Chapter Text
Kate pedalled faster, checking over her shoulder for traffic before swinging across the road and turning into the driveway of the touch football club. She was not late, she just enjoyed riding fast, feeling the wind lash her face under the strength of her own legs. Standing up on the pedals she cruised behind the parked cars until she reached the grass and headed straight to field 3, which lay under the shade of a copse of tall gums.
‘Hey!’ Several of her teammates greeted her as they laced their boots.
Kate leaned her bike against the vast trunk of the nearest tree and began unloading her gear from the floral pannier bag attached to her rear rack. She was nothing if not organised, those bags contained her sports kit, a change of clothes for work, lunch and a package to drop off at the post office. The waterproof bags had been a gift from her step-mum, Mary, once it became clear that Kate was going to ride her bike everywhere, no matter the weather. Commuting by bike saved heaps so Kate tolerated all the cyclist digs.
‘Do we have a full team today?’ It was always worth asking, even though there was a team chat group where players should announce their absence each week. While Kate was dedicated to the team, others saw their registration as more of a casual subscription and it was common to have two or three players absent, particularly in the lead up to Christmas or mid-winter, when the weather was either too good or too foul to be bothered with touch footy.
‘Nope, Dan’s away still and I reckon Ian will be a bit dusty,’ Simon responded with a grimace.
Kate rolled her eyes, why could Ian never manage to recall that excessive drinking led to hangovers?
‘Full set of girls though!’ Beamed Lily.
‘Then the best half of the team is here,’ Kate answered, grinning as Simon cocked his hand on his hip in mock outrage.
‘I just don’t see why it’s so hard to turn up to play a game you have signed up for. It’s not compulsory to join a team, like, either come out and play or simply do not register!’ Kate huffed, pulling her laces tight. It annoyed her no end that as far as she could tell she had the busiest life of any of them yet managed to get to more games. To her it was simply a matter of not letting the team down, it was incomprehensible to just not follow through on a commitment and leave the team short.
‘We shall see how the “best half” of the team goes won’t we,’ Simon raised his eyebrows, ‘since you’ll have to play four-on.’
Mixed touch usually played six on the field at a time, three of each gender with spares to substitute at any time. Today the team had only two players of the male variety. Simon and Alex did not look thrilled at the prospect of playing a full game without a breather.
‘I know someone who might be able to fill in, should I text him?’ Simon asked the team. Usually they would ask the players who had just finished a game on another field, but today they had the first time slot.
‘Is he any good?’ Kate immediately asked at the same moment Lily said, ‘Yes!’.
Kate shot a fierce glance at her friend and Lily laughed, she knew that the ever-competitive Kate wouldn’t want someone coming in and mucking up their plays. While it may be harder with no male subs, against this team they still had a chance to win and Kate did love to win.
‘Come on, it’s better than no boy subs!’ Lily argued. Kate sighed, Simon’s friend probably wouldn’t even come. Who would be free at 10 am on a Saturday morning and live close enough to get here in time?
‘Can this person at least pass and catch a ball?’ She enquired of Simon.
‘Oh yes, I believe he is very well-versed in all activities relating to balls.'
This left Kate wondering if the comment was meant to be lewd or not. She could never quite tell with Simon. She knew Simon had worked his way through most of the touch community before he had met his current girlfriend and it would be no stretch to imagine that anyone he knew would be similarly whorish.
‘Excellent.’ She decided to ignore any double entendre and took to the field to warm up.
Twenty minutes later, at half-time, the entire team was looking decidedly less sanguine about the lack of spare legs. Simon and Alex had been run ragged defending the middle, while the usual wing players had been coming in to ruck during offence. They were one try down, against a team they usually trounced. Kate was absolutely determined that they could still turn it around and was giving the team a rousing speech about their defensive strategy when she was interrupted by an incredibly good-looking, dark-haired man with a rather captivating smile.
‘Fear not, the cavalry has arrived!’, exclaimed this demi-god as he flung a leather (leather!) sports bag on the grass and casually saluted Simon, who turned and greeted the intruder with an enthusiastic clap on the shoulder and pulled him forward into the circle of his breathless team mates.
‘Everyone, this is my old school mate, Anthony. He can pass, catch and I believe he can even run backwards while breathing.’ Simon’s eyes slid over to Kate as he made this last point, clearly amusing himself.
‘Good to hear,’ intoned Kate, ‘thank you for helping out.’ She said this with as much grace as she could summon, which wasn’t much, and moved to continue her speech.
Based on his cocky entrance, Anthony seemed a little full of himself and she preferred not to feed the beast. However, she found her eyes drawn inexorably towards their new recruit as he bent over to change his ridiculously impractical pure white sandshoes for footy boots. His rather tiny jogging shorts slid up to reveal impressively muscular thighs. Simon passed him a team strip and when Anthony whipped off his t-shirt to change Kate lost her train of thought completely as the sight of a smooth, flat stomach, and chest lightly sprinkled with hair flashed before her eyes. The sleeveless guernsey revealed lean, muscular arms and Kate had to force her eyes up and away from the tendons moving in his forearms as he tied his laces.
