Chapter 15: First Impressions
The hotel dining room was a sea of navy blazers and deep burgundy ties, the official squad colors feeling both regimented and strangely sacred. The air buzzed with overlapping conversations, the clatter of cutlery on porcelain, and the rich, heavy smell of roasted meat and red wine. Roz felt like a single, muted watercolor dropped into a painting of bold, aggressive oils.
She kept her shoulders back, a trick she’d learned to combat the urge to fold in on herself. Her simple black dress felt both too plain and too conspicuous.
“Right, troops, listen up!” The head coach, a granite-faced man named Graeme, tapped a knife against his glass. The room fell into a respectful hush. “Welcome to hell week. Or, as the PR team wants me to call it, ‘integrated performance development.’” A ripple of knowing laughter moved through the men. “You’ll get your schedules. You’ll follow them. You’ll eat what nutrition tells you, you’ll sleep when you’re told, and you’ll bleed for each other on the pitch. Medical and physio are here,” he gestured vaguely towards a table where Roz sat with Hamish, the head physio, and two other student placements. “They are not decoration. You break, they fix. Be nice to them.”
A few players glanced over. Roz focused on the weave of the tablecloth.
The speeches continued, performance directors and sponsors, a drone of expectations and corporate gratitude. Roz’s mind began to drift, clinically noting the variations in posture around the room—the veterans leaning back with assessing eyes, the new caps sitting bolt upright, throats working with nerves.
Then she felt it. A warm, solid pressure at the base of her spine. She didn’t need to look.
Ally’s hand rested there, possessive and steady, as he pulled out the empty chair beside her and sat down. He’d been at the top table but had migrated. A few of his teammates smirked.
“All right, Roz?” he said, his voice low. He poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table.
“Fine. Shouldn’t you be up there with the other celebrities?”
“Boring as hell up there. Hammy’s jokes are better.” He nudged the older physio with his elbow.
Hamish rolled his eyes. “Don’t you drag me into your daft courtship ritual, MacLeod. I’m trying to eat my parsnips in peace.”
“Courtship?” Ally grinned, wide and easy, but Roz saw the slight tightness around his eyes. The bruise on his cheekbone was expertly concealed under makeup, she noted with a clinician’s eye. “This is strategic asset protection. Roz here is the only one who knows how to tape my ankle so it doesn’t feel like a medieval torture device. Isn’t that right?”
All the attention was on her now. She felt her cheeks ignite. “Your ankle is perfectly normal. You just have a low pain threshold for adhesive.”
A roar of laughter went up from the players within earshot. A huge lock forward with ginger hair leaned over, his grin splitting his face. “Low pain threshold! Heard that, Ally? The lass has your number already!”
Ally shrugged, unfazed, his hand still a brand on her back. “See? Diagnostic brilliance. This is the medic who patches me up better than Hammy. Be nice to her. She’s shy.”
“I am not shy,” Roz muttered, but it was lost in the fresh wave of banter.
“What’s your name, shy medic?” the lock asked.
“Roz.”
“I’m Donnie. That grumpy git is Hammy, obviously. And this one,” he jerked a thumb at Ally, “is a fragile wee flower, apparently. You’ll have your work cut out.”
The conversation fractured into easy rugby talk—gossip about other clubs, complaints about the upcoming fitness drills, a detailed, brutal dissection of someone’s technique from last season. Roz listened, absorbing the dynamic. It was a language of insult and endearment, of casual, profound physicality. Ally was in his element, the quick wit, the perfect one-liner, but his thumb was making small, unconscious circles on her spine, a silent counterpoint to the performance.
A young, sleek man in a team blazer, a media officer, appeared at Ally’s shoulder. “Alistair. Quick word? The Courier wants a couple of quotes about the new defensive structure. And we need to address the… visual.” He gestured discreetly to his own cheek.
Ally’s smile didn’t slip, but the light in his eyes hardened just a degree. “Aye, give me a minute.”
He turned to Roz, his public face softening into something private. “Duty calls. Don’t let Donnie bore you with stories about his prize heifers.” He squeezed her side gently and stood, following the media man out of the dining room.
Donnie watched him go. “He’s a good lad. Carries it well, but he carries a lot.” He took a swig of beer. “You two an item, then?”
The question was blunt, not unkind. Roz took a sip of her water, buying a second. “We’re… seeing each other.”
“Good. He needs someone who doesn’t just see the jersey.” Donnie nodded, as if that settled it. “Right. So, about these heifers…”
The dinner broke up into smaller groups migrating to the hotel bar. Roz begged off, pleading an early start for her placement observations. The truth was, the sheer social output had drained her. She needed quiet.
