Page 5 of Hit For Six (Balls and Banter #1)

CHAPTER THREE

Lola

‘Lola! Wait up!’ Harry’s voice thundered up the stadium’s steps as he trailed behind her. ‘It’ll blow over quickly, you’ll see.’

Blimming heck! Now he’d announced her identity to the whole of Bath.

As if she hadn’t been humiliated enough.

Lola kept her head lowered to avoid making eye contact with anyone in the stadium.

The breathy whispers and way-hays bombarded her senses.

She really didn’t need the added embarrassment of knowing who was dishing them out.

Thankfully it was daytime and the stadium’s artificial lighting couldn’t throw her into a bigger tailspin.

Sensory Processing Disorder was a nightmare at the best of times.

It wasn’t Harry’s fault that his hearing impediment caused him to speak so loudly, but Lola couldn’t help but feel angry at him for not being able to see through the cunning facade of his export sales director.

And if Clare had been here instead of at home, or gulping a cold cuppa at one of those mama and baby groups– intermittently changing poopy nappies and chin wagging about the price of Ella’s Kitchen purée pouches, then none of this would have happened in the first place.

What was she like criticising a woman for being on maternity leave?

See, this was the effect of the damn patriarchy, subtly turning women against their sisters.

But no matter, because once again, reality brought any grand ideas of grassing up Julian, or handing in her notice, crashing down around Lola.

She didn’t have that luxury. She’d been an idiot.

She should never have worn that dress. And her back chatting had wound him up to the point of no return.

Now she was paying the consequences. It always came to this. Men like him always won.

Mercifully, her dress hadn’t torn and she’d been able to fasten the pointless side ties when she’d shrugged it back on with trembling hands, but it really was the smallest of mercies because she’d just as well have entered a wet T-shirt competition as far as her outfit’s skirts were concerned.

That pint had rendered them see-through.

Bye-bye brand new career hopes (when something decent eventually turned up, unless it was in the Outer Hebrides, where the Internet was patchy), and farewell love life.

Not that Lola ever had time to tend to the latter, but how would she manage a date in the city now?

A queue of men waiting for a one night stand, perhaps. But that was not Lola’s style.

Why was she going off on tangents like this?

Preservation mode was the weirdest thing when what she really wanted to do was develop Catherine of Aragon’s swagger (apparently SIX’s version of the queen was modelled on another queen: Beyoncé) so she could yank Julian out of his seat by the scruff of his neck, drag him down to the cricket pitch and offer him up like a sacrifice to the players who would bat him to SpaceX on a one-way ticket to Mars.

She reached the top of the stadium and walked through the double doors to its cool interior instead, gasping for breath as she replayed Julian’s last words.

Unfortunately, despite Queen B’s lyrical claim, girls didn’t always rule the world.

No sooner had Lola half-composed herself beneath the blissful aircon unit, Harry bursting into the building behind her, than an imposing figure put paid to any ideas of a swift exit.

Surprise, surprise. It was another man.

‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you to one side while we survey the video footage of recent events to decide whether or not we involve the police,’ the unsmiling, board-shouldered security guard informed her.

‘Fabulous! Could this afternoon get any worse?’ Lola muttered.

‘I fail to see why these giant TVs have to be a thing at live games, anyway.’ She threw her arms in the air and then thought better of it.

There wasn’t a trace of compassion on the face that glared back at her as if she was something off the bottom of his shoe.

‘Surely the whole point of the experience is to live in the moment. I’m surprised you don’t have one of those stupid kiss cams floating about, intruding on the spectators’ every move. ’

‘The former is called a jumbotron,’ the man corrected her.

‘And perhaps you weren’t aware, Madam, but streaking is illegal in the UK,’ he continued, ignoring her critique of the stadium’s set-up.

‘Whilst you may not have run onto the pitch shedding all your clothes, and you might well have caught the ball, saving potential injury to fellow spectators, we need to determine whether you also decided to use your five minutes of fame as an opportunity to make an exhibitionist of yourself, bringing disrepute to a televised game.’

‘It sounds like you’ve already made your mind up. Besides, it was hardly five minutes, more like a millisecond,’ Harry protested. ‘What harm could have possibly been done? And I’m asking this in my capacity as Lola’s boss!’

A thoroughly annoyed Lola went to open her mouth in protest too, but nothing came out.

She pinched herself hard on one arm and then the other.

She had to be stuck in a nightmare. A hideously freaky nightmare!

But the daunting Jack Black look alike was rooted to the spot, staring grimly at her.

Why had Julian stitched her up like this?

