Chapter 5: Pasta and Panic
The knock was a pathetic thing, a faint scuff of knuckle on wood that Roz was sure he hadn’t heard. She stood in the sterile, carpeted hallway of his building, clutching a bottle of wine like a lifeline. She’d changed five times, finally settling on dark jeans and a soft grey sweater that felt like a compromise between trying and not trying at all.
The door opened before she could knock again, and there he was.
Ally stood framed in the warm light of his flat, wearing a navy apron dusted with what looked like flour. A smudge of something red—tomato sauce, probably—was on his cheek. His hair was slightly mussed, and he was barefoot.
“You found it,” he said, his smile immediate and easy. The aroma that wafted out was rich and savory, garlic and basil and simmering tomatoes. It wrapped around her, displacing the cold anxiety in her chest.
“Your directions were very precise,” she managed. “Fourteen steps from the lift, door on the left.”
“A man of detail.” He stepped back, gesturing her in. “Come in. I’m in a critical phase.”
She stepped over the threshold. The flat was clean, modern, but lived-in. A large, comfortable-looking sofa faced a wall-mounted television. Books were stacked on a low shelf—a mix of sports biographies and dense engineering textbooks. The kitchen was open plan, and it was a scene of controlled chaos: pots simmered, a colander dripped in the sink, and a mound of pasta flour lay on the counter.
And on the far wall, in a sleek black frame, was a dark blue rugby jersey. It was mounted like a museum piece, the fabric stretched taut, the national crest prominent. Beneath it, a small plaque read: Alistair MacLeod, Cap #1144, First Try.
It was a physical shock. A demarcation line. This wasn't just a flat; it was the home of someone whose life was documented, numbered, framed. Her fingers tightened on the wine bottle.
“You brought reinforcements,” Ally said, taking the bottle from her gently. “Thanks. Perfect. I’m on a red wine reduction. It might be a crime.”
“It smells like it’s going well,” she said, forcing her eyes away from the jersey.
“The sauce is forgiving. Me, less so.” He moved back to the stove, giving her space to breathe. “Make yourself at home. Drinks are in the fridge, glasses are up there. I’m hostage to this stirring for ninety more seconds.”
Roz wandered to the large window overlooking the city. The lights were coming on, pinpricks in the dusk. “Nice view.”
“It’s better in the daytime. You can see the training grounds. Helps with the guilt when I’m supposed to be resting.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How was your week? Any more button-based transactions?”
She relaxed a fraction. “No. Susan’s moved on to attempting to barter with expired loyalty cards. It’s less poetic.”
He laughed, a warm, unfiltered sound. “Tell her the market’s volatile.” He lifted the spoon, tasted the sauce, and made a considering noise. “Okay. It’s not a crime. It’s maybe a minor misdemeanor. Hungry?”
“Starving.”
They ate at the small dining table, the framed jersey just in her peripheral vision. The food was simple and excellent. The pasta was perfectly al dente, the sauce rich and flecked with fresh herbs. The wine was smooth and dark.
“This is incredible,” she said, meaning it.
“It’s just a recipe. Follow the steps, get the result.” He shrugged, twirling pasta onto his fork. “Unlike, say, a line-out. Or conversation.”
She paused. “Are we bad at conversation?”
“No. We’re just careful. We take no unnecessary risks.” He smiled. “I like it. It feels like we’re building something, not just filling air.”
The directness disarmed her. She took a sip of wine. “I saw your try. In Cardiff. On the highlights.”
He looked up, surprised. “Did you?”
“Denny had it on. It looked… painful.”
“It was. Gloriously painful.” His eyes grew distant for a second. “That’s the bit they don’t put in the frame. The three days of ice baths afterwards. The feeling that your sternum has been used as a door knocker.” He nodded toward the wall. “That jersey. It’s from that match. First cap. First try.”
“It’s a big deal.”
“It is. And it isn’t.” He put his fork down. “It’s a piece of cloth. The memory is in here.” He tapped his temple. “And in my knee, and my shoulder. The framed thing is for other people. For my mum. For the guy who might someday buy this flat. It’s proof I was here.”
Roz looked at the jersey again, seeing it differently. Not just a trophy, but a receipt. A piece of evidence for a life lived at a certain velocity.
“What’s your proof?” he asked softly.
“My sketchbooks,” she said without hesitation. “Piles of them. They’re not framed. They’re messy. Full of half-thoughts and mistakes.”
“Better,” he said. “Infinitely better.”
The conversation unspooled after that, easier, deeper. They talked about the crushing pressure of his physio sessions, the mind-numbing boredom of hotel rooms, the peculiar loneliness of being in a packed stadium. He asked about her masters project, and she found herself explaining her series on architectural erosion—how man-made structures yielded to natural forces, and the beauty in that surrender.
“So it’s about things breaking?” he asked, fascinated.
