But that doesn’t exist, and instead I’m on the bleachers of an empty stadium waiting for a man that I’ve grown hopelessly, helplessly in love with. I hate that I can’t have everything, and I hate that it’s human nature to want more when you finally have it.
Finally there’s shouting from below, and I stop emailing to crane my neck down to see a bunch of big burly men in tight shirts and shorts heading out onto the field. Lachlan is at the back of the pack, talking to a shorter man in a windbreaker that’s nearly as wide as he is. I assume that’s Alan, the coach.
I can’t deny that my heart does a double back flip at the sight of Lachlan on the field, in those clothes that show off every thick, sinewy inch of his muscles. He’s a fucking god and a god I’m fucking. I have to pinch myself, even though my own pulse is threatening to step out of bounds.
Though he walks with a familiar swagger, he holds himself differently here. Proud. He’s beyond confident. He acts like he owns the field, owns the very game. If I was a girl living here, I’d be at every single game watching him. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what half the stadium consists of—girls wanting to get their Lachlan McGregor on.
The practice itself isn’t very interesting. There’s about a dozen or so people on the field, and the coach alternates between having them play each other full on for a few minutes, then pairing players off to work on exercises. Just as Lachlan said, he spends a lot of time running with the ball, dodging players coming at him. He sidesteps them, sometimes causing the other player to fall flat on their face, sometimes spinning off a tackle. Sometimes he doesn’t sidestep at all and just goes for the opponent’s shoulder. I can tell he pulls back at the last second and doesn’t hit with all his strength. If it were an actual game and that wasn’t his teammate he was slamming into, I bet he wouldn’t hold back at all. He really is a beast.
And he’s fucking fast. Though he’s not used all the time and often spends a lot of the game hanging at the edges of the team, when he is passed the ball, he takes off down that field like he’s about to take flight. It’s amazing how a man of his stature can run so damn fast, those muscular legs pumping like a machine.
I could literally sit here for hours watching him. I can’t take my eyes away. He’s so into the game that he only looks up in the stands a few times. But when he sees me, he gives me a nod, and I find myself waving shyly like a school girl.
It’s hard to even imagine him skinny and scrawny on the streets, doing drugs and feeling so hopeless. What a different man he is on the field.
Eventually practice ends, and as everyone heads back under the bleachers and to the locker rooms, he runs up the stairs toward me, tireless and taking the steps two at a time.
“How you doing?” he asks, sweat glistening on his scrunched brow as he stands over me.
“Good,” I tell him. “You’re like…a rugby machine.”
He looks over at the field, wincing while he wipes his arm across his forehead. “Yeah? Didn’t feel like it.”
“Well, you look like it. I’m…lucky. I’m lucky. You’re amazing. You’ve impressed the pants off of me.”
He looks at me, the corner of his mouth lifting up. “Is that so?”
“I’ve never wanted to screw you more,” I tell him honestly.
He chuckles. “All right. Well that can be arranged. You don’t mind if I have a shower first?”
I frown. “Are you actually serious about having sex with me?”
“Love, I am always serious about having sex with you. And yeah. Maybe a locker room shag has always been a fantasy of mine.”
Fuck. Sign me up. As if I wasn’t already turned on watching him get all sweaty on the field, asserting his dominance, now he’s staring at me with a gaze that can only be described as molten.
“What about your teammates? I’m not that much of an exhibitionist.”