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‘Thank you,’ I reply, but I can’t live at the stadium, can I? ‘Is there somewhere to sleep, or…?’

‘There’s a hotel here,’ he points out, realising I must not have known that.

‘Oh!’

‘Don’t get excited, it’s nothing too fancy,’ he explains. ‘But it’s here, at the stadium. I’ll sort you a room. Consider it a perk of the job, while you get back on your feet.’

‘That’s incredible, thank you so much,’ I blurt. ‘That’s such a huge help.’

‘Well, of course the perk for me is that, if I need you, you’ll be right here,’ he points out. ‘And you know what a handful your boyfriend is. As brilliant as he is on the field – one of those once-in-a-generation talents – he’s a bloody liability. The bad boy thing isn’t cute any more. He’s in his thirties, for God’s sake.’

‘Got it, don’t worry, I’ll sort Eddy out,’ I insist.

‘Right, okay, well, let’s get you onboarded,’ he says. ‘And then we can start with a subtle statement about Eddy to put out, and hopefully that’s the end of it.’

‘Sounds good,’ I reply.

But as for it being the end of it, I’m not sure about that. I’m going to have to find Eddy, talk to him about this, explain why I did what I did. For me it’s not the end of the matter, it’s just the beginning.

8

At this particular stage in my life – during this eventful chapter, shall we say – literally any bed is the answer to my biggest problem. Bryan could have told me he’d stick me an air mattress in his office, and I would have bitten his hand off. So the offer of a hotel, and one not just close to work, but at work, is a lifesaver.

Yes, it’s only temporary, I’ll need to find somewhere, but it’s given me the time and space, and the opportunity, to save up enough for a deposit without blowing all of my money on a city centre budget hotel – because let me tell you, the budget isn’t that low, given how in demand they are. They can pretty much charge what they want, and they’re not nice; they’re so basic. Whatever this is, it’s already better.

I can’t believe there’s a hotel here. The Evergreen Stadium is like a labyrinth when you start moving around behind the scenes. It isn’t one big building as I’d imagined; it’s a series of buildings and stands all within the fences of the stadium. Like a little village really.

As you walk around, it can feel more like an escape room than a stadium, but eventually I find my way to the hotel. It’s actually in one of the stands, to the side, with some of the rooms up high above the hospitality area.

It’s not like a hotel-hotel, if you know what I mean. There’s no restaurant, no gym, no lounge. It’s just rooms, which Bryan tells me are mostly used by businesspeople, rather than people on holidays or recreational trips, but that suits me just fine. I’m here for business too, right?

It’s not especially fancy but it’s clean, it’s nice, it has everything I’ll need – my one goal of having a bed and a bathroom has been achieved – and best of all… it’s free.

I know, living in a hotel room isn’t ideal, but with no rent to pay I can get by on Deliveroos and popping into Headingley. It’s temporary, a step in the right direction. I can make it work.

It’s not massive, but it’s not cramped. The bed looks comfortable, with crisp white sheets. The bathroom has everything – including a bath, and I do love a bath. There’s a desk, a TV, a wardrobe. It feels sort of like student halls. I can pretend I’m young again!

The best thing of all though, the one thing that makes this one of the coolest hotel rooms I’ve been in, is the view. You wouldn’t expect a view here, with nothing too fancy in the surrounding areas, but what my room has is something truly unique. It looks out over the rugby pitch. How cool is that? The grass looks impossibly green from up here, the white lines so perfectly painted ahead of the next game.

It’s a sunny day and the pitch isn’t currently in use, but I bet it looks even more amazing at night, with the lights on. I’ll bet you can technically watch a match from up here, if you want, but it would be a shame to miss out on the atmosphere in the stands.

The empty stands frame the field, the blue and yellow seats so vibrant when they’re empty. Without thousands of supporters filling the seats, it’s strangely peaceful. I can definitely make this work, even just as a novelty, until it’s back to the real world.

But for now, before I can set about making the room my home for the foreseeable, I’ve got work to do. No – pre-work. Because before I can do anything, before I can get on with the actual task at hand, I have the side quest I’ve made for myself – Eddy.

He should be around, given Bryan has him essentially running laps as punishment, even though I’ve hopefully convinced him that Eddy is the hero in all of this. Well, he is, just not exactly as I explained it.

So I’m heading into the player area, to find him.

This place is so different on a Saturday, so quiet, with only a few people around. It makes the hard-to-navigate behind-the-scenes areas feel even more confusing, because there’s no one around to follow or ask for directions. If you walk for long enough, you feel so deep in the machine that you start looking for light, for air, for anywhere to pop out to just anchor yourself back in the world. I know, that probably sounds dramatic, but I feel like I’m on another planet, or aboard a spaceship. Working here and living here – it’s definitely going to feel hard to escape.

I’m fairly sure I’m on the ground floor now, walking a corridor towards the dressing rooms, the physio rooms, and so on. I’m sure I’ll find Eddy in one of them.

The corridors are adorned with victories and their heroes. Every few metres there’s another enormous mural celebrating a player in action. I stop when I reach Eddy – his blown-up photo, not the man himself.

They’ve captured him running, a rugby ball tucked under one arm, his eyes fixed somewhere ahead with terrifying determination.

It’s huge, probably bigger than he is in real life, but he’s a big dude so it matches his energy. He really does feel enormous, next to me – I’m only five foot four – plus he has broad shoulders, massive arms and chunky thighs. He’s built exactly the way he needs to be to play a sport like rugby league – or park cars by simply picking them up and putting them down in place.