“It’s about things changing. Authentically. A polished brass handle that’s worn smooth by thousands of hands tells a truer story than a new one.” She thought of the iron handle in her bag, but didn’t mention it.
He was silent for a moment. “I think I’m a polished handle sometimes. Worn smooth by expectation.”
“No,” she said, surprising herself. “You’re the new one, installed in the old door. You don’t quite fit, and everyone notices, but it works better than the original ever did.”
He stared at her, his expression unreadable. Then he blinked, looked down at his plate. “That might be the best thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
After dessert—a shop-bought cheesecake he presented with ironic ceremony—they moved to the sofa. The city glittered beyond the window. The comfortable silence returned, but it was charged now, a live wire.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, his voice lower. “That night at the club. You left quite quickly after we danced.”
Her pulse quickened. “It was a lot. The noise. I needed quiet.”
“Was it just the noise?”
She traced the pattern on a cushion. “I felt… seen. In a way I’m not used to. It was exhilarating. And terrifying.”
He nodded slowly, as if she’d confirmed a theory. “I know that feeling. Forty thousand people see you every weekend. None of them see you. Then one person does, and it’s…” He searched for the word.
“Disorienting,” she supplied.
“Yes.” He turned to face her more fully on the sofa, one arm stretched along the back. “Roz, I like this. I like the quiet. I like that you don’t care about my try count.”
“I do care,” she said. “I just don’t understand it. There’s a difference.”
He smiled. “A crucial one.” He reached out, his fingers brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek. The touch was electric, deliberate. His hand lingered, cupping the side of her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. His gaze was intense, questioning.
Every instinct told her to pull back, to retreat into the familiar shell. The shyness rose like a tide. But beneath it was a stronger current, pulled by the memory of dancing with him, by the careful way he listened, by the smell of flour and tomatoes on his apron.
She leaned into his touch.
It was permission. He closed the distance between them slowly, giving her every chance to refuse. She didn’t. His lips met hers, and the world condensed to a single point of contact.
It was not a dramatic, consuming fire. It was a discovery. Warm, sure, a question and an answer woven together. He tasted of red wine and basil. His hand slid from her cheek to the nape of her neck, his touch firm and gentle. Her own hands, tentative, found the soft cotton of his shirt at his shoulders, anchoring herself.
When they parted, it was only by an inch. Their breaths mingled. The hum of the refrigerator seemed loud in the sudden quiet.
“Okay?” he whispered, his forehead resting against hers.
She couldn’t speak. She nodded, her eyes still closed, imprinting the feeling.
His phone buzzed violently on the coffee table, a harsh, insistent sound. Then it buzzed again. And again. A cascade of notifications.
The spell shattered. Ally pulled back, a flash of frustration crossing his face. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Ham. And the team group chat. Something’s up.”
He picked up the phone, his brow furrowing as he scanned the messages. The easy, soft warmth in his posture hardened into something alert and professional. Roz felt the shift like a drop in temperature.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There’s been… an incident.” He scrolled, his jaw tightening. “One of the younger lads. Out in town. A fight. Police might be involved.” He stood up, running a hand through his hair. “The press will have it by morning. I need to make a call. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said automatically, standing too, smoothing her sweater. The cozy intimacy of the flat evaporated, replaced by the stark reality of his other world. The framed jersey on the wall seemed to grow larger, a stark reminder.
He was already tapping his screen, bringing it to his ear, his other hand held up in a silent plea for a moment. He walked towards the bedroom for privacy. “Ham? Yeah, I saw. How bad is it?”
Roz stood alone in the living room. The remains of their dinner were on the table. The city lights twinkled, indifferent. She could still feel the ghost of his kiss on her lips, a tender, fleeting thing already being overwritten by the urgent tone of his voice from the other room.
She quietly began to clear the plates, the clatter of ceramics the only sound she could control.
She quietly began to clear the plates, the clatter of ceramics the only sound she could control. From the bedroom, his voice was a low, urgent rumble, words like “solicitor” and “head coach” and “damage control” slipping through the door. The cozy flat now felt like a waiting room adjacent to a different, louder universe.
She had just placed the last dish in the sink when he reappeared. His expression was taut, the softness from the sofa completely gone. He looked at her, then at the tidied table, and his shoulders slumped a fraction.
“Roz. I’m so sorry. That was…”
“Important,” she finished for him, drying her hands on a tea towel. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not, but it’s my mess to deal with.” He shoved his phone in his pocket as if to physically contain it. “A nineteen-year-old prop with more testosterone than sense decided a nightclub bouncer was a worthy opponent. It’s a circus now.”
She offered a small, understanding smile that felt weak on her face. “You should go. Handle it.”
“I can’t. Not till the morning. My job right now is to stay here, answer my phone, and not be seen anywhere near the situation.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “Which is a profoundly useless feeling.”
