Page 13 of Hit For Six (Balls and Banter #1)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Monty

The lights flickered and everyone broke out in ghostly ‘oohs’ until things settled back down again.

It probably was haunted here in the deep, dark underground of the building but, more to the point, Monty guessed it was tipping it down outside.

Those clouds had looked menacing earlier when they’d cut across the square.

They really couldn’t overstay their welcome here at The Bubble Bath, else the lads would be too pickled for fine-dining.

But nobody had thought to book cabs to the Michelin-starred restaurant on the other side of the city where they were due in a couple of hours for their celebration meal, and Monty didn’t fancy running there in a thunderstorm.

‘Hey, Lola . I wouldn’t mind getting in the bathtub with you. I’d give all of your bits a good soaping,’ Tim suddenly slurred out of the blue, eyes struggling to focus on the subject of his speech. ‘Especially now I know how dreamy your honkers are.’

This unexpected announcement elicited a couple of nervous giggles from his friends.

Monty was appalled to be associated with Tim.

His teammate was pushing his luck as it was with London.

Why he kept sabotaging what remained of his chances to stay in the squad, Monty had no idea.

He was deeply ashamed of himself for his curiosity getting the better of him, his head turning to see one of Tim’s conquests, who clearly worked here in Bath’s newest cocktail bar, since their group booking in this separate room was a strictly male affair.

But Monty came face to face with the most unexpected sight and it took him several seconds to compute it.

‘Da-da-da-da-da… da-da-da-da-da,’ Tim began, until he was three lines into the first verse of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana , singing horrendously out of tune about a showgirl called Lola and the cut of her dress.

It. Was. Only. The. Mystery. Woman.

Fucking hell, she worked right here in The Bubble Bath.

And fucking hell, Monty had an impressively photographic memory.

Alright, Tim did too, but he’d probably been ogling her online non-stop.

There really was no doubt about her identity, though– and now Monty recalled the background conversation of half a minute ago; a distant ‘are you alright there, Lola?’ whipping around his astonished brain.

Yes, he had heard those words when he’d been thinking about the weather.

Monty felt weak at the knees. She might have done something different with her hair but those eyes were the same distinct shamrock green that had sucked him into the jumbotron two days ago.

Now he sounded like he worked at Farrow and Ball, but it was impossible not to think in terms of colour charts.

Too many hours spent in meetings with flouncy designers.

‘Wash your mouth out with soap and water,’ Monty tripped over his words, throwing Tim his steeliest look, and belatedly parroting one of his mother’s favourite phrases from his teenage years.

One blithering idiot berating another, although at least he was on brand, what with their current venue.

He couldn’t believe that Tim had been on the beers before they’d set foot in this place.

London had looked far from impressed when they’d met up in the square before hitting the bar en-masse.

He’d given firm instructions that they were representing the team, even if they weren’t in their kit; that he’d be keeping score of flying expletives, each setting a player back one pound.

They would have to deposit Tim at his flat before they went out for dinner. He’d get everybody barred from the city if a drop of wine touched his lips on top of anything else he was about to sink. Everyone was game for a laugh in light of the team’s success but Tim regularly took things too far.

‘Yes, Mum,’ he quipped snarkily. ‘Sorry.’ He held a hand up to the stunned waitress, moving it across half-heartedly to Monty too. ‘You as well, Cap.’

‘Ignore him and his antiquated taste in music.’ Monty turned to the woman, who was grabbing hold of the tray as if it were a life jacket. ‘And oh my God, allow me to help you with the drinks.’

What? Why was he being so accommodating?

Sure, Bath Beasts had won the match, no thanks to Lola’s thoroughly distracting larks.

And now she could see the evidence; the gleaming trophy sitting atop the bath’s edge.

It was an accolade that Monty was loath to take out tonight.

It looked totally unclassy, ridiculously braggy.

But his teammates would insist. Which was digressing, because there was still the not insignificant matter of Lola forever tainting the build up to this victory.

Plus any international opportunities that might come off the back of it.

The pivotal moment in his career would always be linked to her assets as opposed to his talent.

He’d scowled at the latest sporting headlines printed about him in the trashier red top newspapers.

Lola looked at Monty briefly then and he thought he might combust with desire.

Those eyes! Their intensity seemed to capture everything awe-inspiring in the world, from dazzling emeralds to magical pine forests, and yes, even three and four-leaf clovers.

She was like a real-life version of a Disney princess.

Which meant his brain had officially turned to mush.

But he was powerless to fight it. It felt like he’d been pinned to his seat.

Monty knew there and then that if it was just the two of them in the room, he’d have swallowed hard, feigned rakish self-esteem, ordered Lola to lock the door and beckoned her to straddle him until he’d discovered every curve of her body, every last one of her fetishes.

