Jake and Bodge both yelled “Neddy!” and Jake shot forward to head off Neddy’s advance, but found his arms pinned by Rand.
“Wait,” said Rand in his ear, holding him fast.
Rielle stepped into Neddy’s lunge, braced her hands on his chest and brought her knee up hard and fast. There was a collective gasp from the players and Neddy dropped to the ground like a stunned cow, rolling over on his back, writhing and clutching his groin, red faced and moaning.
Grinning, Rand let go of Jake. “You shouldn’t play with fire unless you know how to put it out.”
Every man on the field felt Neddy’s pain and sympathetic groans broke out from both teams along with some gasps of surprise and admiration. Stu and Roley fell into each other laughing. Jeremy and Ceedee bolted across the field to Rielle, and Bodge leaned over to examine Neddy calling, “He’ll live, but I don’t think there will be any little Neddys anytime soon.”
“All hail the vasectomy bringer,” shouted Tef. He and Lizard went down on their knees in front of Rielle, waving their arms about, paying homage to her capacity to cripple a man twice her size.
Rielle put her foot against Teflon’s shoulder and pushed him over, where he re-enacted Neddy’s agony, clutching his groin, rolling around and groaning.
She said nothing, but Jake saw her shake her hand and try to hide a smile.
“That’s my girl!” said Rand.
“Did you teach her that?” Jake asked.
Rand was smiling like a proud father witnessing his kid beat up the local bully for the first time. “Nope, she learnt that by herself.”
Jake watched as Rand went to Rielle and pulled her hair. They spoke quietly together. That punch would have hurt her hand. She was something else: hellcat, rock goddess, sharp tongued bitch and an annoying, armour-wearing fighter with a pretty decent right hook.
He caught her eye. She lifted her chin defiantly, pushed Rand away and stepped over a still-prone Neddy. “Are we playing or discussing the weather? Possession’s ours.”
Twenty minutes later, the game conceded to team roadie. Jake pulled Tim aside. “Neddy has to go. We’ll pay him up and give him a plane ticket home.”
“Yeah,” agreed Tim, “after the show.”
“Now.”
“Ah.” Tim hesitated, but clocking Jake’s ‘no mucking about’ expression, said “Okay.”
Post game, Rielle and Rand retreated to a row of stadium seats to cool off.
“That was pretty stupid, Rie,” said Rand, looking at the red swollen knuckles of her right hand. “Will you be able to manage the aerial work?”
She looked down at her hand, “Yeah, of course.” But it was throbbing. She’d tried to make a fist earlier and found it pained.
“Grip my arm,” he said, holding out his forearm.
“I’m fine,” she said, impatiently pushing his arm away. “Tell me about little Harriet Young.”
He smiled. “Hah, not little, not shy, kinda hot.”
“This is the same Harry Young you were heartsick over at school?”
“I wasn’t sick over her.”
“She was this little wisp of a kid, in the year between you and me. I remember she was always in the library. Other kids used to push her down the stairs and stick gum in her hair.”
“Did they?” Rand’s voice went all upper register. He was such a dweeb not to have known that.
“Yeah, geez. I never understood what you saw in her. You inviting her to the school formal was the biggest thing that ever happened to her. Everyone thought it was a joke.”
He shoved her shoulder. “They did not!”
Rielle nodded. “They did.”