The space between them in the kitchen felt vast. The ghost of the kiss lingered, but now it was covered by a layer of static. Roz folded the towel neatly, aligning its edges. The impulse to flee, to retreat to the simple, predictable silence of her own studio, was a physical pull in her muscles.
“I should go,” she murmured, not looking at him. “You have real things to deal with.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Look at me?”
She did. His gaze was steady, searching.
“Roz, sorry. That was rude of me. I should go,” she repeated, the words barely audible.
He took a single step forward, stopping himself. “You don’t have to leave. Nothing can happen with all this till the morning anyway.” He gestured vaguely at his phone. “Have coffee, tea. I’ll walk you home or get you a cab. Just stay for a bit.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Tell me to get lost, but you really flinched earlier when I… if this is too much or something’s wrong, please tell me.”
The directness pinned her there. He hadn’t missed it. She’d thought her slight recoil, that instinctive tremor when his touch moved from her cheek to her neck, had been swallowed by the kiss. He’d felt it.
“It wasn’t you,” she said, the confession leaving her in a rush. “It was me. I just… I’m not used to people touching me. Like that. Gently.”
The admission hung in the air, raw and terribly vulnerable. He didn’t rush to fill the silence. He just listened, his whole attention on her, making the space feel smaller again.
“Most people are like doorframes,” she continued, looking past him at the framed jersey. “You brush past them. It’s incidental. What you did… it was deliberate. It felt like being studied. It was nice. It was just… a lot.”
“Okay,” he said softly, a world of understanding in the word. He moved slowly to the kettle, filling it, clicking it on. A domestic sound. “We can just have tea. No deliberate touching. Unless you want to punch my arm for being a distracted host. I’d probably deserve it.”
A faint, real smile touched her lips. “I don’t punch.”
“Noted.” He got down two mugs. “So, tea. Then I walk you back whenever you say. We can talk about boring things. My reduction sauce technique. The structural integrity of your favorite coffee shop door.”
She leaned against the counter, the tension in her spine unwinding one vertebra at a time. “The handle is loose. I’ve been meaning to tell Denny.”
“See? Critical intel.” He passed her a mug of steaming tea, his fingers carefully avoiding hers. “That’s my proof I was here, remember? Fixing a loose handle.”
She took the mug, the heat seeping into her hands. “Better than a framed jersey.”
“Infinitely,” he agreed, and tapped his mug gently against hers.
The steam from their mugs rose in parallel wisps between them, a fragile curtain. The city’s night glow painted the lines of his face in soft blue and amber. He took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving hers over the rim.
The quiet wasn’t empty now. It was full of her confession, hanging there like the jersey on the wall—a fact of her, displayed without her intent. She focused on the heat in her palms.
“That thing you said,” he began, his voice quieter. “About people being doorframes. That’s…” He shook his head, searching. “That’s exactly it. Most contact is just… impact. Collision. It’s transactional. A handshake, a clap on the back, a tackle.” He looked down into his tea. “The other kind… it’s rarer. It requires noticing.”
“You notice too much,” she said, not as an accusation, but a shared truth.
“I can’t help it.” He leaned back against the counter, putting a few more inches of safe distance between them. “It’s a survival skill on the pitch. Reading a player’s eyes, the set of their shoulders a second before they move. It leaks into everything else.”
He fell silent again, but this one was charged. She could see the question forming, the calculation behind his eyes as he weighed the risk. He put his mug down with a soft click.
“Did someone hurt you, Roz?”
The air left the room. The hum of the refrigerator amplified into a roar. She felt her body go very still, a small animal caught in a sudden, stark beam of light.
She looked away, her gaze fixing on the darkened television screen where their blurred reflections ghosted. The words, when they came, were barely a whisper. “Ally.”
“Shit.” He exhaled, a harsh, frustrated sound. He pushed a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have been so direct. My mum always tells me off for that. Just… ignore I said anything. Please.”
But it was out. The shape of the question now occupied the space, solid and unavoidable. It wasn’t just about a flinch anymore. It was about a history, a cause. He’d bypassed the symptom and gone straight for the root, and the violence of that leap left her trembling.
She didn’t cry. She never did. She just felt a familiar, cold hollowness expand beneath her ribs. Her fingers tightened on the mug.
“It’s not a simple question,” she finally said, her voice strangely calm and far away.
“I know.” The regret in his voice was thick. “I know it’s not. I just… When you said that, about the touch. It wasn’t just shyness. It was a reaction. I’ve seen that reaction before. In guys after a bad concussion. A defensive wiring.”
He wasn’t wrong. That was the terrible, perceptive truth of it. She felt seen, down to the fractured bedrock.
“It was a long time ago,” she offered, a fragile piece of truth. It was all she could manage to give.
He nodded, accepting it as the profound concession it was. He didn’t press for chapters, for verses, for a timeline. He just absorbed the weight of the statement.