He would have willingly pleasured her until he’d died.

But Lola’s cheeks began to flush until the colour drained right out of them, and, not for the first time, Monty was furious with himself for such impure and inappropriate thoughts.

She was trying to do her job and here he was reducing himself to Tim’s level.

It made no difference if that was only happening in his head.

He couldn’t let her collapse under the weight of calamity and cocktails, though!

Monty stood to relieve Lola of the drinks, frantically racking his brain to remember who had ordered what.

The last thing he wanted was to be all fingers and thumbs when he made a grab for them…

that could soon become dangerous given the tray was currently level with Lola’s bust.

‘Seth, Tim and myself ordered the Sixes.’

Nevermind the name of their fancy pants beverages, his voice came out like whisky on the rocks, which totally made it sound like he was trying to chat her up.

‘S-sixes?’ she barely whispered.

‘Actually mine’s a twelve,’ Tim wittered away in the background. ‘Might as well have the next one lined up ready and waiting.’

Now Lola looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Oh, hell.

Of course she would. She’d caught Monty’s six, hadn’t she?

He was such a bellend. Of all the drinks he could have gone for.

And damn, Monty had missed Tim ordering an extra cocktail.

He really needed to keep tabs on his teammate tonight.

His role as captain wasn’t confined to the boundaries of the pitch.

‘Yes, they were… erm specials from the… blackboard. Made with… erm forest freshly blueberries. I mean… freshly foraged blueberries.’

Tim slapped the bathtub and roared with laughter at that. Until he yelped in pain at the realisation that he’d injured himself, pricking up the antenna of all of the guys at the other bathtubs, plus London. And probably the city of London, too. Oh, fuck. This was a disaster.

‘Then… erm… Sanjay went for the mocktail and Mackenzie ordered Mr. Darcy’s… erm Daiquiri.’

Stop fucking erming!

Confident that he could halve her burden and whisk a few of the drinks away like a gent, Monty moved towards the tray.

‘No! Don’t!’ Lola shouted, causing heads to turn. ‘I-I’ve got this,’ she muttered, doing an excellent job of avoiding eye contact and stilling the tremble in her hands, even if her pallor was still white as snow.

Monty didn’t dare move as she carefully lowered the drinks tray into the copper bathtub and began to shed the glasses one by one, positioning them as close as was (realistically) possible to each customer.

He was furious with himself all over again that they’d chosen to sit at such an awkward ‘table’.

He’d been to a gin bar once in Barcelona where there was a bathtub that revellers used for photo opportunities when they were trolleyed, sharing them with their I-really-couldn’t-give-a-toss friends back home on social media.

But having every single table as a bathtub was wanky.

Especially when your staff had to navigate them.

Because what this meant for a goddess like Lola was that her skirt hugged her hips and her arse so firmly as she bent over in an unavoidably provocative manner, that it was as if she’d poured herself into her clothes.

And Monty had never been envious of clothes before.

Not at a single fashion show. He felt the familiar stirrings in his loin and silently berated himself once more for being such a loser. This was not the time or place.

Still, he had to get Lola on her own somehow.

He couldn’t leave here tonight without telling her that he might not have understood her motives back in the stadium, but everything was going to be fine.

Time would heal– not that she had anything to be embarrassed about with her luscious body– but people would soon forget what had happened.

Alright, he wouldn’t forget . The searing hot image of her would forever be imprinted on the back of his retinas.

Which meant that the likes of Tim wouldn’t forget either.

The thought of Lola being hassled by randoms or royally pissed teammates, filled him with dread.

He was, in part, kind of, sort of responsible, after all.

If he hadn’t hit that six, the incident would probably never have happened; the spontaneous idea to get her kit off would never have entered her head.

He’d be lying if he didn’t also admit to wanting to lightly brush her skin to gauge her reaction. Monty needed to know if the recurring dream he’d had about Lola for the past two nights was pure fiction or something that he could turn into a reality.

He wasn’t sure what had come over him. There had been scores of women (not all of them notches on the bedpost because he was delving way back into the washing machine-style kisses of his early teenage past), but none of them had had this effect on him.

He just wanted to scoop this girl up and whisk her away from the circus.

If Tim had just spoken to her like that, what else had she had to deal with?

His parents would be spitting swan feathers if they could see him right now. Monty didn’t need a mirror to know that his pupils had dilated to the size of cricket balls. She was oblivious to her sex appeal and that just made her all the more gorgeous.

‘Lola? The next order is ready at the bar. Can you help me?’ came the urgent voice of the other waitress at the door.

Lola. Well, she hadn’t corrected Tim when he’d fed her that vulgar line and insulted the world with his horrendous– and horrendously stereotypical– lyrics. So that really was her name. And somehow Monty knew it would be etched on his brain until the end of time.