Fine. Whatever. Let them put her through another horrendous ordeal.

The evidence would soon show exactly who was guilty of indecent exposure.

She had nothing to hide and she wouldn’t be made to feel like a pantomime villain when she could have easily shirked all responsibility, ducked her head and let that ball give someone a shiner of a black eye.

‘The timing of the incident and your relationship to this young lady are neither here nor there,’ maintained the security guard.

‘Let’s reserve all judgment for the replay, which I’m sure you’re going to show us over a cup of tea– two sugars each for the shock,’ replied a stern Harry, gesturing to some seats further along the corridor, so that he and Lola could wait until they were invited to a private room.

He threw Jack Black an evil glare of his own. If only he’d been as tough on Julian in his capacity as boss , then they wouldn’t have to deal with this self-righteous jobsworth.

Wordlessly, Lola sat in another royal blue seat, Harry joining her.

A row of posters running from one end of the corridor to the other did little to quell her anxiety.

There was Monty’s serious sport’s face staring her down, his arms folded, as if he’d known ahead of time that she’d be trouble.

Shit, he looked utterly delectable, though.

The last time she’d gazed at a poster boy like this was during her Joe McElderry phase, when she’d discovered her love of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, and plastered a similarly-stanced bit of eye-candy all over her bedroom walls.

‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation,’ Harry mumbled, unaware of Lola’s gawping.

‘Don’t worry. They’re making a huge error of judgement to suggest that you’ve had any hand in…

things. Not whilst making that excellent catch.

It’s physically and mentally impossible.

I won’t have a member of my staff intimidated like this. ’

They sat in silence for a couple more minutes.

Lola had considered making a run for it or clambering out of a window and shimmying down a drainpipe, but that would only make her look even more guilty of a crime that she hadn’t committed.

As if sensing Harry’s annoying foot tapping, Jack Black reappeared with a dour-faced, eighties-style, bouffant-permed female security guard.

She carried a tray bearing Harry’s requested tea.

It might have been served in generously sized builders’ mugs but there were no biscuits.

Not even a lowly-ranking currants-mimicking-squashed-flies Garibaldi.

Lola and Harry were led to a small room further down the corridor, Monty’s eyes following her all the way.

The woman placed the tray in the middle of a table, along with some pens and forms, upon which Lola and Harry were to fill in their details and sign their consent. Then she pointed to another couple of seats, while she and Jack Black propped themselves against a wall.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ she said, once Lola and Harry had finished scribbling away, each of them perched nervously on the edge of another pair of plastic blue chairs.

The female security guard pointed a remote control at a TV that sat in brackets on the wall and the four of them examined the video footage leading up to the catch, Harry slurping at his brew.

Lola, despite having another out of body experience at the ghastliness of two complete strangers and her CEO seeing her half-naked, was certain that Julian’s grubby hands would give him away any moment now.

He’d pulled at the ties holding her dress in place as if it was a polished movement.

Lola had no doubt that this was the kind of act he carried out in the dark bowels of a nightclub on a Saturday night.

But when she appeared on the screen, the right side of her TV body was angled to the left, blocking Julian’s movements from view, and whilst the camera clearly proved her innocence, unfortunately, it did nothing to make the culprit look guilty.

Bastard, bastard, bastard!

‘Well, it looks like you’re free to go.’ The unpleasant woman pointed the remote at the wall again and the screen went blank.

If only Lola’s short-term memory could erase the past half hour so efficiently.

‘We won’t be pressing charges. But maybe it’s best to rethink your wardrobe next time you go to a cricket match, hey? ’

So much for solidarity.

‘So that’s it? No apology?’ Harry challenged.

‘We’re just doing our jobs,’ Jack Black cut in, extending his arm to the door.

Lola took a belated sip of her cold tea, fruitlessly trying to buy time.

Which was ridiculous when she’d not long ago considered doing a runner.

But nobody else knew she was at a crossroads.

She could drag things out by telling the powers that be what Julian had done– her heart knew that she should be protecting other vulnerable females because Lola seriously doubted this was the first time he’d got up to no good.

Or she could listen to her head (and her heart): this job was too important.

How could she risk creating an atmosphere in the office when Harry had already played down Julian’s shitty behaviour?

He would never believe such serious allegations.

And there was her answer. It was too big a gamble. Especially when she replayed the hope and relief in her mum’s eyes the last time she’d handed her a bundle of banknotes.

There was no other choice but to trust that karma would one day settle the score. For the gazillionth time in history, a guilty man walked free. All because one more woman was too scared to tell her story .