“Okay,” he said. The word was an anchor. “Thank you for telling me that.”
He picked up his mug again, a deliberate, normal action. “The tea’s getting cold. Tragic, really.” He attempted a small, lopsided smile, an offering of normalcy.
She looked back at him, at the genuine apology in his eyes, at the careful way he was rebuilding the space around them after his own clumsy demolition. The coldness inside her didn’t thaw, but it stopped spreading.
“It’s still warm enough,” she said, and took a sip. It was a peace treaty, written in tea and quiet understanding. The momentum of the evening had shattered, but in its place was something denser, more real, and profoundly fragile.
The momentum of the evening had shattered, but in its place was something denser, more real, and profoundly fragile. They finished their tea in a silence that was no longer comfortable, but necessary, a mutual ceasefire. The only sound was the distant, intermittent buzz of his phone on the counter, which he ignored.
“I should really go,” she said again, her voice firmer now.
“Right. Yeah, of course.” He didn’t argue this time. He fetched her coat from the hook by the door, holding it out for her. She turned and slipped her arms in, his hands briefly grazing her shoulders to adjust the collar. The touch was practical, fleeting. She appreciated the calculation in it.
He pulled on a worn canvas jacket and shoved his feet into trainers without untying them. “Come on, wee thing, I’ll walk you home.”
The old Scots endearment, so casual from him, slipped out and wrapped around her in the hallway. It felt like a blanket offered in the cold. She didn’t object.
The night air was a sharp, cleansing slap after the warmth of the flat. A fine, misting rain had begun, haloing the streetlights along the quiet residential street. Their footsteps synced on the wet pavement, a soft, rhythmic pattern. He matched his longer stride to hers without comment.
“I wasn’t trying to pry back there,” he said finally, his words forming a faint cloud in the air. “I just have a bad habit of charging at problems I see. On and off the pitch.”
“I know.” She watched their shadows stretch and contract under the lamps. “It’s okay. It’s just not a problem you can charge.”
“Noted.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “For the record, you don’t have to tell me anything. Ever.”
They turned onto a busier avenue, the sound of a distant night bus hissing through puddles. The familiarity of her neighborhood began to seep back into her bones—the cracked paving slab she always avoided, the smell of damp earth from the university botanical gardens.
“He was a tutor,” she said.
The words were so quiet they were almost lost under the swish of a passing car. Ally didn’t startle, didn’t even look at her. He just kept walking beside her, a solid, listening presence in the periphery of her vision.
“Second year of my undergrad. It wasn’t… dramatic. No fists. Just pressure. And feeling small.” She took a shaky breath, the cold air stinging her lungs. “It makes you feel stupid, afterwards. For not seeing it. For trusting your own judgement.”
“You’re not stupid,” he said, his voice low and absolute.
“I know that logically. Here.” She tapped her temple. “The rest of me is still catching up.”
They crossed the street, the orange glow of a convenience store spilling across their path. He seemed to understand she was done talking about it, that the offering, however small, was complete.
“My knee gives out sometimes,” he said, apropos of nothing. “Randomly. I’ll be walking to the shop and it just… forgets how to be a knee. Sends a full-blown panic signal to my brain that I’m about to snap in half. My brain knows the surgery was two years ago, that it’s fine. The rest of me is still catching up, too.”
She glanced at him. He was looking straight ahead, his profile sharp in the uneven light. It wasn’t a comparison. It was a kinship. A different kind of violence, a different kind of aftermath, but the same delayed echo in the nervous system.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Only when I forget to remember it’s fixed.” He gave a short, quiet laugh. “So, always.”
They reached the stone steps leading to the main door of her building, a converted Victorian townhouse. The security light flickered on, harsh and yellow. This was her sanctuary, her mess of sketchbooks and quiet. The threshold felt more significant than his had.
She turned to him. “Thank you. For the walk. And the pasta.”
“Thank you for the wine. And the company.” He rocked back on his heels, hands still buried. The rain had darkened the shoulders of his jacket. “I’ll, uh. I’ll probably be in the shop tomorrow. Damage control day. Might need a strategic coffee.”
“I’ll be there.” She managed a small smile. “Button transactions only.”
He returned the smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were searching her face with a renewed intensity. He was fighting the urge to charge again, she could see it. To fix, to reassure with action.
Instead, he simply leaned in and pressed a single, deliberate kiss to her forehead. His lips were warm against her cool skin. It was a seal. A promise of nothing, and everything.
“Get inside, wee thing,” he murmured, stepping back. “Text me when you’re in.”
She nodded, fumbling for her keys. She pushed the heavy door open and slipped into the dim hall. Before it swung shut, she looked back. He was already walking away, a tall, solitary figure heading back into the glittering, demanding night, one hand raised in a silent farewell without turning around.