Chapter 9: Portfolio Exposed
The cold walk from Murrayfield back to her studio in Stockbridge did nothing to numb the feeling. Roz’s portfolio case, now zipped shut over the disarray inside, felt like it was vibrating against her leg. The echo of Ally’s roar—Enough!—and the sickening thud of Grezza’s body against the lockers played on a loop in her head, spliced with her own voice, thin and final: This is why we can’t.
The studio was a sanctuary that now felt like a crime scene. She unzipped the case, the muted sound obscenely loud in the quiet. Papers slid out, some bent at the corners, the careful sequential order of her presentation destroyed. There they were. The studies Grezza had deliberately scattered. Not just the approved tactical sketches of scrums and line-outs, but the ones from the physio room. Ally’s face, tight with concentration. The elegant, vulnerable line of his injured knee under Fiona’s hands. His hands themselves, resting on his stomach, fingers loosely curled. Private moments. Intimate, in a clinical way. They weren’t romantic, but they were personal. And in the context of a grimy locker room, surrounded by snickering men, they might as well have been love letters.
She laid them out on her broad work table, smoothing the creases with a trembling palm. The anger came then, hot and sharp, cutting through the cold humiliation. It wasn’t just at Grezza, the blunt instrument. It was at the whole ecosystem. The assumption that she was a distraction, a side-show. That her work, her professional focus, was just a front for something else. That Ally’s respect for her was merely predation in nicer clothing.
Her phone buzzed on the table. Ally. Again. The third time since she’d walked out. She’d ignored the first two. This time, she looked at the screen.
> I’m outside. I know you probably don’t want to see me. I’ll stay out here all night if I have to.
She walked to the window, peeling back the edge of the blind. The street lamp cast a jaundiced glow on the drizzle. He was there, leaning against a stone wall across the street, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, head down. He looked like a ghost from one of her sketches, rendered in washed-out yellow and deep blue shadow. He wasn’t looking up, just waiting. A solid, stubborn punctuation mark in the empty street.
Sighing, she tapped out a text.
> The door’s unlocked.
A minute later, she heard the soft creak of the stair. He entered the studio slowly, as if stepping into a church. He was still in his training kit, a beanie pulled low over his hair, his face pale and set.
“Your knee,” she said, because it was the only safe thing.
“It’s fine. Hurt my shoulder more, shoving that prick.” He didn’t move from just inside the door. The space between them felt vast. “Roz, I am so sorry. That should never have happened.”
“You didn’t knock over my portfolio.”
“No. But I created the… climate.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “My reaction proved every stupid thing he was implying. I lost my head. I made it worse.”
“You defended me,” she said, her voice quiet. “And then I ran away.”
“You had every right to.” He finally took a few steps in, his eyes scanning her work table, the scattered evidence of the disaster. He flinched, seeing the intimate studies laid bare under the bright studio lights. “Christ. Are they all…”
“They’re just drawings, Ally. They’re my work.”
“I know that. You know that. They don’t.” He gestured vaguely, towards the stadium, towards the world. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
The truth of it sat between them, ugly and undeniable. She hugged herself. “He called it a courtship. In the physio room. It’s in their heads now. It’s a story. And stories are more powerful than facts.”
“What’s the fact, Roz?” His voice was raw. “Just tell me. Because I’m standing here, and my shoulder’s throbbing, and all I can think about is the look on your face when you walked out. That ‘this is why we can’t’ look. What can’t we?”
The question hung in the air, heavier than the smell of turpentine and gesso. She turned back to the table, tracing the line of his sketched jaw with a finger that didn’t touch the paper. “We can’t blur the lines. I can’t let this commission, this huge break for me, become about… this. I can’t be the girl in the locker room gossip. I won’t.”
“So I’m just the subject? And you’re just the artist?” He moved closer. She could feel the heat from his body, smell the rain and cold on his jacket. “After everything? The pizza. The texts. The way you looked at me when I kissed your hand. That was all just research?”
She spun to face him. “No! God, no. But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter what it was. It only matters what it looks like. And it looks like you’re shagging the portrait painter. It looks like I’m sleeping my way to a better commission. It undermines everything. My work. Your professionalism. Everything.”
“So we let them win?” His eyes blazed. “We let a bunch of narrow-minded, jealous pricks dictate what this is? Because they can’t comprehend a man being interested in a woman’s mind? In her talent? They can only think in terms of conquests and distractions?”
“It’s not about letting them win! It’s about surviving the game!” Her voice broke. “I’m not one of you, Ally. I don’t have a team. I’m alone in here. And this… this thing with you… it’s a liability. For both of us.”
He was silent for a long moment, just looking at her. The intensity from the locker room was gone, replaced by a weary, deep-seated frustration. “You’re wrong,” he said finally, quietly. “You’re not alone. And this isn’t a liability. It’s the only thing in the last six weeks that hasn’t felt like part of the machine. The rehab, the press stuff, the bloody endless meetings. This, with you, in this room… it’s real. And I’m not willing to throw that away because Gregor McTavish has the emotional range of a teaspoon.”
He reached out, not for her, but for one of the scattered sketches. It was a close-up of his eyes, from a session where he’d been talking about his first cap. She’d caught a specific, unguarded pride in them. He studied it, his expression unreadable. “You see me,” he said, almost to himself. “The real me. Not the brand, not the player. You even see the patient, and you don’t look away. You make it art.” He placed the drawing back on the table with reverence. “They’re scared of that. Grezza is. Because he knows he’ll never be seen like that. Not by anyone.”
