Falling Fast

Chapter 31 - The Dean, Suits and Dresses

As we were walking out to the pitch Sergey caught my elbow so that I slowed down a little.

“I’m sorry about Grigory being an arse,” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about your cousin,” I said.

“Ok, fair enough. But if I’d known he was going to ask her to marry him I would have said something. He stopped talking about her after he moved in next to you and I thought he’d split up with her. And then I saw him with you and I thought it was…” he frowned. “How do you say it? A… done deal?”

“Yeah,” I muttered and looked to the muddy floor as I walked. “That’s how you say it.”

“If it makes you feel any better I told him off for flirting with you.”

I smiled up at him. “It doesn’t. But thank you. You didn’t have to.”

He shrugged. “Someone had to. We have a word for what he –”

“Sergey. I really don’t want to talk about your cousin.”

“Right. Sorry. Is Lexie really going to be ok?”

I laughed. “She’s been doing this for years.” I frowned a little. “It’s actually a bit of a wonder she’s so brainy the amount of times she’s hit her head. But she’ll be fine.”

He didn’t look convinced in the slightest.

“What do you think to her being blonde?” I asked.

“I miss the red. But she looks beautiful.”

The players began to get into position and I picked up the pace so that we could join Lexie’s family before the match started. Luke, Scott and Evan were mixed in with them as normal and I put Sergey in a space between Paul and Robert. Paul was one of her half brothers. He was only a few days younger than her. He had his arm wrapped around a pretty brunette from the year below us at school.

“Who’s the girlfriend?” I asked him.

“Oh, hey,” he said and pulled his red, bobbled hat a little further down his ears. “This is Ana Sofía. Ana, this is Zoey. Lexie’s best friend.”

“Hi.”

“Oh, hey, I found your gloves,” Paul said to her and pulled them out of his coat pocket.

They got very involved with each other. I looked away and said hi to Robert. He was in his last GCSE year but that was less important than his chin which was covered in a melanin pad.

“What happened to you?” I asked completely interrupting his conversation with Sergey.

“Split it on something,” he shrugged. “You got that spare hat in your pocket?”

It was habit. I was wearing a knitted hat and normally it didn’t do much to keep my ears warm so I carried a thin, thermal hat with me. I pulled it out of my pocket and passed it to him. Robert had thick, dark blonde hair that was just about below his ears, but he always got an ear infection if his ears got too cold. “Why don’t you have your own?”

“Forgot it. Thanks.”

The match began just then and all conversation was dropped. I commentated a bit for Sergey, but after watching the men’s match he was able to keep up even if he didn’t understand all the rules. If I was being honest I didn’t understand them all either, but watching was always fun.

Lexie was in a couple of big tackles and pile ons, and Sergey winced every time. I had to stop him running on the pitch to see if Lexie was ok a couple of times. We cheered the whole way through and complained at the reff when he didn’t see some obvious fouls or knock-ons. The second half turned pretty brutal, even for a rugby match.