Six O'clock

Chapter 7: Six O'Clock

Aima's POV

I stared at the back of my phone as if it might bite me.

It lay face down on the desk where I had left it. I still hadn't opened his message or replied to it.

I lay down on the thin bed in Dom's jacket and listened to the radiator clank. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a door slamming in my face.

At around two in the morning, I fell asleep. At half past five, my alarm went off.

The phone was still face down, and I left it there.

I was in the arena at ten to six, standing by the bench with a pile of clean towels in my arms.

Dom walked in at exactly six. He looked at the clock on the wall. Then he looked at me.

"You're early," he said.

"You said six."

"I said not five past six. Early is fine." He walked on without another word.

It was the nicest thing he had said to me all morning.

The rest of the team came in slowly, with sports bags on their shoulders and sleepy faces. Every one of them looked at me. Then they looked away and whispered.

I heard the words "flower girl" three times before they even reached the court.

A tall player with Vance written boldly across his shirt stopped in front of me. He was the one who had told everyone Dom took money from a bookie—a bookie who takes bets on games—saying Dom had been paid to lose on purpose.

"So you're the new girlfriend," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Does Dom know you're after his money too? Oh wait. He hasn't got any."

A few players laughed.

My face went hot. I felt like slapping him, but I had to control myself or I might get kicked out. Dom had told me not to speak to the players unless they spoke to me first. Well, Vance had spoken to me, so now I could answer.

"I'm here for the towels," I said. "Would you like one? You're sweating, and it's not even warm in here."

The laughing stopped. Someone coughed to hide a smile.

Vance stared at me. Then he took the towel without a word and walked away.

My hands were shaking. I tucked them under the pile so nobody would see.

Practice began, and I got on with my job.

I carried the ball bags out to the court. I laid out the cones—the small orange markers players run around in drills. I filled the water bottles from the big cooler and lined them up on the bench, one for each player.

Then I stopped, with a bottle in my hand.

Jemima's voice was back in my head: "I'll drop it in his water bottle during the pre-game warm-ups." She had been talking about James at the finals. But a bottle is just a bottle. Anyone could put something in any of them.

So I did something nobody had asked me to do. I checked every bottle. I held each one up to the light, smelled it, and checked the lid. There were twelve bottles, and all of them were clean.

I knew it was silly, but I couldn't stop myself. I did the same thing at the next break.

By the end of the morning, I had also taken over another job. The assistant coach was doing it badly, with messy handwriting and missing numbers. I had watched basketball for eighteen months, so I knew what to look for.

I took the page from his hand and said, "Can I?" Then I filled it in properly.

He looked at it for a long time. "Huh," he said. I didn't bother saying a word back.

Across the court, Dom was watching me. He looked away as soon as I noticed.

By lunchtime, my phone was full of notifications. Tolu had sent me a link. It was a photo from the press conference. In it, I was wearing the Titans' jacket, with Dom's arm around my waist, looking up at him and smiling.

The headline read: "Titans Captain and the Flower Girl: The Love Story of the Season."

I read it twice. There were thousands of comments. Some were kind, some said I was a liar, and most said they hoped I was happy.

It was working. The whole country was looking at me and Dom, and not at the video of him missing shots.

It should have felt good. Instead, I felt a bit sick, because strangers were being kind to me about something that wasn't true.

That night, I couldn't sleep again. At eleven, I gave up trying, pulled on my trainers, and went downstairs for a glass of water.

_______

The arena was dark, except for one light over the court. There was a sound I knew very well: the thud of a ball, then the swish of a net.

Dom was alone on the court in a grey T-shirt, shooting free throws. He scored one. Then another. Then he missed, and he stood very still with the ball in his hands.

"I know you're there," he said, without turning around.

"I couldn't sleep," I said.

"Neither could I."

I didn't know why I did it, but I walked onto the court and picked up a loose ball. I bounced it once. It was heavier than I expected. "Why are you still shooting?"

He was quiet for a long time. "Because every time I close my eyes, I see that video."

I stopped, not knowing the best response to give.

"They cut it," he said. "The footage. It only shows the second half, and me missing shots. They chopped out the parts where I scored, and where I got hurt and played on anyway. If you only see the misses, it looks like I did it on purpose." His voice was flat, but his hands were gripping the ball tight. "I never took a penny, Aima. My dad taught me to play fair. I would never throw a game."

"I believe you," I said.

He looked at me, properly, for the first time. "Why? You don't know me."

"Because you're here at eleven at night, shooting free throws," I said. "A cheat would've gone home."

He didn't say anything, but something in his shoulders loosened.

I sat on the edge of the bench. After a moment, he came and sat beside me, keeping a careful gap between us.

"My mum had a hair salon," I said. I didn't know why I was telling him. "In Birmingham. It smelled of coconut oil and hot combs. When I was little, I used to sit on a stool by the door and sweep up the hair. She'd give me ten pence for every pile."

"Where is it now?"

"Sold." I kept my eyes on the floor. "I sold it after the crash. It's gone."

Dom didn't say he was sorry. He didn't say anything. But he didn't look away either, and somehow that was better.

Then he glanced down at my hands.

"Show me."

"What?"

"Your hands."

I held them out. The palms were red and raw, with blisters across them from carrying heavy equipment crates all day.

Dom frowned. He reached into his bag, took out a roll of white sports tape, and tossed it to me. He didn't look like he felt sorry; I couldn't read his face.

"Wrap them before tomorrow," he said gruffly. "And use gloves. They're in the store cupboard."

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't make it a thing."

But I saw his mouth twitch, just for a second, before he picked up the ball again.

I walked back up the stairs with the tape in my hand. My hands hurt. My head was full of James and Jemima and the vial. But I was warm. For the first time since Manchester, I was warm all the way through.

I stopped on the stairs.

I knew that feeling, and it scared me. I had felt it before, with James, a long time ago.

Dom's third rule came back to me, word for word, in his low, rough voice: The second this feels real to you, we're done.

I held the tape tighter and told myself it was just a kind gesture and nothing more.