Chapter 9: Locker Room Confessions
The cold spray from the showerhead did nothing to clear the fog in Ally’s head. It was a different kind of fatigue, one that had nothing to do with muscle glycogen or impact metrics. It was a buzzing, pleasant static, the ghost of a sensation on his lips, the memory of lamplight on a face half-hidden by hair. He’d replayed the walk to her door a dozen times. The goodnight kiss that had been softer than the first, a slow, lingering promise that had left him standing on the dim landing for a full minute after it closed.
He toweled off, the rough cotton abrasive against skin that felt strangely sensitized. The folded square of paper was tucked into the outer mesh pocket of his gym bag, a deliberate placement so he’d see it. He pulled it out now, careful of damp fingers. The creases were deepening. He unfolded it, smoothing it against his thigh on the wooden bench.
Alistair MacLeod.
His full name, in her neat, looping handwriting. It did something to him every time. It was a formality that felt profoundly intimate. He was just Ally to everyone—to his mates, to the coaches, to the media. But to her, in this moment of sharing her world, he was Alistair.
“What’s that, then? Love letter from a fan?”
A shadow fell over the paper. Hamish Campbell, dripping wet and grinning, reached down with lightning speed. Ally’s reflexes, honed on the pitch, were faster. He snapped his hand back, but Ham, expecting it, grabbed his wrist. It was an old game. They tussled for a second, a silent, grappling match of slippery limbs on the bench.
“Piss off, Ham.”
“Is it a recipe? For that cake you keep moaning about?” Ham grunted, using his weight to pin Ally’s arm back. With his other hand, he plucked the paper free.
Triumphant, he danced back, holding the invite aloft. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” He cleared his throat dramatically, his voice echoing in the nearly empty locker room. “You are cordially invited to attend the Master of Fine Arts Degree Show Preview… Blah, blah… featuring the work of Roslyn McLeod…” Ham’s eyes, scanning the page, went wide. He whistled low. “Roslyn, is it? Fancy. And look at this! Handwritten at the bottom!” He raised his voice to a mocking, tender falsetto. “‘Alistair MacLeod.’ Not ‘Ally’. Not ‘Big Man’. Full government name. This is serious.”
“Give it here,” Ally said, his voice low. He stood up.
Ham backed away, still reading. “It’s at the college. Black tie optional. Are you gonna wear a kilt? You should wear a kilt. She’d probably paint you.”
“Ham. Now.”
Something in Ally’s tone made Ham look up. The teasing glint faded a fraction. He saw the set of Ally’s jaw, the unusual intensity in his eyes. This wasn’t the usual post-training irritation. This was something else.
“Alright, keep your hair on,” Ham said, but he didn’t hand it back. He took another step back, a challenge. “Come and get it.”
Ally moved. It wasn’t a playful lunge; it was a controlled explosion. He crossed the space, hooked a foot behind Ham’s ankle, and drove him back against the bank of metal lockers. The impact boomed through the room. Ham, off-balance and surprised, dropped the invite. Ally caught it before it fluttered to the damp floor, his other forearm planted firmly against Ham’s chest, pinning him to the lockers.
They were nose-to-nose, breathing hard. The scent of shampoo and steam hung between them.
“Okay,” Ham said, his hands coming up in surrender. “Point made. Christ, your head’s gone.”
Ally didn’t move. The adrenaline was sharp in his veins. He looked at the slightly crumpled paper in his hand, then back at Ham. The frustration wasn’t really about the invite. It was about the feeling it represented—a feeling so new and fragile he didn’t have the language for it, and Ham’s teasing felt like throwing stones at a soap bubble.
He released the pressure, stepping back. “Sorry.”
Ham straightened his towel, watching him. “Nah, my fault. Shouldn’t have snatched.” He rubbed his shoulder where it had hit the locker. “Didn’t realize it was… sacred.”
“It’s not sacred,” Ally muttered, refolding the paper with excessive care.
“Aye, it is.” Ham leaned back against the lockers, his demeanor shifting from court jester to something more like his other role: best friend. “You’ve been orbiting that lass for months. Since you came back from that first art thing with your da. You talked about a painting of a rainy window for a week. I thought you’d taken a head injury.”
Ally said nothing. He tucked the invite safely into the main compartment of his bag.
“And now you’ve got her handwritten invite to her big show. And you’re looking at it like it’s the team sheet for a World Cup final.” Ham folded his arms. “So. What’s the difference? Between her and… well, anyone else?”
