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Match days feel different when you’re here to work.

Last week, when I arrived as a spectator (after my interview, of course), the Evergreen Stadium felt enormous, and low-key intimidating, like a place I had wandered into by accident and might be asked to leave if anyone realised I didn’t know what a knock-on was (which I think I do now… maybe). Today, it feels almost familiar. Not familiar enough that I could confidently find the fuse box or tell you where every toilet is, but familiar enough that I don’t feel like a tourist. Then again, it is sort of my home now.

Plus, I have a lanyard, so even when I don’t feel like I belong here, I have a little piece of plastic that proves to other people that I do.

Bryan has given me a seat for the match. A season ticket, I suppose.

‘Perk of the job,’ he told me. ‘And it’s useful for you to watch. Get a feel for the crowd, how the match day works, what people respond to.’

He told me that I didn’t have to attend every match, but that I should for the time being, to learn more about the sport and so on. But that it didn’t matter as much once I was in the swing of things.

The phrase has stayed with me ever since he said it. It sounds hopeful, right? Like he’s already seeing me as a long-term thing, like I’ll still be here at a point where attending the matches doesn’t matter as much – although he said it in a way that sounded like, once I’m in that deep, I’ll probably want to attend them all.

Right now, he’s right. I do want to be here, in the heart of the action. I’ve only been here one week. One week in which I have lied to my boss, invented a relationship with one of the club’s most famous players, covered up a public punch-up – oh, and I’ve quite literally moved into the stadium. I feel a long way from being able to consider myself ‘in the swing of things’.

It is weird, but I’m looking forward to seeing Eddy at the match tonight.

I know I’ll see him on the pitch, obviously – probably while he’s embedding fully grown men in the grass with his bare hands. But if I’m honest, I’m hoping I’ll bump into him before the game too, so I’m going to see if I can say hi, before he goes out there.

Well, we are supposed to be a couple, and couples are generally seen together occasionally. That is one of their defining characteristics, despite the way Ron operated. If nobody ever sees us speak, stand near one another or seem at all close, then people might start to think the relationship isn’t real. Wishing him good luck, maybe planting a kiss on his cheek, is the least I can do for appearances…

A poor effort here, a suspiciously quick fake break-up there – it would make the whole story look flimsy, and the last thing I need is Bryan working out that I lied to him. He has given me a job, a room, and more kindness than I have any right to expect, and I am not about to repay him by turning the club into a movie.

If it were, I’m starting to realise that Eddy Hood is definitely the Tom Cruise – the megastar at the heart of the industry. There is something about being around that kind of energy that feels amazing, like stepping into sunlight, like you could almost catch a tan from his glow. Not because he behaves like a star though; that’s what’s so fascinating about it. He doesn’t act like he’s Tom Cruise. He seems almost embarrassed by the attention. Quiet, unshowy – and yet still so confident. The kind of man who can stand half naked in a changing room and somehow be the least embarrassed one when you walk in on him.

Not that I am still thinking about that, of course…

My room is at the very top of the biggest stand, which means every time I leave it, I descend through the entire ecosystem of the Evergreen Stadium.

First there are the hotel rooms. Below those are the executive boxes, with their glass fronts and luxury seats. Then there is the hospitality floor made up of bars and dining areas. After that come several floors of offices, meeting rooms and media suites.

Then, right at the bottom are the parts of the stadium that belong to the team.

The home and away dressing rooms, the gym, the physio areas, the treatment rooms and so on. And then there’s the tunnel that leads out onto the pitch.

I step into the lift and press the ground-floor button, ready to head down.

I’m going down early, well before kick-off, because I want to get a better sense of the build-up and, ideally, catch Eddy before it’s time to stop worrying about playing silly games with me and start focusing on the task at hand – winning against the Manchester Minotaurs.

Then I’ll find my seat and watch the game. I’m hoping I can learn by watching, because I have tried reading about it and watching videos explaining it, but it’s just not going in. The only way to really learn is by seeing it play out in real time – that’s what I reckon, anyway.

The lift doors open on the hospitality floor and a man steps inside.

He is wearing a black-and-red Manchester Minotaurs tracksuit, which makes him look immediately out of place, because everyone in the hospitality suite is always smartly dressed, no merch allowed, and then there’s the fact he’s branded with the opposition. I notice he has a bottle of champagne in his hand. Just carrying it by the neck, casual as anything.

He’s a good-looking guy. Super-short brown hair, vivid green eyes, broad shoulders but an athletic build. Not quite as big as Eddy – as though Eddy is now my gold standard for men’s physiques.

The man smiles at me, and you know when you can tell someone is a bad boy just by looking at them? There’s mischief in his eyes, and you can tell that his smile has got him out of trouble a few times – probably into it too.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ I reply.

The doors close, the lift begins to descend… but then it stops all of a sudden between floors.

‘Hmm,’ he says, looking at me with an eyebrow raised. ‘They don’t usually do that, do they?’

‘Not in my experience, no,’ I reply. ‘They were doing work on it a couple of days ago…’