Always on My Mind (Stanmore FC Soulmates #2)

9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The floor swayed beneath Jamie’s feet. She squinted as she gazed ahead, fixing her eyes on the single light source yards in front of her—a lamp giving off a yellow glow that hardly pierced the smothering darkness. A warm breeze curled around her, carrying the salty scent of the ocean with it. She could hear the waves lapping at the vessel she stood on. She took a determined step, seeking something. . . someone. . .

Another woman appeared on the opposite side of the deck, and Jamie’s heart leaped with relief. There she was! Finally, they could escape together.

Hardly aware it was her own mouth moving, she called out. “Verity!”

The other woman turned her blonde head, and Tessa’s familiar brown eyes (sans glasses) tethered to Jamie’s gaze. “Abigail.”

Inwardly, Jamie questioned everything. Why had she called Tessa Verity? And why was Tessa calling her Abigail? Why were they dressed in corsets and more skirts than anyone should be wearing outside of a Renaissance fair?

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Jamie heard herself say. “But I thought one of the watchmen spotted me so I hid myself away until I was certain he was gone.”

“It’s alright, you’re here now.” Tessa/Verity took her hand. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course. If we made it to Jamestown, there would be no way for us to—”

The groan and sway of the ship cut Jamie off. She pulled her lover closer to keep them steady until they were right again.

“The men have bought and paid for us to be their wives. There would be no way for us to be together.” She reached up and cupped Tessa/Verity’s cheek. “I would rather depart this world together than face a lifetime apart.”

A tear escaped Verity’s eye when she blinked. Jamie, with Abigail’s soft hand, wiped it away with her thumb. Together, they hauled themselves up to the side of the ship, grasping a rope for the last semblance of balance. Jamie’s stomach lurched with the pitch of the ship, and she held her lover’s hand harder.

“One last kiss?” she offered. If this was to be their end, she wanted to feel those lips before she met it.

Verity pulled her close and captured her mouth in a fiery kiss as the wind whipped their hair and skirts around their bodies. Bodies they would soon surrender to the sea.

“I love you,” Verity whispered in Tessa’s distinctive voice. One that Jamie could recall on her nights in Manchester when her flat seemed to swallow her whole.

With timid, tearful smiles, and their hands clasped, they threw themselves from the ship and into the inky black water.

Jamie shot up, gasping for air. Panting, she looked wildly around her bedroom, blinking away the image of the water rising above her head. Her bedroom came slowly into focus—its empty walls and basic furniture more of a comfort now than it had been when she first arrived. She brought her hand to her sweaty, cold chest, her fingers still tingling with Tessa’s touch. Or was it Verity’s? Something told her they were one and the same.

She shook her head.

“It was a dream,” she said softly, willing her heart to return to a normal rate. “It was just a dream.”

She sat up straighter and her free hand met something hard. Glancing down, she found the Emily Dickinson book there. She had fallen asleep reading it.

With a huff, she picked it up and set it on her nightstand. She still wasn’t sure Lila was right about poetry revealing the contents of the soul. Jamie hardly understood most of it, though apparently the language was affecting her. Only that, and her thoughts of Tessa, could explain that dream.

“Old-timey lesbian rubbish,” Jamie muttered, turning her back on the book and closing her eyes.

The dream still lingered in Jamie’s thoughts as she pulled her kit over her head in the Stanmore dressing room the following morning at training. She had eventually gotten back to sleep—dreamless, thank goodness—but the images flashed before her eyes all through her morning coffee and breakfast. Now, as she laced up her boots, the look in Tessa/Verity’s eyes haunted her.

“Jamie,” Niamh said, drawing her out of her thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Is my ponytail off center?”

Jamie blinked and gazed at her. The bleach blonde strands were pulled into a perfect ponytail at the crown of Niamh’s head, with a pink headband to keep the baby hairs back.

“Looks dead center to me,” Jamie said.

“Good,” Niamh replied with a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Jamie glanced around at her other teammates, chatting and helping each other get ready for training. It was Monika’s turn to help Zahra with her pins. Sofia braided Mai’s hair. Neriah sat on Eliana’s lap on the bench in front of the latter’s locker. A few of them were already warming up, helping each other with calf stretches. All eyes turned on Rebecca when her office door came open and she emerged with her mouth in a grim line as if she were about to announce someone had died.

“Ladies, I’ve got some news this morning,” she said, and Jamie’s stomach twisted. “There’s been a. . . PR issue with Stanmore’s owner, and—”

“Is this the hooker thing?” Neriah piped up. “I read about that last night!”

“The what?” Paige gasped.

“Apparently our owner was caught with two hookers at a hotel and now the press is eating him alive and saying he hates women and shit,” Neriah said.

Jamie’s jaw dropped, and the room erupted with questions. She couldn’t place who said what, but she heard “Will he be resigning? When?” “What does that mean for the club?” “Maybe we’ll get a woman owner!”

“Ladies, ladies, please!” Rebecca called over the din, waving her arms to quiet them further. The noise died down and they were all focused on her again. “Mr. Rogers has unfortunately been the subject of scrutiny as of late. In an effort to prove he views women equal to men, he has decided the women’s professional team should not be using the academy facilities.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow at the manager. “So. . . we’re getting our own?”

Rebecca’s mouth turned down. “I’m afraid not.”

“Then what—”

“We’re sharing with the men’s team.”

A pregnant beat of silence passed before Eliana let out an anguished “NO!” and the rest of them shouted their agreement with the sentiment. Again Jamie only picked out bits and pieces of her teammates’ protests.

“But what about dressing rooms?” “This only further proves he hates women!” “They spit! My boots will be covered in spit!” “We need our own pitch!” “This isn’t fair!” “Why are we being punished?”

