Pitbull: He plays hard on the field...He plays harder off it. (5 page)

"Don't you
Jesus Harry
me," he interrupted, "
I
don't think
I
can walk on fucking water, Jack. That's a misapprehension
you
seem to have about yourself."

"You know what I meant."

Harry picked up a newspaper. "What do you think
he'd
make of this headline, Jack?" he said, nodding at one of the largest pictures on the wall. "What do you think Arthur Davies would think if he could read this?" Harry cleared his throat and read from the back page. "Jack Bailey, the shame of the Budbury Bears."

Harry dropped the paper and stared at me, his eyes narrowing behind the thick glass of his half-moon glasses. "Do you think he'd be proud of you, Jack? Wearing the same number he wore?" Harry shook his head. "That was a man who was proud of wearing number eleven. You seem to think it's a joke."

"I don't think it's a joke, Harry."

"What about this one?" said the head coach, ignoring me, and holding up a paper for me to read.

Big black letters ran across the top of the page.
Bear-ly a year since his last ban.

"That's not even clever," I said.

"No, it's you that thinks you're clever, Jack," said Harry, "and the club owners have lost their shit with you this time. You're lucky to still be signed."

"Danny Evans gouged my fucking eyes and called me a cunt," I said, "I lost my temper. What was I supposed to do?"

Harry shook his head and sighed. "It's never your fault is it?" he said, leaning back in his seat. "It's always someone else who started the fight, or someone else who had the cocaine —"

"That was once," I said, my temper flaring. It
had
only been once. A stupid mistake three years ago. A mistake that still followed me. My own personal albatross.

"Once, twice. Who fucking cares? I've lost count of the amount of times you've sat in that seat, making excuses. You need to get your shit together, Jack, or you'll have no place in this club."

I began speaking, but Harry spoke over me. "A decision's been made. While you're sitting out the playing ban, you're banned from training too."

"What the fuck? Come on, Harry, you know that's not fair."

"If it had been my decision,
maybe
I'd have kept you in. But it wasn't, so you need to take it on the chin. Use the time wisely, Jack. You can still use the gym and the other facilities, but you're out of training sessions."

"What am I supposed to do, Harry? Use my time wisely — what does that mean?"

"That brings me onto my next point. The owners want you to get help."

"Help? What sort of help?"

"Well, I don't fucking know, Jack. Help with the anger. Help with the drinking. Help with… the way you are."

Harry's face softened, and he shuffled the newspapers into a stack. "Look, forget about what everyone's saying about you. You're a good player, a
fucking
good player, but you're a loose cannon. You're not getting any younger either, and to be honest, with the amount of drinking you do I'm amazed you still pass fitness tests."

I shocked myself sometimes, but I'd always been blessed with a naturally high level of fitness. I'd never had to work as hard as the other guys did. I knew I was pushing the boundaries a little though, I was thirty-two and played as a left winger — I needed to be fit.

Harry continued. "You've got a few years left in you, Jack.
If
you sort yourself out. Do you want to play for England again? Do you want that twenty-fifth cap?"

Of course I did. I didn't like odd numbers. I would have passed thirty caps already if it hadn't been for the bans I'd previously received.

"You know I do," I said.

"Well get a fucking grip!" said Harry, slapping the desk with the palm of his hand. "You won't get selected for England while you're all over the newspapers for the wrong reasons."

I knew he was right, of course I did, but I didn't need
help.
I could work out any issues I had myself.

"I'll sort it," I said, "I don't need anybody else sticking their nose into my business."

"That's not an option, Jack. If you want to remain with this club, you need to be seen to be doing something proactive. Plenty of people see psychologists these days for all sorts of shit. You won't be unusual."

I sat forward in my seat. "I'm not seeing a fucking
ologist
of any description, Harry. Jesus Christ. I punched someone, I'm not fucking insane."

"They're not psychiatrists, Jack. You don't need to be insane to see a psychologist, you know that… we've got a sports psychologist here for God's sake." Harry stood up. "The ball's in your court. I've made you appointments with three psychologists in Budbury, find the one you like the best and talk to them, or you won't be playing for us again, Jack. That's not coming from me, that's coming from the people who pay your wages."

"So they've got me over a barrel?"

"A barrel full of your own shit, Jack." Harry walked around his desk and handed me a piece of paper. "Here's the list. I've booked you under the name of Reynolds — I didn't want your reputation preceding you." His face softened, and he nodded towards the door. "Come on," he said, "I'll see you out. You need to go home and think about what you want."

I glanced at the photograph of Arthur Davies as I followed Harry to the door. I was certain that he wouldn't have wasted time with a fucking psychologist. He would have just pulled his socks up and got on with life, which is what I
would
have done if the club had given me the chance. I'd already cut back on the drinking, and the incident with Danny Evans was his fault, not mine.

Harry walked me along the brightly lit corridor which passed the gym. "Hey, Jack," shouted Andy through the open door. "Hold on."

With a slap on my back, Harry left me. "Think hard about what you do next," he said, "you may piss people off, but this club still needs you."

"Thanks, Harry," I said, as he pushed open the white double doors that led to the physio room. He raised his hand in acknowledgement and disappeared inside, the doors slamming shut behind him. I
did
appreciate him; he'd fought my corner more times than I could remember.

Andy arrived at my side, dressed in just a pair of shorts, his muscles bulging and thick pumped up veins shaping his skin. "Hitting the weights?" I said, leaning against the wall.

