, but they’d pulled apart immediately when Adriana had walked in with her empty bottles.

Adriana hadn’t been able to get from either of them what the hell was going on between them, but that isn’t the first time.

Now, Adriana spots all her other friends on the dance floor, doing a mental head count of the gang, and assuring herself that they’re all paired up with each other and/or new friends.

But she can’t find either Kira or Maeve, even when she paces back and forth between different rooms including the smoking area, the toilets, and even pops her head out to the road outside.

She pulls out her phone to text them, despite knowing that the signal in the club will render this pointless, when she finally spots the long blonde hair, cropped white t-shirt and understated black jeans of her best friend.

She almost doesn’t recognise her because Maeve is doing something so unexpected.

It takes Adriana a moment to realise what she’s seeing.

Amidst the crowds of the other partygoers and dancers, in the flashing lights and pounding music, Maeve is making out with someone.

Their hands are in each other’s hair, Maeve pulling the other woman’s waist closer to hers, pushing her a little up against the wall.

Then they pull apart, and Adriana sees the other woman’s face.

She’s a pretty woman with bambi long eyelashes, pink lipstick, blusher on her olive cheeks, and dangling earrings.

Adriana’s first thought is ‘she’s not even Maeve’s type’.

But her second reaction is to squeal with excitement for her friend.

Surely it would be good for Maeve’s stress levels if she finally got laid.