Her room was a generic box on the fourth floor. She changed into soft pyjamas, opened her laptop, and tried to focus on an article on ligamentous repair. The words blurred.
Her phone lit up on the desk. A message from Ally.
> Media gauntlet run. They asked about the cheek. Told them I walked into a door. The PR guy almost had an aneurysm. You survived Donnie’s agricultural symposium?
She smiled, typing back.
> I now know more about bovine lineage than I do about the circulatory system. I think I’m qualified to be a farm vet. Where are you?
> Bar. Mandatory team ‘bonding’. It’s loud. Miss the quiet.
Her heart did a small, foolish flip.
> Your quiet is welcome here. Room 417. If you can escape.
There was a long pause. Then:
> Give me twenty. Don’t wait up.
She didn’t try to read again. She listened to the muffled sounds of the hotel—a distant lift, a laugh from a corridor, the hum of the mini-fridge. Exactly twenty-three minutes later, a soft knock.
She opened the door. He slipped in, bringing the scent of cold night air, beer, and his familiar cedar soap. He’d ditched the blazer and tie, his shirt sleeves rolled up. The makeup was gone; the yellowing bruise was a stark reality under the harsh fluorescent light.
“Hey,” he said, his voice tired.
“Hey.”
He looked around the impersonal room, at her open laptop, her neat stack of textbooks. “Sanctuary,” he murmured, echoing his word from his flat. But here, it was hers.
He walked to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and buried his face in her hair. He just held her, breathing deeply. She felt the coiled tension in his shoulders, the slight tremble of exhaustion.
“Rough night?” she asked, her hands rubbing slow circles on his back.
“The talking. Always the talking. Performing the version of me they want. The cheeky chappy, the future of Scottish rugby.” He pulled back, his eyes shadowed. “Sometimes I want to tell them I’d rather be in a library. They’d think I was having a stroke.”
She guided him to sit on the edge of the bed, then knelt on the floor in front of him. Gently, she took his face in her hands, turning it to examine the bruise in the light. Her thumbs feathered over the discolored skin. “The edema is settling. The yellowing is a good sign. No lingering pain on palpation?”
He smiled, a real one this time. “Doctor Roz.”
“Student,” she corrected softly. “Does it hurt?”
“Only my pride.” He caught her wrists. “Leo called me today.”
The air in the room chilled. “What did he want?”
“To apologise. Or something like it. Said he was out of order, he was stressed about his job, he never meant to scare you.” Ally’s tone was flat, disbelieving. “Told him if he came within a mile of you, I’d redesign his face properly. He didn’t like that. Said I was a ‘violent bastard’ who’d end up in the papers for the wrong reasons.”
Roz’s stomach clenched. “He’s trying to get inside your head.”
“I know. And it’s working, a bit.” He let go of her wrists, running a hand through his hair. “I am a violent bastard. It’s my job. I channel it. But it’s in here.” He tapped his temple. “And he knows that’s where I’m vulnerable. The poet who punches people for a living.”
She rose from her knees and sat beside him, hip to hip. “You’re not a bastard. And the poet is the best part. It’s the part that sees me.”
He leaned his head against hers. They sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of his public life pressing against the fragile bubble of the room.
“Stay,” she said, the word barely a whisper.
“I shouldn’t. Rules. Room checks.”
“Stay anyway.”
He looked at her, all pretence gone, just a young man stretched thin between two worlds. He nodded.
Later, in the dark narrow hotel bed, they didn’t make love. They clung to each other, a tangle of limbs under the stiff sheets. His body was warm and solid against her back, his breathing slowly deepening into sleep. She lay awake, listening to the unfamiliar sounds, feeling the protective cage of his arms.
The fear about Leo was a cold knot in her gut. The scrutiny Ally lived under was a palpable pressure. But here, in this sterile room, they were just two shapes in the dark, hiding from the roles they had to play by daylight. She pressed back into his warmth, and his arm tightened around her in his sleep.
Down in the bar, the team bonding continued without its star fly-half. Tomorrow, the drills would start, the cameras would flash, and the performance would resume. But for these few, stolen hours, the only audience was the blinking red eye of the smoke detector on the ceiling, and the only script was the slow, synchronized rhythm of their breath.
But for these few, stolen hours, the only audience was the blinking red eye of the smoke detector on the ceiling, and the only script was the slow, synchronized rhythm of their breath. The hotel heating clicked off, letting a deep, penetrating cold seep into the room from the large windows overlooking the dark car park. Roz swam up from a dense, dreamless sleep, confused by the weight across her ribs and the unfamiliar texture of starch-stiff sheets.