Ally sat back down on the bench, elbows on his knees. The steam was clearing, leaving the room feeling stark under the fluorescent lights. How to explain it? The usual pattern was simple. There was a certain type of attention that came with the jersey. It was fun, fleeting, mutually understood. It was noise.
Roz was silence. The kind of silence you could hear things in.
“It doesn’t feel like a game,” Ally said finally, the words coming slow. “With the others… it’s like we’re both following a script. I know the lines. They know the lines. It’s fine. It’s easy.”
“And this isn’t easy.”
“No. It’s… real. It’s like she doesn’t even see the script. Or if she does, she’s ignoring it.” He looked up at Ham. “She gave me this invite, and she was terrified. Not playing at being shy. Actually terrified I’d say no. And part of me wanted to… I don’t know, fix it. Make it easy for her. But you can’t fix that. You just have to be there for it.”
Ham was quiet for a moment. The distant clang of weights from the gym next door echoed faintly. “And the other night? When you went straight from the airport?”
A ghost of a smile touched Ally’s mouth. “We had pizza. On her floor. Talked. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“That was everything.”
Ham let out a long breath, pushing off from the lockers. He came over and sat next to Ally, the bench groaning. “Right. Okay. So this is the real deal. Your head’s properly gone. You, Alistair MacLeod, doors science graduate and human wrecking ball, are properly, genuinely gone for a quiet art student who draws dead leaves.”
“They’re not dead leaves,” Ally said, but there was no heat in it.
“Metaphor,” Ham waved a hand. “My point is, what’s the plan? You’re about to go into the most intense season of your life. Media tours, travel, pressure like you’ve never had. You think you can fit a ‘real thing’ into that schedule?”
Ally had thought of nothing else. The calendar in his mind was a brutal grid of fixtures, flights, and obligations. It was a machine designed to consume everything. “I have to,” he said, simply. “I don’t have a choice.”
Ham nodded, accepting the finality in his voice. He clapped a heavy hand on Ally’s shoulder. “Then you’d better be clever about it. And for God’s sake, buy a kilt. But a proper one, not that tourist shite.” He stood up, heading back to his locker. “Oh, and Ally?”
“Yeah?”
“The lads are going to the Spider tonight. For pints. You in?”
The old routine. The easy noise. Ally thought of the silence in Roz’s flat, the potential of a text, the quiet hope of making plans that didn’t involve a crowded bar.
“Nah,” he said, zipping up his bag. “Not tonight.”
Ham’s grin was knowing and, for once, entirely without mockery. “Didn’t think so. Go on. Brick by brick, eh?”
Ally slung his bag over his shoulder. The phrase, their private joke, now felt infused with a new meaning. It wasn’t just about training anymore. It was about building something that could exist outside the lines of a pitch, something that could hold its shape in the quiet. He gave Ham a nod and walked out into the evening, the folded paper in his bag feeling less like an invite and more like a blueprint.
The evening air was a cool slap after the locker room’s humid breath. Ally walked, the rhythmic tap of his boots on the pavement syncing with the thrum in his chest. He passed bustling pubs where laughter spilled onto the street, a world of noise he usually craved but now felt separate from, like watching a play from behind glass.
His phone was a weight in his hand. He stopped under a sodium streetlamp, its orange glow turning the screen into a murky portal. The draft folder in his head—clever lines, casual suggestions—all seemed like parts of that old script. He leaned against a cold stone wall, exhaling a cloud into the night.
He typed simply, his thumbs feeling clumsy. Fancy going out for a drink? He sent it before he could dissect it. A moment later, a follow-up. There's a nice place. Cocktails, wine, tapas. Sophisticated I promise. And trendy enough for you.
The three blinking dots appeared almost immediately. His breath hitched. Then they vanished. The silence of the phone felt louder than the city around him. He shoved off the wall, walking again, his eyes glued to the dark screen.
He was two blocks away when it finally buzzed, a single, visceral vibration against his palm.
Roz: Tapas?
Ally: Small plates. Spanish. You’d like it.
Roz: I wouldn’t know what to order.
Ally: I’ll order for you.
Roz: That’s dangerously confident.
Ally: It’s just food, McLeod. Friday?
Another agonizing pause. He pictured her in her flat, surrounded by her books and paintings, worrying over the semantics of a yes. He willed the dots to return.
Roz: Okay. Yes. Friday.
Ally: Good.
He didn’t add a smiley face. It felt like it would cheapen the covenant. He slid the phone into his pocket, the simple exchange a new kind of victory, quieter and more profound than any under stadium lights. The blueprint was in his hands now, and the first line was drawn.