Rebecca raised her hands once more, and the team fell silent. “Listen, I’m as upset about this as you are. I appealed to everyone I could to keep us where we are, but they said he is absolutely firm in this decision. As of today, we will be training alongside the men and our matches will take place at the Hive.”

For a long moment, no one spoke.

“But. . . what about dressing rooms?” Zahra asked, fingers toying with her hijab.

“We’ll keep our dressing room,” Rebecca assured her. “We’ll just be huffing it over to the men’s practice pitch once we’re ready.”

“We can use it as a warm up jog,” Monika said, though it was half-hearted.

One of the things Jamie learned about Stanmore when she researched was that their facilities were all close together. The main stadium, the Hive, served as the stage for all the matches. But beside it were three other pitches. One for the professional men’s team to train, one for the academy and women’s team to train, and one for the women’s team and academy to play their matches. It had about a quarter of the seating capacity of the Hive. The four clustered together gave the appearance of a hive or wasp nest, which was how the facilities got its name. The academy training pitch was on the other side of the stadium from the men’s training pitch.

“A jog, indeed,” Rebecca said with a sigh. “Way to find the positive, Monika.”

“Does he seriously think this will make the public forget about him paying for sex?” Paige questioned. “I mean, it’s a performative gesture. Not that sex work should even be criminalized or carry a stigma, but—”

“I can’t explain the inner workings of Ray Rogers’ mind,” Rebecca said. “Apparently, there was also an incident at the end of the 22/23 season with a female employee getting assaulted at the club. He thinks that showing the women’s team this kind of ‘support’ will give himself and the club a better image.”

Jamie remembered reading that too. Stanmore’s head lawyer had attacked a legal assistant when she discovered that he had been hacking players’ personal emails to prevent certain players from being traded. The lawyer was fired, but the legal assistant still left the club, though not without pressing charges against the lawyer. The club put their full support behind the legal assistant, publicly stating they worked with law enforcement and had offered to let her keep her job. That statement was one of the reasons Jamie chose Stanmore. They protected their people.

She held back a shudder as the memories of Manchester City crept up on her. She couldn’t think about that now. It was behind her. She had moved on.

“The thing to keep in mind is the positives,” Rebecca went on. “They will want to fill the seats if we’re playing at the Hive, so we’ll get more marketing and exposure. It’ll be a boost to our spirits throughout the season. Because make no mistake, the season will be tough with us newly promoted.”

Jamie had not played professionally in a league lower than the WSL. And she and Niamh were newcomers to a team who had worked hard to get to that level. She hadn’t known these women long, but she was determined not to let them down.

“The Lionesses filling Wembley for the women’s Euro final was only the beginning,” Rebecca said. “With the support we’re getting from the highest level here at Stanmore, we can get people regularly and genuinely interested in women’s football. So let’s go out there and show them that this isn’t being gifted to us. We earned it.”

They nodded, smiles appearing on their faces as they readied themselves for the next challenge.

Monika led the team in the jog across the grounds to the men’s training pitch. It had about as much seating as the academy match day pitch, but it wasn’t risers, it had individual seating. Similar to the ones at the Hive. Five rows of them. On the practice pitch they shared with the academy, the women only had two rows. Jamie watched the frowns form on her teammates’ faces as they took it all in.

“What the fuck are they doing here?”

All eyes turned to the source of the question, a forward from the men’s team named Peter O’Riley. He ran a hand through his auburn curls as he glanced frantically between their manager, Donny Warren, and the approaching women. Who came to a stop at his accusatory glare.

Coach Warren, a stocky, sweet man, heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you’d been on time, O’Riley, you would’ve heard the announcement. The women’s team is training with us until further notice.”

O’Riley’s jaw dropped, and he cast a furious glare around at his teammates, as if hoping they might contradict their manager and say it was a joke. When no one moved, he scowled at the women.

“No fucking way,” he said.

“Get over yourself, O’Riley,” their goalkeeper and captain, Jordan Frawley said in his thick Scottish accent. He stood almost a head taller than the rest of the team, though Jamie thought Eliana could give him a run for his money. The outline of a ring hanging on a chain around his neck protruded through his shirt. He faced the women with a friendly smirk. “Alright, lads, let’s make them feel welcome.”

Jordan led the way, and the rest of the team—sans O’Riley—followed him. Monika ushered the women forward to meet them halfway. Jamie clasped hands first with a Colombian national, Hector Rizo, who greeted her with a warm smile and a kind “Bienvenido.”

“Thank you,” Jamie replied.

He nodded and moved to Zahra next, who did not extend her hand, but placed it over her heart instead and offered a humble nod. Hector didn’t miss a beat, mirroring her even as a flush came over his dark skin as he looked at her face. His teammate and Egyptian national, Osahar Shadid, leaned over and whispered something in Hector’s ear. Hector grinned and, eyes still on Zahra, said “Marhaba.”

Zahra beamed when she answered with, “Gracias.”

Jamie held back a laugh as the pair continued to stare at one another. Osahar greeted Jamie with a knowing smirk.

“Do you think it’s love at first sight?” he joked.

“If there are any skeptics about the concept, they are surely believers now,” Jamie said.

Osahar chuckled. “Welcome. Don’t let Peter deceive you, most of us are fine with you all being here.”

“Thanks very much,” she replied.

It turned out Osahar was right. All the men but O’Riley were perfectly friendly as the managers lined them up for drills. Jamie paired up with Zahra for a passing drill, but noticed the latter’s eyes kept drifting over to where Hector was paired with Artem, a Ukrainian midfielder. Jamie didn’t have it in her heart to even tease Zahra, not when she knew how it felt to be drawn to someone so strongly and so quickly. It was how she had felt about Tessa. It was still how she felt about Tessa. In fact, it almost reminded her of her dream about Verity and Abigail. Whatever that meant.