‘I …’ I don’t make it to words, just start bawling like a complete baby, and I like to think the girls know exactly how I feel without the specifics, because they all sit down in the grass with me and just cry. Even Coach and Colt come over, and Coach, absolutely overcome by emotions for the first time since I’ve known her, is a blubbering mess, immediately absorbed by our circle. Colt stands with a proud smile on his face as the cameras circle us, and I reach out to him, let him take me into his strong arms, wrapping them around me, holding me up after the kind of match that feels as if it’s melted my limbs.

He presses his hands to my cheeks, his steel-grey eyes glimmering with pride. ‘I know you said you think I’ve done well for myself, May, but I got no need to put Prosperity on the map.’ He smooths my frizzy baby hairs back with a deep breath. ‘You already have.’

If my legs hadn’t already been Jell-O, that would have done the job.

I tug Colt to me and mesh my lips against his, leaving no questions unanswered, no lies, no pretending. I don’t do it for any media or any press or stories or anything. I do it because he’s given me so much this season, and I’m really, really going to miss him.

After we all wrap it up and head to the locker room to debrief, I follow Jordan’s instructions, extra dramatic, making sure the watching camera doesn’t catch the calculation on my face when I take Colt’s hand with a nod towards the inside of the tunnel. ‘Can we talk?’ I whisper.

‘Yeah. Yeah.’ His Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. Fake breakup. It’s anything but.

We find a quiet spot in the adjoining hallway, down at the end of it, where there’s a door ajar, and I slip through. It’s just an empty auxiliary closet, but I figure it’ll do. I’m ready for this to be swift and painless.

‘So. This is it,’ he says. The banality of it is almost disturbing. This is how our fake relationship comes to an end. In some closet in Charleston.

‘That, out there, felt like goodbye, didn’t it?’

‘Little bit.’ Colt smiles half-heartedly. ‘Couldn’t ask for a better one, though. I got to watch you guys absolutely destroy an East Coast team. Got to see you come into your own these past couple months. You lead those girls into war every single game, May. Don’t forget how powerful you are.’

Swift and painless. It’s turning into the exact opposite. Damn it, Colt. My lower lip starts to quiver. No fucking way. ‘It takes a team to be that powerful, you know. And you’re a part of mine.’