The blueprint was in his hands now, and the first line was drawn. Across the city, in her cocoon of lamplight and linen, Roz’s phone illuminated her startled face. She read his messages three times. Tapas. Cocktails. Friday. The words were simple, but their arrangement felt like a foreign language she hadn’t studied. A proper date. Not pizza on the floor. A venue with chairs and a menu and other people.
“He asked me out,” she said, her voice a hollow whisper to the empty room.
The silence offered no counsel. Then her phone erupted, buzzing violently against the wooden desk. DENNY flashed on the screen. Roz answered, the “hello” caught in her throat.
“Well?” Denny’s voice was a pressurized shriek. “The psychic bond between best friends is tingling. What did he say?”
“He… he asked me to go for drinks. On Friday. Somewhere with tapas.” Roz traced a pencil line on her sketchpad, her finger trembling slightly.
A beat of dead air pulsed through the line. Then, a seismic noise. It was a thumping, rhythmic explosion of sound. Thump. Thump. Thump-thump-thump.
“Is that… are you jumping?”
“YES I AM JUMPING!” Denny’s voice was interspersed with gasps. “Sophistication! Tapas! Cocktails! You’ve waited months, Roz! This is it! I can feel it in my bones, he is going to seduce you.” The jumping stopped, replaced by a conspiratorial, breathless whisper. “That wall of muscle on top of you in his bed. For God’s sake, Denny, get a grip, but honestly! The man doesn’t invite you to a sports bar for a pint. He chooses tapas. He’s crafting an experience.”
Roz’s face burned. She pressed her cool palms to her cheeks. “It’s just food, Denny. Small plates. It doesn’t mean—”
“It means everything!” Denny interrupted. “It’s a signal. He’s saying, ‘I see your world of fine art and subtlety, and I want to meet you there.’ Or at least get a nice Rioja while trying. What are you wearing?”
Roz’s eyes swept her room, a landscape of paint-splattered sweatpants and oversized cardigans. The few dresses she owned felt like costumes from a different person’s life. “I don’t know. Nothing. I have nothing.”
“We have three days. We are raiding my closet. We are finding the thing that says ‘I am a fascinating artist who also has a spine and might let you kiss her again.’ Something that isn’t a sack.”
“I like my sacks,” Roz murmured, but a frantic, fluttering hope was beating wings against her ribs. Denny’s manic energy was infectious, making the terrifying prospect real, and therefore somehow manageable.
“You can like them on Sunday. Friday requires architecture. Structure. A silhouette.” Denny’s tone shifted, softening. “You’re panicking, aren’t you? I can hear your brain whirring from here. You’re thinking about all the ways it could go wrong.”
Roz closed her eyes. “What do I talk about? I used up all my words about paint viscosity and tonal studies. What if I just… freeze? Or spill something on him?”
“Then you’ll be a relatable human who spills things. He’s a rugby player, Roz. He probably considers a post-match pint spilled on him a baptism. Just be you. The ‘you’ that he clearly already likes enough to study Spanish appetizers for.”
After the call, the flat felt heavier, the air dense with expectation. Roz stood and walked to the small, cluttered desk. The opened textbook on door science was still there, a mundane artifact from a different universe. She ran a finger over the dense technical diagrams, a smile tugging her lips. He’d left it on purpose, a tangible excuse, a connection.
She turned to her largest canvas, a work-in-progress. It was an abstracted, moody study of the courtyard below her window in the rain, all deep blues and blurred, golden streetlight reflections. It was almost right, but it lacked a focal point, a reason for the eye to settle.
Her gaze drifted to the folded, creamy square of her spare exhibition invite on the shelf. Alistair MacLeod. A solid, anchoring line in all the fluid uncertainty. She picked up a brush, loaded it with a bold, un-mixed streak of cadmium red. Without overthinking, she made a single, vertical mark near the canvas’s center.
It was just a line. But it changed everything. It was a declaration in the gloom. Her heart hammered, not just with fear now, but with a sharp, thrilling sense of possibility. Friday was a blank canvas, and she had already decided to be brave with the color.
Friday was a blank canvas, and she had already decided to be brave with the color. The resolve held for approximately thirty-six hours before dissolving into a familiar, gnawing panic. By Thursday evening, her bedroom floor was a textile graveyard of rejected outfits, each one feeling more like a disguise than the last. “It’s just tapas,” she muttered to a striped sweater dress crumpled near her feet. The words sounded hollow. Nothing about his texts, or the careful way he’d said her full name, felt like ‘just’ anything.
