‘She’s here!’ I yelled, adrenaline surging at the sight of her red car skidding past the barrier and screeching to a stop. ‘Wilf, it’s okay. She’s here!’
Wilf wasn’t okay. His gaze flicked from me, to Elliot, to the referee, to a thousand other points, seeing none of them as his body began to tremble and the crowd began a restless murmur. Just as I was about to run over and rescue him, Connie burst through the crowd.
‘Wilf!’ she called, waving frantically. ‘I’m here! Give it your best shot, babe!’
But it was only when Isaac appeared, two steps behind her, that Wilf began to focus. Ignoring the rules and regulations, Isaac sprinted across the pitch, bending down so his face was level with Wilf’s, taking his hands and pressing them gently together as he’d learned from Connie. He spoke too quietly for any of us to hear what he said – other than telling the referee to ‘do one’ when he tried to speed things up – but it was enough to cause Wilf to take some much-needed deep breaths, turn and give his team a double thumbs up and fire the ball into the back of the net before the Brooksby goalkeeper had time to stop picking his nose.
The cheers still roared across the ground when the final whistle blew three minutes later.
Not a single parent, nor the manager, assistant manager and half of the strangers could contain their tears.
The boys, on the other hand, laughed, yelled, jumped on each other and took the time to shake every hand of the Brooksby team. When they heard that they’d been knocked out of the tournament thanks to goal difference, it did nothing to curb their celebrations.
‘Even better!’ Jan shouted. ‘Now the last match we played is a win!’
‘Well, you never know!’ Wodger said. ‘I reckon we could have beaten the Colts in the quarter finals, now Olly and Jackson are back.’
‘There’s always next year.’ Elliot grinned, as he tried to herd them away from the pitch.
‘So you’re definitely going to manage us next season?’ Wilf asked. ‘Jessie, are you staying for next season, too?’
I gaped at him, not sure if I could form a coherent answer. My brain was scrambled.
The second Wilf scored, Elliot had turned to me, and we’d flung our arms around each other in jubilation. So far, so normal for a manager and his assistant under the circumstances.
What was perhaps more unusual, was when he pulled far enough away to look me deep in the eyes, and then before I’d had a chance to blink, kissed me.
So, to answer Wilf’s question, right then I didn’t know what the heck I was going to be doing next season. A very large part of me wanted to say yes, of course, I’d be in whichever corner of the planet Elliot was going to be, because he was my home and I loved him and I wouldn’t ever be happy anywhere else.
The smaller, wiser, more weathered part?
That part needed a stiff drink and a friend.
38
‘Oh my days!’ Connie handed me a glass of wine. ‘You kissed Elliot Ollerton.’
‘Shhhh!’ I said, glancing around the Rocking Horse. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Doesn’t matter how quietly I say it, it still happened.’ She grinned, taking a seat next to me. After several hours of letting off steam in the pub garden, the boys had finally started to flag, and been taken home to bed. Connie had nipped to the Barn to check that the transition to the evening wedding reception had gone smoothly, and ducked out just after nine to kiss her sleeping penalty shooter goodnight before leaving him with his grandparents and meeting me in the pub.
‘Has he gone home?’
I nodded. ‘Hours ago. It was a big day for him.’
I would have gone home too, except that every time our eyes caught or Elliot and I happened to end up within more than a couple of metres of each other, I turned to mush again. It had been several hours and my cheeks were still flaming. There was no way I was going home until I knew he’d be in bed. Which I also knew was ten-thirty, on the dot.
‘It most certainly was!’
I took a gulp of wine. I’d stuck to soft drinks all afternoon, and the accompanying fuzz of alcohol was more than welcome.
‘Well?’ Connie asked, with an exasperated smile.
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, tell me everything! And you can’t deny it, because I saw it with my own two eyes.’
‘If you saw it, then you already know everything. Wilf scored, we hugged. ThenElliotkissedme.’