Roz felt the wall around her heart crack. The professional resolve, the fear, it all began to crumble under the sheer, simple weight of his understanding. He got it. He saw the invasion for what it was.
“What do we do?” she whispered, all her arguments spent.
He moved then, closing the last of the distance. He didn’t embrace her. He just took her hand, his thumb stroking over her knuckles, a mirror of that first kiss. “We finish the painting. You do your job, brilliantly. I’ll do mine, and get back on the pitch. And we stop hiding.”
“They’ll talk more.”
“Let them. The talking stops when they get bored. But only if we don’t feed it. If we’re just… us. Openly. No sneaking. No drama. Just two people who found each other in the middle of a madhouse.”
It sounded impossibly naive. And yet, standing in the pool of light from her drafting lamp, his hand warm around hers, it felt like the only solid ground left.
“Okay,” she breathed. The word was barely audible.
“Okay?” He searched her face.
“Okay. No hiding.”
A slow, genuine smile touched his lips for the first time all evening. It was tired, but real. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the same spot on her knuckles, a seal on the promise.
Outside, the drizzle turned to a steady rain, tapping against the studio window. The scattered drawings on the table were no longer evidence of a scandal. They were just work. His phone buzzed in his pocket—the team, no doubt. He ignored it, his focus entirely on her.
“I should let you work,” he said, but made no move to leave.
“You should ice your shoulder.”
“I will.”
They stood there, hands linked, in the quiet sanctuary of the studio. The storm hadn’t passed; they had just decided to stop being afraid of the rain. The momentum had shifted, from retreat to a fragile, determined advance. The painting awaited. The pitch awaited. But for now, in this small, lit room with the smell of charcoal and hope, there was only the two of them, and the silent agreement to face whatever came next, together.
But for now, in this small, lit room with the smell of charcoal and hope, there was only the two of them, and the silent agreement to face whatever came next, together. The rain on the window was the only sound for a long moment. Ally’s thumb still moved absently over her knuckles, a slow, grounding rhythm.
“You’re gorgeous, Roz,” he said, the words quiet but stark in the stillness. They weren’t smooth. They sounded fractured, as if he’d been holding them in for weeks. “Utterly beautiful. The first time I saw you, you stole my breath.” He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “Beautiful, tiny, delicate, fierce. Just… wow.”
Roz felt the heat rise in her cheeks, a different kind of flush entirely. It wasn’t embarrassment. It was the shock of being seen so completely, and so awkwardly praised. “Ally Fraser, did you just say ‘wow’?”
“I did.” He didn’t smile. His blue eyes were deadly serious. “I’ve been wanting to say it since you walked into that physio room with your pencils, all business, and your hands were shaking just a little. I thought you were terrified. Then I realized you were just concentrating so hard it was burning you up from the inside.”
She looked down at their joined hands, his so much larger, scarred and calloused. “That might be the least smooth compliment I’ve ever received.”
“Good. It’s not a line. It’s a fact.” He finally released her hand, only to gently tilt her chin up. “The ‘wow’ stays. It’s integral to the thesis.”
A genuine laugh escaped her, surprising them both. The tension in the room shifted, lightening into something fragile but real. He grinned back, the possessive intensity from the locker room finally melting into the charming, funny man she’d shared pizza with.
“So, no hiding,” she repeated, testing the words.
“No hiding. I’ll walk you to your car tomorrow at the stadium. We’ll get coffee in the cafeteria where everyone can see. The full, boring, transparent monty.” He shoved his hands back in his jacket pockets, assuming a casual stance that didn’t match the earnestness in his eyes. “But tonight, I really do need to ice this shoulder. And you need to… whatever it is you do with these.” He nodded at the scattered sketches.
“Sort my crime scene,” she said, turning back to the table.
He lingered by the door. “Roz? For what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s a liability. Makes it feel important.”
Then he was gone, his footsteps retreating down the stairs. The studio felt larger, emptier, but charged with a new kind of potential. She began gathering the drawings, not with hurried shame, but with a curator’s care. Each study was examined, its value reassessed. They were good. Better than good. They had truth in them.
She paused at the one he’d held, the close-up of his eyes. You see me. He was right. She did. And he saw her, not just the artist or the shy woman, but the fierce, delicate, beautiful whole of her. The ‘wow’. It was terrifying. It was ammunition. It was also the most solid thing she’d felt in years.
Her phone chimed. A text from an unknown number.
>> It’s Fiona from physio. Ally gave me your number. Hope that’s okay. He’s just told me about the locker room. Wanted to say I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Also, for the portrait, I think you should capture that look he gets just before he’s about to do something stupidly brave. The calm bit. The rest of us see the roar. You’ll see the quiet.
Roz stared at the message. An ally, from within the fortress. She typed back a simple thank you, her heart lifting.
Outside, the rain softened to a mist. She placed the drawing of Ally’s eyes in the centre of her clean work table, a focal point. Then she retrieved her largest canvas, leaning it against the wall. She mixed a base colour, a muted, stormy grey-blue, and with a broad brush, began to lay in the first sweeping background wash.
The momentum was no longer about damage control. It was about creation. And she started to paint.