Denny arrived on Friday at five with the force of a tactical unit, a garment bag slung over her shoulder and a determined glint in her eye. “The cavalry is here. Stand down, soldier. I have visual on the objective.” She unzipped the bag with a flourish. Inside, preserved like a relic, was the vintage mini dress with the little collar. It was a deep, muted plum, the fabric soft from years of wear. “This. This is the architecture I was talking about.”
Roz touched the fabric. It was utterly unlike anything she owned. “It’s so short.”
“It’s the perfect length. You have the legs for it. You just keep them a state secret.” Denny pulled out a pair of thick black tights and chunky-heeled ankle boots. “Armor. Now, move. Shower. We’re on a clock.”
An hour later, Roz stood in the center of her room, transformed. The dress fit her slender frame perfectly, the collar framing her throat. The tights and substantial boots grounded the outfit, making her feel less exposed, more formidable. She studied her reflection, a stranger staring back—one who went on dates to tapas bars.
“Now, the face,” Denny said, brandishing a makeup bag. “Sit.”
Roz perched on the edge of her desk chair, the door science textbook digging into her thigh. Denny leaned in, a slim black eyeliner pencil poised. Roz flinched as the tip approached her lid.
“Hold still,” Denny commanded, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “You always look amazing with eyeliner. It makes your eyes look like someone turned the contrast up on the world.” Her hand was steady, drawing a clean, swift line. “He’s already seen you covered in charcoal dust and probably paint thinner. This isn’t for him. It’s for you. It’s so you remember, when you walk in there, that you are the most interesting person in that room.”
Roz held her breath, the intimate scent of Denny’s perfume and the faint pressure of the pencil becoming a anchor point. She thought of the single red mark on her courtyard painting, a deliberate rupture. This line on her eyelid felt the same.
“There,” Denny said, stepping back. She looked at Roz, and her expression shifted, the usual irony melting away into something genuine and fierce. “Oh, wow. Yeah. You look… you look like Roslyn McLeod, Master of Fine Arts.”
A nervous laugh escaped Roz. “I don’t feel like her.”
“You will.” Denny’s phone buzzed on the desk, lighting up with a photo from Ham—a blurry, grinning selfie from what looked like a team bus. She rolled her eyes. “The support crew is checking in. My idiot is with your idiot. They’re en route.”
Reality telescoped sharply into the present moment. Ally was on his way. Right now. The flutter in Roz’s chest turned into a frantic drumming. She pressed a hand to her sternum, as if to quiet it.
“Breathe,” Denny said, gripping her shoulders. “Remember the plan. You walk in. You see him. You let him buy you a drink. You talk about your show, or his doors, or the tragic state of public sculpture in Edinburgh. You eat a prawn. It’s just a series of small, manageable actions. Like priming a canvas.”
“What if I run out of words?”
“Then you take a bite of food. Chewing is a socially acceptable form of silence.” Denny gave her a slight shake. “He’s nervous too, you know. Ham said he’s been insufferable all week, practicing wine pronunciations.”
That image—Ally, huge and focused, silently rehearsing Albariño in front of a mirror—unspooled a thread of her tension. She let out a real breath.
Her phone chimed. A text from Ally.
I’m here. Table in the back. No rush.
He was there. He’d arrived first. The simplicity of it, his quiet assurance, steadied her. She picked up her small bag, the boots feeling solid and certain on the wooden floor. She took one last look in the mirror. The woman looking back was still her, just a version outlined in bold.
“Go,” Denny said, pushing her gently toward the door. “And for the love of god, text me if you need an emergency extraction. But you won’t.”
The evening air was crisp, biting through her tights. Each step in the chunky heels made a decisive click on the pavement, a sound that matched her heartbeat. The city passed in a blur of light and shadow. She focused on the mechanical rhythm of walking, one foot in front of the other, a straight line from her flat to the restaurant.
She saw the glow of the bar’s front window, warm and amber. Through the glass, she could make out the silhouettes of people leaning close over small plates. Her pace slowed. She stopped a few feet from the door, her courage stalling. The red line on her canvas flashed in her mind. A deliberate mark.
She pushed the door open.
The noise and warmth wrapped around her—the low thrum of conversation, the clink of glasses, a burst of laughter. She scanned the room, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. And then she saw him.
He was sitting at a small corner table, facing the door. He’d seen her enter. He was already standing up, a half-smile on his face that was neither triumphant nor overly eager, but simply… present. He was wearing a simple, dark crewneck sweater that made his shoulders look impossibly broad, and his eyes found hers immediately, a direct current in the crowded room. He didn’t wave. He just waited, his entire attention focused on her as she navigated the space between them.