Kate caught Lily’s eye across the circle and they exchanged a glance that revealed concurring first impressions of their fill-in player. Shaking her head, Kate cleared her throat and repeated her last sentence, hoping to jog a memory about where her rousing speech had been going.
‘So, what are all your names?’ Anthony interrupted her again, now back on his feet and pulling one foot behind his butt to stretch. This made his arms flex in an appalling alluring way.
‘I was actually still talking,’ Kate insisted, putting her hand up to stop Lily from diving in with introductions. Beautiful or not, no one interrupted Kate.
‘Oh, sorry.’ Anthony flashed her an inscrutable look then immediately turned to Simon and pushed the corners of his mouth down and eyebrows up in a way that said very clearly he thought she was over the top. Kate ignored this and continued her morale booster, which only had one more sentence left, but to which she added a couple more points just to justify her having cut Anthony off. For his part Anthony mumbled a few comments to Simon, doing a very good impression of appearing not to hear a word she was saying.
‘I’m Lily!’ The way Lily dived in to introduce herself was shameful, nearly tripping over a water bottle to shake Anthony's hand, ‘and that’s Megs, Shaz, Alex, Bolt and … Bee, our esteemed captain.’
Lily didn’t actually curtsy but she might as well have. Her breathless voice and eager smiles made it very clear she would lick the bottom of Anthony’s shoe if he so much as hinted it would please him. He in turn responded with friendly waves to everyone, seemingly indifferent to Lily’s efforts at flirtation. He probably had women (and men) throwing themselves at him night and day. Poor thing.
Kate was glad for her nickname, Bee. She realised that none of her team mates even knew her real name any more. Except Simon of course—he had been in the original team she’d joined years earlier.
The referee blew the whistle and the team took back to the field for the second half. With another male player the girls could sub more often and were better rested, so Kate had to admit that just having another body was helpful. And as it turned out that Anthony could catch, pass and run, like really run. Despite herself she had to admit that he was actually quite competent, despite some obvious rugby habits. He was clearly athletic and nimble, stepping around two defenders as they rucked up the field. Unfortunately he did not know any of their plays and, more disappointingly, seemed incapable of either following instructions or staying out of the way.
‘Step left.’ Kate instructed as she came into half near the score line.
Anthony promptly stepped right and she ran into the back of him. OK, not everyone was good at following instructions on the fly. Pushing him away, she attempted to save the play but the defence had shut them down. Never mind, next time they set up for a scoring attempt she would instruct him earlier.
‘Anthony, dump on the link, step left.’
Nope, he this time decided to try and score himself on the wing, unsuccessfully. Although his diving reach for the try line was smooth as silk. Graceful even. Kate glowered at him. Was he trying to lose them this game? They only needed to score twice to win and so far he had fucked up several opportunities.
‘Can you please just run the play?’ She hissed as he fell into place to defend after his latest failed DIY scoring attempt.
‘I don’t know the plays, I’m new!’ He countered, between panting breaths.
'That is why I am explaining exactly what to do,’ Kate huffed back, while making a touch on an opposing player who thought they were going to make a run for it around her outside.
Thankfully Anthony did not get a chance to reply again as they began line defence, but she did hear Simon mumble something to his friend before they took the ball back into possession, ‘Hey Mr Boss Man, Bee's the boss here.’
Kate smiled to herself and Simon went up a few notches in her esteem. Maybe that girlfriend was teaching him something. Certainly she was no professional player, but after nearly 10 years her team had a well-oiled strategy that made them reasonably successful. Individuals hogging the ball and attempting to step around every defender was never as fruitful as passing and using the entire team.
The team rucked back up the field, Kate calling a play as they approached the score line. Simon swept across the field, aiming to dump the ball on the left middle, so Kate instructed Anthony to pass a long ball right, where she would be hitting a large gap in the defenders at speed.
‘Long right, Ant, now!’
Amazingly, he listened and followed through, throwing a beautiful arcing long ball right into Kate’s arms. She belted through the defenders and neatly placed the ball over the score line. The referee blew the whistle, confirming the score, as Kate jumped in delight and ran back towards her team to celebrate. Simon gave her a high five and Lily whooped from the sideline.
‘See, if you just do as I say…’ Kate gestured towards the scoreline with her arm, smiling widely.
Anthony joined her in their walk back to the middle of the field, grinning openly at her and she was struck with another sudden ripple of desire. He was gorgeous any which way, but with those lit up eyes and slightly dimpled smile he was an absolute heartstopper.
‘A coincidence’, he teased.
‘Huh, well you’ll just have to do everything I say for the rest of the game and we shall see what a coincidence it was.’ Kate placed the ball back in the middle and they reset to defend.
