Page 23 of One Last Try (Try for Love #1)

“Are they booing?” asks Pi from beside me. He’s not talking to me. I think he’s talking to Three-Hour next to him, but I can’t concentrate, can’t bring my focus together long enough to see who I’m sharing the bench with.

Suddenly my mind is all over the place. It’s not loud booing, by any means, but it’s definitely there. A murmur, like a distance swarm of bees growing closer .

I knew it was coming. Eight fucking years and it’s still happening.

Knew it would, and yet it feels the same.

Shitty. Really fucking shitty.

“It’s coming from the Cents fans,” Pi says.

“Told you,” Three-Hour whispers in reply.

“Don’t listen to them,” Eksteen says, pulling my attention back to him by grabbing my chin and holding it like a child being scolded.

Or consoled . . . loved. “You’re here to do one thing and one thing only.

I signed you because you have what we’re missing.

We needed a really good kicker and now we have a really good kicker.

We can’t fucking lose. With you we’re unstoppable.

Okay? So you get those thoughts outta your head and you’re gonna fucking win this game for us. ”

“Yes, Coach,” I reply, and I mean it, because I’m very skilled at compartmentalising.

I take all the boos and all the negative things people have ever said about me, and I lock them away in an impenetrable box inside my mind.

And I take all the Owen thoughts—his soft body in the shower, his “Wild Card,” and his disgusting IPA—and I lock those away in a different box.

And I focus on what I’m paid to do. I’ll open the Owen box again on the journey home . . . as a reward.

The announcer’s voice booms through the stadium, this time much clearer. “LET’S HEAR IT FOR YOUR BOYS!” he yells, and the crowd erupts into cheers.

Harry misses his first conversion at fifteen minutes into gameplay, and Eksteen brings me on. I don’t know if they’re still booing me. Can’t hear them if they are.

I am focus. And Adrenaline. And power and speed. And nothing else exists.

We lose the match by two points—Harry’s missed conversion. Nobody mentions it, but he’s bumming hard. The human thing to do would be to comfort him, but when I get closer, he shrugs me off and storms to the back of the bus.

I take the same seat I had on the arrival journey, near the front.

Dan sits next to me and squeezes my knee. Not in a nice way, more like something a big brother would do to their defenceless sibling. It both hurts and tickles, so of course I scream with laughter.

“Great game. You were fucking brilliant, mate. I knew signing you was gonna be a turning point.”

I thank him with a nod, pull my headphones on, and let my head fall back against the headrest. Dan doesn’t seem to mind the dismissal. He’s pulling snacks out of his bag and pivoting towards the aisle again.

On the journey home, I open the wrong box.

Not the Owen box filled with little Owen titbits, and the nice things he’s said to me, and his naked body—praise be my photographic memory—but the other one.

The one containing boos and career-ending injuries, and now Harry Ellis somehow pissed off with me because he missed his conversion.

By the time we arrive in Bath I’ve been stewing in bad vibes for two hours.

Some of the lads are going out for food, Thai I think, but I can’t be around people right now.

It’s nearly eight, and it’s still light out, so I decide the moment I get back to Mudford-upon-Hooke, I’m going for a run.

I have too much pent-up . . . emotion, and I need to get rid of it somehow.

I don’t even change into my jogging shorts or T-shirt.

I simply pull off my Vans and swap them out for my running shoes, grab a Lucozade from the fridge, my headband torch from the study, then lock the front door behind me.

I set my Garmin up for a run, but loud crunching on the gravel path pulls my attention up.

It’s Owen. And he’s holding a tray bearing stacked covered dishes. Food.

I want to laugh and cry and hug him and fall to my knees and curl up into a ball.

“Owen?” I say instead, blinking away the last of the evening sun glinting off the pub windows .

“Hey, Wild Card, how was the match?” He clocks the energy drink in my hand. “Shit, are you going out? I brought you some food. In case you haven’t had tea yet.”

I say nothing, just stare open-mouthed.

Owen fills the awkward silence. “It’s fish pie with garlic buttered spinach and purple sprouting broccoli. And I know there are potatoes on the pie, but I thought you might fancy a side of Gruyere rosti too.”

Holy shit, am I in love? Is this what true love feels like?

Internally, I laugh to myself, and then pause . . .

Wait.

Wait a second.

Wait a fucking second.

Owen opens his mouth to say something else, but I hold up a hand to stop him. I need a minute, or five, to think this through.

I turn around, so I don’t have to look at him or the potatoes.

