Page 59 of Playing the Game

“She’s a sweet kid,” he said to Goran.

“Who?”

“Jonas’ sister, Anna.”

Goran shot him an amused expression. “Meeting the family?”

“Be quiet,” Adam replied. “She was there when I went for a buddy meet-up.”

“Poor you. Cockblocked by a teenage girl.”

Adam stuck his tongue out.

Javier and Steven were standing outside their office, clapping each player on the shoulder. Draws were almost as bad as losses. After psyching himself up all morning, the anticlimax of no team winning felt like lead.

“Hey, you two,” Adam said. “Can I have a word?”

“Sure. Jamie’s in our office,” Javier said. “Come.”

They walked through to the physio room. Javier opened the door to find Meg sitting on the treatment table with her legs wrapped around Colin and her tongue firmly down his throat.

“Excuse us,” Javier said.

The two broke apart.

“Shit. Sorry, Boss,” Colin said.

“Yeah sorry,” Meg added.

Javier shook his head. “You’ve only been off the pitch a few minutes. You two need to control yourselves. Colin, locker room. Meg, anywhere but. Move. Now.”

The blushing couple almost fell over each other in their hurry to get out of the room.

“Bloody hell,” Steven said. “I’ll speak to them.”

“Do that,” Javier replied. “Now what’s up?”

Adam perched against the treatment table. He made a mental note to interrogate Colin to see if anything other than a quick snog had happened in the physio room. He absolutely would not lie on anything Colin had had sex on.

“Something has to give.”

“What do you mean?”

“Firstly, Ewen and Tito competing with each other all the time is tearing the team apart,” Adam said. “I’ve tried my best to firefight their spats. It’s time you addressed this.”

Adam hated getting Ewen into trouble. He’d left him no choice. Having them vying for the ball on either side of the goal confused Adam and the rest of the midfielders. All the practice set pieces went out of the window. The two strikers were simply after scoring.

“That’s a fair point,” Javier said. “A group of individuals is not a team.”

Adam had to be careful he didn’t expose too much of the real reason for him calling this impromptu meeting.

“I think it’s time to get Howard onto the case for a PR blitz. The three newbies have settled enough. We need to turn this protest bollocks around.”

Steven rubbed his chin. “I think he’s right. It was different for Udo and me. We were weeks away from the end of the season. Then it died down a bit.”

Javier appeared to be deep in thought.

“Is Dean Jack representing them?” he asked.