“Mam would kill me if I wasn’t at theirs for Christmas dinner.”
Something about his words pulls uneasily at my chest and I refocus my gaze to Mathias’s multiplex-sized screen.
More than a dozen times, that’s how often I’ve seen this movie, and yet I’ve still never watched it. Never really paid attention. On the TV, Bella’s dad is gifting her a beat-up red truck. I try not to think about how, come Christmas, Mathias won’t be here. Even if he stays in Fernbank Cottage until the end of the rugby season, he’ll only be here until midsummer at most.
“They booed me,” Mathias says, puncturing the silence.
I jolt in my seat. “What?”
“You asked me how the match was, and I never answered. They booed me. And Harry Ellis is pissed because if Eksteen hadn’t played him for the first fifteen minutes, we’d have probably won. So he hates me. Obviously.”
Wow, okay. My mind races with a million thoughts. They heckled him because of me, because of what happened eight years ago. They’re still not fucking over it. And Mathias is worried about Harry Ellis blaming him for being better than he is. I couldn’t give less of a fuck what Harry Ellis thinks, but I don’t know how much that would help Mathias right now.
And on top of all that, I feel Mathias opening up and telling me these thoughts is a big fucking deal and I need to tread carefully. He’s not a chatty guy. He has that whole silent, moody, brooding type thing going on.
I won’t scare him off, but I’m at a complete loss about how to proceed. My mouth hangs open like a dying fish.
“I knew they’d boo me,” he adds.
I want so badly to pull him into a hug, squeeze the sadness out like I would with the girls. I want to tell him that I heard the boos, sure, but they weren’t loud or long lasting by any means. It was probably just some playful panto style booing, and I expect it sounded a lot worse to him, but I’m not going to be the prick who tells him it’s all in his head.
“Well, we listened to the radio, and you were great,” I say instead. “On fire, as the kids would say. Okay, you guys lost, but from what the commentator said, your personal performance was exceptional. It’ll be a win next time for sure, and once people start seeing those scores tick over in our favour, they’ll change their minds. They’ll stop booing. They’re all for the win. Doesn’t matter how we get it.”
Mathias turns towards me and brings his knee up to the back of the couch. I don’t let my eyes wander south to the expanse of bare thigh that’s just been exposed. “What else did the commentators say about me? Did they mention I broke your leg eight years ago?”
I cannot hide the truth in my expression. They did. In fact, it was one of the first things they spoke about.
“Controversial appointment here by Bath Head Coach, Johan Eksteen, as we see Mathias Jones join the Cents for his first match. He’ll be playing in the number twenty-two shirt. Many of us remember that fateful game in twenty seventeen—”
“How could we forget?”a second commentator had said, and laughed, as though the pain didn’t matter because it wasn’t theirs.“A day we now refer to as ‘Owen Bosley’s last game.’”
“I can’t imagine anyone forgetting that in a hurry. But perhaps Jones has come along at the right time.”
“Ellis hasn’t quite had the career-opening season he’d been hoping for. Three missed conversions last week against Gloucester . . .”
Yada yada yada.
“They did,” I admit. No point lying. Mathias could find the catch-up recording on the BBC Sport website if he wanted to. Not that he would.Mathias has become somewhat of an expert at shutting out the shit. “Can I ask you something? A personal question.”
He sizes me up for a moment. “Only if we swap. Personal question for personal question.”
“Oh.” I’m so startled by his offer I half forget what I was going to say. “Um, sure that seems like a grown-up trade off.”
He smiles, but it drops instantly.
“Why did you sign to the Centurions if you knew they would . . . that their reception of you would be like this?” I ask.
I can’t quite bring myself to say the word “boo.” It feels so wrong. If everybody knew the real Mathias, this shy giant who watchesTwilightand smells incredible and loves potatoes, they wouldn’t be booing him at all, even if it is all theatrics. They’d be doing everything they could to spend one minute longer in his presence.
He doesn’t answer for a while. Doesn’t even hold up a finger or scratch his chin so that I know he’s thinking. He’s just silent.
“I don’t want to become irrelevant.” He stares at me for another thirty seconds. It’s not uncomfortable, but I resist the urge to reach out and comfort him. “I had a shit year last year. Was off the pitch more than on it, didn’t heal from a fractured rib in time for drafting. My stats were terrible, and I guess the Bengals didn’t want to take the risk on a shitty injured player. Thought I might get an offer as a free agent, but nothing came through. The only signings I heard about were for forwards. My agent called with an offer from Bath after Winter’s injury retirement, and I panicked. I couldn’t go an entire season without playing, or even training, because we all know what happens to players then. They don’t come back. I’m only twenty-nine; I’ve still got a lot of career left in me. I’m not ready to quit just yet.
“I need things to be the same as they always are. People have already started asking me,‘So, what are you gonna do once you’re too old to play rugby?’and I know it’s coming soon . . . but I got scared. I figured, better to play for the Cents than do nothing at all.”
I nod along because I get the sense he hasn’t finished, like he has more to say and it’s been building up for a while.
He does continue, and I’m relieved. I love hearing him talk—the smooth timbre of his voice, his soft Welsh accent—it’s like he’s caressing me, touching me without touching me. “I figured that because I already knew they’d heckle me it’d be easier to deal with, and I dunno . . . I guess it is, in a way. Still hits hard, though. I . . . I don’t like it when I can’t control what people think of me.”