I get hyperfixations all the time. I get obsessed with a subject, research it to death, buy every single piece of associated paraphernalia, squeeze every last ounce of joy from it, and then move on to something else. It’s just the natural order of the ’tism.

Owen and his potatoes are simply my next obsession. That’s all.

I’m not in love with him. I’m just caught up in the food he brings me. Maybe I’m actually in love with Tyler, the nineteen-year-old Little Thatch chef.

“ And ,” Owen says before I’ve turned around. “Sticky toffee pudding with Cornish clotted cream.”

Shit. I’m done for. Not even any fucking potatoes in that, so I have no excuse.

“Why are there two plates of everything?” I ask, finally turning to look at him.

“Thought you might want company. I can take mine back over to the pub if you’d rather be alone.”

I don’t want that, I realise. For the first time in forever, I don’t want to be by myself .

I say nothing and walk back to the house. Owen hops along behind me, the dishes jangling on the tray.

“Weren’t you about to go for a run?” he asks.

I lift one hand out, palm up like I’m holding a tennis ball. “Gruyere rostis . . .” I lift the other hand. “Or yet more fucking exercise . . . No-brainer, really.”

The dining room is the smallest space in a very small cottage, and the only word apt enough to describe the ancient-looking mahogany table is cosy.

It’s beautiful and handcrafted, and no doubt the ornate knobbly legs are hand turned, but I’m willing to bet the original carpenter had never seen a person over five foot tall, let alone imagined that one day it’d have to accommodate two burly rugby players.

Owen sits opposite me, and our legs not only touch under the tabletop, but are mashed together.

The press of a denim-clad knee grazes my inner thigh.

I move my leg after a few seconds so the friction of his jeans rubs my bare skin.

He knows I’m doing it deliberately, but he says nothing.

Presses harder with his knee, if anything.

Our plates have to slot side by side so they’re not overlapping each other.

I hadn’t twigged how hungry I was until we start to eat, so I’m barely supplying conversation.

I’m being a terrible host, though Owen doesn’t seem to mind.

He seems happy to just sit in silence as we eat, occasionally glancing up to share a smile.

He’s very comfortable to be around, I realise, and the only complaint I have about the food is that there’s not more of it. Owen obviously senses this, and slides his rosti over to me.

“No, I can’t accept it.” I push it back.

He tips the thing onto my plate. “It’s going on your tab. Five ninety-five.” Then his knee brushes against my thigh once again, and suddenly I want a lot more than cheesy potato cakes.

Dessert is also fucking excellent, even if it has gone cold. I drag it out, eat slowly, because I don’t want Owen to leave. We haven’t said more than ten words to each other, but his presence is calming. It’s a balm to my overthinking brain .

“Don’t you need to be over the road?” I ask, acutely aware that I’m stealing his precious time. It’s a Saturday night, and it’s hot outside. The first proper day of sunshine we’ve had in what feels like a decade of winters. Owen’s pub will be heaving, the beer garden too. He’ll be needed there.

He shakes his head. “Daisy’s running the place tonight, and we’re fully staffed. Two behind the bar, three in the kitchen, and Lando has agreed to clear tables and wait.”

“Okay,” I reply.

Owen must mistake my answer for something else. His smile drops. “But I can go if I’m outstaying my welcome.”

“You’re not.” I want to tell him I like having him around, that he’s always welcome here, but the words turn to paste in my mouth and I can’t get them out. Why do those types of things come so easily to him and not to me? “Do you fancy a beer?” I ask instead.

“Got any Hooker’s Dribble?”

“No chance.” I grab two beers from the fridge, and slap a cold bottle of Staropramen into his hands.

“We hanging out, then?”

“I guess. What do you wanna do? We could watch a movie, or we could just chat?” Wow, did I really just tell someone we could . . . chat? Like make idle small talk?

“We could do both?” he suggests, like an absolute lunatic.

I press my lips together and shake my head. “If I put a movie on that I love, and you try to chit-chat to me whilst I’m watching, I’m gonna end up with a murder charge against my name.”

“So, we pick a movie you don’t love?” he says.

It takes me less than five seconds to decide which one, and I’m already entirely won over by the idea.

A movie in the background means I don’t have to fill awkward silences with my non-existent conversational contributions.

But a terrible or even mediocre movie will mean we can talk over it without the inevitable guilt I’d feel for not paying attention .

Okay, the movie isn’t terrible. It’s not even mediocre. I mean, it’s bad, like famously bad, but I fucking love it.