A sharp, electronic chirping shattered the silence.
It wasn’t her phone. She flinched, and the weight—Ally’s arm—tightened instinctively. He made a low, pained sound into the pillow.
“Wha’s that?”
The alarm chirped again, insistently, from his wristwatch on the nightstand. A faint green glow lit the underside of his jaw.
“What time is it?” she murmured, her voice clogged with sleep.
“Ridiculously early,” he whispered, his own words thick. He disentangled himself, the warmth leaving her back immediately, and fumbled for the watch. The chirping died. He collapsed back onto the pillow for a three-count, then dragged a hand down his face. “I have to get back to my room, sweetheart. And then I have to run around a field very, very early.”
She groaned, rolling onto her back. The ceiling was a grey void. “Ally,” she murmured, a protest against the hour, the cold, the inevitable separation.
“Oh, baby,” he whispered. He kissed the back of her neck, a soft press of his lips that felt like a brand in the dark. “My wee darlin’. Keep sleeping. Baby, I’ll see you later.”
He slid out of the bed, a shadow moving in the gloom. She heard the soft rustle as he pulled on his trousers from the floor, the faint clink of his belt.
“Wrap up warm, Ally,” she said into her pillow.
He grinned, a white flash in the darkness. She could just make out him pulling his t-shirt over his head. “Shorts and t-shirt, Roz. Standard issue.”
“No,” she murmured, a sleepy, stubborn sound.
“Darlin’, I’m a big boy.”
“I know you are a big, strong boy,” she murmured, the words slurring together with exhaustion.
“Uh huh.” He leaned over the bed, finding her face in the dark. He kissed her, a proper, slow kiss that tasted of sleep. “Sleep, gorgeous. See you soon.”
He kissed her once more, a quick peck, and then he was gone. The door opened, a slash of brighter hallway light, and clicked shut with a definitive, quiet thud.
Silence rushed back in, louder than before. It was a different silence now, hollowed out. She stared at the space he’d occupied, the depression in the other pillow. The room felt larger, colder. She pulled the duvet up to her chin, chasing his residual warmth, but it was already fading, replaced by the sterile chill of the air conditioning.
Her own phone alarm buzzed forty minutes later. The grey light had solidified into a damp, white morning. She showered in the tiny cubicle, the water never quite getting hot enough, and dressed in practical dark jeans, boots, and a thick cream jumper. She braided her hair into a severe plait, the better to fit in with the medical team’s no-nonsense aesthetic. The mirror showed a pale face, shadows under her eyes, but her expression was focused, clinical. She was preparing for a day of observation.
The hotel restaurant at seven was a monument to controlled chaos. Players in training gear shoveled down vast plates of eggs, porridge, and smoked salmon, their conversations a blend of groans about the upcoming session and technical shorthand. The air smelled of coffee, protein, and deep heat spray.
Roz collected a black coffee and a yogurt, scanning for Hamish. She saw Donnie, the lock, waving a forkful of sausage at her from across the room. She gave a small, polite wave back.
“Over here, Roz.” Hamish was at a corner table with a spreadsheet. “Ready for the circus? First proper pitch session. You’ll be with me on the far side. We watch, we note, we intervene only if a limb is actually pointing the wrong way.”
“Got it.” She sat, stirring her yogurt.
“Saw MacLeod slinking back to his room at sparrow’s fart,” Hamish said without looking up from his papers. “He’s a big lad, but the schedule is bigger. He needs his sleep, not his distractions.”
The comment was delivered mildly, but it was a stone dropped into her stomach. She kept her voice even. “I’m sure he manages his time.”
“Aye, well. His time isn’t his own this week. Neither is yours.” He finally looked at her, his eyes kind but weary. “Just be careful, hen. That’s all. For both your sakes.”
The training pitch was a vast, emerald rectangle etched with white lines, shrouded in a low, misty drizzle that beaded on the nylon of her waterproof jacket. The players arrived in a loose group, a moving wall of muscle and polyester, their breath pluming in the cold air. Coaches barked from the centre. The sound of studs on concrete, then a sudden, unified thud as they hit the grass.
Roz stood with Hamish, a clipboard in hand. Her job was to log any notable limps, any guarded movements, any hands instinctively going to old injuries during dynamic stretches. It was strangely intimate, this detached surveillance of the body she knew so privately.