After this little breakthrough, the rest of the game was actually quite fun. Maybe the most fun Kate had had playing touch in a long time. Anthony, Kate and Simon made a good line attack trio, scoring four more tries before the end of the game. As the minutes ticked by Kate realised that Anthony was trusting her more and more as the ease with which they were setting up plays increased.
After the final score of the match, in which she had dived to score around a wrong-footed defender, he had kind of half-hugged her briefly in celebration. Kate felt herself flush as his hot body pressed against hers for a moment. Well, at least she was already red and sweaty, so he was unlikely to notice the effect his physical proximity had on her. Him knowing the effect he had on her was the last thing she wanted. His head was big enough.
When the final siren sounded the team rushed together to celebrate their win, clapping hands and gushing about each others’ efforts. They shook hands with the opposition and huddled in a circle for their regular post-mortem of the game while cooling down.
‘Ugh, guys, that was not bad,’ Lily blurted out, grinning at everyone. ‘Simon, where’ve you been hiding this one? Anthony, you and Bee are the dynamic duo out there, you need to play every week.’
‘Aha, thanks,’ Anthony shrugged off the compliment, his eyes sliding sideways to Kate. ‘I just listened to Bee.' He caught Kate’s eyes as he said this very seriously, his dark gaze making her heart skip a beat and sending her spiralling through several emotions, starting with horror and ending with utter confusion.
What was that? She had never felt this purely physical reaction to a person before and it was very much not welcome. Based on everything she had seen so far, Anthony was exactly the opposite of who she should be interested in so why was her body betraying her like this? Like, she hadn’t even had a remotely sexual thought about a non-fictional person since she could remember. Why now? Why him?
‘And that’s why we call her the Queen Bee,’ Lily crowed, bumping Kate with her hip, causing her to fall off the one leg she had been balancing on to change out of her muddy boots.
‘Lily!’ Kate cried out and instinctively grabbed onto the person next to her to avoid putting her clean sock down in the dirt. Of course it was Anthony’s arm and his bicep firmed under her grip as he stiffened to take her weight.
‘Oh, so that’s where the name comes from.’ He put his right hand over Kate’s hand on his arm, rather than pulling away he seemed to be inviting her to linger near him. This close, his eyes were warm pools of amber. Kate’s heart thudded as she desperately tried to think of something cutting to say to stop this rising feeling. But Anthony got in first, musing, ‘You are totally like a bee; annoying, persistent and cute.’
Oh, did he really think he was winning her over with a backhanded compliment?
‘Cute? What’s cute is your manners,’ Kate snapped back. Annoying? What was annoying about giving people clear instructions when they needed them?
‘My manners?’ Suddenly his eyes were cold. Kate wasn’t put off by this, she knew a thing or too about dishing out daggers. Kate whipped her hand off his arm and stood on one leg so she could explain to this idiot exactly how lacking his manners had been.
‘Yes! You show up here to play with people you don’t even know –’
‘I know Simon –’ Anthony tried to get a distracting word in, but Kate wasn’t having a bar of it, she continued to talk over him. Anthony flashed a desperate look at his friend but Simon put his hands up in a sign of surrender, clearly wanting very much to be excluded from whatever was happening.
‘– and start off by interrupting the half-time talk,’ Kate began counting off her points on her left hand, ‘continue by refusing to listen to a single instruction on-field unless it came from a man, and finish by slinging barely concealed insults at the person who taught you the concept of sharing the ball.’
Honestly, this man. He may well be beautiful, and fit, and charming, but those attractions were thoroughly dulled by his rank personality. He was one of a hundred privileged guys thinking he owned the world. Kate hopped a few times to reach her other shoe, vaguely aware that she must look like a deranged flamingo standing on one leg. Shoving her foot in the shoe and leaving the laces dangling, she continued packing up her gear as Anthony shadowed her to where the bike stood.
‘What exactly is insulting about being called “cute”?’ Anthony queried in a faux playful tone.
‘Tell me something. Would you call Simon “cute”? Would you call any man who set plays on the touch field, “annoying”?’ Kate tried to keep her tone light, but the rage behind her questions was clearly palpable.
‘Well, excuse me for existing. A good deed never goes unpunished does it?’ Anthony huffed, clearly incredulous that she wasn’t grovelling at his feet in thanks or swooning that he had deigned to look at her, ‘A normal person would say thank you for coming out to make up numbers. But it doesn’t seem like you have that word in your vocabulary.’
‘And you seem to believe that you’ll be the most competent person in any room. You flash that smile and think I’ll forget you’re nothing but another cashed up hot air balloon flying by on his family wealth and private school mate connections.’
‘So you like my smile?’ He grinned triumphantly, trying yet another diversionary tactic.
‘It makes sense that you’d have trouble hearing anything but praise in what I just said. Clearly, your character is as deficient as your teamwork.’
Kate turned from Anthony before he had a chance to retort, hopped on her bike and rode away.