Andy tensed his right bicep and smiled. "Yup, I still need to gain five pounds," he said, draping the towel in his hand around his neck. "So, what did Harry have to say?"

"I'm banned from training too."

Andy rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit. Sorry to hear that mate," he said, "we've all seen the papers, but we didn't think he'd stop you from training."

"It's not him, it's the owners. And get this — they want me to see a fucking psychologist."

Andy laughed and slammed his huge hand into my shoulder. "I could have told you that you needed to see one of those," he said.

I put a hand on my aching shoulder and massaged it. Andy didn't know his own strength. He was one of the strongest forwards in the game, and his six-foot-five muscle packed frame towered over me by four inches.

"Fuck off," I said, smiling. "I don't need a head shrinker, I'm fine as I am."

Andy gave me a hard stare. "Listen, mate. If that's what they want you to do, then do it. They're itching to get rid of you. It's Harry that persuades them to let you stay. Do it for him, and the rest of us. We still want you here, faults and all."

He ducked under the door frame and went back into the gym, his head missing the wood by centimetres. "Think about it, Jack," he said, with his back to me. "It's only a couple of appointments with a psychologist."

He turned to face me, and motioned at the masses of fitness equipment with a sweeping gesture of his arm. "This is your career."

Chapter Seven

~Emily~

I still couldn't quite believe that I'd slept with the man who'd been all over the sports pages of the newspapers for the past few days. I didn't think Megan could either, and if she'd been honest with herself, she would have admitted that she was convinced that Jack Bailey had approached our table to get into her underwear.

I'd had to tell her in painstaking detail just how good he was in bed, and describe the size of the dick which he was apparently quite famous for, if the numerous kiss and tell stories on the internet were anything to go by.

Had I enjoyed it? I'd have been a liar if I'd said no. Would I do it again? Absolutely not. I didn't want my name associated with a man who'd been nicknamed
Pit Bull
because of his penchant for violence and other forms of bad behaviour. No, a man like that was best left for the super models and pop stars who craved the notoriety and fame that was part and parcel of dating a so called
bad boy.
That's what the sensible half of my brain said anyway. The other half totally wished that he would search me out and do what he'd done to me in the hotel room again. He'd managed to get into my head, and it was unnerving.

I brought my thoughts back to the present, and studied the case notes in front of me. Peter Cross was cross by name, and ridiculously angry by nature. I'd been seeing him once a week for nearly six months, and had made no progress. He still drank a bottle of whisky a day, and continued to spend a night in the police cells at least two weekends out of four. I'd only agreed to take him on because a local charity had begged me, and agreed to cover his bill.

He scared me a little, if I was completely honest. On a couple of occasions, he'd looked as if he was about to launch himself at me, and I'd taken the unusual measure of having my desk between us, rather than sitting in comfy seats next to each other, as was the normal way I worked.

Megan had repeatedly told me to let him go, and reluctantly, I'd finally agreed with her. Peter
had
to go. I'd decided that I was going to tell him that very day, and I'd gathered the phone numbers of some psychologists who were perhaps a little better suited to dealing with his violent outbursts.

Anyway, I had another appointment later in the day, with a man who was looking for a psychologist to help him straighten his life out. Whatever that meant. Hopefully he would replace the income I'd be losing by letting Peter go. It had been a huge decision to work for myself instead of for the National Health Service, and I was beginning to realise I may have made a mistake, even though I'd vowed never to work for them.

With any luck, income would cease to be a concern to me in the near future. I'd been shortlisted for a job as a psychologist to the military personnel of an American airbase in Germany. The pay was substantially higher than the NHS offered, and I had a soft spot for Germany. My father had been a British soldier serving in Germany, and I'd been born there — although I'd only lived there for the first few months of my life. Nonetheless, I felt like I had a connection with the country, and I'd visited numerous times over the years.

My intercom buzzed, breaking my train of thought. "Peter Cross is here to see you," said Sandra, as I pressed to answer.

Poor Sandra. I didn't want to put her out of a job, but I could barely afford to pay her a living wage, and I was certain she could get a far higher salary elsewhere. Maybe me taking the job in Germany would be better for both of us. I couldn't really afford to pay her and I certainly wasn't busy enough to need her, but she'd been the receptionist for the person who'd rented my office space before me, and I'd felt bad about her having to go because her boss had been made bankrupt.

"Thank you, Sandra. Send him in," I said.

The door swung open. Peter Cross didn't bother with little things like knocking. "Alright, Doc?" he said, staggering to the seat on his side of my desk. It was normal for him to arrive drunk, even though I'd told him over and over again that it was against the rules.

"How are you, Peter?" I said, the smell of alcohol wafting over the desk as he slumped into his seat.

"So, so," he grunted, reaching for my antique blown glass paperweight. It had been a present from my mother when I'd graduated, and I cursed myself for not hiding it before Peter had arrived. He'd almost broken it once, but luckily it had dropped onto the thick wool rug, and not the sanded wooden floorboards.

"You know you shouldn't touch that, Peter," I said, reaching across my desk and snatching it from his hand. "It's fragile."

"You need to chill out a bit, darling," he said, "stress is bad for your health, I think you told me that."

"Yes, I probably did, Peter." I said, leaning as far back into my chair as I could, in an attempt to escape the alcohol fumes which poured from his mouth.

"You need to take a little of your own advice then, sweetheart. It's only a glass ball, but I'm a man with feelings, and you just hurt them."