Ally was easy to spot. Even in the mass of similar bodies, his movement had a fluid, economical grace. He laughed at something Donnie said, stretching a hamstring, his face open and alive in the grim weather. He hadn’t seen her yet, or was pretending not to.
The drills began. A vicious, percussive sound filled the air—the thwack of a pass, the crunch of a tackle bag hit at full tilt, the grunts of effort. It was a symphony of controlled violence. Roz watched Ally orchestrate it, his voice cutting through the damp air, calling plays, his hands shaping the space around him. This was his language, his real one.
Then a new drill started, a brutal, close-quarter contact exercise. Two players held a large, heavy pad. A third had to drive into it, low and hard, legs pumping. Ally was the driver. He hunched his shoulders, dipped, and exploded forward. The impact was colossal, a deep, shuddering whump that Roz felt in her own chest. The pad-carriers staggered back. Ally did it again. And again. Each collision was a car crash in miniature.
She watched the precise mechanics of it, the way his neck braced, the coiling of his spine. She also saw the cost. After the fifth rep, when he stood up, his breath was ragged clouds in the mist. He pressed a hand to his ribs on the left side, just for a second. A flicker. Then it was gone, and he was calling for the ball.
She made a note on her clipboard. Repetitive high-impact contact. Favoring left side post-rep? Observe.
The drizzle intensified into a steady, soaking rain. The session wore on, a relentless parade of grit and exhaustion. As the players trudged towards the changing rooms, mud-streaked and steaming, Ally finally caught her eye. He was walking beside Donnie, listening, but his gaze found hers across twenty metres of churned grass.
He gave her a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. His face was a mask of tired concentration, but in that nod was a whole conversation—the early morning, the cold sheets, the sound of his watch in the dark. Then Donnie said something, and Ally looked away, laughing at some joke, slipping back into the role of one of the lads.
Roz looked down at her clipboard. Her note stared back at her. She added two more words, a quiet rebellion against Hamish’s warning, a claim staked in professional ink.
Continue to observe.
The medical room after training was a humid cave of sweat, deep heat, and exhaustion. Players sprawled on treatment tables, groaning as physios worked on cramping calves and tight shoulders. Roz assisted Hamish, her hands cool and clinical as she passed him tape and cold packs, her eyes cataloguing every wince and hitch of breath.
Ally was one of the last to arrive. He moved with a slight, guarded stiffness, a half-empty water bottle dangling from his fingers. He didn’t look at her, heading instead for an open plinth where Donnie was already face-down. “Right, you great lump, shift over,” Ally said, his voice rough from shouting calls on the pitch.
“Aye, make room for the fragile flower,” Donnie grumbled, but he slid over. Ally eased himself onto the high table, a barely-there flinch crossing his face as he lay back. He stared at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling, his throat working as he swallowed.
Hamish approached, his manner brisk. “Anything to report, MacLeod? Or are you just here for the ambiance?”
“Just tight. A bit of cramp maybe.” Ally’s tone was off, a studied casualness that didn’t match the focused stillness of his body.
“Right shoulder? It was dipping on your last few passes.”
“Aye. Maybe.”
Hamish began palpating Ally’s shoulder, his fingers probing the dense muscle. Ally’s jaw tightened. Roz, wiping down surfaces nearby, watched the deliberate blankness of his expression. She saw his left hand, resting on his stomach, curl slowly into a loose fist.
“Rotator cuff is firing,” Hamish muttered. “Deltoid is like concrete. Standard wear. I’ll get you iced.” He turned to grab a wrap. “Roz, can you start his left side? He was favoring post-contact. Intercostals, obliques. Check for reactivity.”
Her pulse gave a hard, single thump. “Of course.”
She walked to the left side of the plinth, her professional mask firmly in place. Ally’s eyes tracked her, a faint, unreadable tension in his gaze. The air between them was different here, charged with the smell of liniment and the sounds of other men’s pain.
“Okay, Ally. I’m just going to assess.”
“I know the drill.” He tried for a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.
Her fingers, cool and gentle, pressed along the bony ridge of his lower ribs. He was warm, his skin damp with drying sweat. She worked methodically, moving to the muscular tissue of his obliques. “Take a deep breath in for me.”
He inhaled. Halfway through, his breath hitched, a sharp, aborted intake.
“There?”
“A bit.”
Her fingers found a specific spot, just below his ribcage. She applied moderate pressure. His whole body tensed, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth. He didn’t make a sound, but the veins in his neck stood out.
“That’s more than a bit, Ally.” Her voice was low, for him alone.
“It’s fine. Just a knock.”
“It’s not fine. You’re guarding. You’ve been guarding since you walked in.” She kept her touch clinical, but her words were pointed. “Is it pain on rotation? On flexion?”
He looked past her, towards where Hamish was now grinding an elbow into Donnie’s back. “On everything, Roz. It’s a fucking bruise. It’ll settle.”
“You could have a rib stress reaction. Or a tear. You need an ultrasound.”
“No.” The word was flat, final. He finally looked at her, and the fear in his eyes was stark. “No scans. Not this week.”
She understood. A scan meant a finding. A finding meant a potential pull-out. A pull-out meant headlines, questions, a crack in the invincible facade they were all here to build. It meant Leo might be proved right.
“You’re being stupid,” she whispered, her fingers still resting lightly on the hot skin of his side.
“I’m being a professional athlete. This is the job. You patch it up, I get back out there.”
Hamish returned with the ice wrap for Ally’s shoulder. “Well?”
“Significant reactivity in the left oblique insertion and lower intercostals,” Roz reported, her voice perfectly clear. “Pain on respiration and palpation. I’ve advised an ultrasound.”
Hamish’s brows drew together. He pressed the same spot Roz had. Ally’s reaction was even more violent, a full-body jerk. “Christ, MacLeod. You planning on playing with one lung?”
“It’s manageable.”
“It’s a risk. For you and the squad.” Hamish sighed, a sound of pure exasperation. “Right. No weights for you this afternoon. Ice. Anti-inflammatories. I’ll talk to the coaches. And if there’s so much as a twinge tomorrow, you’re getting scanned. No debate.”
Ally gave a tight, single nod. He accepted the ice pack Hamish handed him for his side, placing it over the spot with a grimace.
The room began to empty, players shuffling out towards lunch. Donnie clapped Ally on his good shoulder. “Hard man. See you at grub.”
Soon, it was just the two of them and the hum of the fridge holding the gel packs. The silence was heavy. Roz busied herself sorting tape rolls.
“You were right to tell him,” Ally said quietly. He hadn’t moved.
“I know.” She didn’t look at him. “You’d do the same if our positions were reversed. If I tried to study with a concussion.”
A weak chuckle escaped him. “Touché.” He shifted, wincing as he slid off the plinth to stand. He was close now, the height difference suddenly profound in the quiet room. He smelled of ice and sweat and effort. “I hate that you saw that. The… weakness.”
“It’s not weakness. It’s your body telling you a fact.” She finally met his gaze. “Ignoring it is the weakness. It’s pride. And it’s scared.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. His eyes searched her face, the defenseless poet utterly visible. “What if they bench me? What if it’s something? This is my only shot, Roz. This is all I’m good for.”
The raw confession hung in the sterile air. She reached out, not as a medic, and brushed a strand of damp hair from his forehead. Her thumb traced the faded yellow of the bruise on his cheek. “It’s not all you’re good for. But I understand.”
He leaned into her touch, his eyes closing. For a second, he just breathed, his forehead nearly touching hers. “What do I do?”
“You eat. You ice. You let me re-assess you tonight. Properly. In my room. No bravado.” Her voice softened. “And if it’s worse, you get the scan. Because the future of Scottish rugby is no use to anyone with a chronic muscle tear.”
A real smile, weary and fond, touched his lips. “You’re ruthless.”
“You have no idea.” She stepped back, breaking the contact. “Now go. Before Hamish comes back and prescribes you bed rest in a hyperbaric chamber.”
He limped slightly as he walked to the door, a barely perceptible favor of his left side. He paused at the threshold, looking back. “Sanctuary. Tonight.”
“Tonight,” she affirmed.
The door swung shut behind him. Roz let out a long, shaky breath. The ghost of his heat lingered on her fingertips. She looked at the treatment plinth, the slight indent his body had left on the blue vinyl padding.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A message from Jenni.
> How’s rugby camp? Seen any naked torsos yet?
Roz typed back, her fingers moving quickly.
> Too many. All injured. It’s less fun than it sounds.
She pocketed the phone. The emotional calculus of the day was already exhausting—the constant shift between observer and participant, between clinician and confessor. She thought of his fear, the terrifying simplicity of his claim: this is all I’m good for.
The narrative was progressing, the stakes tightening like a over-taped ankle. She finished cleaning the room, her mind already constructing the evening’s assessment, the careful negotiation between his body’s truth and his desperate need to believe a lie. Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving a bruised, damp sky. Somewhere beneath it, Ally was performing again, laughing at lunch, hiding a wince with a joke.
And she was here, waiting, the only one who knew the score.